IS GOD GENDERLESS?

IS GOD GENDERLESS?

I have devoted much time toward demonstrating by Scripture that the Holy Spirit is functionally feminine. I have written two Christian nonfiction works and four novels largely focused on that topic. For much of that time I had thought that the biggest stumbling block preventing more Christians from perceiving what I have considered to be obvious is the use in our Bibles of masculine pronouns when referencing the Holy Spirit. I had placed the blame for those “he” references on overly-zealous translations from the original autographs by misguided Christians.

That supposition is indeed true: things did get changed in the translations, for reasons that I have noted in Marching to a Worthy Drummer. But the situation is worse than that. Lurking behind that error has been a misperception, rampant within mainstream Christianity, that gender itself doesn’t belong in the heavenly realm. Quite recently, one person remarked to me “But there’s no procreation in heaven!”

That says it all. From whence came such a stupendously sterile assessment of the spiritual domain? Let me guess – perhaps the notion came from Scripture itself in Jesus’ words to the effect that in heaven men don’t marry, or in Paul’s words that there is neither male nor female. The first comes from Matthew 22:29 and 30, and the second from Galatians 3:28:

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven.”

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Since when is the lack of an attribute associated with the “power of God”? In failing to understand Scripture beyond the level of the most shallow thought processes and refusing to appreciate every word and phrase, the readers acquired a notion that directly contradicts the rest of the Bible. How then do they handle The Song of Solomon, with its vivid description of passion and romantic love? They can only gloss over it without thought, never asking themselves why, if gender doesn’t belong in the Godhead, the Song was canonized in Scripture, or why Jesus’ first miracle occurred joyfully during the wedding in Cana, or why Paul wrote what he did in Ephesians 5, the bottom line of which is repeated below:

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

What those two passages regarding the lack of gendered function in individuals really meant, if one truly thinks about them, is that the Church is a composite of individuals, not the individuals themselves. Our physical bodies contain a large number of organs, most of which have nothing to do with gender. But if a spleen is genderless, that certainly doesn’t mean that the person to which it belongs is without gender. The exact same principle applies to the distinction between the individual Christian and the Church which consists of many individual Christians. In more than one passage, Paul attempted to make that clear. An example of the aggregate nature of the Church is given in Ephesians 4:11-16:

“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

1 Corinthians 12:4-27 also represents a passage describing the Church as an aggregate of individual persons, and is even more detailed in its depiction of our individuality as parts of a greater and different whole than the passage in Ephesians 4:

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences in administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit. For to one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another, faith by the same Spirit; to another, the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, discerning of spirits; to another, various kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of tongues. But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Greeks, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, every one of them, in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: and those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need; but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”

Tongue-in-cheek, I emphasized the distinction between the individual and the aggregate in Marching to a Worthy Drummer, hoping to clarify the issue:

“If, now, we revisit the passages noted above dealing with the lack of gender in the individual spiritual person, we see the basic shallowness of an attempt to claim, on that basis, that there is no gender in the spiritual realm. “For what would a gendered ear look like? Or how would a sexual foot accomplish that function? At the very least, it would impart a brand new meaning to the term “playing footsie”. Would one have to make special provisions, for the sake of modesty, toward prohibiting the practice of walking barefoot? Shoe salespersons would have to be watched very carefully – perhaps making them submit to licensing. Of course, it would open an enormous market for suggestive footwear.

“But as to the Church as the composite spiritual Bride of Christ, that’s an entirely different story.

“What do Christians think this marriage will involve? An unconsummated, virginal union basically empty of the natural meaning of union itself? A union in name only, incapable of bearing fruit, as suggested by the natural generation of offspring by almost every life form on earth, including humanity?

Think about that: from Genesis in the very beginning of the Bible, we know that the spiritual realm involves creation, which is an order of gender above mere procreation. Yet further, should we simply ignore what Paul wrote in Romans 7:4 regarding our spiritual existence?

“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.”

JESUS’ KENOSIS

JESUS’ KENOSIS

According to the dictionary, the word kenosis is a Christian theological term, defined as Jesus’ renunciation of His divine nature during His incarnation on Earth. The term is derived from the Greek word keno, which means to empty.

Whether Jesus renounced his Godhood in full or just in part, or even not at all, during His incarnation has been the subject of much speculation over the centuries. We do know that the incarnated Jesus was both man and God; He had to be both for His self-sacrifice to have been effective in reconciling mankind to God. That is also why His birth had to be from a virgin: His humanity derived from Mary’s egg, which carried the human bloodline from Adam through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David and Solomon, while His Godhood derived from the perfect seed as created from His divine nature through the execution of the Father’s will by the Holy Spirit.

There are Christian camps that adhere to all three possibilities regarding Jesus’ kenosis. While Scripture doesn’t make any overt statements about the degree of self-emptying that Jesus accomplished during His time on Earth, it does provide some clues. Most important of these is that Jesus claimed that He is the exact image of the Father as humans can perceive: anyone who sees him automatically sees the Father. Jesus said this directly to the Pharisees and their followers in John 12:44 and 45:

“Jesus cried out, and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.”

Jesus’ own words to that effect were echoed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:3 and 4:

“But if our gospel be hidden, it is hidden to them that are lost, in whom the god of this age hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

The fact that Jesus so perfectly represented the Father requires that on Earth Jesus must have perfectly conformed to the Father’s will. To assist in that achievement, He undoubtedly was helped by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Of all the speculations on the topic of kenosis of which I am aware, the most attractive to me as being consistent with Jesus’ Godhood and humanity as presented in the Bible is the commentary made some time in the 1920s by Alva McClain. I presented McClain’s thoughts on kenosis in my novel Home, Sweet Heaven, which is excerpted below:

“One day while they were enjoying an idle day of sun at the beach, Jacob looked over to his lovely companion with a question on his mind. “Do you think that Jesus ever went swimming?”

“’What kind of question is that?” she replied. “He made the ocean. He made the water that’s in the ocean. In fact, He made the molecules that make up the water, and the atoms that . . .’

“’Okay, enough. And then you’re going to ask why He’d need to swim in the first place, since He can just walk on the top. That’s not what I’m asking I’m thinking of what He did in an experiential sense while He was on the Earth. What He tasted, or felt. Did He enjoy the sun like we’re doing now? Did He get to feel His body surrounded by warm water? What did He know of His own Godhood? How far did He go in His kenosis?’

“’I can’t answer that intelligently, dear. How can anyone possibly know what went on in Jesus’ mind during His incarnation.’

“’Agree. But I’ve read a large number of accounts, many of which diverge rather extensively from what Scripture itself teaches. One that did agree with Scripture was particularly appealing. It was written some time in the 1920s, as I recall, by a professor by the name of Alva McClain. In his article he said something that really stuck with me, something to the effect that it would be infinitely better to give up the notion of his absolute attributes than his moral heroism. That statement alone fits perfectly with Earl’s notion of God’s omni-attributes being subordinate to His primary attribute of His willingness to give them up for the sake of selfless love.’

“’What a beautiful thought!’ Moira remarked.

“’Yeah. McClain’s concept of Jesus’ kenosis makes sense in terms of the Scripture he cited as driving the entire controversy over how much Godhood Jesus maintained in His human form.’

“’Which is?’

“’Philippians 2, verses 5 through 8. Here, I have a Bible in the backpack. I’ll read it to you.’ He extracted the Bible and started reading:

“’Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’

“’McClain differentiated the form of God from the intrinsic nature of God,”’Jacob continued, ‘the nature of God being His transcendent attributes as well as His personality. The implication is that in His kenosis, his emptying of Himself, Jesus did not give up His Godhood, but just His form, which is the exercise of Godhood. What He really gave up was the independent exercise of Godhood, voluntarily and in perfect obedience to the Father’s will restricting any manifestation of Godhood to that specifically willed by the Father through the Holy Spirit. That restriction included His knowledge as well as His actions, which means that He was fully aware of His Godhood, but voluntarily maintained, in humble obedience to the Father, any actions or knowledge that wasn’t in perfect conformance to the Father’s will. To me that makes perfect sense, and it emphasizes Jesus’ selfless nobility.’”

JESUS’ POST-RESURRECTION APPEARANCES (CONT. #2)

JESUS’ POST-RESURRECTION APPEARANCES (CONTINUATION #2)

Jesus’ appearance to His disciples at the Sea of Galilee contains many prophetic elements in addition to illustrating His love toward mankind. This event is described in John 21:1-25.

“After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias; and in this manner showed he himself. There were together Simon Peter; and Thomas, called Didymus; and Nathanael, of Cana in Galilee; and the sons of Zebedee; and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter saith unto them, I go fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a boat immediately; and that night they caught nothing.

“But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any food? They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and ye shall find. They cast, therefore, and now they wer not able to draw it for the multitude of fish. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little boat, (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fish. As soon, then, as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fish, an hundred and fifty and three; and although there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith to them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples dared ask him, Who art thou? knowing gthat it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. This is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples, after he was risen from the dead.

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me more than these? He sayeth unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst where thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee where thou wouldest not. This spoke he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken the, he saith unto him, Follow me. Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved, following; who also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, lord, who is he that betrayeth thee? Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.

“Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die. Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? This is the disciple who testifieth of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”

As presented above in John Chapter 21, Jesus appears to Peter and John, forgiving Peter for his denial of Him by asking him three times whether he loved Him, connected with His thrice-spoken command to feed His sheep. The Book of Acts presents this exchange as prophetic, and places Peter as a very intimate component of the Church: Peter indeed fed Jesus’ sheep with the Word of God three very significant times, as will be covered in more detail in a later posting. Jesus also prophesied in John 21 the crucifixion of Peter and the longevity of John. Peter was crucified in Rome by Nero around A.D. 64 about the same time that Paul was beheaded. But John, who was born in 6 A.D., didn’t die at the hand of others. Instead, he was exiled to the Island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea around 95 A.D. during the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Domitian, who had deified himself earlier. He was freed from exile upon Domitian’s death and returned to the Church at Ephesus, which he had founded decades earlier at around the same time as the deaths of Peter and Paul in Rome. He lived to around 100 A.D. and, unlike the other Apostles, died peacefully. John had mentored the Christian Father Polycarp, who later became Bishop of Smyrna, identified by Jesus in Revelation 2:8-11 as the persecuted Church.

Although the Church Fathers considered John the Revelator as the same John who wrote the Gospel under his name, some modern scholars have asserted that they were two different individuals. Given the abysmal track record of modern critical scholarship attached rather loosely to Christianity, their pronouncements in this regard should be considered highly suspect.

Acts 1:1-9 offers highlights of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances:

“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen; to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen by them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God; and, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard from me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

“When they, therefore, were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And, when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.”

Jesus appeared one more time to mankind shortly after His resurrection. This appearance was to a single individual who was not among His disciples, changing his life from a devout Jew to possibly the greatest Christian who ever lived. The man went on to strengthen Christianity in a unique and powerful way. The account is given in Acts 9:1-22:

“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they Awere men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

“And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shone round about him a light from heaven; and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest; it is hard for thee to kick against the goads. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

“And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man; but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquired in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus; for behold, he prayeth, and hath seen in a vision a man, named Ananias, coming in and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem; and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, God thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.

“And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales; and he received sight, and arose, and was baptized. And when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples who were at Damascus.”

Lest anybody think that Saul was a different individual than Paul, Acts 13:9 clarifies the identity:

“Then Saul (who also is called Paul), filled with the Holy Spirit, set his eyes on him,”

In1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Paul himself clarifies the life-changing effect of his encounter with the risen Jesus Christ:

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and in which ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures; and that he was seen of ]Peter], then of the twelve. After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present time, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then, of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

“For I am the least of the apostles, that am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.”

JESUS’ POST-RESURRECTION APPEARANCES

JESUS’ POST-RESURRECTION APPEARANCES

Jesus didn’t permanently ascend into heaven immediately after His resurrection. He remained on earth for forty more days, was witnessed by more than five hundred people, and spoke and ate with His disciples.

Encounters with Jesus after His resurrection are briefly described in Matthew 27:51-56, 28:1-10, Mark 16:9-18, and John 20:11-18:

“And, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks were split; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that slept were raised, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now, when the centurion, and they that were with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God. And many women were there beholding afar off, who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children.”

“In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And, behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not; for I know that ye seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee. There shall ye see him; lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshiped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”

“Now when Jesus had risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons. And she went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed it not. After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the rest; neither believed they them. Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat eating, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not those who had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow those who believe: In my name shall they cast out demons; that shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

“But Mary stood outside of the sepulcher weeping; and as she wept, she stopped down, and looked into the sepulcher, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seeketh thee? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him from here, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

“Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni,; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.

“Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

Matthew’s first account (Matthew 27:51-56) for the most part precedes the narrative of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, and is included here because it furnishes information not mentioned by the other Gospel writers and addresses one post-resurrection element: the raising of many dead along with Jesus. Note that Matthew explicitly states that they came out of their graves after Jesus’ resurrection, an important fact since Jesus Himself was the first fruit of the dead as foreshadowed by the Feast of First Fruits.

The Old Testament focused heavily on foreshadowing and typifying Jesus; now in the New Testament, the focus adds in Jesus’ Church, foreshadowing the Church and Jesus’ relationship with her toward the end of days. The dead who were raised with Jesus after His resurrection foreshadowed the rapture of the Church, as Paul described in 1 Corinthians 15:51-57 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:

“Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“But I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede them who are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.”

Jesus’ initial post-resurrection appearances as noted above in Matthew, Mark and John share several important commonalities comprising the basic elements of the event: the empty tomb; Jesus’ resurrection; Jesus’ appearances first to the women; and Jesus’ command to tell His disciples.

The accounts differ with respect to some specifics, although the differences do not speak of inconsistencies; rather, they complement each other by adding in color as seen through the eyes of different witnesses and considered by them to be of importance. If, on the other hand, the Gospel accounts were identical across the board, three of the four accounts would be redundant, furnishing no additional information. Differences include: the angel who moved the stone away from the sepulcher; the accompanying earthquake; the narrative of Jesus’ first appearance to the women; the disciples’ unbelief when the women attempted to tell them about the risen Jesus; the endowment of the power to heal; and the touching of Jesus.

This last event, the touching of Jesus, requires some explanation. Matthew’s account has Jesus’ feet being held as he was worshiped, whereas John’s account has Jesus telling the women not to touch Him, as He hasn’t yet ascended to the Father. But later in John’s account Jesus has Thomas thrusting his hand into Jesus’ side. But note that in Matthew’s account the women did not touch Jesus before they had left Jesus to tell His disciples that He was risen; this apparently was at the same time in John’s account when He told them not to touch Him. It was only at some time after they first left Jesus that He permitted them to touch His feet. Apparently He had briefly ascended to His Father between their first sighting of Him and their touching of His feet.

Perhaps the most moving of the accounts is John’s narrative of Jesus’ first appearance to the women, with the striking poignancy of Jesus’ single word: Mary. The color this adds rivals Luke’s account, as will be described later, of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Incidentally, I happen to think that in Mark’s account above, the words After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country referred to the Emmaus event.

[to be continued]

JESUS’ FULFILLMENT OF THE SPRINGTIME FEASTS

JESUS’ FULFILLMENT OF THE THREE SPRINGTIME MOSAIC FEASTS

At the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, three events occurred in rapid succession: His crucifixion, His resurrection, and the Pentecost. All three of these events were imprinted in the minds of the Israelites over a millennium earlier by Moses in terms of feasts and observances.

The first event, Jesus’ crucifixion, was initially foreshadowed in detail by God’s call to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, as related in Genesis 22. But the commemorative feast for this event is the Passover, as instituted by Moses just before the Israelites were to cast off their enslavement and depart for Egypt. The account of the institution of this feast is given in Exodus 12:1-14:

“And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: and if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your cnd they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs, and with the inward parts thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s Passover.

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and willsmite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.

“And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever.”

The lamb was kept in the house for four days, just long enough for it to become a household pet with the formation of a loving bond between the people and this innocent creature. Then it was slain and its blood spread on the doorposts and lintel as a sign to God to spare the occupants within as He went out to slay the firstborn of Egypt.

The Passover Lamb was a type of Jesus, who was crucified on the day of preparation for the Passover, the exact time when the lambs were traditionally slain. He was described as the Lamb of God by the Apostle John, first in John’s Gospel and then in the Book of Revelation. Christians claim the remission of their sins and their spiritual salvation by the washing of Jesus’ blood: He is our Passover Lamb. Revelation 5 presents a particularly poignant identification of Jesus as the Lamb of God:

“And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll, and to loose its seals? And no man in heaven, nor in the earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the scroll, neither to look on it.

“And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the scroll, neither to look on it.

“And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not; behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the scroll, and to loose its seven seals. And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the scroll out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of saints. And they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God a kingdom of priests, and we shall reign on he earth.

“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature that is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever.”

The second event that was linked to a feast was Jesus’ resurrection after three days and three nights in the grave following His crucifixion. The corresponding feast established by Moses is the wave offering of first fruits of the barley harvest, traditionally held during the week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread from the 15^th to the 21^st of Nisan. The exact day is given in Leviticus 23:11 as the day following the Sabbath. The Sabbath after Jesus’ crucifixion was Saturday, Nisan 16, making the Feast of First Fruits the following day, or Sunday, Nisan 17. The account is given in Leviticus 23:9-14:

“And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the next day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he-lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the meal offering thereof shall be two tenth parts of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until that same day they ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.”

The wave offering was intended to commemorate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, as Jesus was the first fruit of resurrected mankind.

The third feast is related in Leviticus 23:15-21:

“And ye shall count unto you from the next day after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: even unto the next day after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meal offering unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth parts; they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the first fruits unto the Lord. And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meal offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savor unto the Lord. Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first fruits for a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. And ye shall proclaim on that same day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.”

As it traditionally occurred fifty days after the Feast of First Fruits, this event is called the Feast of Pentecost. It is named after the root word pente, which means fifty.

Pentecost is known by Christians as the mighty presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit that took place fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection. The precursor to the event is described in Acts 1:1-9:

“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. Until the day in which he was taken up, after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen; to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen by them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God; And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard from me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

“When they, therefore, were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And, when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.”

The event itself is described in Acts 2:1-21:

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly here came a sound from heaven like a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

“And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all those who speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and sojourners of Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans, and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were perplexed, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others, mocking, said, These men are full of new wine.

“But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words; for these are not drunk, as ye suppose, seeing it is but [nine o’clock in the morning]. But this is that which was spoken through the prophet, Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy: and I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath: blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come; and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

We can glean a number of facts from this correspondence between the Mosaic feasts of the spring and major events associated with Jesus’ crucifixion.

First, Jesus’ crucifixion was a preplanned event. Some false theologians are fond of asserting that Jesus was caught unawares by His arrest. That notion violates the clear teaching of the Old Testament.

Second, Scripture is not only truthful, it is precise. It is truthful in every detail. The days of Jesus’ crucifixion, His resurrection, and the birth of the Church were set with precision over a thousand years before the events took

place.

Third, the Church is an integral part of God’s master plan. The mystery of Ephesians 5:25-31 wherein the Church is defined as the Bride of Christ is not trivial. It is essential.

GOD’S MERCY TOWARD PETER (CONTINUED)

GOD’S MERCY TOWARD PETER (CONTINUED)

So, in fulfilling Jesus’ commandment to feed His sheep, the first time Peter speaks the Word of God to the salvation of three thousand souls. The second time Peter feeds Jesus’ sheep with the Word of God, five thousand souls are saved. Until this time, the Church was pretty much limited to Jews. (Even the Ethiopian eunuch who was baptized by Philip was probably a Jew, Ethiopia having enjoyed a long Jewish history extending back to Solomon and the queen of Sheba.) Now comes the third time that Peter, empowered by the Holy Spirit, obeys Jesus’ command to feed His sheep, as described in Acts 10, and this time, after healing another lame man and raising Tabitha back to life in the name of Jesus Christ, Peter through the Word of God extends the Church, and salvation with her, to the entire Gentile world.

“There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always. He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day [3 o’clock p.m.], an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. He lodgeth with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside; he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. And when the angel who spoke unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants, and a devout soldier of those that waited on him continually. And when he had declared all these things unto him, he sent them to Joppa.

“On the next day, as they went on their journey, and drew near unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And he became very hungry and would have eaten, but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth; in which were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spoke unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice; and the vessel was received up again into heaven. Now while Peter was perplexed what this vision should mean, behold, the men who were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate, and called, and asked whether Simon, who was surnamed Peter, was lodged there. While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise, therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men who were sent unto him from Cornelius, and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek. What is the cause for which ye are come? And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a righteous man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee.

“Then called he them in, and lodged them. And on the next day Peter went away with them and certain brethren from Joppa accompanied him. And the next day after, they entered into Caesarea. And Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends. And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshiped him. But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man. And as he talked with him, he went in, and found many that were come together. And he said unto them, Ye know that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath sown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without objection, as soon as I was sent for. I ask, therefore, for what intent ye have sent for me? And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold,a man stood before me in bright clothing, and said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God. Send, therefore, to Joppa, and call here Simon, whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of one Simon, a tanner, by the seaside; who, when he cometh, shall speak unto thee. Immediately, therefore, I sent to thee; and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now, therefore, are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.”

Following this act of God in bringing Peter and Cornelius together and giving Peter the understanding that God’s grace belongs to the gentiles as well as the Jews, Peter for the third time obeys the commandment of Jesus to feed his sheep.

“Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), that word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he who was ordained by God to be the Judge of living and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.

“While Peter yet spoke these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them who heard the word. And they of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then asked they him to tarry certain days.”

The immediate importance of this fulfillment by Peter of Jesus’ threefold commandments to feed His sheep, beside its obvious demonstration of God’s merciful love, is the support it gives to the assertion that God not only welcomes but desires the active participation of Peter, and consequently of mankind itself, in the sharing of His grand plan of salvation. Man is thus a participant, albeit with the necessary input of the Holy Spirit in the process, of his own salvation. Can anything demonstrate more fully than this the intimacy of sharing with which God relates to mankind?

The answer, it turns out, is yes – there actually is yet a more profound demonstration of this sharing, one that is connected with it in a very intimate way. And, like this first demonstration, it also involves the feeding of Jesus’ sheep. It’s not yet appropriate to address the other demonstration, however, until Peter’s threefold feeding with the Word as related above according to the Book of Acts is developed further.

GOD’S MERCY TOWARD PETER

GOD’S MERCY TOWARD PETER – AND US, TOO

I’m grateful to God for Jesus’ having selected Peter to be a disciple. I can’t speak for anyone else, but before the Holy Spirit got hold of him, Peter was a lot like me – willful, impetuous and slow on the uptake. With some spectacular exceptions, he never quite seemed to get the point of what Jesus was saying. Worse, he denied Jesus to save his own neck. Not just once, but three times. It’s there in the Gospels in all the sordid details. In Matthew 26:33-35, for example, Peter, as usual, thinks that he’s good enough to follow Jesus on his own merit. He can do it all himself without help from God:

“Peter answered him and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee that this night, before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise said all the disciples.”

We all know what happened after that. According to Matthew 26:69-75,

“Now Peter sat without in the palace, and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee. But he denied it before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest. And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man. And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, who said unto him, Before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.”

The lesson, of course, is that without God we can’t do anything, even come to Him. Peter’s failure of faith was made all the worse by Jesus statement in Matthew 10:33,

“But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father, who is in heaven.”

In times past I have been prone to worrying about how I stack up against Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, presented in Matthew 13:3-9:

“And he spoke many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some of the seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up, and choked them. But other seeds fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ear to hear, let him hear.”

I’m good with some of Jesus’ explanation of the parable to His disciples, beginning in Matthew 13:18, but sometimes I get wrapped up in the thorns of cares about this world, and I also wonder how well, if I’m asked to endure persecution, I’ll be able to handle it. But here’s where Peter gives me much comfort: in seeing how Jesus handled Peter in the same kind of situations that I have worried about, I perceive that it’s not up to me at all. If God chose me, and I have ample reason to believe that He did, he’ll do what it takes to make up for my shortcomings. And if He chooses not to do that, he’ll be faithful to forgive me. Look, in John 21:15-17, how, after Jesus’ resurrection, He forgave Peter three times for the three times Peter denied Him:

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonah lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I loveth thee. He saith unto him, 41:Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”

Peter eventually must have figured out that instead of grieving over Jesus’ repetitive commands, he should have been very grateful, for in commanding Peter three times to feed His sheep, Jesus was also forgiving him three times, once each for Peter’s three denials. But beyond the forgiveness, Jesus also was sharing with Peter something of immense importance. He was including Peter in His own acts of speaking His Word to mankind, in that act increasing the Church. The first account of Peter’s fulfillment of Jesus’ command to feed His sheep, after he has been filled with the Holy Spirit, is given in Acts 2:22-41:

“Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. For David speaketh concerning him: I foresaw the Lord always before my face; for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

“Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch, David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he, seeing his before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended up into the heavens; but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

“Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord, our God, shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

“Then they that gladly received his word were baptized; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”

Peter’s fulfillment of Jesus’ second command to him to feed His sheep came close on the heels of the first. The event is recorded in Acts 3:12-4:4:

“And when Peter saw [Peter’s healing, through God, of the lame man], he answered the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son, Jesus, whom ye delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And his name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know; yea, the faith with is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I know that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had shown by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that you sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken b y the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord, your God, raise up unto you and of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things, whatever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul, who will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son, Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.

“And as they spoke unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day; for it was now eventide. But many of them who heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.”

[to be continued]

SPIRITUAL EUCHARIST

SPIRITUAL EUCHARIST

When we think of feeding, we automatically relate to the stomach and material food, even when the topic is connected with God. Our material focus on food limits our understanding of what Jesus really meant when He spoke of food, even in the context of His Word. What does the Word have to do with feeding? There’s nothing material about the Word, and it can’t do anything for our stomachs.

According to God, man possesses a soul, an attribute more precious and important by far than a stomach, or, in fact, anything material about our body. The salvation of God, that enormous thing that Jesus died on the cross for, applies to the soul rather than to the body. In the spiritual realm, the material part of man is of little or no importance next to the soul. The Word of God, then, insofar as it leads to salvation, and, following that, an ongoing relationship with God, is an input, a nourishment, of the soul. It is spiritual food, without which the soul would wither and die. In that sense, the Word is the most important food that we can obtain. Despite the demanding nature of our stomachs, material food is of far less consequence to our well-being than the Word of God.

Jesus Himself made a direct association of His Word with food. Further, John notes in His Prologue (verses 1-18 of John 1) that Jesus is the Word of God, the very embodiment of it.

In John 6:30-35, for example, Jesus equates Himself with the Bread of Life:

“They said, therefore, unto him, What sign showest thou, then, that we may see, and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

Again, in John 6:48 Jesus equates Himself with the bread of life, embellishing on its spiritual importance in verse 51:

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

In response to this declaration, there were people that just couldn’t lift themselves out of the material world sufficiently to comprehend the spiritual nature of Jesus’ claim:

“The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

A good many Christians, including pastors and theologians from the time that Jesus spoke until and including the present day, undoubtedly have voiced the same question with respect to this passage in John’s Gospel.

Significantly, in John’s Gospel, Jesus equated Himself, and thus His Word, with bread just after performing two miracles, both of which were intimately related to the connection among Peter, Jesus and God’s sharing of His glory with man. The first of these miracles was Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. The second was Jesus’ walking on water and Peter’s short-lived accomplishment of the same, an act that will be discussed later.

In Luke 22:15-20, Jesus again associates Himself, by inference the living Word of God, with food and wine:

“And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say unto you, I will not any more eat of it, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.”

The communion ritual of the Eucharist has been passed down in the Church to this day in honor of these words of Jesus. But for both Catholics and Protestants alike it is seen as an act unrelated to the understanding of Jesus as the Word of God. The deeper meaning of the Eucharist, however, is spiritual, as defined by Jesus in linking His blood with the New Testament. We partake of this Eucharist as we partake of our daily bread: by digesting Jesus’ Word in our hearts and living it.

There is another passage in Scripture, this time in Revelation 10:9-11, that treats the Word of God as spiritual food:

“And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little scroll. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little scroll out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, and as soon as I had eaten it my belly was bitter. And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again about many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”

That Jesus considered the spiritual food of the Word to be of like nature but far more significant and real than physical food is demonstrated in Matthew 4:2-4, when, after Jesus fasted in the wilderness, satan approached Him, tempting Him:

“And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

THE REAL MEANING OF THE GLORY OF GOD

THE REAL MEANING OF THE GLORY OF GOD

It’s tempting to describe God in superlative terms. Common appellations include the words magnificent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscent. God does indeed possess these qualities, but they fall far short of actually describing God’s glory.

Being limited to this world and without access to heaven except possibly in some extremely rare and predominantly life-threatening circumstances, we have little understanding of God’s domain. But we do have His Word, and through that Word we can catch glimpses of heaven’s treasures. Among these jewels that Scripture points to are vignettes of God’s character – things that He seems to consider to be of the utmost importance. God’s apparent character suggests that His glory consists of qualities quite different than the superlatives we like to trot out when we worship Him.

The true glory of God is His selfless, noble love as John declared in 1 John 3:16 and 4:7 and 8:

“By this perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

“Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

Phrased differently, the real glory of God is His willingness to give up what the secular world might think of as His glory, His superlative features, in favor of love, to humble Himself by becoming human and experiencing the painful shame of the cross on our behalf.

Jesus turned the value system of the secular world on its head by declaring that a true leader must be a servant and backing it up as noted in John 13:3-5:

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.”

After correcting Peter for first refusing to allow Him to wash his feet, Jesus made a statement regarding the sharing of even this act:

“If I, then, your lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.”

As the resurrected Jesus, in Luke 24, spoke on the road to Emmaus to the persons who lamented His passing, He connected His glory to His suffering:

“Then he said to them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?”

A magnificent part of God’s glory is His willingness, regardless of the involvement of suffering, to share it with us.

THE CHURCH FORETOLD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

THE CHURCH FORETOLD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

There are so many instances in the Old Testament in which people responsive to God prefigured Jesus that it’s difficult to find cases among Jesus’ words and acts that weren’t prefigured before by such people. The Patriarch Isaac, for example, is most well-known among Christians for the drama enacted by Abraham in responding to God’s command to him to sacrifice his son. The tale is presented in Genesis 22:

“And [God] said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer his there for a burns offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”

Abraham responded in faith to that command, placing the obedient Isaac on a bed of kindling, drawing out his knife, and preparing to thrust it into his beloved son. He was prevented from completing the act by God, who substituted a ram for Isaac in the sacrifice.

Interestingly, on the way to the place of sacrifice Abraham lifted up his head and saw his destination:

“Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.”

The “third day” may have another meaning in addition to the obvious one of denoting the third day of Abraham’s travel to the place of sacrifice. It also may be a cryptic reference to a vision by Abraham of Jesus’ resurrection on the third day after His crucifixion on Golgotha, the same place where the sacrifice of Isaac was to take place.

A complete listing of Old Testament references to Jesus could occupy a large book. But there are references there to the other Members of the Godhead as well. And to the Church.

In one such reference to the Church, the relationship between Jesus and His Church is foretold in Isaiah 54:1-7:

“Sing, O barren, thou who didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou who didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed, neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame; for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.

“For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou was refused, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee.”

This passage in Isaiah 54 immediately follows the great Messianic passage of Isaiah 53, and, both by its content and its relative placement, can be considered to be a sequel to it. Yet, except for the hint in John 2 regarding the wedding in Cana where Jesus performed His first miracle, the Gospels are silent with respect to that subject.

Details that are missing in the Gospels are supplied not only by Paul in Ephesians 5, but in the Old Testament as well, in Genesis 24. In that passage Isaac, who prefigured Jesus during Abraham’s attempted sacrifice, in now foretelling Jesus’ marriage to His Church.

The account in Genesis 24 of Isaac’s marriage is rich in detail, particularly the influence of the Holy Spirit on the entire transaction. It’s a good read as well as being instructive in filling in some of the blanks of the Church’s epic future:

“And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh; And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac. . .And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning that matter. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor.

“And he made his camels to kneel down outside the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that the women go out to draw water. And he said, O Lord God of my master, Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master, Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water; and let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also; let her be the one whom thou hast appointed for thy servant, Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shown kindness unto my master.

“And it came to pass, before he had finished speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher on her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher. And she said, Drink, my Lord: and she hastened, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had finished giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have finished drinking. And she hastened, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. And the man, wondering at her, held his peace, to learn whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, as the camels had finished drinking, that the man took a golden ring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her wrists of ten shekels of weight of gold; and said, Whose daughter art thou? Tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father’s house for us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor. She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and fodder enough, and room to lodge in.

“And the man bowed down his head, and worshiped the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master, Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren. And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother’s house these things.”

The servant then was warmly welcomed into Rebekah’s house by her brother Laban, who had been impressed by the finery that Rebekah was now wearing. The adornments represented obvious wealth. After introducing himself as the servant of Abraham, the uncle of Bethuel, the man explained his mission of obtaining a wife for Abraham’s son Isaac out of his kin. He went on to recount how he prayed to God to select this bride through her specific response to his request for water, and of how Rebekah, through the Holy Spirit, had responded exactly as he had prayed. After hearing this, both Bethuel and his son Laban accepted this event as having come from God, making her the one that God Himself had chosen as wife for her kin Isaac.

“Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her by thy master’s son’s wife, as the Lord hath spoken. And it came to pass that, when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he worshiped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth. And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things. And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said, Send me away unto my master. And her brother and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go. And he said unto them, Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master.”

Up to this point Rebekah apparently had little to say about the matter, her brother and mother having spoken for her. Now, however, at what almost seems like an afterthought in the wake of this last-minute tug-of-war, Rebekah is given a say in the proceedings:

“And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. And they sent away Rebekah, their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant, and his men. And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those who hate them. And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.

“And Isaac came from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt in the Negev. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a veil, and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after Rebekah’s death.”

As we have noted, the Church and her relationship to Jesus was clearly foretold in the Old Testament. Among the most obvious representations is the beautiful story of Ruth. The magnificent story of her loyalty to Naomi begins at verse 10, following the death of Naomi’s husband and two sons, who had married the Moabite (Gentile) women Orpah and Ruth:

“And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters. Why will ye go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say, I have hope; if I should have an husband also tonight, and should also bear sons, would ye tarry for them till they were grown? Would ye refrain from marrying? Nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice, and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods; return thou after thy sister-in-law.”

How little did Naomi appear to understand, at this point, the great blessing the Lord was showering upon her, and upon her daughter-in-law Ruth! Through this circumstance not only would the Gentile Ruth be integrated into the bloodline of Jesus Christ, but she would prefigure His future Bride. In response to Naomi’s reluctant advice, Ruth voices her timeless expression of devotion:

‘And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return away from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”

Naomi and Ruth returned to Israel, arriving in Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest. Under circumstances directed by God, Ruth gathered food for herself and Naomi by gleaning in the fields of the wealthy Boaz, who became attracted to her. Boaz, of the tribe of Judah and in the bloodline to Christ, also typified Christ as a spiritual precursor. His marriage to Ruth gave them a child who eventually was a grandfather of David and thus an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Mary and her husband Joseph.

Just as importantly, Ruth, in marrying Boaz, represented the Church as the Bride of Christ. Significantly, Ruth’s Gentile roots represented the Gentile nature of the Church during the Church age. It is also significant that the Book of Ruth is traditionally read at the Feast of Pentecost linking Ruth in that additional manner with the birth of the Church at the first Pentecost following Jesus’ resurrection, that wonderful time that the Holy Spirit came upon the body of believers and transformed them into spiritual warriors.

Both of the Old Testament accounts of Ruth and Rebekah cited above represent the Church as a female married to Christ. The accounts also hint of romantic involvement. Are they just hints, or is there real substance to the thought that the relationship between Jesus and His Church might be a romantic one?

THE ROMANCE BETWEEN JESUS AND HIS CHURCH

THE ROMANCE BETWEEN JESUS AND HIS CHURCH

While He resided on earth, Jesus, despite some unjustified speculations to the contrary, remained celibate. That refusal to marry has been a cause of consternation to some, who see in that a lack of fulfillment an incompleteness in Jesus.

While indeed rendering Him incomplete, Jesus’ celibacy also rendered Him faithful, for Jesus was betrothed to His Church.

A statement had been made earlier that referenced the closing passage of Hebrews 11: “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” This statement implied that it must be equally true that “neither they nor us, without Jesus, should be made perfect.”

In quoting Adam in Genesis 2:24, Paul explained to us in Ephesians 5:31 and 32 a mystery of enormous significance, that Adam’s declaration in Genesis 2:23 and 24 applied not only to mankind, but to Jesus as well:

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

Given this statement of Paul’s in the light of Jesus’ celibacy during His time on earth, a second and greatly significant restatement of that ending passage of Hebrews 11 could be made: “. . . even Jesus, God having provided some better thing for us, without us should not be made perfect.”

Scripture actually gives us a sound reason to perceive that the union between Jesus and His Church will be a romantic one. The Song of Solomon is rather explicit in that regard, verses 12 through 17 of Chapter 1 being representative:

“While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night between my breasts. My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant; also our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir.”

Perhaps the most appropriate commentary to the Song of Solomon is the one given in the Schofield Bible in its prelude to Song:

“Nowhere in Scripture does the unspiritual mind tread upon ground so mysterious and incomprehensible as in this book, whereas saintly men and women throughout the ages have found it a source of pure and exquisite delight. That the love of the divine Bridegroom, symbolized here by Solomon’s love for the Shulamite maiden, should follow the analogy of the marriage relationship seems evil only to minds that are so ascetic that marital desire itself appears to them to be unholy.

“The book is the expression of pure marital love as ordained by God in creation, and the vindication of that love as against both asceticism and lust – the two profanations of the holiness of marriage. Its interpretation is threefold: . . .(3) as an allegory of Christ’s love for His heavenly bride, the Church. . .”

Jesus himself hints at His future joy with the Church as His Bride in the wedding at Cana, John 2:1-11:

“And the third day there was a marriage in Cana, of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they lacked wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have not wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw some out now, and bear it unto the governor of the feast. And they bore it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not from where it was (but the servants who drew the water knew) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine and, when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana, of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.”

A careful reading in retrospect of Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah in Genesis 24, the Song of Solomon, Isaiah 54, and Jesus’ first miracle in John 2 of changing water to wine at the wedding in Cana, plainly indicated beforehand the mystery that Paul revealed in Ephesians 5.

The roles of Ruth and Rebekah in prefiguring the Church, as well as the identification made by Isaiah and Paul of the Church as the Bride of Christ, make it obvious that the Church is, at least functionally, a female. But then why would Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35 call it a shame for women to speak in Church, and in 1Timothy 2:12 not permit a woman to teach? Moreover Peter, a male, appears to be a representative type of the Church. It is plain in Acts, as developed earlier, that Peter’s full humanity with all its imperfections openly displayed, followed by his exploits following the movement of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, not only performed but set the example of the work of the Church. Yet further, Peter gave the very first sermon of the new Church and brought the first non-apostle members into the fold. These acts identify him as a strong representative of the Church as well.

Which is to be, then? Is the Church female or male? Or neither or both? From a logical standpoint, it is both male and female, its function being female, but its composition, comprised of mankind with its dominant male gender, being male. Two key passages, Matthew 22:30 and Galatians 3:28, shed additional light on the gender issue:

“For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven.”

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

The most direct answer according to these passages would seem to be that since the Church resides first in the spiritual realm and that we, in the spiritual realm, will be neither male nor female, the Church itself will be neither male nor female. However, that logic overlooks an important point: the two passages cited above apply to us as individuals. The Church, on the other hand, is a composite of many individuals. While we, as spiritual individuals, won’t marry and we won’t possess gender, our composite self, the Church, will indeed have a female gender and will be the Wife of Christ.

With that background in mind, it is perfectly reasonable to perceive Peter, an individual male, in representing composite mankind, also legitimately representing the Church, a composite female. And, by the way, the limitations that Paul placed on the activities of women in the Church reinforce the femininity of the Church rather than diminishing this attribute, when one considers that the feminine role is a responsive one. The restrictions that Paul noted do indeed limit women’s roles in Church to those that are responsive, maintaining the example of femininity to the Church as a whole.

Another way of looking at our roles in the spiritual realm is as components, ungendered in essence just as component parts of our material bodies such as eyes, legs and fingers are ungendered. It is only in the composite of all of our parts that we are gendered. Paul hinted at that in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31:

“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Greeks, whether we be bond or free; an d have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.

“If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body. But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: and those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need; but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.

“Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers,; after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best gifts; and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.”

The answer is obvious: in the heavenly realm, it is the Church, the entire body rather than its component people, who is gendered. Her functional gender is feminine. Her spiritual body belongs to Christ in a possessive sense, just as Paul declared in Ephesians 5:28:

“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.”

It is quite clear from Ephesians 5 in its entirety that the relationship between Christ and the Church is romantic and fully gendered.

UNIQUE FEATURES OF THE ROMANTIC BOND

UNIQUE FEATURES OF THE ROMANTIC BOND

Of all the possible relationships people may have among each other, the romantic bond uniquely involves three features harmoniously and synergistically combined: functional unity, mutual possession, and shared intimacy.

Of itself, the feature of functional unity is common among relationships. It is the essence of teamwork, wherein individuals, each having specialized tasks, operate together in coordinated fashion to achieve higher-level objectives. Functional unity serves as the most sought-after expectation of armies, factories, sports teams and virtually every human endeavor that requires multiple persons working toward a common goal. Most relationships, however, require instruction and training to achieve that feature of human interaction, and firm supervision to maintain it.

In a good romance, however, teamwork is achieved far more naturally than in other relationships, requiring neither instruction, training, nor coercion. Gender-based specialization automatically delineates the normal roles of the participants, enabling them to interact together in complementary fashion without giving much thought to the process. Moreover, this functional synergism within the romantic bond uniquely complements the other two distinctive features, mutual possession and shared intimacy.

Outside of romance, possession is essentially off the table for normal human relationships. As in slavery or prison, possession of one human being by another is always, with but one exception, unhappy and forced. That exception is a passionate romance, which involves mutual possession as not only a voluntary act by the partners, but a comfort as well, and an expectation that each places on the other. Any situation that threatens that possessive bond, such as a potential romantic interest outside that relationship, is seen in a vehemently negative light. Two of God’s Ten Commandments address that very issue.

Scripture itself sometimes conveys that same sense of possession regarding relationships within the Godhead, between God and humanity, and between individuals. Unfortunately, instances in which possession is the topic is very often misinterpreted by Christians as meaning something entirely different than what the text plainly states. An example of that is found in Jeremiah 10:12:

“[God] hath made the earth by his power; he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.”

This passage has often been interpreted to mean the essential opposite of what it intended to convey. In the common misinterpretation, the words “power”, “wisdom” and “discretion” are taken as attributes of the Father. As this interpretation applies these claims to the Father alone, it effectively denies their potential application to the other Members of the Godhead. In other contexts within Scripture, and particularly throughout the Book of Proverbs, all three of these so-called “attributes” are associated with the Holy Spirit rather than the Father. In an alternate interpretation these “attributes” can be taken to be possessive in nature toward the Holy Spirit. In that context the “attributes” belong to the Father’s Holy Spirit and it is the Holy Spirit who belongs to the Father. Under that very natural alternate interpretation a completely different understanding of that passage results, one with romantic implications.

Another example tends to corroborate the possessive interpretation of the passage noted above, wherein the object of the possession is an Entity rather than a mere thing or attribute. The Scriptural passage for this example is Ephesians 5:25-28:

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such things; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.”

In verse 28 of this passage, the body of the wife is possessively related to the man. The man owns his wife’s body, just as she owns his. Paul was very explicit in this connection in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5:

“Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence; and likewise also, the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.”

The possessive ownership of each others’ bodies, while taken for granted in romantic relationships within humanity, is often avoided in the context of the relationship between Jesus and His Church. Yet Paul was quite explicit in his establishment of that as well, as Ephesians 5 continues in verses 29 through 32:

“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

Ephesians 5:28 is often misinterpreted as supporting the common claim that the Church is the one and only spiritual body of Christ, inferring that the Church is the exclusive repository of that body. In the more natural context of possession, however, the Church belongs to Jesus as a body integral with His own, in the same sense that a wife’s body belongs to her husband as an integral component of his own body, just as Adam (Genesis 2:24), Jesus (Matthew 19:5) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) directly stated.

Of the three features of romantic love, the third, shared intimacy, is the strongest bonding agent to unite the couple. Other human relationships can involve intimacy, but never to the extent of the sexual union between a man and a woman in their romantic partnership. God designed it that way to impart to the gender-based relationship its unique fullness, to set the couple apart from others as a special inviolate unity. It is the intimacy of their shared sexuality, or the promise of it, in synergy with their shared possession of each other, that gives their romance its very strength of passion. Nothing other than that intimacy provides individuals with a bonding force of that strength or beauty.

The pervasive notion of a genderless God denies that beauty to Him and the other Members of the Godhead and renders him alien to us in blatant contradiction to Genesis 1:26 and 27, and in his elaboration over the creation of Eve in Genesis 2:21-25:

“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 air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thinkg that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

And to what end have we denied this beautiful attribute to God? So that we may maintain a distance from Him in direct opposition to what He desires in His relationship with us? So that we can equate purity with chastity, when the two are manifestly different concepts? The key to this blatant falsehood is found in the end of the passage above: . . . “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

As I had noted in Marching to a Worthy Drummer, it is the shame, not the act, that has driven us to think of gender as inappropriate to God. And the shame came not from God but from Adam’s fall. It persists to this day, and prevents us from perceiving the Trinitarian Godhead in all its beauty and glory.

UNIVERSAL VIOLENCE

UNIVERSAL VIOLENCE

In America, widespread and growing campus unrest. Mass protests against racial inequity and police brutality. Mass murders by shooters and terrorist suicide bombers. Elsewhere throughout the world, Christians being persecuted and slaughtered. More terrorist mayhem involving mass murcders. A worldwide rejection of the Judeo-Christian God. Economic upheaval.

Violence everywhere evokes a remembrance of Noah’s Great Flood and the situation that initiated it as told in Genesis 6:5-13:

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence.

There was rampant violence on the Earth in the days of Noah, and because of that violent behavior God decided to destroy the earth with the Great Flood. But in the Flood’s aftermath, God gave us the promise that He would never again repeat that planetary catastrophe. The primary account of that promise is given in Genesis 9:11-15:

“And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my [rainbow] in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.”

Well, that’s certainly a relief! It appears from this promise that either mankind will never again indulge in that amount of violence, or else God will overlook it. Seems like, despite the mess the world appears to be in, that we’ve dodged a big bullet.

No. Wait. God only promised us we wouldn’t suffer through another Great Flood. But there are other things of potential worldwide scope that can be catastrophic to the Earth. As a matter of fact, we still have the passage in 2 Peter 3:1-12 to contend with:

“This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior; knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by which the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

“But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are in it, shall be burned up.

“Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”

Oh oh. If, as Peter claims, a thousand years can be likened to a day, and the Genesis creation epic covered a six-day period before God’s rest, then perhaps what might happen as we approach the end of six thousand years of Biblically-relevant human existence with imminent event of the thousand-year millennial reign of Christ promising to appear very shortly, the earth might again experience a destructive force of planetary scale with a suggestion of nuclear warfare.

This scenario fits right in with the devastation forecast in Revelation. Is the worldwide violence rampant now on Earth an immediate precursor to a buildup to that event?

GOD’S RESPONSE TO CONSPIRACIES

GOD’S RESPONSE TO CONSPIRACIES

Previous postings have asserted that a conspiracy exists, one with the intent to replace national governments with a multi-region, tightly-interconnected, essentially totalitarian governmental system.

God, however, has other plans. These plans involve His own conspiracy. One might be attempted to argue with the term “conspiracy” as it would apply to God, as God has laid His plans out quite clearly in Scripture. That open depiction of our future would seem not to qualify as a conspiracy, as the meaning of a conspiracy involves secret knowledge that only the elect are privy to.

But the Bible has been so maligned and generally avoided in our society that it might as well contain secrets to which only an ever-smaller minority has access to. In brief, society shot itself in the foot by making information in the Bible a secret, and thus that information, to all intents and purposes, describes a conspiracy to which only committed Christians have access.

God’s response is previewed in Daniel 2, which is summarized in Daniel 2:44:

“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”

The Book of Revelation gets into details. After a series of awesome judgments of God in which a large percentage of the world’s population is killed through disease and warfare, in Chapter 17 a specific prophecy is pronounced against a harlot, taken by many to be the end-time apostate Church of Laodicea, of which Jesus spoke against in Chapter 3.

“And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come here; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication; and upon her forehead was a name written Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great awe.

“And the angel said unto me, Why didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, whichhath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition; and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in gthe book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come, and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

“These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. And he said unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naket, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the women whom thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”

Given the use of purple garments by Catholic bishops and of scarlet ones by cardinals, many people place this melancholy pronouncement onto the Catholic Church. It need not be the present one, but a future one that may be a chrislam conglomeration consisting of the most watered-down elements of Islam and Christianity. This association might seemingly be strengthened by the identification of seven heads with seven mountains, Rome being called the City of Seven Hills, but note that heads in Scriptural prophecy usually depict rulers rather than geographical features.

Revelation Chapter 18 addresses next the judgment upon and demise of a mysterious Babylon:

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues; for her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.

“And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and al thyine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thoushalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches are come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off. And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying What city is like unto this great city? And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, in which were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! For in one hour is she made desolate.

“Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus wil violence shall that great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blook of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”

Some eschatologists claim that Babylon is indeed the Babylon of old, situated in Iraq. That association was most popular under the regime of Saddam Hussein, who had reconstructed that city and vowed to restore it to its former greatness. But the Babylon of Revelation 18 also can be a suggestive reference, the name of some other great community whose characteristics followed those of the original Babylon.

Note the suggestion in Revelation 18:17 that it is a seaport. Mighty as is the River Euphrates, I doubt that it properly meets the description of Babylon as a seaport in Revelation 18. Note also that every time the word fallen is used, it is used twice, and that its destruction occurs in an hour. These items mesh disturbingly well with the events of 911, in which Manhattan’s twin towers, representing the ultimate in commerce, were destroyed, virtually within an hour. Equally disturbing is Manhattan’s long-standing nickname, “Babylon by the sea”. Regardless of its identification, this great center of commerce and corruption is destroyed.

In the very next chapter is rejoicing in heaven over the judgments that have destroyed the kingdoms of mankind, and the war of Armageddon, and the return of Jesus Christ to reign on earth and to marry His wife, the Church.

HOLY WEEK

HOLY WEEK

As this is the week that the Church observes Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, and as that event is the most significant in mankind’s history, I’ll interrupt the topic I was engaged in to observe it here as well. Although I am basically a Protestant (the Church my wife and I attend is Baptist), I have a running dialogue with a dear friend, a Catholic priest. Today we shared our own thoughts on Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The traditional Catholic and Episcopalian re-enactment of the Holy Week is quite moving, as was my friend’s description of if. I’d like to share with you below some highlights of our reflection on this terrible and blessed event.

I have a favorite hymn, penned by Charles Wesley, that starts with the line And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? with the first stanza ending in Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me? We sing this hymn often in our Church services, and it remains moving to me every time we sing it.

We shared a conversation between Earl Cook and his wife Joyce that I lifted from Chapter 24 of my novel Buddy. Earl is telling Joyce about a book he’d read, written by Dominican Fr. Gerald Vann around the close of World War II.

“’The book was called Mary’s Answer for our Troubled Times. Like the title suggests, he wrote about Mary’s own suffering while Jesus was on the cross. I can’t say that Father Vann was always Scripturally accurate down to the last degtail in all he wrote about Mary, but I do think that he captured the essence of Scripture in a magnificent way in presenting a stunning demonstration of nobility on Mary’s part during that time. It deeply moved me.’

“’So share it.’

“’He talked of Mary’s concentration of gaze and rapt, exclusive focus on Jesus as He endured His suffering. He contrasted the mutual sorrow-laden silence between her and Jesus with the noisier, more self-serving lamentations of the other women, developing a picture of Mary of stoic determination. She had a task, Vann claimed. This task involved the double sorrow of the mother as she watched the torments of the Son, and of the girl who flinched at the sight of naked evil and cruelty destroying innocence and beauty and love. She remained silent, because it was not for her to find an emotional outlet for her grief, for she is here because of Him, to fulfill her vocation as mother by helping Him to fulfill His as Savior. In her, as Vann claims, there are two conflicting agonies: the longing to save Him from His agony and the effort to help Him to finish His work. It is the second that she must do, giving Him to the world on the Cross as she has given Him to the world in the stable.’”

As Chapter 22 of Genesis so vividly points out, our Holy Father also shared in Jesus’ suffering. As I visualize it, God’s call to Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac was a depiction of the Father’s own terrible grief in abandoning His Son on the cross as He ultimately prevented Abraham from doing.

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

“And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

“And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke unto Abraham, his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they sent both of them together. And they came to a place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

“And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

“And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh, as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.”

I believe that we have another name of that place, Golgotha. When Abraham lifted up his eyes on the third day and saw the place afar off, I also believe that he saw the resurrected Jesus. Note also that Abraham had Isaac carry the wood that was to sacrifice him, just as Jesus was commanded to carry His cross. Understanding that Isaac strongly represents Jesus, you may wish to read Genesis 24 regarding the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, and see, in Ephesians 5:31 and 32, who Rebekah represents.

That the ram represented Jesus as the Lamb of God is beyond question. This association between Jesus and a sacrificial lamb is observed today by Messianic Christians who, as both Jews and Christians, see the special meaning of the Jewish Passover as intended by God. The first account of the Passover is in Exodus 12:

“And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of heir fathers, a lamb for an house: and if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.

“Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats. And ye shall keep it unto the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with the fire and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs shall they eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs, and with the purtenance thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s Passover.

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.

“And this day shall be unto you a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever.”

Jesus was crucified on the Passover day of preparation. Jews throughout the world continue to observe Passover, which this year falls on sundown of April 22.

Have a wonderful observance of this great event, both this week according to the Church calendar, and on April 22 according to the Jewish calendar.

CONSPIRACY – REAL OR IMAGINED?

CONSPIRACY – REAL OR IMAGINED?

The notion has been around for quite a while that a conspiracy might be afoot, wherein a cadre of enormously wealthy and powerful individuals band together to plot a worldwide system of government that will enslave all but a privileged few.

Those who read their Bibles don’t find that to be so hard to believe. It’s right there in the pages of Scripture, particularly in Daniel and Revelation. In Daniel 2, for example, Daniel interprets a dream of King Nebudchadnezzar, the ruler who sacked Jerusalem and took Judah into captivity in the sixth century B.C. This troubling dream involved a metallic image representing the mightiest kingdoms of man on earth, appearing in sequence from the time of Nebudchadnezzar’s dream up until the time that Jesus reigns on earth.

“This is the dream, and we will tell its interpretation before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings; for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wherever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heavens hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all.

“Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall rise another [silver] kingdom inferior to thee, and another kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things; and, as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, but there shall be in it of the strength of iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter; and the dream is certain, and the interpretation of it sure.”

Up to our own point in time, Daniel’s prophetic interpretation of Nebudchadnezzar’s dream has been sure indeed. Nebudchadnezzar’s Babylonian kingdom of gold came and went, as did the silver kingdom of the Persian Empire, and after that the brass kingdom of Alexander the Great. The iron kingdom of the Roman Empire followed the others in its rise and fall. Daniel in Chapter Seven also described these kingdoms in terms of animals: a lion, a bear, a leopard, and the most dreadful beast of all, which had iron teeth. These animals fit well with the features of the first four kingdoms. The Leopard, for example, is fleetfooted, as was Alexander in the speed with which he conquered the known world in the fourth century B.C.

We now await the rise and fall of the final worldwide kingdom of man, Daniel’s kingdom in Chapter Two of iron and clay and in Chapter Seven having ten horns, also known as the kingdom of the antichrist as described in Revelation 13:

“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as though it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the dragon who gave power unto the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them; and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

“If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience of the saints.

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them who dwell on it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, that had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he hath power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.”

This awful ten-horned beast that shall be the final kingdom of man has features that represent a composite of the earlier sequence of kingdoms spoken of in Chapter Seven of Daniel: lion, bear, leopard, and power from a great and terrible dragon. This similarity of features evokes a closer look at that chapter of Daniel. There, in verse 4, the lion is found to possess a feature of startling significance in a modern context.

“The first [beast] was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings; I beheld till its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man; and a man’s heart was given to it.”

The association of England with a lion is a common one; the lion is an iconic fixture of government buildings in that nation. It is also common knowledge that America sprang from English roots. Its first non-indigenous people were English, and it was an English colony before gaining its independence. Given that America’s icon is the eagle, this passage in Daniel, as Bible scholar Irvin Baxter first pointed out, very clearly relates to America. It is wrong, therefore, to assert as many theologians do that America can’t be found in the Bible. There are other Scriptural references to a modern kingdom that match well with America, such as the feckless young lions of Ezekiel 38:13 and the twice-fallen Babylon of Revelation 18. But these associations are more speculative than the eagle of Daniel Seven.

[to be continued]

A NEW BREED OF AMERICAN

A NEW BREED OF AMERICAN

Many years have passed since I was the age of the current crop of American Millennials. I’m tempted to think back on that time of my youth as being different, perhaps more Christian, with the qualities that are implied by that label: self-disciplined, considerate of others, loving, maybe even noble.

When I think back on my teenage years and young adulthood, however, the hoped-for memories don’t surface; others crowd in unbidden: instances of gross disobedience to my parents; underage drinking (lots of that); reckless driving; wild parties; poor grades (mainly due to a pronounced lack of self-discipline and the prioritizing of parties over studies); and the supremacy of self and personal welfare over thought of others.

God? What God? It would be another two decades before God came into my vocabulary.

If I want to be honest about my past, I basically followed the traits outlined by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-5. At least that’s what came to mind as this bleak recollection proceeded. I decided to give the passage another review:

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it; from such turn away.”

The score wasn’t pretty: out of the nineteen traits that Paul had listed in that passage, I was guilty of possessing fourteen of them. But it wasn’t a completely devastating hundred percent. There were some characteristics that didn’t fit me, and for that small comfort I could thank the influence of society at large, which at the time had maintained some semblance of the Christian influence that had prevailed at the founding of our country.

It was that small but persistent influence that separated my youth from the Millennial generation, which seems to possess all nineteen of the negative traits listed by Paul in the passage cited above, with each trait being embraced in more generous measure than was the case for me and my generation.

That sorry state of affairs was exemplified recently by scenes on the news that graphically depicted college boys and girls at the beach during spring break engaging in unrestrained drinking, open sex and general mayhem. They had abandoned all sense of responsibility. Most of them, at least those who had managed to maintain some minimum level of consciousness, behaved as one might expect of third-graders who had been granted adult privileges.

More recently yet, the news described a movement that is spreading among universities around the country that’s demanding administrators to resign over their failures to enforce the “well-being” of the students. In this case, one egregious wrong that had been perpetrated by the culprits was their allowance of the use on campus of certain politically-incorrect words that have been considered offensive and thus have intruded upon the students’ bubbles of controlled mental and emotional environment in sufficient measure as to cause them distress. Other offenses included student loans and other negative circumstances that had threatened their sense of entitlement.

Developments such as these indicate that a fairly substantial portion of Millennials represent a generation of perpetual babies who have abandoned all semblance of the nobility and selflessness that was associated with the Christianity of our forefathers. Some day soon we will necessarily look to them in increasing measure for the continuation of our society. When they do, if their collective mindset isn’t preempted by outside events, we shall almost certainly drift into a socialistic form of government intended to perpetuate and expand upon existing entitlements. That will pass quickly, however, morphing into a more permanent dictatorial regime that will impose upon the public a measure of distress that will be unimaginable to the coddled and privileged students who comprise today’s academia.

CORRECTED VERSION – IS THIS ALL THE CHOICE WE GET?

 

 

 

[Note to the reader: earlier today I made a posting with the title below, but the text was an incomplete version; the completed version was on my thumb drive but didn’t get transferred in a timely manner.  My apologies.  The version below is what should have been posted to begin with.]

IS THIS ALL THE CHOICE WE GET?

From the way this election cycle is shaping up, we might be left with the choice of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for our next president of the United States. What kind of choice is that?

Clinton has an extremely shady past. Her Machiavellian acquisition of wealth and power at the expense and lives of others includes the Benghazi debacle that smacks of an unthinkable abandonment and the email scandal that reeks of a felonious placing of self before the interests of our country. But even before those more recent suggestions of malfeasance on a grand scale, she had left in the wake of her self-centered acquisition of power and wealth the Whitewater scandal and the death of associate Vince Foster that evoked a number of unanswered questions that suggest murder rather than the alleged suicide.

Machiavellian is a strong word. It implies a dark and deadly hunger for power that descends below normal humanity. It will be useful to explore the word in some detail. To that end, I have extracted from Part 3, Chapter 1 of my book Family of God information relevant to the association of darkness with Machiavelli:

“Truth perverted has the power to enslave us. In the two thousand years since the death of the innocent [Jesus] who was thrust before Pilate and evoked from the Roman the famous question “What is truth?”, battles have been fought and countless people have suffered in the struggle to define truth for gain. No one knew this with more clarity than Niccolo Machiavelli, the fifteenth century Florentine who set out in The Prince to describe the means by which an ambitious man might acquire and maintain power over others. It has been recognized for centuries as a handbook on deception and betrayal in which the manipulation of truth is wielded with the objective of obtaining unfair advantage over innocent people. This kind of self-service is the very antithesis of the Judeo-Christian God; it represents a horrifying death of the soul. Below, in his own words (translated by N. H. Thomson), Machiavelli relates a classic instance of the application of duplicity:

“In our own times, during the papacy of Alexander VI, Oliverotto of Fermo, who some years before had been left an orphan, and had been brought up by his maternal uncle Giovanni Fogliani, was sent while still a lad to serve under Paolo Vitelli, in the expectation that a thorough training under that commander might qualify him for high rank as a soldier. After the death of Paolo, he served under his brother Vitellozzo, and in a very short time, being of a quick wit, hardy and resolute, he became one of the first soldiers of his company. But thinking it beneath him to serve under others, with the countenance of the Vitelleschi and the connivance of certain citizens of Fermo who preferred the slavery to the freedom of their country, he formed the design to seize on that town.

“He accordingly wrote to Giovanni Fogliani that after many years of absence from home, he desired to see him and his native city once more, and to look a little into the condition of his patrimony; and as his one endeavor had been to make himself a name, in order that his fellow-citizens might see that his time had not been mis-spent, he proposed to return honourably attended by a hundred horsemen from among his own friends and followers; and he begged Giovanni graciously to arrange for his reception by the citizens of Fermo with corresponding marks of distinction, as this would be creditable not only to himself, but also to the uncle who had brought him up.

“Giovanni accordingly, did not fail in any proper attention to his nephew, but caused him to be splendidly received by his fellow-citizens, and lodged him in his house; where Oliverotto having passed some days, and made the necessary arrangements for carrying out his wickedness, gave a formal banquet, to which he invited his uncle and all the first men of Fermo. When the repast and the other entertainments proper to such an occasion had come to an end, Oliverotto artfully turned the conversation to matters of grave interest, by speaking of the greatness of Pope Alexander and Cesare his son, and of their enterprises; and when Giovanni and the others were replying to what he said, he suddenly rose up, observing that these were matters to be discussed in a more private place, and so withdrew to another chamber; whither his uncle and all the other citizens followed him, and where they had no sooner seated themselves, than soldiers rushing out from places of concealment put Giovanni and all the rest to death.

“After this butchery, Oliverotto mounted his horse, rode through the streets, and besieged the chief magistrate in the palace, so that all were constrained by fear to yield obedience and accept a government of which he made himself the head.”

One does not need to look closely to see obvious parallels between Hillary Clinton’s past actions and this brutal example of reckless self-devotion.

Opposing Clinton is Donald Trump, whose immense ego and empty-minded bombast suggest a deranged personality far darker than the self-absorbed immaturity of a schoolyard bully. Elevation to the presidency would have a good chance of placing the consequences of his inevitably misguided acts on a destructive level with that of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator who brought his country to its knees in World War II.

The young Mussolini was described as a disobedient and unruly schoolyard bully, who couldn’t be handled by schools noted for their expertise in discipline. Nevertheless, his intelligence allowed him to educate himself broadly if not deeply in philosophy and political theory. His self-assurance, speaking presence and apparent knowledge of the political issues of the day granted him the respect of his political peers despite the shallowness of his actual knowledge, which few bothered to explore in detail. Embracing violence as a means of acquiring political objectives, he was arrested a number of times. He was also becoming a person of note in the socialist community, enhancing his standing in that community with frequent articles.

He was known for frequent and radical changes in position, morphing from a socialist to a fervent nationalist, and from there, as it suited his rise to power, to a Fascist dictator.

During World War II he cast his (and Italy’s) lot with Hitler’s Germany, anticipating an equal standing with the Nazi dictator. To his jealous dismay, that never happened, and Hitler’s stronger control over the war in Italy virtually destroyed that nation as the conflict brought in the Allies. As the end of the war approached, he attempted to flee the country disguised as a German soldier, but was recognized and shot along with his mistress. Their bodies were put on display in Milan, hung downward.

Disturbing parallels between Mussolini and Trump include a shallowness of political understanding, a proclivity toward changing position on issues, and, of course, their common self-aggrandizing bombast. True wisdom was lacking in Mussolini, and it’s probable that Trump shares this characteristic. In the end, Mussolini almost destroyed Italy. Given their commonalities, it is possible that America’s future would also be in peril with Trump at the helm.

Mussolini got the Italian trains to run on time, true to his promise. But then he destroyed them.

The poverty of choice that limits us to either Hillary or Trump was handed to us by an electorate who is unable to distinguish between the ability to act boldly and the ability to act wisely. As Proverbs says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Having removed God from the public domain, we appear to have lost our wisdom.

IS THIS ALL THE CHOICE WE GET?

IS THIS ALL THE CHOICE WE GET?

From the way this election cycle is shaping up, we might be left with the choice of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for our next president of the United States. What kind of choice is that?

Clinton has an extremely shady past. Her Machiavellian acquisition of wealth and power at the expense and lives of others includes the Benghazi debacle that smacks of an unthinkable abandonment and the email scandal that reeks of a felonious placing of self before the interests of our country. But even before those more recent suggestions of malfeasance on a grand scale, she had left in her self-centered wake the Whitewater scandal and the death of associate Vince Foster that evoked a number of unanswered questions that suggest murder rather than the alleged suicide.

[insert excerpts from the Prince-taken from Part 3, Chapter 1 (The Perversion of Truth) Of Family of God]

Truth perverted has the power to enslave us. In the two thousand years since the death of the innocent man who was thrust before Pilate, battles have been fought and countless people have suffered in the struggle to define truth for gain. No one knew this with more clarity than Niccolo Machiavelli, the fifteenth century Florentine who set out in The Prince to describe the means by which an ambitious man might acquire and maintain power over others. It has been recognized for centuries as a handbook on deception and betrayal in which the manipulation of truth is wielded with the objective of obtaining unfair advantage over innocent people. This kind of self-service is the very antithesis of the Judeo-Christian God; it represents a horrifying death of the soul. Below, in his own words (translated by N. H. Thomson), Machiavelli relates a classic instance of the application of duplicity:

“In our own times, during the papacy of Alexander VI, Oliverotto of Fermo, who some years before had been left an orphan, and had been brought up by his maternal uncle Giovanni Fogliani, was sent while still a lad to serve under Paolo Vitelli, in the expectation that a thorough training under that commander might qualify him for high rank as a soldier. After the death of Paolo, he served under his brother Vitellozzo, and in a very short time, being of a quick wit, hardy and resolute, he became one of the first soldiers of his company. But thinking it beneath him to serve under others, with the countenance of the Vitelleschi and the connivance of certain citizens of Fermo who preferred the slavery to the freedom of their country, he formed the design to seize on that town.

“He accordingly wrote to Giovanni Fogliani that after many years of absence from home, he desired to see him and his native city once more, and to look a little into the condition of his patrimony; and as his one endeavor had been to make himself a name, in order that his fellow-citizens might see that his time had not been mis-spent, he proposed to return honourably attended by a hundred horsemen from among his own friends and followers; and he begged Giovanni graciously to arrange for his reception by the citizens of Fermo with corresponding marks of distinction, as this would be creditable not only to himself, but also to the uncle who had brought him up.

“Giovanni accordingly, did not fail in any proper attention to his nephew, but caused him to be splendidly received by his fellow-citizens, and lodged him in his house; where Oliverotto having passed some days, and made the necessary arrangements for carrying out his wickedness, gave a formal banquet, to which he invited his uncle and all the first men of Fermo. When the repast and the other entertainments proper to such an occasion had come to an end, Oliverotto artfully turned the conversation to matters of grave interest, by speaking of the greatness of Pope Alexander and Cesare his son, and of their enterprises; and when Giovanni and the others were replying to what he said, he suddenly rose up, observing that these were matters to be discussed in a more private place, and so withdrew to another chamber; whither his uncle and all the other citizens followed him, and where they had no sooner seated themselves, than soldiers rushing out from places of concealment put Giovanni and all the rest to death.

“After this butchery, Oliverotto mounted his horse, rode through the streets, and besieged the chief magistrate in the palace, so that all were constrained by fear to yield obedience and accept a government of which he made himself the head.”

One does not need to look closely to see applications today of the methods of deception set forth by Machiavelli and his disciples. Problems are created by governments for which the only solution is more state control. Information is hidden and compartmentalized in the name of national security. Groups who oppose state-sponsored agendas are isolated through public marginalization.

Opposing Clinton is Donald Trump, whose immense ego and empty-minded bombast suggest a deranged personality far darker than the self-absorbed immaturity of a schoolyard bully. Elevation to the presidency would have a good chance of placing the consequences of his inevitably misguided acts on a destructive level with that of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator who brought his country to its knees in World War II.

[insert writeup on Mussolini]

This poverty of choice was handed to us by an electorate who is unable to distinguish between the ability to act boldly and the ability to act wisely. Mussolini got the Italian trains to run on time, true to his promise.

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (CONTINUATION #3)

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (CONTINUATION #3)

The Holy Spirit Identified as Feminine in Revelation 12 (an update of the previous item: The Holy Spirit Identified as Feminine in Original Scripture)

Revelation 12 reads as follows:

“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven – a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and, behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth; and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born.

“And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, who deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

“And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

Who is this marvelous woman? Catholics claim that she is Mary, while Protestants lean toward Israel. But this passage becomes far more awesome and beautiful with an identification of this Woman as the Holy Spirit. Moving beyond aesthetic considerations to the logical, both Mary and Israel lack credibility, as neither would be appropriate candidates for the heavenly clothing with which She is adorned, which imply Her role as Co-Creator with the Father. Her spiritual station among the Highest, including the account herein of Her birth of Jesus Christ, is also implied.

According to her thoroughly researched book God is Not Alone – Our Mother the Holy Spirit, Marianne Widmalm references passages in Isaiah 66 to support the identification of this Woman as the Holy Spirit.

The timing of the events in Revelation 12 have led me to speculate, without definitive justification at this point in time, whether the birth of Jesus referred to in this passage might relate to the possibility that Jesus did indeed die on the cross thoroughly and completely, demanding that His resurrection involved the Holy Spirit’s laboring over a complete reconstruction of Him, including the imprint in His mind of every memory and every event that took place during His sojourn on Earth. At this point, this is just an idea, but a very moving one.

The Holy Spirit Identified as Feminine in Early Post-Resurrection Christian Writings (an update of the previous item: The Holy Spirit Identified as Feminine in Original Scripture)

In her book God is Not Alone, noted above, Marianne Widmalm goes to great lengths to show that The Gospel of the Hebrews, written in the Hebrew language, preceded and influenced the writing of Matthew’s Gospel. The importance of this precursor Gospel is that it described the Holy Spirit as feminine. Widmalm cites early Church Father Origin (185-254 A.D.) as declaring from the Gospel of the Hebrews that Jesus Himself called the Holy Spirit His Mother (see pp. 172,173 of The Gospel of the Hebrews). Widmalm cites several other notable Christian writers of the first through fourth centuries, including Jerome, who also alluded to a feminine Holy Spirit. She speculates that in the movement of the Church toward a Trinitarian formula defining a genderless or masculine Holy Spirit, The Gospel of the Hebrews was destroyed by well-meaning but terribly misguided individuals as being inconsistent with the emerging theological direction of the Church. This situation may be similar to the wholesale destruction of ancient Mayan documents as presided over by the Spaniard Diego de Landa. Because of his acts, almost all our knowledge of early Americans was lost forever.

The Feminine Nature of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Wisdom

The Book of Wisdom, which is canonical in the Catholic Bible, presents the Holy Spirit as feminine and directly links Her to Wisdom as presented in the Book of Proverbs.

On the other hand, the Catholic Church, by elevating Mary as she did, did not completely deny the family of God the balancing femininity it so badly needs, so maybe Irenaeus should be respected a bit more in the Protestant community. Another thing the Catholic Church did for the feminine which the Protestant Church did not was to include the Book of Wisdom within the body of canonical, and therefore considered to be inspired, Old Testament books. This beautifully-written book furnishes several interesting passages suggestive of the identity of Wisdom as the feminine Holy Spirit. Selected passages are presented below:

“And in your wisdom have established humankind . . .Give me Wisdom, the consort at your throne . . . Now with you is Wisdom, who knows your works and was present when you made the world; Who understands what is pleasing in your eyes and what is conformable with your commands. Send her forth from your holy heavens and from your glorious throne dispatch her that she may be with me and work with me, that I may know what is pleasing to you. For she knows and understands all things, and will guide me prudently in my affairs and safeguard me to her glory . . . Or who can know your counsel, unless you give Wisdom and send your holy spirit from on high?

– Wisdom 9:2, 4, 9-11, 17

The Identification of the Holy Spirit with Birth in John 3

Chapter 3 of the Gospel of John describes the Holy Spirit as possessing the function of spiritual birth. Birth, of course, is an eminently feminine attribute.

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered, and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound of it, but canst not tell from where it cometh, and where it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (CONTINUATION #2)

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (CONTINUATION #2)

Inclusion of Gender in the Creation of Man in God’s Image

Genesis 1:26 and 27 links the creation of man in God’s image as possessing gender:

“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 air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

An alternative interpretation of this passage would not only attempt to split an intimately interconnected verse with no substantive justification, but it would also demonstrate an indifference to God’s aversion to the practice of homosexuality (as well as other sexual sins), as may be found in Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 and Romans 1. This strong antipathy of God toward sexual sin would more properly be indicative of misrepresenting man’s creation in God’s gendered image.

In Genesis 2 verses 18, 21 and 22 the detail of Eve’s formation out of Adam is highly suggestive of the counterpart formation of the Holy Spirit out of the Father.

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”

A shallow interpretation of this passage would suggest that since it follows the story of the creation of Adam and Eve sequentially, the creation of Eve was removed from that of Adam by a significant amount of time. A more logical interpretation would view the insertion of this passage as a matter of emphasis, suggesting perhaps that this extraction of Eve out of Adam was illustrative of the extraction of the Holy Spirit out of the Father.

The Embedding of Feminine within the Masculine

In Genesis 5:1 and 2, Adam and Eve are both named Adam, suggesting that Eve, while being functionally feminine, is also named after her masculine counterpart.

“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”

This naming convention furnishes some justification for describing the Holy Spirit with masculine pronouns, although it should be kept in mind that the original Hebrew described the Holy Spirit in feminine terms.

The Femininity of the Executive Function

It is generally recognized and specifically noted by Bible scholars that Scripture depicts the Holy Spirit as operating in an executive function, responsive to the Father’s Will. A responsive nature is distinctly feminine. Genesis 1:1,2 furnishes a specific example of the Holy Spirit operating responsively to the Father.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”

Although I prefer to remain entirely within Scripture in my responses, I also could cite Benjamin Warfield’s commentary in page 122 his book The Holy Spirit that “In both Testaments the Spirit of God appears distinctly as the executive of the Godhead [italics in the original].” This reference is particularly appropriate, in that Benjamin Warfield is held in high esteem within the Christian community. I also point to Warfield’s more lengthy discussion on pages 124 and 125 that elaborated on the role of the Holy Spirit in the act of creation in responsive fashion to the Will of the Father, therefore representing a feminine role.

The linkage given in Proverbs with Wisdom in an executive role, as well as its personification of Wisdom as a complement to God the Father amply justifies the inclusion of the Holy Spirit in that linkage.

Furthermore, in Ephesians 5, Paul repeats Adam’s words to the effect that a man shall leave his father and mother and join his wife, and they two shall become one flesh. In applying this entire passage to Jesus, does not Paul imply that Jesus had a Mother to leave? As there is a general consensus that Jesus existed long before He came in the flesh, we also must agree that here Paul is not speaking of Mary as Jesus’ Mother.

It may be the case that most theologians don’t perceive any compelling reason to equate Christ and the Church to Adam’s words regarding leaving father and mother and joining unto his wife to become one flesh. But Jesus Himself as quoted in Matthew 19:4-8 appears to attach a significance to Adam’s words that transcends a mere man-woman relationship. In addition, there are other passages in Scripture, including Genesis 24 and Isaiah 54, that tend to confirm the notion that in the spiritual realm the Church shall indeed serve in a female role as the Bride of Christ.

The Holy Spirit Identified as Feminine in Original Scripture

It is an undeniable fact that with regard to Scripture, “Church authorities” did indeed engage in a sexual cleansing operation, for not only were the Godhead and Mary stripped of their sexuality, but there is indisputable evidence that Scripture itself was altered to sexually mutilate the Godhead by substituting a weak all-male congress for what always was perceived by the Jews and also by the earliest Christians as a Divine Family consisting of Father, Mother and Son.

It wasn’t always that way. In the Hebrew Old Testament, the Holy Spirit, as the Ruah or Shekinah, was viewed as feminine. The switch to masculinity occurred in the New Testament.

In Isaiah 51:9 and 10, for example, the King James Version reads:

“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it who hast cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it who hast dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; who hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?”

The original, however, read as follows, and some Bible scholars assert that the neutering was deliberate, for there is no way that the original can be construed as depicting other than femininity, in opposition to the oft-mentioned comment that some grammatically feminine words in Hebrew don’:

“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not She who hast cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not She who hast dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; who hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?”

According to an Internet search of “feminine Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Scriptures”, multiple modern, deeply serious theologians and ancient language scholars share the view that the earliest Hebrew Christians had access to Scripture that presented the Holy Spirit as a feminine Persona; this feminine persisted within the Syriac and other Eastern branches of Christianity and within the Gnostic sect as well. A prime example of this is the Scriptural passage known as the Siniatic Palimpsest (a palimpsest is a recycled writing medium, wherein a second layer of writing was applied over the original, the original usually consisting of more important information) uncovered toward the end of the nineteenth century by Agnes Lewis. The original writing included portions of the Gospel of John of which a quote from Jesus Himself in John 14:26 asserts the following (translation attributed to Danny Mahar):

“But She – the Spirit – the Paraclete whom He will send to you – my Father – in my name – She will teach you everything; She will remind you of what I have told you.”

There is a suggestion, from a comparative review of this text with Paul’s letters that Paul, among the numerous early Hebrew Christians, used the version of John’s Gospel from which this passage came. References to the Siniatic Palimpsest may be found on the Internet. Unfortunately, many of the translations into English found under the search phrase “Siniatic Palimpsest” apply without justification the more conventional “he” rather than the “she” of the original language. Some Internet references, however, do acknowledge the proper “she”.

The identification of the Holy Spirit as feminine in the Siniatic Palimpsest is no small matter, for this document is the oldest of all copies of the Gospels, being dated to the second century A.D. It is a recognized principle of textual interpretation, even by the most conservative of Biblical scholars, that the older the text, the closer it is thought to be to the original Scripture. This is particularly important in light of the fact that there are no other Scriptural texts between it and the oldest Greek text dated to the fourth century A.D. One can only surmise that between the second and fourth centuries Scripture had been altered to substitute “he” for “she” in references to the Holy Spirit. Even then, at least one reference to the Holy Spirit as “she”, apparently having been overlooked in the switch, was allowed to remain. As Romans 9:25 reads in our King James Bible,

“As he saith also in Osee [Hosea], I will call them my people, who were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved.”

Despite the overt mistranslation of the pronoun “She” to “It” or “He” in modern English translations of Scripture, these modified versions still provide sufficient evidence of the feminine nature of the Holy Spirit to convince all but the most reactionary of individuals. Among the most assertive in that regard is the Glory of God, the Hebrew feminine Shekinah, who indwelt the temples at their dedication. The obvious connection between the feminine Shekinah described in Exodus 40 and 1 Kings 8 and the indwelling Holy Spirit described in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles and referred to by Paul is, of itself, overwhelming evidence of the feminine gender of the Holy Spirit. The link between the Holy Spirit and the Shekinah Glory is also supported as well by the many references to “Eloah”, a feminine term for God in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the recognition of feminine expressions of God in the books of Job and Judges, as acknowledged by at least one expert in the specialized field of ancient Hebrew.

Why would Church authorities be so boldly heretic as to deliberately alter Scripture as to mislead the Church regarding the gender of the Holy Spirit and to remove all traces of sexuality from God? A number of possibilities have been raised by multiple scholars, among which two stand out as particularly plausible candidates. First, the Gnostic Christian community, which adhered to a feminine Holy Spirit, went overboard on some of its misunderstandings of Christianity, and was considered to be a dangerously heretic sect; in its attempt to stamp out this notion of God, the community that eventually came to represent mainstream Christianity engaged in a wholesale rejection of its precepts, in effect throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Second, the presence of femininity within the Godhead came perilously close to pagan theology, which involved the worship of divine families consisting of father, mother and son, and was often given to lewd ritualistic behavior, as lamented by Augustine among others. Here again, in her attempt to separate herself from these other religions, mainstream Christianity rejected the notion of a divine family out of hand, once more tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

A number of modern Bible scholars agree as to Old Testament references to the Holy Spirit in unambiguously feminine terms. This goes beyond grammatical considerations. R. P. Nettelhorst, for example, Professor of Bible and Bible Languages at Quartz Hill School of Theology in Antelope Valley, California, who is an expert in the Hebrew language, changed his thinking on the gender of the Holy Spirit upon coming across undeniably feminine references to the Holy Spirit in the Book of Judges. After further research, he found the femininity to be scattered about in various locations in the Old Testament, beginning at Genesis 1. Other scholars have found the same feminine descriptors elsewhere, including the Book of Job.

[to be continued]

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (CONTINUATION #1)

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (CONTINUATION #1)

Link Between Proverbs and the Holy Spirit

In passages that describe Her presence alongside the Divine Father during the creation epic, the female Persona in the Book of Proverbs is identified as the Holy Spirit. Throughout Proverbs, Wisdom acquires a distinct Personhood and is cast in the role of complementary companion to the Father in the act of creation, which is a distinctly female role.

The prevailing understanding of the Book of Proverbs is that its personification of Wisdom is simply a literary device and was never intended to represent an actual Person. But in opposition to this view, Wisdom in the original Greek has a name of a person, and that name is Sophia. Sophia has a history of being linked, in the Jewish and early Christian religions, with the Personhood of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Himself, in Luke 7:35, associates Wisdom with motherhood, an eminently personal attribute.

“But wisdom is justified of all her children.”

While that verse possibly could be interpreted as being merely a figure of speech, Jesus in Luke 11:49 and 50 more emphatically personifies Wisdom:

“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation.”

I also disagree with the associated prevailing Protestant presupposition that Proverbs 8 refers to Jesus Christ, as well as the prevailing Catholic presupposition that Proverbs 8 refers to Mary, because in both cases the presuppositions simply don’t fit the context of that chapter. I also could cite Proverbs 9 and 31 in that regard, and Psalm 104:30 which links creation with the Holy Spirit. (Job 26:13 is similar in that regard.)

The Persona of the Holy Spirit is female throughout; an attempt to assign some of these passages to Jesus Christ, as many do, would constitute an unnatural force-fit, most obviously in the issue of gender, but also with respect to function and role. The frequent Catholic attribution of Wisdom to Mary faces the equally grave difficulty of linking Mary with capabilities such as creation that are reserved for God alone. The attempt to link Wisdom with the Virgin Mary is unsustainable in the light of Mary’s full humanity and consequent absence in the creation epic, wherein according to Chapter 8 Wisdom was at the side of the Father during the process of creation.

On the other hand, the Book of Proverbs beautifully and harmoniously supports a female functional designation for the Holy Spirit. Of particular interest in this regard are Proverbs 3 and 8, from which the following excerpts are taken:

“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. . .She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. . .The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens. . .Doth not wisdom cry? And understanding put forth her voice? . . .The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.”

These passages suggest a connection between Wisdom and the Holy Spirit as furnishing the most likely Person to which a female function may be assigned; they also suggest that the Holy Spirit was active in creation itself, as summarized in Genesis 1:1-3:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

In the context of Scripture’s general treatment of the Holy Spirit, the passage in Genesis quoted above more than suggests that the Father was assisted by or in union with the Holy Spirit in the act of creation, the result being, as Jesus Himself suggested in Revelation 3:14 in declaring Himself the beginning of the creation of God, a manifestation of the Son.

In further support of my equation of Wisdom with the Holy Spirit, I cite Isaiah 11:1 and 2:

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots; And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord,. . .”

Any attempt at a rebuttal to the association of Proverbs with the Holy Spirit must address Proverbs 3:19 in the context of Genesis 1:1-5, Proverbs 8:22-36, Job 26:13 and Psalm 104:30. The attempt to attribute Proverbs 8 to Jesus rather than the Holy Spirit must explain the out-of-context insertion into material descriptive of Wisdom, as well as the feminine description of Wisdom throughout the Book of Proverbs as opposed to the depiction of Jesus throughout Scripture as strongly masculine and the image of the Father.

Wisdom, as depicted in Proverbs, is strongly female and only female. The attempt at rebuttal to the contrary must also avoid taking the Jungian notion of the human psyche, both male and female, as containing both masculine and feminine elements, and extrapolating it to his notion of the Trinity. There are logical difficulties in doing so, as described below.

Scripture rather exclusively associates the Father with the Divine Will, which, as an initiating role, also is exclusively masculine. Similarly, Jesus the Son is presented in Scripture as the Divine Representation which, as the perfect image in reality of the Father would also be predominantly masculine. The masculine predominance of Jesus is given further weight by Paul’s characterization in Ephesians 5 of Jesus as the Bridegroom of the (functionally feminine) Church. In Family of God I simply noted what to me was an obvious connecting function of the Holy Spirit between Father and Son: the Divine Means which, in union with the Divine Will, gave birth to the Divine Implementation in reality (Divine Representation). Obviously, this Divine Means, being so closely linked with the other two Members, is also Deity. Because the Divine Means performed a function that was responsive to the Will, an obviously female role, I attached a female gender to this Person. Scripture and Christian tradition both understand this third Member of the Trinity to be the Holy Spirit.

Another item that presents itself in a reading of Proverbs with an eye to the Personhood of Wisdom is the implied intimacy between mankind and Wisdom in the warning given in Proverbs 8:36: he that sins against Wisdom wrongs his own soul. Could this imply that our own purpose and function in the spiritual realm might actually parallel that of the Holy Spirit? There may well be a correlation between this caution and the one expressed by Jesus in Matthew 12:31 and 32:

“Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”

These are strong words, and they make a strong connection between Wisdom and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps theologians instinctively sense this correlation. Perhaps also not wishing to shoot themselves in the foot and instead of attempting to truly understand what is being said here, they duck away from presenting anything controversial regarding the Holy Spirit. Historically, that has certainly been the situation with numerous theological expositions regarding the Holy Spirit, all of which end up complicating an extremely simple understanding of the nature of the Trinity by claiming that ultimately man is unable to grasp it.

As a final comment regarding my association of Proverb’s Wisdom with the Holy Spirit, I note that Church Father Irenaeus of the second century A.D., commonly accepted as a respected Church Father, also directly equated Wisdom with the Holy Spirit. That he seems not to have made the obvious connection of Wisdom with femininity may be attributed to his strong aversion to Gnosticism, whose adherents generally believed in a feminine Holy Spirit. His attack of Gnosticism in his tome Against Heresies is quite humorous at times, as I described in my novel Buddy. A sample is offered below:

“’Now what follows from all this [description of some of Marcion’s more outlandish claims]? No light tragedy comes out of it, as the fancy of every man among them pompously explains, one in one way, and another in another, from what kind of passion and from what element being derived its origin. They have good reason, it seems to me, why they should not feel inclined to teach these things to all in public, but only to such as are able to pay a high price for an acquaintance with such profound mysteries. For these doctrines are not at all similar to those of which our Lord said, ‘Freely ye have received, freely give.’ They are, on the contrary, abstruse, and portentous, and profound mysteries, to be got at only with great labour by such as are in love with falsehood. For who would not expend [all] that he possessed, if only he might learn in return, that from the tears of the enthymesis of the AEon involved in passion, seas, and fountains, and rivers, and every liquid substance derived its origin; that light burst forth from her smile; and that from her perplexity and consternation the corporeal elements of the world had their formation?

‘I feel somewhat inclined myself to contribute a few hints towards the development of their system. For when I perceive that waters are in part fresh, such as fountains, rivers, showers, and so on, and in part salt; such as those in the sea, I reflect with myself that all such waters cannot be derived from her tears, inasmuch as these are of a saline quality only. It is clear, therefore, that the waters which are salt are alone those which are derived from her tears. But it is probable that she, in her intense agony and perplexity, was covered with perspiration. And hence, following our notion, we may conceive that fountains and rivers, and all the fresh water in the world, are due to this source. For it is difficult, since we know that all tears are of the same quality, to believe that waters both salt and fresh proceeded from them. The more plausible supposition is, that some are from her tears, and some from her perspiration. And since there are also in the world certain waters which are hot and acrid in their nature, thou must be left to guess their origin, how and whence. Such are some of the results of their hypothesis.’”

Jesus’ Marital Relationship with His Church

This relationship, which was explored in the posting “Why the Spiritual Marriage Between Jesus and His Church is Substantive and Fully Functional”, demonstrates the existence of gender and its associate romance in the spiritual domain. A summary of the topics covered in that posting are noted below. The reader can refer to the posting itself for more details.

Paul’s stunning statement in Ephesians 5:31,32 regarding Jesus’ marriage to His Church contains multiple elements that identify this marriage as much more than merely a figure of speech.

Romans 7:4 corroborates Jesus’ marriage to His Church; beyond that, it identifies the union as creatively productive.

Jesus first miracle described in John 2, the wedding in Cana, identifies Jesus as anticipating with joy His own future spiritual marriage.

In the parables of the marriage feast (Matthew 22) and the ten virgins (Matthew 25), Jesus describes His own future marriage without ambiguity as an important and joyful occasion.

Isaiah 54, as a follow-on to the great messianic Chapter 53, is a passionate statement of Jesus’ future marriage and is summarized as such by Paul in Galatians 4:27.

The Song of Solomon is a romantic, explicit depiction of the bonding between male and female; it would not belong in the Bible if gender had no place in the spiritual realm.

[to be continued]

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Shekinah Glory

The Shekinah Glory who indwelt the Tabernacle in the Wilderness (Exodus 40) and Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 8) is recognized as feminine. This same Shekinah Glory is intimately linked to the Holy Spirit through the corresponding indwelling of Christians who are described in 1 Corinthians 3 and Ephesians 2 as living temples of God.

That the Old Testament Shekinah is the New Testament’s Holy Spirit is manifestly evident in the precursor role to the indwelling Holy Spirit of the Shekinah Glory who indwelt both the Tabernacle in the wilderness and Solomon’s Temple at their dedications. Since it has been claimed that the word Shekinah does not exist in the Hebrew Scriptures in its noun form (the situation there being similar to the absence in the Bible of a noun form of the word baptize), the following commentary will be made regarding its origin before proceeding with examples of the Shekinah presence.

In the Hebrew Targum, the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, the word Shekinah is used as a noun. It means “intimate dwelling” or “the presence of the Glory of the Lord”. Justification for the use of this word is the use in the Hebrew Scriptures of its root word “shachan”, referring particularly to the pillars of cloud and fire that accompanied the Israelites in their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land through the wilderness. The prophet Isaiah referred to it quite graphically in Isaiah 4:5 and 6, linking this pillar of cloud and fire to a covering presence. It is generally understood that this same pillar is referenced in Isaiah 51:9 and 10, where the prophet goes out of his way to describe by feminine pronouns the same pillar of cloud and fire that accompanied the Israelites on their journey from Egypt. The Targum interpretation leaves no doubt that the Shekinah Glory is a feminine presence, and represents an equivalence with a feminine Holy Spirit. Isaiah 4:5 and 6, and 51:9 and 10 read as follows:

“And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion , and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defense. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.”

“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not she who hast cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not she who has dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; who hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?”

Exodus 40 and 1 Kings 8 provide prominent examples of the Shekinah as a precursor to the indwelling Holy Spirit of the New Testament. Exodus 40:33-38 describes the indwelling of the Tabernacle in the wilderness:

“And [Moses] reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work.

“Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys; but if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

The description “cloud of the Lord” , “fire by night” and “taken up” leaves no doubt that this “cloud” is equivalent to the Shekinah of the Red Sea adventure and of Isaiah 4:5. The corresponding incident with respect to Solomon’s Temple, taken from 1 Kings 8:6-13, is given below:

And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, into the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread forth their two wings of the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and its staves above. And they drew out the staves, that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the inner sanctuary, but they were not seen outside; and there they are unto this day. There was nothing in the ark except the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord. Then spoke Solomon, The Lord said he would dwell in the thick darkness. I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in forever.”

In this passage the meaning of “cloud” is closely linked with “dwelling place” and “glory of the Lord”, which again point to the phrase Shekinah Glory.

The connection between these precursor events and the Holy Spirit who indwells Christian believers is given in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and Ephesians 2:19-22, wherein Paul asserts that the Church herself, through her constituents, is a temple indwelt by the Holy Spirit:

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

The facts embedded in these passages are no surprise to Christians, who generally accept without question that believers are indwelt with the Holy Spirit and comprise, as the Church, a holy temple. What some of us may not be aware of is that this temple and its indwelling by the Holy Spirit was represented numerous times as the Glory of God in the Old Testament. Turning to the Internet, the Wikipedia entry for “Shekinah” begins as follows:

“Hebrew [Shekinah] is the English spelling of a grammatically feminine Hebrew ancient blessing. The original word means the dwelling or settling, and denotes the dwelling or settling of the divine presence of God, especially in the temple in Jerusalem.” An accompanying figure shows the Shekinah, or the Glory of God, indwelling the temple as described in 1 Kings 8.”

Noting the female gender of this indwelling Shekinah, we find here by comparing the indwelling presence of the Glory in Solomon’s temple with the description in Ephesians 2 of the Holy Spirit indwelling the human temple that Scripture itself, by furnishing this direct comparison, supports an interpretation of the Holy Spirit as a female Entity in the face of conventional Christian thought, as driven by the use in Scripture of the male pronoun in reference to the Holy Spirit.

This feminine gender attribute in Exodus 40 and 1 Kings 8 may have been simply lost in the translation from Hebrew (Aramaic) to English, which could have been a result of the lack of gender precision in the English language. (Actually, the first transference from feminine to masculine occurred in the Latin, for which the Holy Spirit was definitely presented as male.) But there is an associated gender misrepresentation in Isaiah 51:9, 10 that appears to be more deliberate. What the translators did in that passage was to substitute the grammatically incorrect ‘it’ for the gender-correct ‘she’ in reference to Shekinah. In their desire to maintain a fully masculine Godhead, they neutered the female.

Reconciliation of Monotheism with the Holy Trinity

The only logical way that the Judeo-Christian monotheism may be reconciled to the general Judeo-Christian understanding of the Godhead as being a Trinity is to perceive the Godhead as representing a tightly-knit Family. The issue arises through the identification of the Trinitarian Godhead as one in Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

It is quite difficult, if not impossible, given the prevailing understanding of the Godhead, to reconcile a Trinitarian Godhead with the oneness of God as given in Deuteronomy 6. The prevailing view of a genderless fellowship simply doesn’t evoke the notion of unity demanded in the above passage, or of Jesus’ description of it as the greatest commandment of God toward mankind.

How could three be considered as one? Even Islam struggles with that, to the extent that this religion is so strictly monotheistic as to deny the Christian Trinity as being fully God. Within Christianity, the ‘Jesus Only’ Church does the same, as did some early heresies within the Christian Church, including Arianism.

Actually the only way that the Trinity can be reconciled intuitively with monotheism is in the context of a Divine Family. I noted in my book Family of God the dramatic change in comprehension of the Godhead that resulted from this insight:

“Surely by raising this issue [of monotheism in a Trinitarian setting] we have placed ourselves in the midst of a basic conflict, one that was not resolved when Jesus came to the earth in the flesh, nor has it been settled in the two millennia since that event. Perhaps, given the assault on family values experienced by our generation, the timing is appropriate for God to favor this same generation with an understanding, rich in information as to His own nature, which will lead to a resolution of this conflict. It is with this hope that we continue our review, searching Scripture for something we may have missed before.”

“As would be expected, God furnished man with His own straightforward answer to the paradox of His triune nature. It is profound in its simplicity and astonishingly beautiful in form. In the second chapter of Genesis, Adam speaks thus:

“’And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’

“The essence of this passage was repeated by Jesus and later by Paul. In the contexts in which it was presented, it is obviously of importance to God. Could there be a significant relation between the unity of flesh in marriage and the unity of spirit, as was often claimed by Jesus, between the Father and Him, and in fact, among the three Members of the Holy Trinity?”

[to be continued]

REBUTTALS TO CLAIMS THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT FEMININE (CONTINUED)

REBUTTALS TO CLAIMS THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT FEMININE (CONTINUED)

Lingering references in modern Bibles of a feminine Holy Spirit

There actually are references in current mainstream Bible translations to the Holy Spirit by the pronoun “She”. In Romans 9:25 of the King James Version, Paul uses “her” in referring to the Holy Spirit:

“As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people, who were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved.”

Again, in Romans 1:20, Paul’s reference to the Godhead is made in the feminine derivative of the word “theos”.

Furthermore, it is known that in Scriptural translations of Isaiah 51:9 and 10 in the Nicene era and later, the reference to the feminine Arm of the Lord was deliberately switched from “she” to the neuter “It”.

In Isaiah 51:9 and 10, for example, the King James Version reads:

“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it who hast cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it who hast dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; who hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?”

The original, however, read as follows, and some Bible scholars assert that the neutering was deliberate, as the grammatical construction of the original text prohibits any other interpretation of it than a feminine description:

“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not She who hast cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not She who hast dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; who hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?”

Claims that romance and passion are not intrinsic to God or the spiritual realm

Scripture itself contradicts claims that God might be above the romance and passion intrinsic to a fully-functional spiritual marriage. Examples include the Song of Solomon, Jesus’ passion in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus’ discourse on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24).

Many theologians insist upon interpreting the feminine imagery in the Book of Proverbs as simply figures of speech. Correspondingly, Proverbs is depersonalized, being considered at most an attribute of the Godhead. This view is contradicted by the intensely personal nature of Proverbs 3 and 8 and their link to the role of the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:1,2. It is further disallowed by the direct personalization of Wisdom and the equation of Wisdom with the Holy Spirit in the Book of Wisdom, which is canonical in the Catholic religion.

Many pastors, having interpreted 1 Timothy 2 as limiting the role of women in Church, shy away from the thought of conferring Godhood on a female. Given the general responsive role of women as described in Scripture and Eve’s obvious misapplication of that role, Paul’s commentary in 1 Corinthians 2 actually supports the notion of a feminine Holy Spirit.

Some pastors point to mention of the Church as the Body of Christ in Ephesians 5 and elsewhere as conflicting with a meaningful role for the Church as the Bride of Christ. A careful reading of Ephesians 5 contradicts this apparent conflict: Ephesians 5:31 directly identifies the male/female union as a mutual ownership of each other. This ownership, in a possessive sense, assigns the wife’s (Church’s) body as the body of her husband.

There is a centuries-long tradition within virtually all Western Churches of a male Holy Spirit. A feminine Holy Spirit would go against the grain of this tradition. However, tradition isn’t Scripture, there are readily understandable reasons as to why the switch from the original was made, and there are understandable, albeit selfish, reasons as to why there haven’t been more disputes in that regard over the years.

It wasn’t always that way. In the Hebrew Old Testament, the Holy Spirit, as the Ruah or Shekinah, was viewed as feminine. Aided by Justin Martyr, the early Gnostic controversy within Christianity, Augustine and Jerome Zanchius, the switch to masculinity occurred in the New Testament.

Foremost in the minds of many of the new Christians were the lewd and disgusting bacchanalias associated with the devotions to the Greek and Roman gods, who themselves were prone to bouts of lust and sexual perversions. In sharp contrast to the gross depravity of these gods, Jesus stood apart, radiant in shining moral splendor. At a time of rampant sexual excess, Jesus’ Words sparkled like swords of righteousness and were taken deeply to heart. Among these were His own pronouncements of the place of sexuality within the Christian economy, which were immortalized in Scripture. His Words that are handed down to us in Matthew 19 must have been very important to the new Christians:

“The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he who made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her who is put away doth commit adultery.

“His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, except they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, who were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are some eunuchs, who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

The new Christians, in overlooking much of what Jesus actually was teaching, placed a heavy emphasis on the latter part of this saying by Jesus, the part that dealt with eunuchs. It may have called to mind a piece of Old Testament Scripture, verse five of David’s fifty-first Psalm, attaching to it a meaning that went beyond the words:

“Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

This passage was written after Nathan confronted David with a scathing rebuke over David’s murderous lust for Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, and was an expression of guilt, which very much included his own, over the baseness of motivation behind some sexual unions.

Paul, too, in support of the Christian desire for moral cleanliness and writing to a Church that was in danger of returning to the materialism of society at large, added his obviously conflicted opinion of the meaning of sexual purity and the role of women within the Christian economy, but questioning himself as he did so as to whether he was writing on behalf of the Holy Spirit, or whether his was doing so entirely on his own. In 1 Corinthians 7:1 and 2, 25-40, he said this:

“Now concerning the things about which ye wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. . . .
“Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord; yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I suppose, therefore, that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be. Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless, such shall have trouble in the flesh; but I spare you. But this I say, brethren, The time is short; it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away. But I would not have you without care. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is a difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction. But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not; let them marry. Nevertheless, he that standeth steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So, then, he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better. The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to when she will, only in the Lord. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment; and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.”

Although Paul repeatedly noted that the union between man and wife is not sinful, it was his admonition that life as a eunuch was better, in that it permitted undiluted focus to the Lord. It was that sentiment which stood out in the early Christian mind as the golden standard of behavior.

That standard was expressed, for example, by Justin the Martyr in his first apology for (defense of) Christianity, as compiled in the book Early Christian Fathers, edited by Cyril C. Richardson. This commentary was written around the middle of the second century A.D., about a half century after the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation. In it, Justin echoed the sentiment of Paul regarding sexual circumspection:

“About continence [Jesus] said this: ‘Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in his heart before God.’ And: ‘If your right eye offends you, cut it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of Heaven with one eye than with two to be sent into eternal fire.’ And: ‘Whoever marries a woman who has been put away from another man commits adultery.’ And: ‘There are some who were made eunuchs by men, and some who were born eunuchs, and some who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake; only not all [are able to] receive this.

“And so those who make second marriages according to human law are sinners in the sight of our Teacher, and those who look on a woman to lust after her. For he condemns not only the man who commits the act of adultery, but the man who desires to commit adultery, since not only our actions but our thoughts are manifest to God. Many men and women now in their sixties and seventies who have been disciples of Christ from childhood have preserved their purity; and I am proud that I could point to such people in every nation. . . But to begin with, we do not marry except in order to bring up children, or else, renouncing marriage, we live in perfect continence. To show you that promiscuous intercourse is not among our mysteries – just recently one of us submitted a petition to the Prefect Felix in Alexandria, asking that a physician be allowed to make him a eunuch, for the physicians there said they were not allowed to do this without the permission of the Prefect. When Felix would by no means agree to endorse [the petition], the young man remained single, satisfied with [the approval of] his own conscience and that of his fellow believers.”

Two and a half centuries later Augustine experienced much the same revulsion as Justin did over the moral tawdriness of the Roman society in which he lived. Having become a Christian thirty two years after his birth in 354 A.D., Augustine had spent much of his dissolute pre-Christian years in the enjoyment of the depravity of the society in which he lived. The shame and regret of these early years served to drive Augustine into a passionate rejection of loose morality and unbridled lust. The strength of his feelings in that regard are demonstrated throughout his book City of God, an example of which is given in Chapters 4 and 5 of Book II:

“When I was a young man I used to go to sacrilegious shows and entertainments. I watched the antics of madmen; I listened to singing boys; I thoroughly enjoyed the most degrading spectacles put on in honour of gods and goddesses – in honour of the Heavenly Virgin, of of Berecynthia, mother of all. On the yearly festival of Berecynthia’s purification the lowest kind of actors sang, in front of her litter, songs unfit for the ears of even the mother of one of those mountebanks, to say nothing of the mother of any decent citizen, or of a senator; while as for the Mother of the Gods – ! For there is something in the natural respect we have towards our parents that the extreme of infamy cannot wholly destroy; and certainly those very mountebanks would be ashamed to give a rehearsal performance in their homes, before their mothers, of those disgusting verbal and acted obscenities. Yet they performed them in the presence of the Mother of the Gods before an immense audience of spectators of both sexes. If those spectators were enticed by curiosity to gather in profusion, they ought at least to have dispersed in confusion at the insults to their modesty.

“If these were sacred rites, what is meant by sacrilege? If this is purification, what is meant by pollution? And the name of the ceremony is ‘the fercula’, which might suggest the giving of a dinner-party where the unclean demons could enjoy a feast to their liking. Who could fail to realize what kind of spirits they are which could enjoy such obscenities? Only a man who refused to recognize even the existence of any unclean spirits who deceive men under the title of gods, or one whose life was such that he hoped for the favour and feared the anger of such gods, rather than that of the true God.

Augustine was enormously influential to the Christian Church at a time when Church doctrine was still being formulated and heresies were still emerging, to be debated upon and rejected. In his wake, the Church charted a course that polarized itself away from any hint of the depravities associated with the corrupt gods and goddesses of the world about her. This extremity of purification, for which purity was equated with chasitity, cleansed the Judeo-Christian God of any taint of sexuality.

A thousand years later, this insistence upon purity had not only remained, but had crystallized into a rigid perfectionism, enshrined by the medieval cleric Jerome Zanchius, a rigid adherent of the heavenly perfection envisioned by Aristotle and Ptolemy. Zanchius, in his rather pretentious work Absolute Predestination Stated and Defined, included some Scripturally unjustified statements regarding the nature of God, of which the following excerpts are representative:

“I.—When love is predicated of God, we do not mean that He is possessed of it as a passion or affection. In us it is such, but if, considered in that sense, it should be ascribed to the Deity, it would be utterly subversive of the simplicity, perfection and independency of His being. Love, therefore, when attributed to Him, signifies—
“(l) His eternal benevolence, i.e., His everlasting will, purpose and determination to deliver, bless and save His people. Of this, no good works wrought by them are in any sense the cause. Neither are even the merits of Christ Himself to be considered as any way moving or exciting this good will of God to His elect, since the gift of Christ, to be their Mediator and Redeemer, is itself an effect of this free and eternal favour borne to them by God the Father (John 3.16). His love towards them arises merely from “the good pleasure of His own will,” without the least regard to anything ad extra or out of Himself.
“(2) The term implies complacency, delight and approbation. With this love God cannot love even His elect as considered in themselves, because in that view they are guilty, polluted sinners, but they were, from all eternity, objects of it, as they stood united to Christ and partakers of His righteousness.
“(3) Love implies actual beneficence, which, properly speaking, is nothing else than the effect or accomplishment of the other two: those are the cause of this. This actual beneficence respects all blessings, whether of a temporal, spiritual or eternal nature. Temporal good things are indeed indiscriminately bestowed in a greater or less degree on all, whether elect or reprobate, but they are given in a covenant way and as blessings to the elect only, to whom also the other benefits respecting grace and glory are peculiar. And this love of beneficence, no less than that of benevolence and complacency, is absolutely free, and irrespective of any worthiness in man.
Given this unnecessary but historical antagonism between Christianity and gender, one may readily perceive how tempting it must have been to downplay gender in Scripture by “correcting” certain references to it.

REBUTTALS TO CLAIMS THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT FEMININE

REBUTTALS TO CLAIMS THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT FEMININE

The Implied Gender-Neutrality of Galatians 3:28 and Matthew 22:29 and 30

These passages are presented below:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven.”

The claim has been made that since Galatians 3:26 and Matthew 22:29,30 describe humans in the spiritual realm as being gender-neutral, the spiritual realm doesn’t involve gender. Neither of these passages remotely suggest that heaven is a gender-neutral domain. The myopic and unjustified extension of statements beyond their meanings fails to take into account that whereas spiritual individuals will not be gendered, an appropriate interpretation in harmony with Scripture elsewhere and with the understanding that the Church is a collective aggregate strongly suggests that the Church, as an aggregate of individual components, will indeed be gendered.

Jeremiah 10:12 has been interpreted to suggest that power and wisdom, rather than representing a separate Entity, are attributes of the Father

Jeremiah 10:12 is presented below:

“He hath made the earth by his power; he hath estab lished the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.”

This passage which God describes power and wisdom as belonging to Him, is cited as indicative that these are God’s own attributes. This claim fails to comprehend that the union between God and the Holy Spirit, being a romantic one, is also possessive. God here is speaking of the mutually possessive nature of marriage. The implication in this passage of mutual ownership intrinsic to a romantic relationship is simply overlooked by those who fail to understand that romance is a vital part of the spiritual realm.

The “He” issue

The “He” issue, for which the Holy Spirit is referred to in Scripture by masculine pronouns, may be resolved in two distinct ways, both of which permit the Holy Spirit to be viewed as functionally feminine while being composed of a masculine or neuter substance. Scripture’s treatment of spiritual humanity furnishes ample justification for viewing the Holy Spirit to be functionally feminine and compositionally masculine, as suggested by Paul’s description of spiritual mankind as genderless in the face of his description of mankind’s aggregate as the Church as the wife of Christ. In the alternate but equally valid view there is also ample justification for appreciating that in the original autographs in the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, the Holy Spirit was perceived as feminine. Examples include John 14:26 in the version recorded in the Siniatic Palimpsest, Isiah 51:9,10 and Romans 9:25.

Basically, I said in Family of God that the Holy Spirit, while performing an essentially female function in the context that I have defined in the introduction above, could also legitimately be considered to be male with respect to substance, composition or union. I went on to speculate that the Scriptural emphasis on the male substance as opposed to the female function may actually be a promise to mankind regarding his future spiritual participation in the Godhead as the Bride of Christ. This viewpoint, however, applies to the entirety of redeemed mankind who constitute the Church, and not to redeemed individuals, who simply comprise components of that Body.

A paradox stands in the way of internalizing this new and welcome information. This inconsistency first must be resolved in order that we may fully accept it. The issue is this: we, redeemed mankind, are collectively treated as masculine whereas in Scripture we are given to understand our spiritual role in relationship to Jesus as feminine. This conflict requires us to differentiate between our gender as an aggregate of individual elements and our gender in a functional application. Thus, regarding our future spiritual identity, as an aggregate we shall be male whereas functionally we shall be female.

I expanded on this thought in my blog friendofthefamily.wordpress.com by noting that as Bride of Christ, redeemed (spiritual) mankind itself, while being designated as male in composition (mankind is a male descriptor), will obviously be performing a female functional role that is harmoniously complementary to Jesus Christ.

Actually, the issue may be taken to a more basic level than that. According to Genesis 2:18-22, God fashioned Eve out of Adam. Therefore Eve, while being female in function, may be thought of as possessing the substance of her male predecessor.

A conflict of much the same nature exists in our understanding of the Holy Trinity: Among the Members of the Trinity, the First and Second Persons, as Father and Son, are naturally considered to be male in gender. Regarding the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, however, there is no small amount of gender ambiguity. Obviously, if future mankind can legitimately be male in composition and female in function, the same attributes may apply in an equally non-contradictory manner to the Holy Spirit, in Her feminine functional role as distinct from Her substance as originating from the masculine Father. Indeed, why would it “not be good”, per Genesis 2:18, for Adam to be without a complementary other, yet be good for that situation to exist within the Godhead?

Scripture as most of us know it attempts to remove the ambiguity surrounding the Holy Spirit by routinely applying the pronoun ‘He’ to this Person. In doing so without explanatory or qualifying remarks, the Scripture handed down to us in the West automatically assigns only the male gender to this Divine Person. It has often been commented, however, by respected theologians, that Scripture elsewhere seems to develop an image of the Holy Spirit that is female in nature. We saw this in the review in Chapter 4 of some Christian authors who attempted to describe the nature of the Holy Spirit. To the Holy Spirit are regularly assigned the attributes of comfort, nurturing and compassion, supported by statements made by Jesus Himself. These female descriptors are functional attributes, whereas the pronoun ‘He’, when applied to the Holy Spirit in Scripture, refers to the Divine Person in the sense of object. There is a striking parallelism here with the object/function gender differentiation of the Church and in mankind itself. It is tempting to point to that parallelism to claim the same object/function gender differentiation of the Holy Spirit: male in substance, but female in function.

Could it be, then, that the use in Scripture of the pronoun ‘He’ in reference to the Holy Spirit, instead of constituting a gratuitous introduction of confusion, is related to this parallelism? Despite that possibility, the mainstream Christian Church is committed to its view of the Holy Spirit as being gender-neutral, masculine or sometimes even hermaphroditic in basic nature.

Up to this point, an argument has been made regarding the legitimacy of viewing the gender of the Holy Spirit differently between function and substance. As I noted at the outset of this argument and applied to the Church, this difference from function may involve other descriptors besides substance, such as composition and union, related to substance but with slightly different connotations. Returning to the human spiritual model of the Church, it is a fact that whereas functionally the Church is overtly feminine as set forth in Scripture, it consists of numerous individual elements which in the aggregate, the collective definition as mankind carries with it a male designation.

While substance or composition or both may be factors that legitimize the application of masculine descriptors to a feminine function, the most basic factor may simply be the notion of union, the loving merging of two complementary others into one. In marriage the male and female members are components of a greater unity than either of them alone and as one, they would rightly be addressed by the gender of the dominant Member, the male.

Exploring this notion further, we readily imagine that the relationship between Father and Holy Spirit is so perfectly close that the Holy Spirit is considered to be One with the Father, as suggested by the wife’s use of her husband’s surname in our own society. There is justification for that in Genesis 5:1 and 2, wherein the perfection of unity in love carries with it an implication with respect to the name of the female partner.

“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”

This is a love kind of thing. God never intended either a man or a woman to remain as an individual. Instead, He created them to be in union together, one man and one wife. This unity is emphasized by His calling them both by the name of the male, a custom that is practiced to this very day. In that context, the “He” associated with the Holy Spirit may be intended to convey the unity between Father and Holy Spirit, wherein the Holy Spirit is always considered not as separate, but united in everlasting love with the Father.

The significance of this passage to the view of the Holy Spirit as a Complementary Other to the Father is that it justifies the use of a male pronoun in referring to a basically female Holy Spirit. It implies that the bond between Father and Holy Spirit, representing the image upon which the bond between Adam and Eve was based, is so perfectly close that they can truly considered to be one. In that context, the male pronoun applied to the Holy Spirit would represent the perfection of that bond.

Of course, one can’t ignore the possibility of a very simple yet profound explanation: that the Holy Spirit was sent to us in Jesus Christ’s name, which, of course, is male.

After having said all that regarding the gender distinction between substance and function, I now will address a little-known but very significant complicating factor in this ‘He’ business, hinted at earlier, that may well settle the issue in favor of a fully feminine Holy Spirit without the necessity of making an object/function differentiation. It turns out that while we may still be able to claim that Scripture is inerrant in the original, the Scripture to which we have ready access isn’t the original. It’s been tampered with, probably at some time after Constantine made Christianity a state religion in the early fourth century A.D.

It is an undeniable fact that with regard to Scripture, “Church authorities” did indeed engage in a sexual cleansing operation, for not only were the Godhead and Mary stripped of their sexuality, but there is indisputable evidence that Scripture itself was altered to sexually mutilate the Godhead by substituting a weak all-male congress for what always was perceived by the Jews and also by the earliest Christians as a Divine Family consisting of Father, Mother and Son.

According to an Internet search of “feminine Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Scriptures”, multiple modern, deeply serious theologians and ancient language scholars share the view that the earliest Hebrew Christians had access to Scripture that presented the Holy Spirit as a feminine Persona; this feminine persisted within the Syriac and other Eastern branches of Christianity and within the Gnostic sect as well.

According to the words of Jesus in John 14:26 of the Siniatic Palimpsest, (translation attributed to Danny Mahar) Jesus Himself characterizes the Holy Spirit as feminine:

“But She – the Spirit – the Paraclete whom He will send to you – my Father – in my name – She will teach you everything; She will remind you of what I have told you.”

A palimpsest is a recycled writing medium, wherein a second layer of writing was applied over the original, the original usually consisting of more important information. This document was uncovered toward the end of the nineteenth century by Agnes Lewis. The original writing included portions of the Gospel of John that quoted Jesus.

There is a suggestion, from a comparative review of this text with Paul’s letters that Paul, among the numerous early Hebrew Christians, used the version of John’s Gospel from which this passage came. References to the Siniatic Palimpsest may be found on the Internet. Unfortunately, many of the translations into English found under the search phrase “Siniatic Palimpsest” apply without justification the more conventional “he” rather than the “she” of the original language. Some Internet references, however, do acknowledge the proper “she”.

The identification of the Holy Spirit as feminine in the Siniatic Palimpsest is no small matter, for this document is the oldest of all copies of the Gospels, being dated to the second century A.D. It is a recognized principle of textual interpretation, even by the most conservative of Biblical scholars, that the older the text, the closer it is thought to be to the original Scripture. This is particularly important in light of the fact that there are no other Scriptural texts between it and the oldest Greek text dated to the fourth century A.D. One can only surmise that between the second and fourth centuries Scripture had been altered to substitute “he” for “she” in references to the Holy Spirit. Even then, at least one reference to the Holy Spirit as “she”, apparently having been overlooked in the switch, was allowed to remain. As Romans 9:25 reads in our King James Bible,

“As he saith also in Osee [Hosea], I will call them my people, who were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved.”

Despite the overt mistranslation of the pronoun “She” to “It” or “He” in modern English translations of Scripture, these modified versions still provide sufficient evidence of the feminine nature of the Holy Spirit to convince all but the most reactionary of individuals. Among the most assertive in that regard is the Glory of God, the Hebrew feminine Shekinah, who indwelt the temples at their dedication. The obvious connection between the feminine Shekinah described in Exodus 40 and 1 Kings 8 and the indwelling Holy Spirit described in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles and referred to by Paul is, of itself, overwhelming evidence of the feminine gender of the Holy Spirit. The link between the Holy Spirit and the Shekinah Glory, as well as the many references to “Eloah”, a feminine term for God in the Hebrew Scriptures, will be discussed in a later posting.

[to be continued]

WHY THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE BETWEEN JESUS AND HIS CHURCH IS FULLY FUNCTIONAL

WHY THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE BETWEEN JESUS AND HIS CHURCH IS SUBSTANTIVE AND FULLY FUNCTIONAL

Ephesians 5:31 and 32

Paul’s stunning statement in Ephesians 5:31,32 regarding Jesus’ marriage to His Church contains multiple elements that identify this marriage as much more than merely a figure of speech.

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

“This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

Beyond the direct statement in this passage that Jesus Christ will wed His Church, Paul’s comment that this event is a “great mystery” identifies it was being a substantial issue. Moreover, throughout the passage there are hints of romantic love, and that in a highly possessive sense, on the part of Jesus. Possessive love and its attendant sense of ownership between persons is most pronounced in the marital union. The passage also includes the notion, in the words that a man shall leave his Father and Mother, that the event is also of life-changing significance. Furthermore, in identifying the Church as consisting of Jesus’ own members, Paul explains Scriptural references to the attribute of the Church as the “Body of Christ” as being of Christ’s substance in a possessive sense, in perfect harmony with the account in
Genesis 2:18-22 of the creation of Eve out of Adam’s flesh and bone, excerpts of which are given below.

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help fit for him. . . And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”

In repeating the words of Adam in the Garden and of Jesus in Matthew 19, both in the context of marriage and the physical union between a man and his wife, Paul, by placing this marital union in the context of Jesus and His Church, plainly stated that the Church will be the spiritual Bride of Christ.

In developing in more detail the interpretation of the Church as being “the Body of Christ”, in Paul’s commentary in Ephesians 5: 28, that So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, Paul emphasizes the image developed in the restatement of Adam’s commentary regarding Eve of two becoming one flesh such that in the marital union the wife is considered to be the man’s body. Here Paul extends the image of the wife being the body of the man to Christ and His Church, in line with an alternate description of the Church as the Body of Christ.

Romans 7:4 and elsewhere

Multiple passages in Romans 7:4 and elsewhere, including 1 Corinthians 2:15-20, corroborate Jesus’ marriage to His Church; beyond that, they identify the union as creatively productive.

“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.”

“Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I, then, take the members of Christ, and make them into the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? Know ye not that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is outside the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

These passages of Romans 7:4 and 1 Corinthians 2:15-20 echo the numerous allusions in addition to Ephesians 5:31 and 32 that Jesus and those closest to Him made to His own future marriage. They describe the spiritual nature of the Church and her intimate relationship to Jesus as both a feminine spouse and the spiritual Body of Christ through the union of gendered complements capable of bearing fruit.

Another passage of that nature is John 3:29, which quotes John the Baptist in reference to Jesus’ spiritual marriage.

“He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice; this my joy, therefore, is fulfilled.”

In addition to New Testament pointers to Church in a bridal/marital context, there are at least two strong indicators of the same in the Old Testament in Genesis 24 and the Book of Ruth.

Genesis 24 describes the betrothal and marriage of Rebekah to Isaac. In Genesis 22 God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, which identifies Isaac as a type of Jesus Christ. In line with that identification, Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah identifies her as a type of Christ’s bride. According to Galatians 3:28, in which spiritual individuals do not possess gender, this bridehood cannot be fulfilled in individuals: the fulfillment must come for a collection or aggregate of individuals, which would suggest the Church. This identification of the Church as the Bride of Christ is strengthened by Paul’s characterization of the Church in 1 Corinthians 12 as a collection of individuals, each possessing specific gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In the Book of Ruth, Ruth’s husband Boaz is routinely identified by the Church as the Kinsman-redeemer, a type of Christ. It follows that Ruth, a female, represents His spiritual Wife, the Church.

Not only is the future bride of Jesus feminine, but she is a living being, as clearly stated in Matthew 22: 31, 32:

But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

John 2:1-12

Jesus first miracle described in John 2:1-12, the wedding in Cana wherein He changed water into wine, is prophetic of His own future marriage to His Church. The prophetic nature of the passage is emphasized in Jesus’ words that “Mine hour is not yet come”. The event identifies Jesus as anticipating with joy His own future spiritual marriage. The fact that this was Jesus’ first miracle highlights its significance.

“And the third day there was a marriage in Cana, of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they lacked wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatever he saith unto you, do it.

“And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw some out now, and bear it unto the governor of the feast. And they bore it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not from where it was (but the servants who drew the water knew), the governor of the feast called the bridegroom. And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine and, when men have well drunk, that that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now.

“This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana, of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him. After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples; and they continued there not many days.”

In the parables of the marriage feast (Matthew 22) and the ten virgins (Matthew 25), Jesus further describes His own future marriage without ambiguity as an important and joyful occasion.

Isaiah 54, as a follow-on to the great messianic Chapter 53, is another passionate statement of Jesus’ future marriage and is summarized as such by Paul in Galatians 4:27.

“For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she who hath an husband.”

In Isaiah 54, from which this passage was extracted, verses 5 through 7 amplify its meaning:

“For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies with I gather thee.”

Song of Solomon

The Song of Solomon is a romantic, explicit depiction of the bonding between male and female; Chapter 5:10-16 typify the romantic flavor of this book:

“My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is like the most fine gold, his locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are like the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are like a bed of spices, like sweet flowers; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are like gold rings set with the beryl; his belly is like bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are like pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold; his countenance is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet; yea, his is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.”

Why, if the spiritual domain is genderless, would this overtly sexual document be a part of the Bible? This imagery would have no place in the canon of Scripture if gender was not a vital attribute in the spiritual realm. If such were to be the case, the entire Song would be utterly superfluous.

REVISITING FRIEND OF THE FAMILY

REVISITING FRIEND OF THE FAMILY

Several years have passed since I posted my initial Friend of the Family entries on this blog site. My motivation at the time for those postings was my conviction, in the face of general Church tradition to the contrary, that the Holy Spirit possessed a gender, and that moreover that gender was feminine.

Back then I included several Scripturally-based reasons for my contention of the femininity of the Holy Spirit. Now, several years later, that conviction remains. It is, in fact, stronger than ever. Over the years since those initial postings, a number of additional Scriptural suggestions of that femininity have come to my attention. In the next few postings I’ll share with you a more comprehensive set of Scriptural suggestions that point to a feminine Holy Spirit. But first, before developing them in logical fashion, I’ll summarize here all the suggestions that come to mind at this point in time.

These suggestions are developed in three phases. In the first phase, the full functional nature of Jesus’ spiritual marriage to His Church is presented as a means of countering the prevailing Christian misunderstanding of that marriage as being without significant substance, as that marriage is an important element of the association of the Holy Spirit with femininity. In the second phase, rebuttals are presented against claims that the Holy Spirit is not feminine. Thirdly, overt Scriptural suggestions of the femininity of the Holy Spirit are presented.

FUNCTIONAL MARRIAGE BETWEEN JESUS AND HIS CHURCH

Paul’s stunning statement in Ephesians 5:31,32 regarding Jesus’ marriage to His Church contains multiple elements that identify this marriage as much more than merely a figure of speech.

Romans 7:4 corroborates Jesus’ marriage to His Church; beyond that, it identifies the union as creatively productive.

Jesus first miracle described in John 2, the wedding in Cana, identifies Jesus as anticipating with joy His own future spiritual marriage.

In the parables of the marriage feast (Matthew 22) and the ten virgins (Matthew 25), Jesus describes His own future marriage without ambiguity as an important and joyful occasion.

Isaiah 54, as a follow-on to the great messianic Chapter 53, is a passionate statement of Jesus’ future marriage and is summarized as such by Paul in Galatians 4:27.

The Song of Solomon is a romantic, explicit depiction of the bonding between male and female; it would not belong in the Bible if gender had no place in the spiritual realm

SUMMARY OF REBUTTALS TO CLAIMS THAT HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT FEMININE

The claim has been made that since Galatians 3:28 and Matthew 22:29,30 describe humans in the spiritual realm as being gender-neutral, the spiritual realm doesn’t involve gender. This myopic and unjustified extension of statements beyond their meanings fails to take into account that whereas spiritual individuals will not be gendered, the Church, as an aggregate of individual components, will be gendered.

Jeremiah 10:12, in which God describes power and wisdom as belonging to Him, is cited as indicative that these are God’s own attributes. This claim fails to comprehend that the union between God and the Holy Spirit, being a romantic one, is also possessive. God here is speaking of the mutually possessive nature of marriage.

The “He” issue, for which the Holy Spirit is referred to in Scripture by masculine pronouns, may be resolved in two distinct ways, both of which permit the Holy Spirit to be viewed as functionally feminine while being composed of a masculine or neuter substance. Scripture’s treatment of spiritual humanity furnishes ample justification for viewing the HolyH Spirit to be functionally feminine and compositionally masculine, as suggested by Paul’s description of spiritual mankind as genderless in the face of his description of mankind’s aggregate as the Church as the wife of Christ. In the alternate but equally valid view there is also ample justification for appreciating that in the original autographs in the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, the Holy Spirit was perceived as feminine. Examples include John 14:26 in the version recorded in the Siniatic Palimpsest, Isiah 51:9,10 and Romans 9:25.

Scripture itself contradicts claims that God might be above the romance and passion intrinsic to a fully-functional spiritual marriage. Examples include the Song of Solomon, Jesus’ passion in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus’ discourse on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24).

Many theologians insist upon interpreting the feminine imagery in the Book of Proverbs as simply figures of speech. Correspondingly, Proverbs is depersonalized, being considered at most an attribute of the Godhead. This view is contradicted by the intensely personal nature of Proverbs 3 and 8 and their link to the role of the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:1,2. It is further disallowed by the direct personalization of Wisdom and the equation of Wisdom with the Holy Spirit in the Book of Wisdom, which is canonical in the Catholic religion.

Many pastors, having interpreted 1 Timothy 2 as limiting the role of women in Church, shy away from the thought of conferring Godhood on a female. Given the general responsive role of women as described in Scripture and Eve’s obvious misapplication of that role, Paul’s commentary in 1 Corinthians 2 actually supports the notion of a feminine Holy Spirit.

Some pastors point to mention of the Church as the Body of Christ in Ephesians 5 and elsewhere as conflicting with a meaningful role for the Church as the Bride of Christ. A careful reading of Ephesians 5 contradicts this apparent conflict: Ephesians 5:31 directly identifies the male/female union as a mutual ownership of each other. This ownership, in a possessive sense, assigns the wife’s (Church’s) body as the body of her husband.

There is a centuries-long tradition within virtually all Western Churches of a male Holy Spirit. A feminine Holy Spirit would go against the grain of this tradition. However, tradition isn’t Scripture, there are readily understandable reasons as to why the switch from the original was made, and there are understandable, albeit selfish, reasons as to why there haven’t been more disputes in that regard over the years.

SUMMARY OF SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Shekinah Glory who indwelt the Tabernacle in the Wilderness (Exodus 40) and Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 8) is recognized as feminine. This same Shekinah Glory is intimately linked to the Holy Spirit through the corresponding indwelling of Christians who are described in 1 Corinthians 3 and Ephesians 2 as living temples of God.

The only logical way that the Judeo-Christian monotheism may be reconciled to the general Judeo-Christian understanding of the Godhead as being a Trinity is to perceive the Godhead as representing a tightly-knit Family.

Through passages that describe Her presence alongside the Divine Father during the creation epic, the female Persona in the Book of Proverbs is identified as the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ fully functional marriage to His Church demonstrates the existence of gender and its associate romance in the spiritual domain.

Genesis 1:27 and 28 links the creation of man in God’s image as possessing gender; in Genesis 2 verses 18, 21 and 22 the detail of Eve’s formation out of Adam as being highly suggestive of the counterpart formation of the Holy Spirit out of the Father.

In Genesis 5, Adam and Eve are both named Adam, suggesting that Eve, while being functionally feminine, is also named after her masculine counterpart. This naming convention furnishes some justification for describing the Holy Spirit with masculine pronouns, although it should be kept in mind that the original Hebrew described the Holy Spirit in feminine terms.

It is generally recognized and specifically noted by Bible scholars that Scripture depicts the Holy Spirit as operating in an executive function, responsive to the Father’s Will. A responsive nature is distinctly feminine.Executive. Genesis 1:1,2 furnishes a specific example of the Holy Spirit operating responsively to the Father.

There are indications that the original Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptural texts depicted the Holy Spirit as feminine. Of particular interest in that regard is the Siniatic Palimpsest, in which Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as feminine.

The Book of Wisdom, which is canonical in the Catholic Bible, presents the Holy Spirit as feminine and directly links Her to Wisdom as presented in the Book of Proverbs.

Chapter 3 of the Gospel of John describes the Holy Spirit as possessing the function of spiritual birth. Birth, of course, is an eminently feminine attribute.

WHAT’S REALLY WRONG WITH AMERICA

 

 

WHAT’S REALLY WRONG WITH AMERICA

 

 

Sincere as our presidential hopefuls may be about “fixing” America’s woes, their focus on the fundamental cause of our problems isn’t quite laser-sharp.   Perhaps the reason for this is that their first objective is to get elected, and they’re attempting to appeal to what the majority of Americans perceive to be the basic problem.  The drawback of this is that mainstream America seems to be as clueless of the real issue as Germany was back in Hitler’s heyday.

 

Whatever the reason for their avoidance of the most pressing problem with America, the fundamental issue with America is crystal-clear to a segment of our population that now finds itself to be in the minority: committed Christians.  As they well know, things started to fall apart when God was dismissed from the public conscience, and the only way that America can retrieve its former glory is to invite God back into the public square.  Knowing their Bibles, they can point to the precedent of Israel’s decline from her former greatness following her public rejection of God.

 

I had addressed this issue in my novel Jacob, the third in the four-book Buddy series.  I’ll let Earl, one of my main characters, do the talking here as he did in Chapter Nineteen of that novel.

 

“Hi, everybody,” he began.  “I already had a talk on my mind for this morning, but I suddenly realized that there’s a more important topic that needs to be addressed.  So if you’ll bear with me, I’m going to speak out of my heart, calling upon support from the Holy Spirit rather than my usual notes.  If I were going to give the subject a title, I guess that ‘What’s Really Wrong with America’ would be as good a one as any.  I don’t need to tell anyone here that there’s something wrong.”  His statement of the obvious brought a few half-hearted laughs, but the mouths of most turned grim.

 

“What really happened to America started before most of us were born,” Earl continued.  “Like a serious disease such as cancer, it started slowly, with hardly any symptoms at all.  Only when it got to the terminal stage did we all become aware of what had happened, but by then it was too late.

 

“What was this dreadful disease?  I’ll tell you what it wasn’t.  It wasn’t a failure of leadership.  Nor was it a takeover by unprincipled, self-absorbed rulers who cared nothing for our God-given American constitution.  The sickness is a disease of the heart, of our indifference toward the Judeo-Christian God who played such a vital part in the founding of the American dream.  This disease didn’t turn our leaders into evil, vicious persons.  It infected us instead, creating the environment in which evil people could thrive and prosper.

 

“The sickness began within four of the institutional systems upon which we base our understanding of the world around us.  The first of these is the secular media, which provide us with news and entertainment; the second is the scientific community; the third is our schools, wherein our children are supplied with a formalized version of knowledge; and the fourth is our seminaries, which supposedly offer us a specialized knowledge of God.  These institutions were the first to get sick, and then the disease metastasized from there, branching out to infect the general public.

 

“The secular media was infiltrated long ago by selfish, godless people, to whom the physical world in which we reside is the only world there is because that’s the way they want it to be.  They were repulsed by the thought of some higher being looking over their shoulders, or knowing their thoughts, which probably did run into some colorful fantasies and mean-spirited notions.  But in their torrid love affair with their own minds, they embraced the ever-expanding world of science as much as they were put off by religion.  In their wholesale rush to glorify mankind’s scientific achievements, they bought into some very bad and very false ideas, being so incredibly shallow of mind as to unthinkingly accept these ideas simply because they were generated by so-called experts in the field.

 

“The sources of these very bad and very false ideas were people of the same kind of godless self-absorption as the media representatives.  Encouraged by the adoring media, they assumed the intellectual authority of the God they had in mind to replace.  The only difference between these self-styled scientists and their media counterparts is that the scientists possessed some knowledge of the subject upon which they made such weighty pronouncements.  But their education in some cases actually was as sparse or nearly so, as that of the public at large, because the scientific disciplines were in their infancy, with very little knowledge to be obtained through formal training.  Such was the case in the fields of natural history, geology, and biology.   I could go into a very detailed expose of the reasons why, for example, the theory of evolution is a misleading, dead-end path, but time doesn’t permit that.  The reasons involve some very important and revealing scientific discoveries in the field of biology by Darwin’s far more knowledgeable modern counterparts.  If any of you are truly interested, see me after this meeting and we’ll set up a workshop on the subject.

 

“But just as the media controllers bought into false scientific notions that confirmed and increased their distance from God, so did the educators, who also infiltrated the school system all the way from kindergarten to the great universities.  John Dewey was among the worst of that lot.  After assuming dictatorial power over the machinery of public education, this godless Marxist developed curricula that opposed Christianity at every turn.  His ideas also began to sway students away from nationalism into a world citizenry, and fostered quasi-scientific notions that supported our alienation from God.  His most devastating weapon was his appreciation that he wouldn’t accomplish his objectives in a day, or even in a decade or a generation.  His gradual insertion of bad ideas into the classroom began in the classrooms of the teaching colleges, infecting the teachers first with false notions, and letting them be his unwitting tools in disseminating his notions to the public at large.

 

“The same thing happened in our seminaries, the schools that supposedly train men and women for Christian service as pastors, chaplains and religious instructors.  Just as John Dewey infiltrated the secular teaching system, so did self-centered and basically godless men invade the seminaries, attempting to turn theology into a strictly intellectual endeavor.  They elbowed God aside with their false theories that the Bible was nothing more than a work of man, and attempted to strengthen that assertion on the basis of literary reviews that claimed various books to be written by several authors and at widely different dates, all of which were established on the false presupposition that prophesies could not have involved a God-given knowledge of the future.  Not all, but way too many of the pastors that came out of these wicked seminaries were just as self-centered as the secular educators.  After having avidly internalized the false teachings to which they were exposed, they lost their focus on God, which was tenuous to begin with, and concentrated instead on the task of creating successful income-producing congregations based on the false pictures of God which they had uncritically embraced.

 

“So what?  What is the bottom line in all this?  It is that the public at large perceives that the Bible was a work of man and riddled with errors and fuzzy, unsophisticated and basically meaningless passages.  In line with that understanding, the God of that Bible is seen as either imaginary or a very distant and essentially alien being.  Considering the Bible to be less than profound, the general public long ago released itself from the odious task of attempting to read it.  Refusing to understand the Bible as the only reliable Word of God, these same people lost most of their knowledge and understanding of God.  In the end, God became to them at best a stern taskmaster and at worst a distant, alien being who was entirely indifferent to the daily affairs of mankind.   Perceiving God in that way, they themselves distanced and alienated themselves from Him.

 

“But as history has demonstrated time and again, mankind needs God.  We certainly need God for the salvation that offers us a ticket into the next world, for which there’s reason to believe that it’s much more colorful and real than this one.  But we also need God’s Word and the Holy Spirit to impart to us the selfless nobility that is so necessary for us to get along with each other in this lesser world.  Without the lofty standards established by God for human interaction, the world quickly descends into mean-spirited, selfish, hate-driven acts of people showing unkindness toward each other for their own profit.  It becomes an insane hell of our own making.  Does anyone doubt that this is exactly what has happened outside these doors?

 

“I’ll wind up today’s talk on that sour note.  But think about the implications.  The solution of our present distress isn’t about patriotism or patriotic acts.  We lost our patriotism to America when we lost our patriotism toward God.  Our forefathers knew their God in an intimate way that is almost completely lost to us.  They had their eyes on a greater world than our material realm.  They knew, for example, what Paul had to say about that other, better world.”  Earl picked up his Bible from the upended box beside him and turned to First Corinthians Chapter 2.

 

“’But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.  For what man knoweth the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him?  Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’

 

“That, my friends,” Earl said as he looked out to the audience, “is what we have lost in maintaining our focus on the material world to the exclusion of the spiritual realm.  But it is in the spiritual world that the biggest battle is being waged.  Paul was very clear about that.”  He turned to Ephesians Chapter 6 and continued reading from it.

 

“’For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.  Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.  Stand, therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, with which ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spriti, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds; that in this I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.’

 

“Now, after hearing that, let me ask you: is it better to contribute our own violence to the mess we are surrounded with, or rather should we turn back to God and, as Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, show our love of God to the world by loving our enemies, no matter what that might cost us?  While you’re thinking about that, you might offer a prayer for me and all your fellow Christians that, like Paul, we may receive from the Holy Spirit the courage to continue speaking out about our convictions.”

 

 

UFOs CONTINUATION #4

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 7 (CONTINUATION #4)

 

 

Chapter 7: Biblical Accounts of UFOs (Continued)

 

 

Example 18 – Luke 24:1-7:

 

“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.  And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcherRemember how he spoke unto you when He was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.” 

 

 

Example 19 – Luke 24:13-32:

 

“And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.  And they talked together of all these things which had happened.  And it came to pass that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them.  But their eyes were holden that they should not recognize him.  And He said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one with another, as ye walk, and are sad?  And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering, said unto Him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast no known the things which are come to pass there in these days?  And He said unto them, What things?  And they said unto Him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and have crucified Him.  But we hoped that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel; and, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.  Yea, and certain women also of our company amazed us, who were early at the sepulcher; and wen they found not His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that He was alive.

 

“And certain of those who were with us went to the sepulcher, and found it even as the women had said; but Him they saw not.  Then he said unto them, O foolishe ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself.

 

“And they drew near unto the village, to which they went; and He made as though He would have gone farther.  But they constrained Him, saying Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.  And He went in to tarry with them.  And it came to pass, as He sat eating with them, He took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them.  And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished out of their sight.  And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us along the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?”

 

Example 20 – Acts 8:1-4, 9:1-1-9

 

“And Saul was consenting unto [Stephen’s] death.  And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judah and Samaria, except the apostles.  And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.  As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.  Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.”

 

“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

 

“And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

 

“And he said, Who art thou, Lord?  And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

 

“And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?  And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

 

“And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.  And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.  And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.”

 

The following excerpts from the Bible, which are merely ‘tips of the iceberg’, demonstrate how thoroughly this encounter turned Paul’s life around.

 

Example 21 – Acts 9:10-20, Romans 1:1-8:

 

“And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias.  And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.

 

          “And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.

 

          “Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name.

 

          “But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

 

          “Paul [Saul], a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

          “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.”

         

Here again we see evidence that the encounter imparted wisdom; it totally and permanently changed Saul’s mentality and his life.

 

Example 22 – Hebrews 13:2:

 

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

 

Example 23 – Revelation 1:9-20:

 

“I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

 

          “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

 

          “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me.  And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the food, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.  His head and his hairs were white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.  And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

 

          “And when I saw him, I fell at his feed as dead.  And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and death.

 

          “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks.  The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”

 

This close encounter follows a pattern that is seen throughout the Bible, that of an apparition who imparts wisdom and understanding that reaches out beyond our human abilities and our conception of time.  In every case, the knowledge and information dovetails perfectly with other parts of the Bible, contributing to a consistent whole.

 

The involvement of past UFOs in Scripture should not be surprising.  Given our faith in the God of Judeo-Christian tradition, we must necessarily assume that if UFOs exist, God is involved.  As Creator of the universe He created all that exists within it, including the things we call UFOs regardless of whether they exist within or outside our imaginations.  It matters very little whether these objects are primarily physical or spiritual, for even the casual reader of the Bible knows that God’s domain includes both.  In that sense, our own technological wonders, our Mars rovers and space shuttles, including their operators, belong to God.  This is anything but a trivial issue.  The notion of UFOs as technology-adept aliens comes straight out of the more far-reaching notion that God as an Entity who is personally involved in and relevant to our lives does not exist.  The fact that most of us fail to appreciate is that our understanding of the ultimate ownership of our universe is perhaps the most influential element of how we have perceived UFO events in the past, and of whether we consider them to be basically good or evil.

 

Regardless of their origin, however, their current reputation is not so good, and at least part of the blame can be placed on their behavior toward us.   Based on their perceived secrecy, apparent indifference toward humans, and the terror which they evoke in those whom they abduct, it would seem reasonable to suggest that they come from the wrong side of the good-bad line.   Perhaps some of them do.  But as one reviews the many abduction accounts and their supposed horrors, one gets the unmistakable impression that the most terrifying aspect of these encounters is the lack of control experienced by the abductees: being under the absolute dominance of their captor conflicts sharply with their materialistic, probably godless view of life and their place in it.  Accustomed to perceiving themselves as self-driven, they are forced to confront an absolute powerlessness to escape the situation or to influence the unfolding of the event.  In Witnessed, Budd Hopkins captures the essence of this aspect:

 

“When UFO abductees come upon evidence that, for them, confirms the physical reality of their encounters, their reactions are invariably shock and depression.  No one I have ever worked with has indicated pleasure or relief at any kind of confirming news.  Treating their UFO memories as earthly, explainable dreams or fantasies is for abductees a necessary hope, a bulwark of denial against the unthinkable.  But when that protective dam bursts and the abductees’ tightly held systems of defense are swept away, they are left with a frightening and intolerable truth.”

 

For many ‘victims’, the experience flies in the face of the way they were taught to believe regarding the ultimate independence of the individual, their understanding of themselves as being masters of their own destinies.  Most of us, whether our backgrounds were religious or not, tend to compartmentalize our religious meditations, separating them from the everyday reality of our lives.  When we think of God, we perceive our thoughts to be of our own volition, another exercise of free will.  We rarely perceive our relation with God in terms of His absolute dominance over our lives.  For the most part, God appears to be content with this arrangement.

 

But there are significant exceptions.  A review of the encounters experienced by Daniel, Paul, and John, for example, demonstrates quite clearly that they were life-altering events.  The experiences had many of the same characteristics of modern UFO abductions.  They involved discomfort and terror as well, even for these individuals who had an unusually intimate relationship with God.

 

I would suggest that if the modern abduction experience is perceived as a negative one, it is because the absolute dominance of the ‘occupants’ over their subjects conflicts so greatly with the secular world view held by most of us.  Should we blame the UFOs for this, or should we instead understand how far from God we have put ourselves?  Having made that general commentary, we shall turn next to specific details of UFO involvement in our secularly-described history, and of how these details relate to our religious past.

 

 

 

 

UFOs CHAPTER 7 (CONTINUATION #3)

 

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 7 (CONTINUATION #3)

 

 

Chapter 7: Biblical Accounts of UFOs (Continued)

 

 

Example 13 – Ezekiel 2:1-3:

 

“And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.  And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.  And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.”

 

A great many present-day Jews and Christians consider Ezekiel’s ‘dry bones’ prophecy in the 36^th chapter to have had a remarkably accurate fulfillment in the restoration of the State of Israel following World War II.

 

Example 14 – Daniel 10:5-21, 12:1-13:

 

“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

 

“And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves.  Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength.  Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground. 

 

“And, behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands.  And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent.  And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.

 

“Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.  But the prince of Persia withstood me for one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

 

“Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the visions is for many days.

 

“And when he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb.  And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength.  For how can the servant of this my lord talk with this my lord? For as for me, straightway there remained no strength in me, neither is there breath left in me.

 

“Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me, And said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee; be strong, yea, be strong.  And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me.

 

“Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come.  But I will show thee that which is noted in the Scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince.”

 

 

“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.  And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall, awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.  And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever.

 

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

 

“Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river.  And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?  And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever, that it shall be for a time, times, and a half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.

 

“And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?

 

“And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.  Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.  And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.  Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

 

“But go thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”

 

The ‘angel’ who appeared to Daniel would be treated as a ‘Close Encounter of the Third Kind’ today. These passages in Daniel were so prophetically accurate that they have come under severe attack by secular skeptics over the past century with respect to their actual dating.  There is much reason, as developed in detail by Grant Jeffrey and other theologians, to consider these attacks to be void of any merit whatsoever.

 

Example 15 – John 24-29:

 

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, as not with them when Jesus came.  The other disciples, therefore, said unto him, We have seen the Lord.  But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.  And, after eight days, again hi disciples were inside, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

 

“Then said He to Thomas, Reach here thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach here thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.  And Thomas answered, and said unto Him, My Lord and my God.

 

“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

 

Example 16 – John 21:4-14:

 

“But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.  Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any food? They answered Him, No.  And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat and ye shall find.  They cast, therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fish.  Therefore, the disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord.  Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the lord, he girt his fisher’ coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea.  And the other disciples came in a little boat (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fish.  As soon, then, as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread.  Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.  Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fish, an hundred and fifty and three; and although there were so many, yet was not the net broken.

 

“Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine.  And none of the disciples dared ask Him, who art thou? Knowing that it was the Lord.  Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.  This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to his disciples, after he was risen from the dead.”

 

Example 17 – Luke 1:26-38:

 

“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.  And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

 

“And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

 

“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God.  And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

 

“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

 

“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.  And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.  For with God nothing shall be impossible.

 

“And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.  And the angel departed from her.”

 

It would be interesting to know what these angels actually looked like to Daniel and Mary.  What is certain is that they both perceived these apparitions to be other than merely human.

 

[to be continued]

 

 

UFOs CHAPTER 7 (CONTINUATION #2)

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 7 (CONTINUATION #2)

 

CHAPTER 7: Biblical Accounts of UFOs (Continued)

 

 

 

Example 13 – Ezekiel 2:1-3:

 

“And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.  And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.”

 

A great many present-day Jews and Christians consider Ezekiel’s ‘dry bones’ prophecy in the 36^th chapter to have had a remarkably accurate fulfillment in the restoration of the State of Israel following World War II.

 

Example 14 – Daniel 10:5-21, 12:1-13:

 

“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

 

“And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength.  Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground. 

 

“And, behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent.  And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.

 

“Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of Persia withstood me for one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

 

“Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the visions is for many days.

 

“And when he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb. And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength.  For how can the servant of this my lord talk with this my lord? For as for me, straightway there remained no strength in me, neither is there breath left in me.

 

“Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me, And said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee; be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me.

 

“Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come.  But I will show thee that which is noted in the Scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince.”

 

 

“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall, awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.  And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever.

 

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

 

“Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river. And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?  And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever, that it shall be for a time, times, and a half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.

 

“And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?

 

“And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.  And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.  Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

 

“But go thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”

 

The ‘angel’ who appeared to Daniel would be treated as a ‘Close Encounter of the Third Kind’ today. These passages in Daniel were so prophetically accurate that they have come under severe attack by secular skeptics over the past century with respect to their actual dating. There is much reason, as developed in detail by Grant Jeffrey and other theologians, to consider these attacks to be void of any merit whatsoever.

 

Example 15 – John 24-29:

 

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, as not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples, therefore, said unto him, We have seen the Lord.  But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.  And, after eight days, again hi disciples were inside, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

 

“Then said He to Thomas, Reach here thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach here thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered, and said unto Him, My Lord and my God.

 

“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

 

Example 16 – John 21:4-14:

 

“But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any food? They answered Him, No.  And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat and ye shall find.  They cast, therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fish.  Therefore, the disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord.  Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the lord, he girt his fisher’ coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea.  And the other disciples came in a little boat (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fish.  As soon, then, as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread.  Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.  Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fish, an hundred and fifty and three; and although there were so many, yet was not the net broken.

 

“Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples dared ask Him, who art thou? Knowing that it was the Lord.  Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.  This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to his disciples, after he was risen from the dead.”

 

Example 17 – Luke 1:26-38:

 

“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

 

“And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

 

“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

 

“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

 

“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.  For with God nothing shall be impossible.

 

“And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.”

 

It would be interesting to know what these angels actually looked like to Daniel and Mary. What is certain is that they both perceived these apparitions to be other than merely human.

 

Example 18 – Luke 24:1-7:

 

“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcherRemember how he spoke unto you when He was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.” 

 

 

Example 19 – Luke 24:13-32:

 

“And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.  And they talked together of all these things which had happened.  And it came to pass that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them.  But their eyes were holden that they should not recognize him.  And He said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one with another, as ye walk, and are sad?  And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering, said unto Him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast no known the things which are come to pass there in these days?  And He said unto them, What things?  And they said unto Him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and have crucified Him.  But we hoped that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel; and, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.  Yea, and certain women also of our company amazed us, who were early at the sepulcher; and wen they found not His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that He was alive.

 

“And certain of those who were with us went to the sepulcher, and found it even as the women had said; but Him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O foolishe ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself.

 

“And they drew near unto the village, to which they went; and He made as though He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.  And He went in to tarry with them.  And it came to pass, as He sat eating with them, He took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them.  And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished out of their sight.  And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us along the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?”

 

Example 20 – Acts 8:1-4, 9:1-1-9

 

“And Saul was consenting unto [Stephen’s] death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judah and Samaria, except the apostles.  And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.  As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.  Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.”

 

“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

 

“And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

 

“And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

 

“And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

 

“And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.  And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.”

 

The following excerpts from the Bible, which are merely ‘tips of the iceberg’, demonstrate how thoroughly this encounter turned Paul’s life around.

 

Example 21 – Acts 9:10-20, Romans 1:1-8:

 

“And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias.  And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.

 

          “And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.

 

          “Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name.

 

          “But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

 

          “Paul [Saul], a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

          “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.”

         

Here again we see evidence that the encounter imparted wisdom; it totally and permanently changed Saul’s mentality and his life.

 

Example 22 – Hebrews 13:2:

 

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

 

Example 23 – Revelation 1:9-20:

 

“I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

 

          “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

 

          “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me.  And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the food, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.  His head and his hairs were white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.  And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

 

          “And when I saw him, I fell at his feed as dead.  And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and death.

 

          “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks.  The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”

 

This close encounter follows a pattern that is seen throughout the Bible, that of an apparition who imparts wisdom and understanding that reaches out beyond our human abilities and our conception of time.  In every case, the knowledge and information dovetails perfectly with other parts of the Bible, contributing to a consistent whole.

 

The involvement of past UFOs in Scripture should not be surprising.  Given our faith in the God of Judeo-Christian tradition, we must necessarily assume that if UFOs exist, God is involved.  As Creator of the universe He created all that exists within it, including the things we call UFOs regardless of whether they exist within or outside our imaginations.  It matters very little whether these objects are primarily physical or spiritual, for even the casual reader of the Bible knows that God’s domain includes both.  In that sense, our own technological wonders, our Mars rovers and space shuttles, including their operators, belong to God.  This is anything but a trivial issue.  The notion of UFOs as technology-adept aliens comes straight out of the more far-reaching notion that God as an Entity who is personally involved in and relevant to our lives does not exist.  The fact that most of us fail to appreciate is that our understanding of the ultimate ownership of our universe is perhaps the most influential element of how we have perceived UFO events in the past, and of whether we consider them to be basically good or evil.

 

Regardless of their origin, however, their current reputation is not so good, and at least part of the blame can be placed on their behavior toward us.   Based on their perceived secrecy, apparent indifference toward humans, and the terror which they evoke in those whom they abduct, it would seem reasonable to suggest that they come from the wrong side of the good-bad line.   Perhaps some of them do.  But as one reviews the many abduction accounts and their supposed horrors, one gets the unmistakable impression that the most terrifying aspect of these encounters is the lack of control experienced by the abductees: being under the absolute dominance of their captor conflicts sharply with their materialistic, probably godless view of life and their place in it.  Accustomed to perceiving themselves as self-driven, they are forced to confront an absolute powerlessness to escape the situation or to influence the unfolding of the event.  In Witnessed, Budd Hopkins captures the essence of this aspect:

 

“When UFO abductees come upon evidence that, for them, confirms the physical reality of their encounters, their reactions are invariably shock and depression. No one I have ever worked with has indicated pleasure or relief at any kind of confirming news.  Treating their UFO memories as earthly, explainable dreams or fantasies is for abductees a necessary hope, a bulwark of denial against the unthinkable.  But when that protective dam bursts and the abductees’ tightly held systems of defense are swept away, they are left with a frightening and intolerable truth.”

 

For many ‘victims’, the experience flies in the face of the way they were taught to believe regarding the ultimate independence of the individual, their understanding of themselves as being masters of their own destinies.  Most of us, whether our backgrounds were religious or not, tend to compartmentalize our religious meditations, separating them from the everyday reality of our lives.  When we think of God, we perceive our thoughts to be of our own volition, another exercise of free will.  We rarely perceive our relation with God in terms of His absolute dominance over our lives.  For the most part, God appears to be content with this arrangement.

 

But there are significant exceptions.  A review of the encounters experienced by Daniel, Paul, and John, for example, demonstrates quite clearly that they were life-altering events.  The experiences had many of the same characteristics of modern UFO abductions.  They involved discomfort and terror as well, even for these individuals who had an unusually intimate relationship with God.

 

I would suggest that if the modern abduction experience is perceived as a negative one, it is because the absolute dominance of the ‘occupants’ over their subjects conflicts so greatly with the secular world view held by most of us.  Should we blame the UFOs for this, or should we instead understand how far from God we have put ourselves?  Having made that general commentary, we shall turn next to specific details of UFO involvement in our secularly-described history, and of how these details relate to our religious past.

 

 

 

 

UFOs Chapter 7 (Continuation #1)

 

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND UFOS CHAPTER 7 (CONTINUATION #1)

 

 

CHAPTER 7: Biblical Accounts of UFOs (Continued)

 

Example 7 – Exodus 40:34-38:

 

“Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

 

“And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys; but if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

 

This event occurred again when Solomon dedicated the first temple, as recorded in 1 Kings 8:10-13:

 

“And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.

 

“Then spoke Solomon, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in forever.”

 

 

Example 8 – Joshua 1:1-11:

 

          “Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.

 

          “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.  From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.

 

          “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

 

          “Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for and inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.  Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn no from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

 

          “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

 

          “Have I not commanded thee?  Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

 

          “Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.”

 

Example 9 – Joshua 5:13-15:

 

“And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?

          “And he sad, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.  And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?

          “And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.  And Joshua did so.

 

Example 10 – Joshua 6:2-5, 15,16,20:

 

“And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thy hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor.  And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once.  Thus shalt thou do six days.  And seven priest shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.  And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.”

 

“And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city.”

 

“So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.”

 

As in the case with Moses before him, Joshua’s adventures were accompanied with signs and miracles. Also as with Moses, his adventures were preceded by the sighting of an apparition, who commanded him to display courage.

 

Example 11 – 2 Kings 2:1-13:

 

“And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel.  And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.  So they went down to Bethel.  And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today?  And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.

 

          “And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan.  And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.  And they two went on.  And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off: and they two stood by Jordan.

 

          “And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground.

 

          “And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I shall be taken away from thee.  And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.  And he said, thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.

 

          “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

 

          “And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!  And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces.  He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan.”

 

Here is what we would call a classic UFO abduction case, complete with the UFO itself. Did this encounter affect Elisha thereafter?  We see in 2 Kings 2:14, 15 the answer:

 

“And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.

 

“And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.  And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

 

Example 12 – Ezekiel 1:1-28:

 

“Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the

fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity, The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.

 

          “And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.  Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures.  And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.  And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.  And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass.  And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.  Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.  As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.  Thus were their faces; and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.  And they went every one straight forward: wither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.  As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.  And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

 

“Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.  When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went.  As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.  And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.  Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

 

“And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the color of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other: every one had two, which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies.

 

“And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of a host: when they stood, they let down their wings. And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings.

 

“And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.  As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about.  This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.  And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.”

 

This event has been thoroughly revisited by modern writers, who note the obvious correspondence with recent UFO sightings. Here again, as in modern sightings with a religious flavor, the sighting had a long-term impact on the witness.  There is abundant evidence in the chapters in Ezekiel that follow that great prophetic wisdom was imparted to Ezekiel.  His life was changed forever as he followed the prophetic command noted below.

 

[to be continued]

 

 

UFOs CHAPTER 7

 

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY

 

 

Chapter 7: Biblical Accounts of UFOs

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is an indisputable fact that the Bible contains numerous accounts of the appearance of God or His angelic representatives to man, and even of the direct intervention of God into the affairs of mankind.  Because of their otherworldly nature, we might rightly call many of these events UFO experiences.  Several of the more well-known examples are given below:

 

Example 1 – Genesis 6:1-4:

 

“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all whom they chose.

 

“And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

 

“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children unto them, the same became mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”

 

Example 2 – Genesis 14:18-20:

 

“And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the most high God.  And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be the most high God, who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.  And he gave him tithes of all.”

 

Example 3 – Genesis 18:1-5, 16-23, 19:15-17:

 

“And the Lord appeared unto [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, And said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant.  And they said, So do, as thou hast said.”

 

“And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.  And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations shall be blessed in him?  For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

 

 “And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

 

“And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord.

 

“And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?”

 

“And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.  And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.

 

“And it came to pass, when they brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.”

 

This account does not mention how the men first appeared to Abraham.  They could have appeared suddenly, simply walked into sight, or have arrived in a craft before or at the time Abraham sighted them.  There is every indication, on the other hand, that Abraham knew that these ‘men’ were extraordinary from the beginning.  That he perceived them to have unusual powers is beyond dispute.  Their display of power in destroying Sodom is obvious, as is the purpose behind their appearance.  The full Biblical account gives them prophetic power as well in predicting Sarah’s ability to bear a child in her old age.  There is some correspondence between this event and modern ‘apparitions’, such as the Fatima sighting.

 

Example 4 – Genesis 28:12-22:

 

“And [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.  And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will  give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.  And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places to which thou goest, and will bring thee again unto this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to the of.  And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.  And he was afraid, and said, How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

 

“And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.  And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.  And Jacob vowed a vow, saying If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.”

 

Example 5 – Genesis 32:24-32:

 

“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.  And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled against him.  And he said, Let me go; for the day breaketh.  And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.  And he said unto him, What is thy name?  And he said, Jacob.  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.   And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.  And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?  And he blessed him there.

 

“And Jacob called the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.  And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he limped upon his thigh.  Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank.”

 

Example 6 – Exodus 3:1-14, 4:1-5:

 

“Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

 

“And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

 

“And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.  And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses.  And he said, Here am I.

 

“And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.  Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

 

“And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

 

“Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.  Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

 

“And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?

 

“And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.

 

“And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

 

“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said: Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”

 

“And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.

 

“And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand?  And he said, A rod.  And he said, Cast it on the ground.  And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.

 

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail.  And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.”

 

The much more recent apparition which appeared to Juan Diego in the sixteenth century, and to the peasant girls in Fatima in the twentieth century, recounted in an earlier chapter, may not have been as significant as this appearance before Moses.  But they did contain some of the same elements, such as commandments to appear before powerful individuals, and the empowerment to produce remarkable signs.

 

[to be continued]

 

 

UFOs CHAPTER 6

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 6

 

 

Chapter 6: Extra-Biblical Christian-Related Accounts of UFOs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some extra-Biblical UFO experiences have been overtly religious but which can be interpreted as either positive or negative according to the investigator’s point of view.  Many of these experiences also are informationally rich.

 

One such famous incident occurred in 1917 in Fatima, Portugal. In that event, the apparition of a lady appeared to three children in Fatima, Portugal.  Two of the children subsequently died in the great influenza epidemic following World War 1, supposedly with the full knowledge of and joyful anticipation of their coming death.  The third, Lucia, lived to the age of 97, passing away in 2005.  The children were given three secrets by the apparition, interpreted as Mary by the Catholic Church.  The first involved a vision of hell.  The second involved a request to save souls and a command to consecrate Russia to Mary, with the warning that if Russia didn’t return to God, another, worse war would occur during the tenure of Pope Pius XI.  This prophecy was fulfilled in 1939, the year that Pope Pius XI died.  There is a bit of the cloak-and-dagger regarding the third secret of Fatima.  Lucia had cautioned that it was not to be revealed until 1960, but the Catholic Church continued to hold it secret until 2000, when the secret was declared to have been a vision of a Pope climbing up a hill toward a cross, accompanied by many Church leaders and other Christians.  Upon reaching the cross at the summit, they were gunned down by soldiers.  Angels were said to have collected their shed blood.  But there is still controversy regarding this third secret, with many claiming that the third mystery revealed more than the Church has been willing to disclose.  At any rate, Popes Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have all strongly acknowledged their acceptance of the Fatima apparition and the secrets as supernatural fact.  In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI repeated this conviction. Other apparitions of Mary have been witnessed, including eighteen appearances to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, France, and a number of events at Medjugorje, Bosnia beginning in June, 1981.  A recommended Web site for the interested reader is “Apparitions of Mary”.   Additional details of the Medjugorje apparition are discussed later.

 

The well-known Fatima miracle, as Jacques Vallee relates, was connected with UFOs:

 

“The famous apparitions at Fatima offer a historical example of the religious dimension of UFO encounters.  The case is a celebrated one, yet I am prepared to wager that few Americans know the full story of what happened in 1917 near the small Portuguese town.  I suspect that even fewer realize that the entire sequence of observations of an entity thought to be the Virgin Mary had begun two years previously with a fairly classical sequence of UFO sightings.

 

“If we accept the interpretation given of Fatima by the Catholic Church, we are dealing with a phenomenon that cannot be explained either as a physical effect or as an illusion.  In its decision of 1930, arrived at after thirteen years of painstaking investigation by many scholars, the church stated that:

 

“’The solar phenomenon of the 13^th of October 1917, described in the press of the time, was most marvelous and caused the greatest impression on those who had the happiness of witnessing it. . .

 

“’This phenomenon, which no astronomical observatory registered and which therefore was not natural, was witnessed by persons of all categories and of all social classes, believers and unbelievers, journalists of the principal Portuguese newspapers and even by persons some miles away.  Facts which annul any explanation of collective illusion.’

 

“This ‘miracle,’ the reader will note, had been predicted several months before by three illiterate children after their vision of a woman ‘in a bright glow.’  She had not said that she was the Virgin Mary.  She had simply stated that she was ‘from Heaven’ and instructed them to return every month until October, when a public miracle would take place ‘so that everyone may believe.’

 

“The events at Fatima involve luminous spheres, lights with strange colors, a feeling of ‘heat waves’ – all physical characteristics commonly associated with UFOs.  They even include the typical falling-leaf motion of the saucer zig-zagging through the air.  They also encompass prophecy and a loss of ordinary consciousness on the part of witnesses – what we have called the psychic component of UFO sightings.”

 

Vallee goes on to describe various messages given to selected individuals, the prophetic statements, and the several follow-on apparitions that comprise the Fatima miracle.  He notes features of the events, like buzzing sounds experienced by some witnesses, which are characteristic of modern UFO sightings.  Some prophesies are quite specific, as noted by Vallee:

 

“’The war is going to end, but if people do not stop offending God another and worse one will begin during the reign of Pius XI [note: he died in 1939, years after the prophecy and indeed at the beginning of World War II].  When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light know that this is the great sign that God is giving you that he is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecution of the Church and of the Holy Father.

 

“’To prevent this I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia. . .If they heed my requests, Russia will be converted and there will be peace.  If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world.’”

 

Vallee then makes a curious statement regarding this prophecy:

 

“The mixture of seriousness and absurdity that we have already noted in several contactee stories is an unmistakable characteristic of this statement.  We will find the same thing to be true in Lourdes, where the alleged Virgin Mary instructs the little Bernadette to perform meaningless actions.”

 

Did the statement have absurd elements?  World War II began the same year Pius XI died.  Major events which precipitated it occurred during his reign.  According to Christian (and Western) thought, Russia has indeed spread her errors throughout the world.

 

Perhaps the absurdities, if any, are perceived out of an incomplete grasp of the event, or of the intimate relationship between a given event and others that might not seem connected at the time.  Vallee himself commented in the narration of an earlier tale, that:

 

“Indeed, we cannot help but recall here the word of Hartland in his Science of Fairy Tales: ‘This gift of an object apparently worthless, which turns out, on the conditions being observed, of the utmost value, is a commonplace of fairy transactions.  It is one of the most obvious manifestations of superhuman power.’”

 

Elements of the tale which evoked that response involves another beautiful representation of Mary in Catholic lore.  In this historic incident that took place just outside Mexico City in the year 1531 a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego visited his dying uncle in an effort to comfort him.  In that tale, as also related by Father John Macquarrie in his book Mary for all Christians, an apparition of Mary appeared to the peasant    .  At the time,   Juan’s uncle was very ill, to the point of near-death.  He spent a day trying to relieve his uncle’s sufferings and left him only on Tuesday, to get a priest.  An apparition of Mary barred his way.  She told him,

 

‘My little son, do not be distressed and afraid. Am I not here who am your Mother?  Are you not under my shadow and protection?  Your uncle will not die at this time.  This very moment his health is restored.  There is no reason now for the errand you set out on, and you can peacefully attend to mine.  Go up to the top of the hill: cut the flowers that are growing there and bring them to me.’

 

As Juan’s uncle was awaiting the priest, his room was filled with light. A luminous figure of a young woman appeared.  He was indeed cured, but that’s not the essence of this story.  The main event occurs with Juan, who obeys the order to go to the flowers on the hill.

 

Juan Diego didn’t expect to see flowers on the hill because it was the middle of winter. But he did indeed find flowers there.  They were Castilian roses.  He cut them as Mary had instructed and carried them back to her in his crudely-woven cape.  She spent some time arranging the flowers, and then tied the corners of the cape behind his neck to prevent the roses from falling out.  She told him to let only the bishop see the sign that she had given him.

 

When he reached the bishop’s palace several servants made sport of him, pushing him around and trying to snatch the flowers from his cape. But the flowers dissolved when they reached for them.  Amazed, they let him go.  When he reached the bishop, Juan Diego untied the corners of the cape and as the ends dropped the flowers fell out in a jumbled heap.  The disappointed peasant became confused as to the purpose of his visit.  But then he was astonished to see that the bishop had come over to him and was kneeling at his feet.  Soon everyone else in the room had come near and they all were kneeling with the bishop.

 

Juan Diego’s cape now hangs over the altar in the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.  Over eight million persons were baptized there in the six years that followed this event.  Many millions more of people since that time have knelt before the two-piece cape, coarsely-woven of maguey fibers, for imprinted on it is an intricately detailed, beautiful figure of Mary.  In her graceful posture she appears kind and lovable.  She is surrounded by golden rays.  Fifteen hundred persons a day still visit the shrine.  The image is available on the Internet by Googling on “Juan Diego”.

 

Some items of interesting information have come to my attention regarding Our Lady of Guadalupe, as the Catholic Church has named this apparition. Although I have yet to verify this information, I’ll pass it along.  First, She apparently never identified Herself to Juan Diego as Mary, but rather as Juan Diego’s Mother.  Second, Her image, as can be seen by Googling Juan Diego, matches that of the Aztec goddess.  Third, according to a Mexican theologian as referenced in http://www.laermita.org/spanish/articulos/senoraguad.htm, the indigenous converts to Christianity, in opposition to the Catholic insistence on perceiving the apparition as Mary, refused to worship Her as such and insisted themselves upon worshiping Her as God.

 

The same type of apparition has occurred more recently with messages from a spiritual being whom the Catholic Church associates with Mary. In fact, messages from this lady continue to the time of this writing, in 2015.  The apparition first appeared at Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 24, 1981, with the urgent mission of asserting to the world that God truly exists, and that path to joy and peace requires man to return to Him.  Her message has in the past and continues to be given to six people residing in Herzegovina: Ivan, Jakov, Marija, Mirjana, Vicka, and Ivanka.  In her daily appearance to them, this lady gives the six visionaries public messages and private ‘secrets’.  Of these ‘secrets’, there will be ten in all, after which the lady will stop appearing to the visionaries on a daily basis, but will reappear one day each year for the rest of their lives..  To date,  Mirjana, Jakov and Ivanka have each received their ten ‘secrets’, and Marija, Vicka and Ivan have each received nine.

 

The Medjugorje.org Website includes a cryptic and rather unsettling paragraph that reads:

 

“Once Our Lady has stopped appearing there will be three warnings given to the world. These warnings will be in the form of events on earth.  They will occur within Mirjana’s lifetime, and Mirjana will be a witness to them.  Ten days before each of the warnings, she will advise the priest she chose for this task (Father Petar Ljubicic), who will then pray and fast with Mirjana for seven days.  Then, three days before each warning is to take place, Fr. Petar will announce to the world what, where, and when the warning will take place.  Fr. Petar has no choice, and must reveal each warning.  After the first warning, the other two will follow in a rather short period of time.  That interval will be a period of great grace and conversion.  After the permanent, visible, supernatural, and indestructible sign appears on the mountain where Our Lady first appeared in Medjugorje, there will be little time for conversion.  For that reason, the Blessed Virgin invites us to urgent conversion and reconciliation.  The permanent sign will lead to many healings and conversions before the secrets become reality.  According to Mirjana, the events predicted by the Blessed Virgin are near.  By virtue of this experience, Mirjana proclaims to the world: ‘Hurry, be converted; open your hearts to God.’”

 

The “permanent sign” spoken in the paragraph above was identified in a previous paragraph:

 

“In the third secret Our Lady has promised to leave a supernatural, indestructible, and visible sign on the mountain where she first appeared. Our Lady said: ‘This sign will be given for the atheists. You faithful already have signs and you have become the sign for the atheists.  You faithful must not wait for the sign before you convert; convert soon.  This time is a time of grace for you.  You can never thank God enough for His grace.  The time is for deepening your faith, and for your conversion.  When the sign comes, it will be too late for many.’”

 

 

 

 

UFOs CHAPTER 5

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 5

 

 

Chapter 5: The Christian Assessment of UFOs Part Two – the Positive Take

 

 

 

 

 

A slim minority of Christians view the UFO phenomenon as both real and positive without ruling out the possibility that some UFO experiences might fall into the negative category.   We – and I include myself among them, having had my own UFO experience with very positive long-range consequences – perceive UFO contacts in terms of angelic visitations.  We acknowledge the existence of both obedient and fallen angels, which accounts for the variety of contact experiences, particularly the extremes of good and bad.

 

The reality of my personal UFO experience was verified more by the aftermath of the experience than the actual event itself.  That’s not unusual, as many accounts of interactions with UFOs describe persistent effects of one-time encounters.  Most of these effects involve fear of some sort, even terror, and that’s what makes my encounter different – a complete absence of fear.  If anything, I felt more of a kinship with whoever occupied the craft that I saw.  That positivity places me in a rare category of contemporary individuals, but I’m not completely alone.  I recall reading of another person’s positive experience, the account of which is given in Report #6 in Chapter 8 below.

 

I qualify the rarity of my category with the word “contemporary”, because there is one source of past experiences on the positive side of the ledger which has a rather large constituency.  That source is the Bible.  I will discuss more of that topic later.  Interestingly, the other person of whom I am aware who had a positive experience, also reported Christian implications.  My own UFO experience was intensely Christian as well, and it was a deep one which imparted knowledge that, as far as I know, was unique to me.  It also changed my life.

 

Regarding the actual event, I was uncertain for many years as to whether I was merely a witness to a sighting event, or if my involvement was deeper than that.  I’ll describe it to the best of my knowledge and memory, and let the reader decide what to make of it.  The event occurred forty two years ago at the time I’m writing this, at ten p.m. on a night in the fall of 1973 on Interstate 5 southbound near Wilsonville, Oregon, about ten miles south of Portland.  I had not experienced such an event before, nor afterward.  The trip was for business purposes, and I had a companion with me, a draftsman who was serving as an electrical technician who I had taken along to help with a problem we were experiencing with an installation in Eugene, Oregon.  Having set out after the working day, we had stopped off for dinner at a restaurant next to the freeway, after which we were returning to I-5 southbound via an overpass.  We had just entered the overpass when my passenger thrust his arm across my face, pointing to the south.  “Look!” the shouted in a rare display of emotion.  “A UFO!”  At the same time I caught a glimpse of a semi in front, the truck skewed across the roadway ahead.  The driver obviously was staring at the same sight.  Turning my head southward, I saw what seemed to me to be an enormous disc-shaped object hovering near the next overpass about a mile south of ours.  Being a certified flight instructor with enough hours of night flying to know what airplanes look like at night, both on the ground and in the air, I was startled at the size of this object.  The appearance of this craft was very much larger than a Boeing 747.  Returning my attention back to the roadway ahead, I threaded my car around the semi and hit the on-ramp with the gas pedal to the floor.  That didn’t amount to a very great burst of speed, as the car was an old Volkswagen bug.  I had timed its acceleration once – the 0-60 time neared 30 seconds.  I imagine the occupants of the craft got a good laugh out of that    Nevertheless, the craft stayed motionless as we headed toward it, and I had another impression, one of three rectangular windows, the long sides vertical, and of being watched – intensely observed.

 

About halfway to the other overpass, the craft lifted, wobbled, and crossed over I-5 heading east very slowly, seeming to descend among the tall evergreen trees in the area.  We exited the highway and headed eastward after it, but by that time the craft was gone from our vision.  We eventually gave up the chase and returned to the freeway toward our destination of Eugene, somewhat relieved to be getting back on track.  We had been tired and looking forward to checking into a motel in Eugene and getting some sleep.  Yet I remember having felt a sharp sense of loss as well, of something that I had and was giving up.

 

Over time a vague uncertainty crept in as to whether that was the extent of the incident.  We had checked the time when we broke off the chase.  We apparently had been looking for the craft for about 45 minutes.  At the time I thought nothing of it, but since then I’ve had a recurring thought that three quarters of an hour is a really long time to be looking for something, particularly when we were so close to our starting point near the freeway when we ended the chase.  Nevertheless, I shoved that thought aside too, having more important things to think about.

 

We spent the weekend in Eugene on the job, and, returning Sunday, flipped a coin, the loser having to report the incident to the highway patrol.  Having lost the toss, I made the call and was treated to the rudest response I have ever experienced this side of boot camp.  I shrugged my shoulders and headed back northward, determined that if that kind of experience came my way again, I’d keep it to myself.

 

I certainly made no connection whatsoever between this sighting event and God. I was brought up to consider Christians to be naïve persons who needed God for a crutch.  My family was intellectually-oriented and had no need for myths.  With all the scoffing and snide remarks our parents had made over the years regarding the personal weakness of Christians and the irrelevance of Christianity to normal life we got the message loud and clear: well-adjusted people don’t indulge in religious nonsense. Once, several years ago on a business trip, I found myself in a motel room with nothing to read.  I love to read.  The only thing available was a Gideon Bible in the drawer.  I opened it to Matthew 25 and read maybe a verse or two.  I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so I shoved it back in the drawer and turned on the TV, convinced in my mind that the Bible indeed represented nonsense. The rest of my family still believes that way except for my wife, who is on the same page as me with respect to our beliefs, and probably my brother.  But at the time I knew nothing about God, nor did I want to.  I was perfectly content to leave God entirely out of my life.

 

The UFO experience didn’t open anything up to me – not then. In fact, I forgot about it shortly afterwards.  When something very strange like that happens, one tends to wonder whether it was real or a hallucination, and shove it into the back of his mind.  At least that’s what I did.  At the time I was having a lot on my plate, too.  I didn’t think again about the UFO until maybe five years later.  By that time, I’d changed jobs and even forgot the name of my traveling companion.  I still can’t remember his name, and it frustrates me, because I’d really like to compare notes with him.

 

But maybe six months after the UFO sighting and with no external stimulus whatsoever, I suddenly acquired a yearning to read the Bible. The next day I bought one.  That night I began to read, and was astonished with how much I was able to understand.  I even wept upon encountering certain passages.  Within a year I had read the Bible cover-to-cover, and had understood and retained much of what I had read.  As time passed I became more eager to associate with Christians and to learn more about our Lord.

 

During that time, I made no connection between that experience and the UFO. It was only several years later when talking to another person about how I became a Christian that I made the connection – and it hit me like a collapsing building.  After that I began to revisit and explore the notion that my experience embraced more than just a sighting.

 

I continue to experience vague memories of a conversation, during which highlights of my future were given in a compassionate, even loving, framework.  The things that would happen would enable me to grow into a person who would be attractive to God.  These foretold significant times included a very dark period during which I would experience a profound grief, but my life was to end well – in fact, very well.  I seem to remember that at that time I was wishing that the grief period would be over and I’d be experiencing a much more benign aftermath.

 

The period of grief did indeed occur, and now I’ve passed beyond that stage into a much happier time, for which I’m very grateful.  But other things have also happened that reinforce the possibility that I actually had contact with the occupants of the craft.  The most important of these is the informational aspect.  I possessed information of which I had no previous interest or understanding; moreover this information appears to be unique to me.  A portion of this information required little effort on my part, other than to read Scripture.  Upon the reading, I seem to have been given the ability to read passages and quickly integrate them into related passages and to the general body of Scripture.  For other information I was given a strong desire to receive it, but the acquisition itself required much work and persistence on my part.

 

The most important information of this kind involved a desire to work out the arithmetic details of Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes. The answer was a long time in coming, about ten years, but resulted in a precise knowledge of the numbers associated with the feedings, such as the number of fragments per basket of leftovers, and the exact patterns by which the multitudes were fed.  The final result was an enormous surprise – the patterns of the feedings combined to form a cross, as I describe in Part 5 of my book Family of God, Appendix 2 of my book Marching to a Worthy Drummer, and in my novel Cathy.  As far as I know, this information is unique.  Other information was given to me that, although not unique, is quite rare.  I share that information in the books noted above, as well as in my other novels Buddy, Jacob and Home, Sweet Heaven.

 

The knowledge that I was given wasn’t limited to the head. It also involved the heart, and more than a little humor.  A compassion for the handicapped was instilled in me, leading me to volunteer at a local nursing home.  The activity began as a Bible study, which, in turn, led to a companionship with a young man who was severely afflicted with cerebral palsy.  That, in turn, led to adventures that I wouldn’t have dreamed of in my pre-Christian life.  I recall those adventures, both scary and humorous, in my novel Buddy, and in my nonfiction work Marching to a Worthy Drummer as well.  My life after the grief period has been rich and joyful indeed and I wouldn’t change it for the world, which makes the precursor UFO event, on balance, a very positive experience.  Not only that, but the knowledge and adventures that my Christianity has endowed me with gives me a firm faith, which translates into a positive outlook on my ultimate future despite my forced participation in an ever more darkening and chaotic world.

 

Given the nature of the experience that I had and its correlation with Bible accounts as reviewed in Chapter 7 below, I lean heavily toward an explanation of the beings associated with UFOs as angelic, both obedient and fallen. I happen to be one of the fortunate ones who encountered a good angelic presence.  I appreciate that this attribution doesn’t square with the physicality of the Roswell incident, with its remains of both craft and occupants.  I don’t have an answer for that, except to acknowledge that perhaps our physical universe is large enough to accommodate more than one sentient species, and that the spiritual domain inhabited by God and His angels presides over all such species, human and other-worldly.  I see nothing in the Bible that would preclude such an arrangement.

UFOs CHAPTER 3 (CONTINUED)

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 3 (CONTINUED)

While Chariots of the Gods?, first published in 1970, was a best-seller, Von Daniken was considered by many at the time to be a sensationalist. Respected theologians remained indifferent to his views, treating the notion of space aliens as a mere passing fad, to be indulged in by those whose literary tastes run to those expressed by the supermarket tabloids. Much of Von Daniken’s work, however, is insightful enough to merit more respect than he has received from the mainstream religious community. Since Von Daniken, moreover, others have taken up this particular baton with quite serious scholarship. Notable among these researchers is Zecharia Sitchin, who authored the Earth Chronicles book series centered on his 12th Planet concept.

Many aspects of Sitchin’s arguments are not original with him. He repeats a variety of facts and conclusions that were presented before by Von Daniken. Nevertheless, like many scholars who flesh out the pioneering work of others in greater detail, Sitchin brings out a wealth of additional background information in support of Von Daniken’s original claims. Furthermore, his theories regarding the source of the cosmic visitors do indeed appear to involve some original concepts which add depth to the discussion. Because of his scholarship, consistency of thought, and clarity of presentation, Sitchin’s writings will be included with Von Daniken’s as the generally representative focus of discussion.

Regardless of whether one agrees with part or all of Sitchin’s thesis, he presents a good case, providing in the process a very concise, readable story of how the history of man developed through the eyes of nineteenth and twentieth century archaeologists. As Sitchin follows the successive discoveries of the sites of ancient near-Eastern civilizations, he manages to convey a sense of excitement over the archaeologists’ growing grasp of the information which was revealed therein and of his own developing realization of the enormous implications of their discoveries. The civilization of man, Sitchin asserts in The 12th Planet, began in the fourth millenium B.C. along the Euphrates River just above the Persian Gulf, at Eridu in the Biblical land of Shinar which modern historians call Sumer. Its expansion from there followed the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers into Akkadia and Babylon, and from thence northward into the region of Mount Ararat and eventually into Europe, westward via the Mediterranean Sea to Crete and then Greece, back southward along the eastern bank of the Mediterranean into Canaan and Egypt, and eastward into the Indus Valley. Its northward progression was facilitated by the Horites (Hurrians), who communicated with the Akkadian civilization to their south and the Hittites to their north.

The change that the civilization of Sumer represented from the primitive lifestyle of man up to that time was so sudden that scholars called it astonishing. Modern society could easily identify with it: it had a Government with a bicameral congress, a code of laws including those to protect the poor (preceding Hammurabi by almost a millenium), schools, artistic sophistication, music with the flavor of our own Country/Western music, a pantheistic religion of twelve primary dieties which formed the basis of the Grecian, Roman, Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, and Egyptian systems of worship, and a written language which was passed on to these same societies. Its people practiced law, medicine, agriculture, studied mathematics and history, and concerned themselves with world peace.

Sitchin claims that the rise of the Sumerian civilization was too abrupt to have been accomplished by man alone. The suddenness of man’s progress there led Sitchin to surmise that man was given a big push by outside influences. Mankind had help, he says, and that help came from beyond earth. Moreover, he claims, the Bible speaks of it. In his book The 12th Planet, Sitchin interprets the Biblical book of Genesis as describing humanoid beings from another planet who visited earth many thousands of years ago. Their first and principal occupation was in the region of ancient Sumer, where they built several cities. The Sumerian name for the region was E.din, which means ‘home of the righteous ones’. The Biblical implication of this name is obvious.

Portions of the Bible, as a matter of fact, have a startling similarity to some recently-decipered Sumerian texts. To support his view that humans were visited by aliens, Sitchin points out the many Sumerian, Biblical, and other ancient records alluding to ‘gods’ who possessed an advanced technology having characteristics paralleling those of our modern age, including flight above the earth and into space. He also shows that mankind, while venerating these beings as gods, attributed curiously human characteristics to them, chief of which was their ability to mate and have offspring. They also had shortcomings of a human nature, such as jealousies, anger, untruthfulness, unfaithfulness, and self-serving motives. These records, Sitchin asserts, are consistent with passages in the Bible, if those passages are interpreted from the perspective of an alien presence on earth which, despite its advanced technology, fell far short of the Godhood which mankind attributed to it.

Among this ancient literature is a rich and colorful tradition of dieties who form a family dynasty. The members of this dynasty are subject to the same nobility and moral faults as mankind. Stories of their personalities, the relationships among themselves and with mankind, and their exploits form a cosmic drama whose main players seem to be somewhat akin to the characters of Dallas. Indeed, their loves, jealousies, sexual liaisons, and adventures would make good material for a television soap opera.

Sitchin notes a close correlation between the pantheon of gods in other cultures and their Sumerian counterparts. He furnishes compelling evidence to support his claim that this Sumerian pantheon was the basis of the Hittite, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman religious systems, and that Sumerian knowledge and religious concepts greatly influenced religious thought throughout the world, including that of the Hindus and the Hebrews. The Egyptians, for example, believed that their gods came from a far land, most likely in the region of ancient Sumer, after the Deluge. In fact, the primary deities associated with both earthly and heavenly activities and celestial bodies, in particular, have been accepted among many archaelogists as having originated in Sumer. Sitchin notes, in support of this supposition, that the hierarchical structure of the gods, which was maintained at a constant number of 12 in the Sumerian pantheon as some of them were replaced by others, was similarly maintained at 12 in the later Egyptian, Greek, and Roman pantheons.

There is some minor overlap of material between Sitchin and Temple, but it is not known to what extent they may have shared data, if at all. There are, however, significant differences in focus. Where Sitchin primarily (but not exclusively) references Mesopotamian, i.e. Sumerian and later Akkadian and Babylonian, clues to extraterrestrial visitations, Temple extracts his information from historically more recent source data, including epics and myths from Egypt, Greece, Rome and other civilizations from the Mediterranean area. Temple engages in much speculation out of a comparative review of mythology and word roots. His primary intellectual tools are an unusually comprehensive knowledge base of legends and myths, an impressive memory, and a rather freely-employed flair for creative associations. Many of his associations are tenuous at best, while others are somewhat more plausible. Although his treatment often lacks the integrating theses which other authors such as Sitchin employ to tie together the various components of their developments, the sheer aggregation of the associations gives weight even to some of his more tenuous connections. Temple believes, as Sitchin does, that an extensive knowledge was imparted to mankind 5,000 or so years ago. A part of this knowledge, elements of which it is highly unlikely that man could have obtained on his own, concerned the Sirius star system, as noted in the commentary above regarding the Dogon tgribe o Mali, Africa.

Temple went on to claim that the knowledge which the Dogons possess is but the tip of the iceberg: the Greeks as well as the Dogons borrowed this knowledge from the more ancient Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations, which were not only contemporary with but in communication with each other. Intrinsic to their common knowledge were the same elements which the Dogon most probably borrowed and display in their rituals: understanding of the Sirius system, including the small size and great density of Sirius B, its approximately 50-year orbit about Sirius A, and the ellipticity of the orbit. Greek language and mythology, he asserts, encodes a somewhat imperfectly-understood vestige of this ancient knowledge and its associated rituals.

Temple, like Von Daniken, supports his thesis of alien visitations with the observation of records of strange hybrid partly-human, partly-animal creatures. According to Temple, the creatures, some of which were considered to be quite ugly and fear-inspiring, were supposedly intelligent, extremely knowledgeable, and adept in the arts of civilization. He implies that the aliens themselves may have had these forms. Von Daniken, on the other hand, attributes these forms to experimentation on species indigenous to the Earth. A variety of such beings, mostly amphibious but sometimes possessing features of snakes or other creatures instead of fins in their lower parts, were depicted in the ancient art of a number of societies, including the Dogon, Chinese, and especially the Egyptians. It is only with recent advances in genetic science that we can perceive the possibility that the depictions represent reality: perhaps at some time in the distant past there was much experimentation with gene splicing. In Gods from Outer Space, Von Daniken notes the many references to hybrid creatures in ancient literature and art from the Sumerian civilization forward. As he implied in The Eyes of the Sphinx, the many odd forms of artifacts uncovered in Egypt, which often combine portions of vastly different species, indicate that the genetic manipulation may have attempted to cross species boundaries. Whatever the origin of these odd creatures, the depictions appear to represent something other than fiction. They lend weight to the alien thesis.

But in reviewing the works of these authors of the historical alien genre, one can discern a number of common assumptions that are not necessarily true, and, in fact, severely restrict their visions of our past. Their primary assumption is that the Bible, while it might contain interesting and perhaps even valuable historic information, is just another document written by men. As such, there is nothing in it that can be attributed to the influence of God, nor is the majority of information treated by it as fact anything more than oft-repeated fable. Even the fables are considered to be degenerations of earlier, more accurate accounts. Several other assumptions directly follow this first one, especially the notion of evolution – that mankind, in opposition to the events catalogued in Genesis, evolved from a lesser creature, and from a primitive state to increasing levels of sophistication. In lockstep with the theory of evolution and equally opposed to the notion of Biblical truth is the companion doctrine of uniformitarianism, that the present is the key to the past and the state of the earth and life within it as we see it today is the result of billions of years of slowly-working processes. With the rejection of Scripture as truth, God Himself doesn’t seem to be particularly relevant to science, or even history for that matter. Thus in attempting to address the UFO phenomenon, God isn’t seen as particularly relevant to that issue either, and the researchers are left to their pursuit of answers along the lines of cutting-edge technology. When researchers find evidence of technical sophistication in our historical past, the rigid constraints that they impose on themselves by their godlessness impels them toward one of only two possible answers: either mankind was visited in the past by technologically superior beings, or there is insufficient data to say what went on in the ancient past and the subject would be best left alone (for now). This is why the group of investigators who are interested in ancient technology are predominantly spokespersons for UFO visitations in the past.

What if the Bible is historically accurate after all? Then it’s immediately another ball game. According to Genesis 6:1-7, we started out with a lot of talent, and quickly became corrupted, probably worshipping the same inventive spirit that modern man does:

“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”

We would no longer need ancient aliens to account for the Nazca Lines, the Great Pyramid, the Egyptian Tombs, and a host of other intriguing archaeological relics. Intelligent and sophisticated humans may have existed in the ancient past, turning into cave-dwelling primitives only temporarily until they recovered from the necessity for mere survival following the Great Flood. Perhaps their technology even surpassed our own. After all, it took us less than 400 years after we got on the technology wagon to achieve the sophistication in the mathematical and physical sciences that led to automotive transportation, manned flight, supersonic flight, space flight, worldwide communication, radio, television, computers, robotics, bridges, tunnels, skyscrapers and gameboys.

Actually, it is no longer logical to reject the historical accuracy of the Bible in favor of the opposing pseudoscience. Not after the The notion of uniformitarianism, at best a conceptual tool but not a very good one at that, has pretty much received a well-deserved comeuppance, with numerous former adherents rushing to discard it. With the arrival on the scientific scene of fresh new insights into the process of life, especially at the microscopic level, the theory of evolution is following suit, only not so quickly. The major hindrance to its utter rejection is the lack of any other theory of life’s origins that doesn’t involve God.

UFOs CHAPTER 3

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3: The Historical Alien Presence – Or Was It Something Else?

Among the most spectacular of extraterrestrial accounts from the past is the collection of religious beliefs of the Dogon tribe in Mali, West Africa. It is an astonishing story of information this tribe possesses that should never have been available to them in their isolation and primitive state of existence. As related by Scott Alan Roberts in Chapter 5 of his book The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim, French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen extracted from their religious mythology a wealth of information regarding the star Sirius and its associated system the accuracy of which is simply beyond the tribe’s powers of observation. A brief summary of Roberts’ account of their incredible customs and the information they represent is given below.

The Dogon people have a tradition, reaching into the unknown past, of worshiping beings they call the Nommos. These froglike creatures aren’t local to the area, but reside somewhat farther away, within hailing distance of the star Sirius B. They recognize Sirius B as one member of a dual-star system, and depict in their drawings the two stars, Sirius A and Sirius B as rotating about each other in an elliptical pattern. Western society figured out elliptical orbits only after the pioneering work of German astronomer Johannes Kepler in the seventeenth century. The Dogons probably beat him to the concept as there was no known modern interaction between the Dogons and the Western world until the 1920s.

The Dogon legend describes the Nommos as having lived on a planet that orbits Sirius B. They arrived on Earth in a craft that we would describe as an ark, which descended in a spin and landed with a big commotion.

The Nommo furnished information to the Dogons; eventually, one of them was crucified on a tree, was resurrected, and returned to the Sirius star system.

A more detailed view of the Dogons and their strange religion is presented by Robert Temple in his 1998 book The Sirius Mystery.

As explained by Temple, there’s a mystery indeed about the Dogon knowledge of the Sirius star system. Sirius A is visible, but Sirius B is much smaller, being a dwarf star, and is invisible to the observer on earth, even with a decent telescope. Yet, as it is very dense, it possesses an appreciable gravitational field. The Dogons know that it is comparably tiny, because they named the star after the seed of an indigenous plant, the botanical name of which is digitaria. The seed of the digitaria is minute, being the smallest seed of which the Dogon are aware. Yet the Dogon consider the much larger star Sirius A to be unimportant to them next to their home star of Sirius B.

Moreover, the Dogons have the orbital period of Sirius B, which is fifty years, pegged with precision to its actual period, and understand that it rotates about its own axis, a common characteristic of stars.

The Dogons are also aware of planetary features within our own solar system. For example, they know that the moon is dead, that a ring encircles Saturn, and that Jupiter possesses four major moons. As for the Earth, it is understood to turn on its own axis and to make a great circle around the sun.

Temple’s book includes other knowledge possessed by the Dogons. This additional information is simply too extensive for the scope of this book. Temple also apeculates, like Zecharia Sitchin who published The Twelfth Planet in 1976, that the evidence of the aliens’ visitation is encoded in the traditions and literature of the ancient Mediterranean region, from which the Dogons, as well as the Greeks and Romans, borrowed from a common source.

Other societies, considered by us to be primitive, also worshiped what we like to label as “alien”. Erich Von Daniken was the earlies of the modern investigators to popularize this practice. In his book Chariots of the Gods? Published in 1976, the same year that Sitchin published The Twelfth Planet, he cites many artifacts of unknown antiquity which don’t fit into mainstream assumptions of man’s history, noting that these oddities are either ignored by scientists or suffer the application of unsatisfactory reasons for their existence. Among these artifacts scattered about the world are structures of sophisticated design and immense proportions, the components of which are of equally impressive size. There are also, in widely scattered locations, structures, objects, and patterns on the ground with evident links to air or space travel.

The enigmatic straight lines in Nazca, Peru are quite ancient. Yet investigators can comprehend no useful purpose for them other than aircraft runways. There are also huge figures cut into the surface in the vicinity which are not recognizable on the ground, but are readily understood for what they are from an aerial perspective.

An abundance of enormous stone structures can be found high in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia and elsewhere in South and Central America. Von Daniken describes monolithic stone blocks weighing 10, 20, and 100 tons, with precisely defined edges, used in the construction of these structures. Some of the blocks are engraved with figures. Other figures are themselves carved out of stone. But the figures aren’t quite human. Some have four fingers; others wear what appear to be helmets. Still others are depicted as flying.

In addition to artifacts which display a sophistication quite beyond what mainstream archaeologists are willing to attribute to the peoples of antiquity, there is an apparent knowledge itself that runs counter to our perception of ancient man and his lack of sophistication: maps, calendars and astronomical tables, texts, and even artifacts which demonstrate a knowledge of electricity and electro-chemical processes.

Maps of world scope found in the possession of 18th Century Turkish Admiral Piri Reis were not only amazingly accurate but depicted the Antarctic Continent as if it was ice-free, showing land boundaries and mountain ranges in their proper relative locations, although such boundaries were not known in modern times until the middle of the twentieth century. As Von Daniken pointed out, some of the maps appeared to researchers to represent data taken from aerial photographs. Believed to be of still greater antiquity than the sea captain to whom they belonged, the originals from which they were copied were probably created long before the time when the world thought that the earth was flat.

A calendar of impressive sophistication was found in Tiahuanaco. This device gave the equinoxes, seasons, and hourly positions of the moon. Halfway around the world, archaeologists digging at the Mesopotamian site of Nineveh found a mathematical calculation carried out to 15 digits, when, as Von Daniken pointed out, mathematicians of the much-later Greek civilization couldn’t count above 10,000.

Artifacts found in the Middle East and China whose fabrication required a knowledge of electricity and electrochemistry include batteries and battery electrodes, crystal lenses which we can make only with the electrochemically-produced cesium oxide, and objects fashioned of platinum and aluminum.

Where did this enigmatic ancient knowledge come from? Von Daniken asserts that it came from visitors to Earth from space. He speculates briefly at one point that these visitors may have come from the planet Mars before its surface was destroyed by some cosmic event. Elsewhere he places their origin farther afield, among one of the star systems in our Milky Way Galaxy. He claims that we can see depictions of these beings in ancient artwork, from cave drawings scattered throughout the world to Sumerian cylinder seals and South American stone carvings.

But above all the mute artifacts we find scattered about the earth, we have the ancient literature that brings these visitors to life. All we have to do, Von Daniken asserts, is to discard the mundane, inaccurate interpretation of these tales that was first initiated by scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries, a time when the technology to which they pointed was simply inconceivable. Less than two centuries ago, the notion of traveling about the Earth in flying vehicles was considered an absurdity by all but a few visionaries. The thought of traveling among the planets in space vehicles was at the far end of science fiction well into the last century.

Now that we ourselves possess much of the technology described in the ancient literature, however, we can see these texts as representing potential truth rather than necessarily depicting flights of fancy. In line with a more technically-orientated interpretation of these ancient tales, flights of the ‘gods’ in aircraft and space vehicles appears to have been a common theme.

Von Daniken notes that the Bible itself is a part of that ancient literature which describes flying machines driven by ‘gods’. He refers to the multi-winged, multi-wheeled flying vehicle described by the prophet Ezekiel as what modern man would call a ‘UFO’. The prophet Elijah may have ascended to heaven in a similar vehicle. Whatever these vehicles were, they certainly represented a technology far in advance of what we consider the peoples of that day to have possessed. The only other alternative to the physical reality of those vehicles described in the Bible is that they were dreams or visions of Ezekiel and others. But if that is the case, from whence did these highly-detailed visions come? It is absurd to think that they were simply figments of active imaginations. To deny that the vehicles actually existed is equivalent to asserting that the visions came from God. Consequently, in either case there is some truth to their existence.

[to be continued]

UFOs CHAPTER 2 (CONTINUED)

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 2 (CONTINUED)

Some secularly-oriented UFO spokespersons are fence-sitters. While they either explicitly or indirectly equate their extraterrestrial visitors with the Biblical God, they almost invariably follow a mechanistic mindset for which the Biblical God is demoted to the status of a mere extraterrestrial. In the most fundamental sense, the Judeo-Christian God is obviously and unequivocally a space being: by common understanding, as Creator and Master of the universe, He owns it. Space is a large part of His turf. But that is not the sense in which the UFO fence-sitter implicitly defines the Judeo-Christian God. The alien deities as depicted by these authors differ substantially from that God with respect to capabilities, morals, and, above all, intent. These alien beings may have come from a distant planet, and they may have possessed a superior technology, and perhaps even a more highly-developed intellect. They may have created man as a hybrid of their own genetic material and that of some subhuman species extant on earth at the time. Nevertheless, they appear to be remarkably similar in their nature and temperament to mankind itself. This is especially true with regard to their moral character, which included venality, uncontrollable sexual urges, and petty jealousies. Nor are these beings omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent. As pilots of spacecraft, mine supervisors, and genetic manipulators, they were subject to the same limitations in time and space as humanity. They are perceived as a plurality, not as a Triune Godhead but as a number of individuals who belonged to some other planet and relied on vehicular devices to arrive on the Earth. From that perspective, they were much too small to come even close to representing the Judeo-Christian God, both in their moral stature and capabilities, and in their self-serving natures. Instead, it is stated in all seriousness with no intent of mockery, the god who comes to mind in their writings is very much like the Wizard of Oz. This Cosmic Wizard is endowed perhaps with a superior intellect, certainly possesses a superior technology, and is capable of putting on a good dog-and-pony show to impress us less sophisticated earthlings with his divine attributes. But in the end he his much like us, having a mixture of good and bad qualities. This extraterrestrial had the same potential as man to strive for nobility and to fail in the attempt.

A ‘god’ of such limited attributes would be more like a cousin to humanity than a God. He would certainly lack the moral authority to exercise absolute control over our lives. His motives toward mankind would be limited as well, in all probability being directed toward self-service, as Zecharia Sitchin suggests in his Twelfth Planet series regarding his supposition that man was created for utilitarian purposes. In that context, Sitchin’s explanation of our origins as being motivated by the need for labor in the aliens’ mines is entirely consistent with his view of ‘god’ as a construct of man inspired by his utilitarian interaction with visitors from another planet. But to carry this consistency of thought to its logical conclusion would not only force us to deny the strong theme of sacrificial love that runs throughout the entirety of Scripture; it would also require us to consider our Judeo-Christian Scripture to represent myth more than truth. The mythical elements might indeed be based on factual events, but the mythical would have to be invoked to blow up the main player(s) to the status of godhood. It indeed appears that secularists prefer to view the Bible in a mythical context. In developing their own picture of god, those of the alien presuppositions also refer to the Bible, but not in the same way as the traditional Christian community. While they, like Christians, consider it to be a valuable historical document, it is just that to them and nothing more. It is treated as no more inspired than other ancient literature and is usually regarded as a Hebrew version of an earlier (and therefore supposedly more accurate) original.

Moreover, a mythical interpretation of the Bible which the secular UFO believers appear to favor of itself requires a corresponding ‘god’ to be of limited abilities and probably (although not necessarily) less than selfless intent. This viewpoint not only opens the door to the selective acceptance and rejection of arbitrary portions of Scripture, but also leads directly to the interpretation of any specific creative acts noted therein as being of limited scope and probably originating from self-serving motives. A good example of this is found on page 191 of Sitchin’s Divine Encounters, where Sumerian king Gudea is commanded through visions from the deity Enlil to build a temple. The detail of construction he is given through the series of visions is highly reminiscent of the Biblical instructions God gives to Moses and, later to David, regarding the construction of the places of worship and the artifacts that are to be used therein. But with respect to intent the similarity ends. Whereas Gudea’s temple has a utilitarian significance for the deities, God’s temples were intended as models to communicate God’s relationship with mankind and especially to instruct man on the nature of the Messiah to come.

The general lack of humanity associated with Sitchin’s beings is common to the viewpoint of the secular UFO buff: the beings are irretrievably alien, a notion that carries with it a strong element of fear. To many people, the intrusion of anything into the physical world not perceived as compatible with it as defined by current science is a very scary thought. It is perhaps this fear of control more than any other that separates the Christian from the secular UFO buff. A popular theme, around which a number of recent movies and television serials have been based, is the alien takeover. Through the use of superior technology, the alien race indwells the bodies of selected humans. From that beachhead, the aliens push outward in their diabolical attempt to make their conquest complete. The situation is made all the more terrifying by the fact that to outward appearances the infected, traitorous humans are indistinguishable from the normal remnant.

Given their common insistence on treating the Bible in the same manner as other ancient documents, it is inevitable that the proponents of the alien thesis should come to regard it from a mythical perspective, even while placing a literal interpretation on many of its passages. Sitchin and other writers of the alien visitation genre develop their theses from an interpretation of ancient texts that is driven by the alien notion. While their interpretations may be literal, the orientation remains secular with a rational, causal flavor. Sitchin, for example, follows precisely the same standard with respect to his interpretation of Hebrew Scripture as he does with the Sumerian texts. This approach may be justified with respect to the Sumerian literature, which seems to possess, to a large degree, an intrinsically secular, sometimes even a technical or social, basis. Scripture, on the other hand, has a different orientation. While its ultimate Author claims to have created the physical universe and everything within it, and while Scripture furnishes essential background information relating to secular matters, its emphasis is not on the secular but on God and His relationship with mankind. When a materialistic concern is presented at all in Scripture, it is usually included only when such background is necessary to provide an appropriate setting for its major theme, which is the presentation of God to man. While Sitchin is to be commended for the consistency of his approach, it may be suggested that perhaps the specifics of the approach to interpreting text should take this difference in orientation into account. There is no question but that a literal interpretation of Scripture is justified in all cases by the richness of the corresponding information it produces. But whereas it would also be appropriate to apply a strictly rational, technical, and causal approach to the exposition of secular material, an interpretation of Scripture should recognize in the omniscience of God His ability to transcend our ideas of causality, limited as we are in time and space. In this context, the possibility of miracles should be recognized, as should the ability of God, through the Holy Spirit, to influence man in both the writing and the interpretation of Scripture. When we attempt to interpret His Word, Scripture itself implies that we should recognize the influence of our own limitations as well as the power of God in the successful execution of this endeavor.

Zecharia Sitchin demonstrates that a strictly secular interpretation of Scripture can lead to a radically different outcome than that of historical understanding. On pages 30 through 33 of Divine Encounters, Sitchin discusses the rift between Cain and Abel, attributing it to their rivalry over the legal heirdom of the patriarchy and paralleling the rivalry between the gods Enlil and Enki. Christians, on the other hand, in the light of a different understanding of the intimacy of God’s interaction with man, see an entirely different cause of the animosity, one that is clearly implied in the Book of Genesis and which is fundamental to their faith. Cain was a farmer, whereas Abel was an animal husbandman. When they brought offerings to the Lord, they each did so in the context of their respective functions: Cain offered the fruits of the harvest, and Abel offered an animal. God viewed these offerings for how they represented man’s attempt to regain His favor after the expulsion from Eden. Whereas Cain offered the work of his own hands, Abel offered the blood of an innocent victim, acknowledging his own inability to please God and foreshadowing the work of Jesus Christ on the cross on behalf of mankind. Cain’s subsequent jealousy over God’s preference of Abel’s sacrifice led to his murder of Abel. Interestingly, on page 40 of Divine Encounters, Sitchin implies, in direct opposition to the Scriptural account, that the farmer enjoyed Enlil’s favor over the herdsman.

This radical difference in interpretation necessarily leads to the perception of inconsistencies throughout the Bible, self-fulfilling the initial assumption that Scripture is less than inspired. The inevitable conclusion that one might make from this viewpoint of the Judeo-Christian Scripture, and especially its regard for the Bible as less than inspired of God is that our ancient forebears were duped into submission, even slavery, to other beings of perhaps superior intellect but less than honorable motives. Our inferior society, according to this view, went along with their functional imprisonment out of their lack of sophistication. To this very day, according to the adherents to this alien genre, the less intellectually endowed among us who attempt to follow the teachings of their religions remain trapped in subjugation to an evil fable.

The result of this trend toward the self-reinforcement of entry presuppositions is that the group of secular believers in UFOs, unlike those who deny their existence, will tend to stand firm in their particular visions of what UFOs represent. If they maintain an assumption of Scriptural errancy, however, their reasoning about the relevance of God to the UFO situation will tend to be circular: they will take out of their mental exercises with respect to God exactly what they came in with. There is thus a rather extreme and irreconcilable divergence of views between the Christian believer in UFOs and their secular counterparts regarding any link between so-called aliens and God. The net outcome of this difference is an implacably dark assignment to UFO occupants of either evil intent or alien indifferene.

This outlook, in turn, has heavily influenced the ongoing government policy of inhibiting the public awareness of UFOs to maintain control over the human population while seeking a better understanding and control over the phenomenon itself.

UFOs CHAPTER 2

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2: The Secular Perception of UFOs

There is a group within the secular community whose members are entirely indifferent to the UFO issue. This group can be categorized as consisting of imagination-challenged, intellectually shallow people who are focused on the mundane throughout their lives, being aware of only those events that might affect their own highly-developed self-interest. Not only is this camp indifferent to UFOs, it is also indifferent to the subject of God (except, perhaps as God might relate to Santa) and pretty much to anything not involving the next hamburger or the next episode of the Wheel. I dismiss it with a matching indifference, with the exception that I do enjoy watching the unsuccessful attempts of such people to answer the ridiculously elementary questions posed by Watters on the O’Reilly Factor.

The remainder of the secular world is divided into two sharply opposed camps regarding UFOs. A substantial segment of mainstream society, having bought into the prevailing paradigms of the world, places those who claim involvement in the UFO phenomenon as credulous, out of touch with reality, and rather on the fringe of social acceptability. They deny the existence of UFOs altogether, assuming that accounts of them originate with individuals who are burdened with problems of one sort or another. They are supported in large part by the mainstream media, the mainstream educational system, and mainstream science, to whom they prefer for answers to their own minds and common sense. This group, being marginally more intelligent, are marginally more aware of the world about them than those who are completely indifferent to the UFO phenomenon. They also are marginally more interesting.

The opposing secular camp not only believes in the existence of UFOs, but sees in them an alien presence, irrelevant to God, that has invaded us both now and in the past. This more interesting group consists of those who not only believe in UFOs, but acknowledge their historical existence and generally think that they are up to no good. Investigators within the camp of historical or ancient encounters are represented by authors Von Daniken, Sitchin and Temple. The more speculative details presented by them include mythological connections to Sirius or alien visitors in our past who came from an unknown planet of a highly eccentric orbit within our own solar system. There are a number of investigative organizations such as MUFON that focus on more modern sightings. Such can be readily acquired on the Internet. We shall set aside the speculative details as interesting but somewhat irrelevant to a demonstration of the reality of extraterrestrial visitors. For the most part we will confine our attention here to the core thesis of past and present visitations to earth by extraterrestrial beings, whatever their possible origins. The basic questions alone raise a variety of issues important to the speculative Christian.

If there is reality behind the UFO phenomenon – and that’s a very big if to the secular mind – the perception of their craft is consistently viewed in naturalistic terms. Whether they come from a different planet or galaxy, UFOs belong to the same universe as we inhabit, along with our own dimensional constraints. The craft, to them, are electromechanical devices like our own aircraft and space vehicles but designed and fabricated with the aid of a technology that is more advanced than ours. The implications of this standard perception have both technical and social components.

Technically, we are intrigued with the capabilities of UFOs, because evidence of their existence includes features such as their maneuverability, speed, power source, mode of overcoming gravity, and electromagnetic effects when they are in proximity to our own vehicles and appliances that extend rather far beyond our own capabilities in these areas. Some individuals would welcome contact with UFO occupants for the superior knowledge that they might be able to impart to us and thereby raise us up to new levels more compatible with their own. Such individuals are in the minority due to the social implications noted below.

The social implications of a more advanced society go beyond perceptions of UFO occupants as alien beings. Whether they are similar to us or not, their presence on earth represents de facto superiority. We know from experience within our own human society that when two peoples of unequal civilizations meet, they will clash, with the more advanced civilization dominating and eventually destroying the less developed one. This understanding is not lost on those who contemplate a future world in which UFO occupants would openly interact with humanity, and the thought is sufficient to generate real fear. This perceived threat to our way of life and even to our own continued existence would be more than sufficient to erect a governmental barrier of secrecy around the UFO phenomenon and to downplay the existence of such to the general public.

Difficulties have emerged regarding a materialistic view of UFOs. The enigmatic features of modern UFO sightings initially raised a number of questions relating to the technology that aliens might possess to enable them to perform the radical maneuvers associated with them or their vehicles. Over the several decades that have elapsed since the first well-publicized modern sightings in 1947, it was recognized that technology alone furnished an insufficient explanation of their characteristics and capabilities, which led a number of researchers in that field to question whether the aliens might have a spiritual quality. The mindset of Dr. J. Allen Hyneck, who came into the field of UFO investigations as a consultant to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Bluebook, evolved over the course of his investigations from skeptic to believer in the alien hypothesis, but he went beyond the extraterrestrial notion to a belief in something perhaps more spiritual in the nature of the alien beings than the common understanding admits. Jacques Vallee, a long-time UFO investigator who has gained a considerable measure of respect in the field, echoes this thought.

In his 1988 book Dimensions, Vallee asserts that UFO visitations, with many of their modern characteristics, have been with us since the beginning of mankind’s civilization. He traces the evidence for this assertion throughout our history, noting the many famous sightings which extend past a number of recorded incidents from the present down through the middle ages into antiquity. Most important to our subject, he cites the numerous Biblical passages such as the vision of Ezekiel, which overtly refer to such visitations as having a distinct flavor wherein the UFO aspect merges into Judeo-Christian canon. Moreover, he notes, the nature of these visitations, in which the ‘beings’ appear to be beyond the constraints of mass, space, and time in their ability to levitate, withstand violent maneuvers, and pass through solid objects, possess the same features that make the modern UFO sightings so enigmatic. It is these disturbing characteristics which so oppose modern rationalist thinking, Vallee claims, that put the UFO ‘occupants’ into a category beyond the mere extraterrestrial. He speculates on the possibility that they might be interdimensional, occupying a universe parallel to our own.

Secular accounts of ancient UFO visitations and theories regarding them will be explored in more detail in a later chapter. Here it will be simply noted that in general troubled and partially-formulated speculations like Vallee’s serve to emphasize the ultra-rigid boundaries of the modern rationalist way of thinking. The notion of a spirit-based entity capable of passing through solid objects is usually rejected quite rapidly as ridiculous. The assertion of this as impossible in our ‘real’ world also denies the possibility that the soul, so important to the Christian belief, can exist. A passage in Chapter 20 of John’s Gospel directly refutes this denial. In that passage the resurrected Jesus performs the same acts that the UFO debunker uses to discredit the reality of UFO sightings:

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither they finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”

In the above passage, Jesus not only passed through solid walls to appear to the disciples, but presented the form of flesh to Thomas. He also ate with them. These capabilities that include the materialistic but extent beyond materialism are precisely those characteristics of many UFO sightings which cause such consternation among the investigators and their audience. Yet many of our cutting-edge physicists confront these mysterious capabilities on a daily basis in their investigations into quantum physics.

[to be continued]

UFOs CHAPTER 1 (CONTINUED)

CONTACT, COMMUNION AND CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER 1 (CONTINUED)

Accepting the reality of UFOs is comparable to believing in near-death experiences: people can indulge in endless speculation about them, but the truth of the matters can be fully understood only by those who have had actual experience with the events and their aftermaths. As for UFOs, their reality to me is a given, because I personally have experienced the event, and the aftermath, to me, has been a glorious, life-changing journey. Apparently, the same can be said about many of those who have been on the edge between life and death and have returned back to this side.

Actually, there are at least seven important commonalities between UFO encounters and near-death experiences (NDEs). The first of these, at least to those who see a religious connotation to the UFO encounter, is the angelic involvement in both. Second, both kinds of events include both positive and negative encounters. Third, many people, both those involved and their investigators, interpret the experiences as exclusively negative. The account below involving the nun may be distressingly typical. Fourth, the experiences are other-worldly; they don’t fit into the pattern of what we consider to be normal. Fifth, the capabilities of spiritual entities, including those who experience an NDE, extend beyond those of us who are confined to the material world. These super-powers include the ability to travel at will through the air without supporting devices, invisibility, and lack of solidity. Jesus’ post-resurrection encounter with Timothy as described in John 20:24-29, were of this flavor. Sixth, both types of experiences imparted knowledge that would be unobtainable through normal channels of information. The seventh is the most important of all: to those who experienced positive encounters, there was a deep sense of loss at leaving behind the encounter environment.

These commonalities deserve to be addressed in greater detail. As for the angelic quality of the experiences, John Burke describes in his 2015 book Imagine Heaven multiple cases where the person involved was met by beings who were intuitively sensed to be angels. Of course, the “light at the end of the tunnel” that is included in so many of these events almost invariably was associated with Jesus Christ. The same may be said regarding those UFO encounters that were experienced or interpreted as having religious components – the occupants of these craft were thought to be angelic in nature, whether the experience itself was positive or negative. In fact, both the NDE and UFO experiences included both positive and negative instances, where the negative NDE experience was often interpreted as being in hell, and the negative UFO event was attributed to demonic beings. The negative UFO interpretation is addressed elsewhere in this work. As for the interpretation of an NDE experience as negative, John Burke relates one incident that may be more typical than we’d like to imagine. On page 41 of Imagine Heaven he quotes a woman who had her NDE experience in a Catholic hospital. After overcoming her fear of rejection over the matter, she shared her experience with a nurse. Just as she’d imagined, the nurse was horrified and sent for a nun to counsel her. The nun attributed the experience to the work of the devil. This reminds me of several Christian spokespersons who also attribute demonic inspiration to the UFO phenomenon. On the positive side, if the NDE subject went somewhere, that ‘somewhere’ was heaven, and for the ‘religious’ UFO encounter where knowledge was imparted, the subject in at least one case was instructed about or given visions of heaven. That particular case happened to be mine. Regarding the other-worldly nature of both types of experiences, this quality is evidenced by the large number of people who prefer to deny the reality of the events as delusional. It is common knowledge that UFO occupants and their craft perform maneuvers that are quite beyond the capabilities of mankind. Those involved in NDE experiences also claim to possess capabilities that go beyond the normal range of human experience. It’s not always appreciated that Jesus Himself demonstrated super-normal capabilities in addition to His healings, both before and after His resurrection. John 8:59 and 20:24-29 illustrate this quality of Jesus:

“Then took they up stones to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.”

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples, therefore, said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, will not believe. And, after eight days, again his disciples were inside, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach here thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach here thny hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered, and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Regarding the impartation of knowledge, I detail in Chapter 5 below my own experience which not only gave me the desire to acquire knowledge of Scripture but the actual understanding that was given to me that can’t be explained in any other way. In Chapter 7, I expand on that single incident by describing the prophetic knowledge that was given to a number of Biblical figures. Some of it is spectacular, including Daniel’s forecast in Daniel 9:24-27 of the timing of critical events that would occur in the future, including Jesus’ entrance as King into Jerusalem a certain time from a predicted event. This prophecy was fulfilled to the exact day hundreds of years in the future from Daniel! Another prophetic event that was precisely fulfilled was Ezekiel’s forecast of Israel’s return to statehood in 1948, as demonstrated by the late Bible scholar Grant Jeffrey.

Some very impressive knowledge, beyond what humans are capable of acquiring, comes out of NDE experiences as well. On pages 35 and 36 of Imagine Heaven, Burke relates how people who have been blind from birth emerge from their NDE episodes with descriptions of persons and objects that would be accessible only to those with the ability to see. He presents a particularly poignant example on page 48 of how a Dutch couple had a daughter they named Reitje who had died while a child. Eventually, after a period of grieving, they had a son. They refrained from telling him about their daughter, wishing to wait until he was older and could better handle the topic of death. When he was five, the son contracted meningitis and died. When he was rescuscitated, his greatly-relieved parents came to his hospital bedside to shower him with their love, whereupon he told them that he had gone to heaven. He told them that he had met his sister there, and gave them her name of Reitje. He asked them why they had never told him about her, saying that she had hugged him and was very loving toward them all. It blows my mind how the boy’s parents must have reacted to that news.

A very lovely lady with whom I had worked at one time confided in me her own near-death experience. While giving birth to her last baby, she succumbed to uncontrollable bleeding, and died on the hospital bed. She recalled hovering under the ceiling above her body, where they were working to resuscitate her. One of the doctors was talking to the nurse assisting him, and happened to make some inappropriate remarks about her. When she regained consciousness, she called him to her bedside and, as the astonished man began to melt down, redressed him sharply for what he had said.

I seem to have acquired some knowledge about heaven. In my most recent novel Home, Sweet Heaven I continue with the adventures of Earl and Joyce Cook, some of which involve the spiritual realm of heaven. An excerpt of their first encounter with that realm is given below; I was comfortable with the writing, as if I was happily recalling it directly from memory.

“They entered the light and emerged into a scene of awesome splendor. It was familiar, even homey, as if she’d been here before, long before her journey on earth. She was surrounded by greenery more vivid and lusher than what she’d been used to on earth. The trees appeared to be alive, their leaves flashing with emerald sparkles in the light breeze. They cast soft background glows that blended smoothly into a warm powder blue sky at the horizon that gradually deepened into a midnight blue at the zenith. This visual experience is a beautiful song, Joyce marveled. Even the grass seemed to be participating harmoniously in the joyful singing that surrounded her both visually and aurally. She rapidly began to view the dimensional restriction of her past life on earth as an irritating encumbrance. As she looked around, Joyce thrilled to the softly harmonious blend of colors. It was like the transition between black-and-white and color TV. Beyond the grandness of the visual experience, love was in the very air, so immense that it seemed to have a palpable presence. Her sense of familiarity strengthened as, mingled with the love was the growing knowledge that this was her real home.

“Yes!” a laughing angel affirmed to her without speaking. The presence of this being, Joyce realized with shock, was not outside her own soul. The being was within her, part of her own self and anything but an invasion of her privacy. Privacy here was meaningless, her spiritual intuition told her, as unwelcome as such an intrusion would have represented in the material world from which she had so recently departed. The intimacy was akin to romance with perhaps even an implication of sensuality in its connectivity, but extended vastly beyond the earthly experience. Another spiritual being entered their domain, extending the joy of intimate communion.

“’Oh!’ Joyce exclaimed to her new companion. ‘Oh my, I recognize you! You’re Cathy!’ The recognition of the soul who in earth had inhabited the severely crippled body of a girl afflicted with cerebral palsy overwhelmed her and she began to cry. Cathy joined in, weeping with joy and tightening their spiritual bond. ‘Look at me!’ she cried, moving outside Joyce’s domain momentarily to prance. ‘I’m whole!’ She skipped away, and then returned to Joyce, laughing. Joyce continued to cry as she looked with wonder at her adopted daughter who had been so cruelly mishandled at the hands of the prison guards. After a time of silent, heartfelt communion, Cathy began to instruct her about heaven. ‘The spiritual realm is our normal home, Joyce,’ she told her earthly guardian. ‘I chose to spend some time on earth, and I chose the body and circumstances under which that time would be spent. We were given that choice as an opportunity to grow in our love of God and to help others grow as well. You were one of my primary assignments, although I wasn’t aware of it while I was on Earth.’

“’Me? You were to help me?’ Joyce responded in surprise.

“’Yes. You thought it was the other way around, but I was placed into your life to help you grow in love and compassion. A big part of that growth involved your becoming more selfless in your interaction with others. But there were others with the same mission, like Earl and Sam.’”

Much as the NDE experience overlaps that of the UFO encounter, they are far from identical. There is at least one major difference as well. Whereas the UFO phenomenon quite often evokes secular, materialistic interpretations and notions of government cover-ups, there is no counterpart to these interpretations in the NDE cases, which invariably are interpreted in religious terms. Government involvement there is simply not contemplated, nor should it be. As far as I’m aware, nobody on the brink of death has been escorted to a group of bug-eyed Greys. I wouldn’t reject the possibility of something like that happening, but if I ever heard of such a thing, I’d be laughing a lot.

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER EIGHT (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER EIGHT (CONTINUED) The Meaning of Biblical Morality

It has been said, in defense of Zanchius, that in describing God as above passion, he was referring exclusively to God transcendent, a state of being connoting God separate from and above His creation. God immanent, on the other hand, referring to God among us, would indeed possess passion.

This defense is weakened by the fact that it puts words into the mouth of Zanchius that the gentleman never put there himself. Nevertheless, the assumption shall be made herein that Zanchius meant this all along.

It will also be presumed, so that the discussion might proceed without immediately being cut off, that somehow the following Scripture verse, namely Hebrews 13:8, can be interpreted to be not applicable to a change in God’s personality from ‘God transcendent’ to ‘God immanent’.

“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.”

It will yet further be presumed, for the sake of initial argument, that ‘God immanent’ refers exclusively to Jesus in the flesh. But since Jesus preexisted His sojourn in the flesh, his or any other Member of the Trinity’s existence prior to that event would necessarily be ‘God transcendent’. But Exodus 32:7-14, for example, describes that same God, who is, by our initial definition ‘transcendent’ at that point in history, as possessing passion in abundance:

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, whom thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These are thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
“And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord why doth wrath wax hot against thy people, whom thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst swear by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.
“And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”

Perhaps, then, lest we find immediate fault with this notion that ‘God transcendent’ differs with respect to nature than ‘God immanent’, the term ‘God immanent’ would better be defined as ‘God interacting with man’. But that doesn’t work because the creation itself of man is one aspect of God interacting with man, whereas it is the very endeavor of creation that defines “God transcendent’.

We could narrow the definition of ‘God immanent’ further to mean ‘God communicating with man’. As redeemed mankind will be communicating with Jesus as His Bride throughout eternity, that raises a very strange and difficult, if not blasphemous theological issue: Jesus as God was once transcendent before He came in the flesh, but never shall be again.

We could narrow the definition still further to mean ‘God communicating with man while He is in the flesh’ But that doesn’t work either, because Ephesians 5 demands that in His spiritual form, Jesus will be communicating quite intimately with His Church, to whom he is Husband. By this new definition, Jesus shall no longer assume the role of ‘God immanent’, but instead shall be ‘God transcendent’. Shall we then insist upon a passionless marriage, one that violates the whole concept of marriage as God Himself in both Scripture and creation has presented it to us?

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul’s mystery in Chapter 5 gives us a very different message than this. It speaks of hope and joy to which Zanchius’ definition of God simply doesn’t do justice. It is to be treasured not only for its contribution to our future hope and expectation, but also to clarify our understanding of our God. This mystery is encapsulated in Ephesians 5:25-32:

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
“This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

A devoted Christian condensed this beautiful statement into the following magnificent observation: “Just as Adam’s side was opened for Eve, so Jesus’ side was opened for His Church.”

In dwelling upon this wonderful notion, we also anticipate a God who is capable of passion toward us regardless of whether His presence is transcendent or immanent. In recognizing this fact, we can return to the assurance in Hebrews 13:8 of God’s unchanging nature.

What might change in God between transcendence and immanence is the dimensional constraint that Jesus experienced in becoming flesh. But that implies a limitation on His attributes rather than His basic nature, where passion belongs. Furthermore, it would be a limitation on His immanent form, not His transcendent form, which demands that His immanent form involves a subset of the attributes associated with His transcendent form, not the other way around. Therefore, even if one should insist in opposition to logic that passion was an attribute rather than an element of His basic nature, passion would be part of His transcendent form and not His immanent form, in contradiction to the argument that attempted to support Zanchius’ omission of passion in God’s nature.

Having refuted Zanchius’ assertion on this point, we can state without restraint that God, regardless of whether His form or state of being is immanent or transcendent, is capable of possessing passion. An immediate implication of this is that God is not alien to us.

The notion that God is above love of a passionate nature appears to violate Scripture, the most obvious case being ardor and passion intricately woven into the Song of Solomon, otherwise known as the Song of Songs. At least two Bible commentaries (in the Reformation Study Bible, New King James Version and in the New Schofield Reference Bible), both as introductions to the Song of Solomon, consider the Song to be an allegory of the future union of Jesus Christ with His Church.

My perception of the glory of God in all three Persons of the Godhead is far more the quality of their selfless willingness to give up the majesty than the grandeur of their possession of it. Connected with that perception I view the Members of the Godhead as capable of experiencing love with intensity and passion, which to me includes love of the romantic kind. Otherwise, the Song of Solomon would seem to be a wholly gratuitous insertion into Scripture of material extraneous to the Word if it didn’t speak either of Jesus’ future relationship with the Church or of the inter-Member relationship within the Godhead or both. Even more telling in this regard is the Shema of Moses, which Jesus presents as the greatest commandment in Matthew 22:36-38, and which demands a passionate commitment to the Lord. In light of the fact that Jesus, as a superlative Leader, never asked of His disciples anything that He wouldn’t do of Himself, it would seem to be contradictory to His character for Him to ask of us a passion that He Himself was incapable of exercising or even possessing.

The Song of Solomon raises issues in that regard that are worth addressing in detail. A host of Christian authorities readily acknowledge that it speaks of marital love in terms of passion and ardor. The same authorities admit even the erotic nature of some of its verses. The 1995 Reformation Study Bible (New King James Version), for example has this to say of the subject matter of the Song of Solomon:

“The beauty and worth of sexual love is affirmed at the beginning of the Bible, where the difference and relationship of the sexes is associated with the creation of humanity in God’s image (Gen. 1:27; cf. 2:19-25) If sexual love were evil in itself, it would be inappropriate as an allegory of Christ’s love for His church.”

Here Editor R. C. Sproul and his associates not only acknowledge the sexuality of the topic, but link it to both the nature of the Godhead and with the relationship between Christ and His Church. Indeed, in their same introductory commentary, the editors make the following statements:

“The Song of Solomon reveals three qualities of love between a man and a woman: self-giving, desire, and commitment. In all these ways love reflects the greater love of God our Creator. God delights in us and gives Himself to us. . . Christian marriage, according to Paul, should be modeled on the most perfect expression of such love, the self-giving love of Christ for His church and its willing response (Eph. 5:22, 23). The climax of the Song of Solomon is the praise of vehement and faithful love (8:6,7). The Song of Solomon. . .looks back to the gift of love in creation, and forward to the perfection of love in One greater than Solomon, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The editors, after implying a gender attribute of Jesus and the Godhead Itself, back off from openly declaring a sexuality of God:

“Although it is not proper to attribute sexuality to God, there is an analogy between the love we experience in marriage and the love that God has for us.”

While I would have wished that the editors, after having stated here what easily could be interpreted as the essential opposite of what they presented elsewhere in their introductory remarks, might have explained to us what they meant by the words ‘not proper’ and ‘sexuality’ and how they might justify using these words, their comment here may be reconciled with their other insinuations while leaving intact the notion of gender in the Godhead by considering the word ‘sexuality’ to refer to the human-specific form in which the function of gender has been implemented. If that indeed is what the editors had in mind, then I would be somewhat in agreement with them (while, with one eye fixed on the Song, wondering if they hadn’t been a bit hasty themselves in this declaration) and be tempted to applaud their discernment in declaring ‘sexuality’ to be an inappropriate attribute of the Godhead.

The commentary on the Song of Solomon presented in the New Schofield Reference Bible (1967 Edition edited by C. I. Schofield) echoes, but even more forcefully, that given in the Reformation Study Bible:

“Nowhere in Scripture does the unspiritual mind tread upon ground so mysterious and incomprehensible as in this book, whereas saintly men and women throughout the ages have found it a source of pure and exquisite delight. That the love of the divine Bridegroom, symbolized here by Solomon’s love for the Shulamite maiden, should follow the analogy of the marriage relationship seems evil only to minds that are so ascetic that marital desire itself appears to them to be unholy.

“The book is the expression of pure marital love as ordained by God in creation, and the vindication of that love as against both asceticism and lust – the two profanations of the holiness of marriage. Its interpretation is threefold: (1) as a vivid unfolding of Solomon’s love for a Shulamite girl; (2) as a figurative revelation of God’s love for His covenant people, Israel, the wife of the Lord (Isa. 54:5-6; Jer. 2:2; Ezek. 16:8-14, 20-21, 32, 38; Hos. 2:16, 18-20); and (3) as an allegory of Christ’s love for His heavenly bride, the Church (2 Cor. 11:1-2, refs., Eph 5:25-32).”

As there appears to be a general agreement among established Biblical authorities regarding the relevance of this openly passionate Book to Christ and His Church, and there appears to be a similarly general agreement among established Biblical authorities regarding the Diety of Jesus Christ, an inescapable observation must be made: At least one Member of the Divine Godhead is openly acknowledged to be fully capable and willing to (passionately) exercise His male gender.

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT: The meaning of Biblical Morality

General

According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance for the King James Bible, there is no Biblical reference to either morality or immorality.  There are, however, multiple passages in the Bible that essentially equate our notion of the word “morality” to other common terms.  These will be explored below.

There are numerous discussions on the Internet regarding Biblical morality, two of which reference a number of Bible verses the authors thought to be appropriate to the topic.  Many of these verses reference notions that are thought to be equivalent to our basic understanding of what Biblical morality might represent.  They are arranged below according to their commonality of these alternate expressions.

Morality as fulfillment of the Law (sometimes equated with love, other times equated with doctrine, most dealing with sexual deviation): Genesis 19:1-38; Exodus 20:13; Leviticus 18 and 20; Deuteronomy 23; 1 Kings 14:24; 2 Kings 23:7; Proverbs 20, 23; Matthew 5:27, 28; Matthew 7:12; Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:17; 1 Timothy 1:10; Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:15;

Morality as righteousness, which is most used in terms of our obedience to the call from God to love our neighbors and most specifically for our honesty in dealing with others, our responsibility toward those under our control or supervision and for our compassion toward those hurting or less fortunate than ourselves:  Isaiah 64:6; Matthew 6:33; Matthew 25; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 2 Timothy 3:16

Morality as love of God: Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30, 31;

Morality as obedience to God: references under fulfillment of the Law; references to righteousness; Proverbs 6:23-25; Proverbs 12:1; Matthew 6:24; Matthew 24:44-46; Acts 5:29; 1 Corinthians 2:13; Ephesians 6:4; James 1:22-25

Morality as good manners (responsible, thoughtful conduct): 1 Corinthians 15:33

Morality as harmonious with man’s creation: Genesis 1:27

Sexual Morality

The issue of sexual morality, and in particular the Biblical implications regarding it, is so important and so generally misunderstood that it deserves a separate discussion.

Webster’s New American Dictionary, 1956 Edition, defines “morality” as follows: “right living, virtue; conformity to generally accepted standards of conduct. “ Virtue, in turn, is defined therein as: “moral excellence, chastity”.  Continuing on, chastity is defined therein as: “the state of being chaste; purity”, where the word “purity” is defined as: “the quality of being free of blemishes and without admixture; chastity”.  Despite this unhelpful circularity of definition, chastity is commonly equated with virginity, which, in that dictionary, is defined as: “the quality of being a virgin; celibacy; chastity”.  Therefore, according to this dictionary, the term “morality” is equated, in a roundabout way, with celibacy.  There certainly are other, nonsexual, connotations of morality as well, but the sexual connotation takes center stage.

This linkage of morality with sexual purity, most commonly interpreted as strict celibacy, has been with the Church virtually since its beginning.   The implication is that sexuality of any nature, is at best a diversion preventing full intimacy with God and, at worst, a sin.  This notion is sometimes taken to the extreme of pronouncing as sinful passion of any kind.  This notional attitude is common in both Protestant and Catholic denominations, the Catholic expression of it being the most open.   As demonstrated in numerous Catholic publications, and particularly in those that deal with Mary, this equivalence is quite pronounced.  As an example is the Catholic insistence upon Mary’s perpetual virginity, despite the clear contradiction in Matthew 13 of that notion.  (The Catholic answer to Matthew 13 is her interpretation of the terms “brothers” and “sisters” is that of close relatives rather than siblings.)  It is true that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, describes celibacy as a desirable objective with the intent that the virgin may place all his or her affection on God undiluted, but note in verses 6 and 25 his acknowledgment that virginity is not a commandment from God.  Note also in verse 40 that Paul seems unsure as to how much of the call to celibacy of which he speaks is actually of God.  Nowhere in the Bible outside of Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 7 is there a hint that celibacy is a desirable practice.  There is no commandment that says “Thou shalt not lie with a woman.”  To the contrary, in Genesis 1:28 God told them to be fruitful and multiply.  Furthermore, Deuteronomy 23:1 insists that full masculinity is required for service to the Lord by stating that “He who is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.”  As a final point on the sexuality issue is the presence of the overtly sexual Song of Solomon in the canon of Scripture.

On the other hand, there are a host of abuses of normal sexuality that are proscribed in the Bible (especially in Exodus 20:14 and 17 and Leviticus 18 and 20) as abominations, or as one might otherwise put them, as immoral acts, such as adultery, homosexuality and bestiality, all of which represent violations of the way that God designed us, and consequently are in disharmony with our basic (unfallen) natures.  Adultery, in particular, also directly violates God’s second greatest commandment (Matthew 22:39), which is to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Additional  Comments on the Church’s Notion of Sexual Morality

Perhaps the most intellectually theological expression of the notion of sexuality or even passion as being beneath God is the virtually Gnostic pronouncement given by Jerome Zanchius in his tome “Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted”.  The first of these statements may be found on p. 40 as “Position 2” under the heading “The Mercy of God”.  In that statement Zanchius says “Mercy is not in the Deity, as it is in us, a passion or affection, everything of that kind being incompatible with the purity, perfection, independency and unchangeableness [immutability] of His nature; . . .”  The second of his statements is on pp. 43 and 44 under headings I and II of chapter 1.  Therein he fleshes out his concept of God’s love, as the following excerpts show: “When love is predicated of God, we do not mean that He is possessed of it as a passion or affection.  In us it is such, but if, considered in that sense, it should be ascribed to the Deity, it would be utterly subversive of the simplicity, perfection and independency of His being. . .”;  “. . .His love towards them arises merely from ‘the good pleasure of his own will,’ without the least regard to anything ad extra or out of Himself.”; “When hatred is ascribed to God, it implies (1) a negation of benevolence, or a resolution not to have mercy on such and such men. . .”

Zanchius thus defines a God whose primary attribute is his majestic greatness.  Had his mind access to expressions denoting higher level superlatives, he certainly would have included them.  In defining God in this way, he automatically makes love a secondary attribute, despite John’s emphatic identification of God as the very embodiment of love.  Zanchius’ passionless God, in fact, is alien to the God of Scripture.  This is to be expected, as he assigns attributes to God without any reference whatsoever to Scripture itself.

Zanchius’ God, then, being positionally remote from and by nature very different from the mankind of His creation, is alien to it as well.

In opposition to Zanchius, Scripture paints a far more beautiful picture of God, depicting His majestic glory as His willingness to give up the majesty of greatness and power in favor of a love of great fullness and depth.  The Gospels appear to support this view, depicting Jesus Christ (as God) as a Being full of the attributes of love as we know it, including passion.  Examples that come to mind include His weeping over Jerusalem and Lazarus and His ordeal in the garden of Gethsemane.  It is difficult to picture the risen Jesus talking to His followers on the road to Emmaus in the context of Zanchius’ notion of God’s remote perfection.

Zanchius’ definition of God not only suppresses His most important attribute, but inhibits those to whom Scripture was written from loving Him back.  This is a serious issue because it runs counter to His Great Commandment to love Him with all our hearts, and our souls and our minds.

[to be continued]

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER SEVEN (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER SEVEN (CONTINUED): The issue extends beyond the gender of the Holy Spirit

One further Biblical suggestion needs to be addressed regarding the importance of gender in the relationships within Godhead and between the spiritual Church and Jesus Christ.  In Genesis 17, God talks to Abraham, telling him of a blessing that he will receive that will greatly impact the future of mankind:

“And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.  And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.  And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.  Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.  And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.  And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.  And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a sojourner, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.

 

          “And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep My covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.  This is My covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee.  Every male child among you shall be circumcised.  And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.  And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner who is not of thy seed.  He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.  And the uncircumcised male child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.

 

          “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai, thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.  And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.  Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old?  And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?  And Abraham said unto God, Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee!  And God said, Sarah, thy wife, shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.”

 

          The primary theme of this passage continues in Genesis 18:11-14:

“Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.  Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I have become old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?  And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old?  Is anything too hard for the Lord?  At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”

I now present the gender issue to the reader by way of a question involving the passage above that requires nothing more or less than a common-sense answer:  Why, if God isn’t intimately and personally involved in gender, would He present one of the most important transactions between Him and the human race in terms of a sexual miracle?

As God had suggested, nothing is too hard for Him to accomplish.  If God were indeed above gender, as many past and present theologians insist, He certainly could have altered the story line and associated miracle to remove sexuality from it.

Sarah would bear their son Isaac the next year.  Why indeed would God demand a token response of Abraham and his offspring in the form of the sexual ritual of male circumcision?  This ritual had little or nothing to do with cleanliness.  The human race had survived for centuries before the ritual was established.  In Acts 7:51, Paul echoes Ezekiel 36:26 in furnishing a hint as to the real purpose of the ritual:

“Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do ye.”

 

In a very graphic way, Paul used the term to chastise his audience for their lack of sensitivity toward God.  That was indeed the imagery that God intended to convey to the nation of Israel through the institution of the rite.

Isaac was the son of Abraham through his lifelong marital partner, as God had intended marriage to be.  Through Abraham’s intended sacrifice of Isaac later, Abraham became a strong type of God the Father, while Isaac represented the Jesus as Lamb of God who was obedient to the cross.  Years later, Abraham sought a suitable wife for Isaac, one who would maintain Isaac as a strong type of Christ.  The account is in Genesis 24:10-32:

“And the servant took ten camels of the camels of [Abraham], and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor.  And he made his camels to kneel down outside the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water.  And he said, O Lord god of my master, Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master, Abraham.  Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water; and let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also; let her be the one whom thou hast appointed for thy servant, Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shown kindness unto my master.

 

          “And it came to pass, before he had finished speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder.  And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her; and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.  And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher.  And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hastened, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink.  And when she had finished giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have finished drinking.  And she hastened, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.  And the man, wondering at her, held his peace, to learn whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not.

 

‘And it came to pass, as the camels had finished drinking, that the man took a golden ring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her wrists of ten shekels weight of gold; and said, Whose daughter art thou?  Tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father’s house for us to lodge in?  And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor.  She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and fodder enough, and room to lodge in.  And the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord.  And he said, Blessed be the Lord God  of my master, Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.  And the dams and he ungirded his camels, and gave straw and fodder for the camels, and water to wash his feet, and the men;s feet that were with him.  And there was set food before him to eat: but he said, I will not eat, until I have told mine errand.”

 

The man related to Laban and the others the unique way that God had precisely answered his elaborate test for the suitability of Rebekah for marriage to Isaac.  Then the man gave Laban the riches he had brought with him on the camels.  Laban responded by consenting to the marriage.  But as the man prepared to return to Abraham with Rebekah, Laban backed off somewhat, asking for another ten days before giving up his sister.  At that point, almost as an afterthought, they decided to ask for Rebekah’s consent as well.  (As a side point, I see some implication in that regarding the issue of free will, most often expressed as the Calvinist/Arminian divide among Christians)

After receiving Rebekah’s consent to the marriage, they journey back to Abraham’s home, where Isaac marries Rebekah.  She gives birth to Jacob and Esau.  Jacob is renamed Israel by God, continuing on the bloodline to Jesus Christ.

I offer another question to the reader: What was so important about Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah that it involved such an intricate selection process that was so detailed in Scripture?  Permit me to answer that one:  Isaac, who was a strong type of Christ, continued to be a type in this marital relationship, anticipating the future role of the Church as the Bride of Christ.  Paul expressed this blessed hope quite boldly in Ephesians 5:31 and 32:

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.  This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.”

 

Christians sometimes claim that Jesus never married, nor ever will marry, perceiving Him to be “above” sexual matters.  Others claim that He did marry, to Mary Magdalene.  I would claim that both these presuppositions are wrong with immense implications regarding our understanding of God, suggesting instead that Jesus never married on Earth because He already is betrothed to his future wife, the Church.  I see Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding in Cana as anticipating the joy of that future marriage.               

           

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN: The issue extends beyond the gender of the Holy Spirit

It is a left-handed tribute to the thoroughness by which the Church was cleansed of all matters sexual to appreciate that not only was the Holy Spirit stripped of gender, but that this wholesale gender denial extended to our future spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ.  Even today, pastors who should know their Scripture better downplay Paul’s beautiful presentation in Ephesians 5 of our future spiritual relationship with Jesus as His wife.

Claiming, no, demanding rather, that procreation doesn’t exist in the spiritual realm, they prefer to perceive the Church’s future bridehood as nothing more than a figure of speech intended to convey the greatness of Jesus agape love toward mankind.  As to what the actual relationship consists of, they refuse to extend their imaginations beyond some kind of bright light in heaven and go no further, their impassible mental wall being their equation of purity with chastity.  In doing so, they miss the boat on the Godhead’s involvement in the entire creation epic.

It is common knowledge that Scripture describes the Church as the Bride of Christ.  But Scripture also describes us as Jesus’ spiritual wife, which defines the relationship as having been consummated.  Examples include Revelation 19:7 and 21:9.  Romans 7:4 is even more explicit in that regard, going beyond describing our relationship with Jesus as a marital one to identifying it as bearing fruit:

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

It is an undeniable fact that consummation and birth go hand-in-hand.  The insistence upon its denial in the face of its obvious truth reminds me of an incident in which my brother and I were involved in junior high.  Regrettably, our involvement was thoughtless, causing us to engage in some soul-searching afterward.

There is a saying in the Marine Corps that there are always the ten percent who never get the word.  This is true not only in the service but in all walks of life.  In the particular case that I’m recalling here, the fourteen-year-old classmate of ours had no knowledge whatsoever regarding the birds and the bees.  My brother and I, upon discovering this oddity, proceeded to explain to him that his very presence on earth required his mother and father to have engaged in sex.  He subsequently displayed, in very rapid succession, all the stages of grief.  He went into denial, but then his mind caught up with that and his face turned quite red.  He wept crocodile tears and, bawling, he got up and rushed out the classroom door while the rest of the class snickered.  I imagine that he went directly home thereafter to confront his parents with their disgrace.

That poor unfortunate kid reminds me a lot of our mainstream Church leadership, both Catholic and Protestant.  The main difference is the probability that over ninety percent of them never got the word.  The problem is not that God has engaged in disgraceful behavior, but that the Church leadership now and in the past has insisted upon perceiving all sexual conduct as dirty.  They need to grow up.

With that thought in mind, I present the following questions to them:

QUESTIONS FOR THE MAINSTREAM THEOLOGIAN WHO INSISTS UPON THE LACK OF GENDER IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM

All of the following issues have straightforward, Scripturally-compatible answers.

Please explain the mechanics of Jesus’ birth in the flesh, with reference to Luke 1:26-35 and “the seed of the Woman” in Genesis 3:15.  Regarding this issue, the proper interpretation of “seed” is the male contribution to life, as opposed to “egg”, which is the female contribution to life.  Also, in Luke 1, the “highest” is the Father.  Putting these facts together in the context of a feminine Holy Spirit who is creatively responsive to the Father’s will leads to a conclusion that is very different, less self-contradictory, fully intuitive and eminently more logical than the mainstream views of both Catholic and Protestant Churches on this topic.

Please cite Scriptural descriptions of the spiritual Church that are not relevant to depictions of Jesus’ marital relationship to the spiritual Church.  Do not include references to the Church as the Body of Christ, as that is explained in Ephesians 5:28 as integral to the marital union.

Please explain, with reference to John 3 and Revelation 12, how Scripture denies the possibility of procreation in the spiritual realm.

Please explain the relevance to the body of Scriptural canon the presence in Scripture of the following books and chapters: Genesis 2 and 24; Song of Solomon; Isaiah 54; Jesus’ first miracle described in John 2 – the wedding in Cana; 1 Corinthians 6 and 7; Ephesians 5; and Revelation 19-21.

Please explain Scripture’s emphasis and often continuous focus in both Testaments on gender, marriage, birth and offspring.

Please account for Scriptural references to feminine characteristics, including executive roles and the portrayal of Wisdom in Proverbs as feminine, within the Godhead in the face of the strong masculinity of both the Father and Jesus Christ and the anti-Scriptural notion of both masculinity and femininity residing within the same Being.

Please point to those passages in Scripture that label gender or sexuality as beneath God.  Please include those passages that describe the only purpose of the marital union as the begetting of children.  Such would appear to contradict 1 Corinthians 7:9.

Please explain why Jesus remained celibate during His time on earth.

Please explain the difficulty of mainstream theology in its understanding of the Holy Spirit and its perception of the issue as complex, and why, in the face of a simple, intuitive answer to the issue given a feminine Holy Spirit, it is necessary to suggest that an answer is unknowable and can be resolved only through a face-to-face meeting with God.

Please explain the attachment in Genesis 2:18 to the notion of complementary otherness and why that doesn’t apply to the Godhead.

Those who found that they couldn’t answer all of the questions with reference to Scripture should get the hint that maybe their understanding of God needs some extensive revision with respect to gender and love within the Judeo-Christian Godhead.  Perhaps some re-examination of the meaning of sexual purity also would be in order.  The following chapter addresses that issue.

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX: A summary of the God that the mainstream Christian Church refuses to see

 

This God, unlike the one addressed in the previous chapter, corresponds more closely to Scripture.  That is a most fortunate circumstance, as this God is One whom we can understand with full intuition and share a substantial measure of intimacy.  We can worship this God with fervor, because we share in many of His attributes and, more importantly, we can see this God as noble.  If there is any attribute of this God that stands out above omniness, it is the majesty of His selfless nobility.

This God of Scripture consists, at the present time, of Father, Mother and Son, constituting a perfectly functioning gender-inclusive Family enjoying perfect intra-Godhead intimacy, communication and, most of all, love on a scale so grand as to be beyond our perception.  It is the Godhead – Family – that bestows oneness on the Holy Trinity.  Within that Trinity the Members are differentiated by function: Kingdom, Power and Glory.  The characterization of the Godhead as Trinitarian is qualified as pertaining to the present, as there is every hope, within Scripture, of the spiritual Church eventually joining the Godhead.

The feature that drives this separation of the Godhead away from the God of mainstream understanding is the femininity of the Holy Spirit.  This feature instantly transforms a loose, agape-based amalgam of vaguely-defined Beings into a tightly-coupled, eros-based Family whose Members enjoy complementary, mutually-supportive functions.  Moreover, even with our fallen natures and dimensional limitations, their Holy natures, being Family-based, are accessible to our understanding, even to the extent that we can worship this God with the fervor demanded of us by Jesus in Matthew 22.

Given the notions of family and its associated features of unity of purpose, selfless participation, complementary otherness, it is a matter of simple logic to attach functionality to each of the Members within the Godhead.  As described in Marching to a Worthy Drummer, to the Father would apply the attribute of Divine Will, or the initiating thought.  Corresponding to the complementary otherness of the Will, the functional attribute of the Holy Spirit would be the execution of the Father’s will, or the Divine Means that enables the initiating thought belonging to the Will to assume reality.  To the Son, then, would be the Divine Result, the glory in reality of the initiating thought.

Where would the Church fit in?  As the spouse of Christ, of course, just as Paul hinted in so many passages, including 2 Corinthians 11:2 and Galatians 4:27 (which itself echoes Isaiah 54), and he so directly stated in Ephesians 5:25-32.  In Revelation 19:7 and 21:9, John echoes Paul’s assertion, claiming the Church to be the wife of Christ.  Given this wonderful relationship, it is only natural that Paul’s would note in Galatians 3:29, 4:5 and elsewhere that the Church is the in-law child of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The existing relationship within the Godhead and the promised future relationship between man and God places our present relationship with God on an entirely different plane than that which is perceived by the mainstream Church.  No longer must we worship God as groveling dogs or as beggars for scraps but as future members of the Divine Family, adored and treasured by a God who knows intimacy and wants the same for us.  Of course God is superior to us in a great number of very important traits, such as character, abilities, and mind.  But it is His superiority in one trait that gives us hope and allows us to adore Him in sincerity.  That trait is His superlative love, which extends even to us.

As a beautiful token of our betrothal to Jesus Christ, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, forecast millennia before our time at Her indwelling of the Tabernacle in the wilderness (Exodus 40), and at Solomon’s dedication of the first Temple (1 Kings 8).  The connection between these precursor events and the Holy Spirit who indwells Christian believers is given in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and Ephesians 2:19-22, wherein Paul asserts that the Church herself, through her constituents, is a temple indwelt by the Holy Spirit:

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

 

          Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

We know from this parallelism of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of the Jewish Temples and the temples of our bodies that we the Church all have available to us the guidance of God, our future Mother-in-law, directing us as we allow toward the characters that will be pleasing to our future Spouse, Jesus Christ.  All we have to do is accept that supporting direction, scary or unpleasant as it may seem at first.  But what loving intimacy!  What hope for our future spiritual companionship with our Lord and our Spouse, Jesus Christ!

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER 5

 

CHAPTER FIVE: A summary of the mainstream Christian Church’s view of God

Extracting the essence of the previous four chapters, one readily can summarize the nature of God, as viewed by mainstreamWestern Christianity, as embracing the following attributes:

God is perceived to be majestic, all-seeing, all-powerful, and all-knowing.  These attributes are contained in the familiar omni-descriptions: omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient.  If other omni-attributes are found, they would apply to God as well, as the mainstream God is all about omniness.

Unlike us lesser beings inhabiting the material world, God is genderless, being above matters sexual.  He is also without passion in general, including love and hatred.  To be sure, He is merciful, but in a vague, largely undefined way.  Passion, gender and the intimacy of possessive love are prohibited by the Western Mainstream Church from encroaching upon His omni-qualities.

Given these general characteristics, the Godhead is found to be a Trinity, consisting of a common essence and three vaguely-defined “personalities”.  His Trinitarian constitution is considered to exist from forever in the past to forever in the future.  The intra-Trinitarian relationship consists of a supposedly benign fellowship of three characteristically male personalities who lack the function of gender, bonded together in love restricted to an agape form; love in an eros form with its possessive and romantic qualities is considered unthinkable.

The general implication of this view of God and the Godhead is that God represents an essential alien quality, one of being inexplicably different from us: He is genderless whereas we are fully gendered; He is unattainably far above us; His relationship with us is said to consist of love, but it is the sparing love of a stern, commanding Presence, constantly kicking over those of our works that don’t meet with His stratospheric standards of behavior.

Because of God’s lack of gender, we are commanded to obey his several prohibitions of sexual deviation from His established norm of a lifetime-long single marital relationship between one male and one female without understanding why that is such an important standard.  While unequivocal obedience without the necessity of knowledge is a reasonable expectation of God toward mankind, many of His other commandments are amenable to common-sense understanding.  On the other hand, it is apparent that at least in our present societies worldwide, people including Christians violate the sexual commandments with indifference toward God.

If anything affirmative can be said of the various Church authorities’ treatment of the Holy Spirit as noted in the previous chapters, it is their consistency with each other in fostering the view of God as expressed above.

Our worship of this Being must consequently consist of fear tempered by love, rather than love tempered by fear.  We worship Him as would tiny ants, looking up an enormous leathery sole poised to come down hard, smashing all below into pulp.  We appease this harsh God, either to avoid punishment or to curry favor and to obtain subsequent gifts.

In the wake of this description of our common understanding of God I offer a question: Is this the God defined in Scripture?  To that question, I respond with a resounding “no”, for the reasons explained herein.

Instead, this God is a diety of man’s own making.  Usually, when referring to a false god, the conservative Christian will point to that god’s indulgences toward a fallen Church.  The most recent examples of that attitude include the conservative Church’s denunciation of those Churches that attempt to accommodate the secular world’s insistence upon political correctness in the matters of homosexual marriages, homosexual participation in Church leadership, the Muslim view of God, or that worship the benevolent God who sheds health, wealth and happiness to those who, with itching ears, fervently believe in such.  But the conservative view of God, while residing at the opposite end of the belief spectrum from Santa Claus, is every bit as much a god constructed by man, because that god, like the others, fails to correspond to Scripture.

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR: How modern theologians attempt to explain the Holy Spirit while excluding sexuality from God
For the most part the Protestant Church, in contrast with her Catholic sister, simply accepts the lack of the feminine and ignores the issue altogether, treating it as beyond the pale of appropriate intellectual investigation. Despite this general official refusal of the Protestant Churches to address the void caused by the removal of functional gender from God, a number of interested theologians have attempted to explain the nature of the Holy Spirit in a way that, while conforming to Church doctrine, makes an effort to present the Holy Spirit in a logical and, as they struggle to achieve, a warm manner.

Yet both Catholic and Protestant Churches have in common a view of the Trinity in which sexuality is at most a superficial feature even for birth and in which vital aspects of femininity are denied altogether. This view leads most investigators into the nature of the Trinity into an admission that the topic is very complex, to the extent that in the end they admit further that. like attempting to understand the duality of light or the logic behind quantum mechanics, they can’t comprehend it completely. This limitation has and continues to have a profound influence on the entire nature of Christianity. Didn’t any of these investigators grasp a hint in the wake of this inability to comprehend such an important topic that perhaps the standard view of the Trinity might need some revision?

Both the Father as the divine Will and the Son as Jesus Christ, the divine Word, are well-defined in Scripture as to their general natures and their functional roles. Of the three Members of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is by far the most enigmatic. It is the lack of understanding, or perhaps simply the misunderstanding, of the nature of this divine Member from which the confusion and apparent complexity of the Trinity has arisen. A substantial part of this confusion is the obviously apparent but discomforting feature of the Holy Spirit’s Scripturally-defined character as embracing specifically feminine elements in contradiction to the general view of the Trinity as being either gender-neutral or masculine.

Many expositors of the Holy Spirit see in Genesis 1 the active participation of the Holy Spirit in the act of creation. This is the position taken by respected scholar of Scripture Benjamin B. Warfield, who describes this functional attribute of the Holy Spirit in Chapter Seventeen of his book The Holy Spirit:

“His offices in Nature – The ‘Spirit’ or personal ‘Breath’ is the Executive of the Godhead, as the ‘Son’ or ‘Word’ is the Revealer. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of chaos and developed cosmos (Gen. 1:2). Henceforth he is always represented as the author of order and beauty in the natural as of holiness in the moral world. He garnished the astronomical heavens (Job 26:13). He is the organizer and source of life to all provinces of vegetable and animal nature (Job 33:4; Ps. 104:29, 30; Isa. 32:14, 15), and of enlightenment to human intelligence in all arts and sciences (Job 32:8; 35:11; Ex 31:2-4).”

Dr. H. A. Ironside, in a little tome first printed in 1941 entitled The Holy Trinity, also interprets Genesis 1:2 as asserting that the Holy Spirit, in concert with the Father, was actively involved in creation. Interestingly, in referencing Isaiah 66 as an Old Testament reference to the Trinity he quotes from verse 13:

“As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you.”

Although Ironside invariably interprets the Holy Spirit in terms of the masculine pronoun ‘he’, he also confesses a lack of full understanding of the nature of the Trinity. Yet the passage quoted above, by associating the word ‘mother’ with ‘comfort’, furnishes a key argument for the feminine function of the Holy Spirit. For Jesus, in John 14:16 and 17, directly links the Holy Spirit with the name (implying role) Comforter:

“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”

Dedicated theologian Dr. Bruce A. Ware makes similar statements to Warfield regarding the executive (implementation of will) role of the Holy Spirit in his work Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. In fact, this executive role of the Holy Spirit is a general theme among theologians. In his own work, Ware encapsulates the roles of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as follows: Father – Grand Architect; Son – Submission to the Father in doing (displaying) His Will; Holy Spirit – Carrying out the work of the Father.

Alister McGrath, who wrote the work Understanding the Trinity, provides a representative viewpoint of this genre, yet also furnishes some remarkably fresh insights. He stands on what I humbly perceive as firm soil in his eloquent and moving descriptions of God and the incarnate Jesus in chapters 1 through 6. In reading it for a second time quite recently I realized afresh how his treatment of the Trinity had influenced my own work Family of God. It was Dr. McGrath, in fact, whom I mentioned on pages 24 through 26:

“Some theologians, having briefly noted the one intuitively satisfactory functional description of the Trinity, reject this particular answer quite abruptly, justifying their rejection on the basis of insufficient logic. They proceed from there to hammer out tortuously-derived and ultimately insufficient, emotionally empty alternatives. One such expositor, who otherwise paints with highly readable and insightful words a delightful description of God, mentions the Trinity with profound understanding and then quickly discards it as a misapplication of a familiar model in an attempt to apply too much of what is, after all, just a simplistic and imperfect model to the reality of God Himself. In his haste to reject that application, however, he violates the same logical guidelines which he carefully presented in the immediately preceding pages of his discussion.

“This same theologian, in viewing the Trinity in the uncontroversial terms of man’s encounters with God, explains it as different facets of His nature through which God has chosen to reveal Himself to man. God, he asserts, is altogether too vast for man, with his limitations in time and space, to acquire a complete picture of His entire nature. We can sample portions of this Divine Entity, however, and by thinking through the implications of the composite picture that He has given us through Scripture, we perceive His Trinitarian nature and the necessity for it. This experiential description is, I think, a valid one and has the advantage of being safely neutral with respect to gender. It is certainly the most intuitively satisfying characterization of the Trinity that I have seen to date. Yet such an exclusively man-centered description yields a disappointing poverty of information about God Himself, leaving the reader to ask why, if God does indeed have a Trinitarian nature, He is so reluctant to share a picture of that characteristic with us in terms of His intrinsic functional attributes. It would seem, after all, that a God-centered intuitive understanding would naturally lead to a greater appreciation of Him, and consequently a greater love toward Him on the part of His subjects. One might easily suspect, as a matter of fact, that those individuals in the past who were named in the Book of Hebrews, did indeed have personal insights into the nature of God beyond those which the usual churchgoer might have access to via his pastor or his reading of Scripture.”

The description of the Trinity that Dr. McGrath presented with profound understanding and subsequently discarded in haste begins on page 57 of Understanding the Trinity. An important continuation is presented twelve pages later, where the author appears to wish to tone down his rejection of the earlier model by presenting some qualifying remarks which suggest that perhaps he himself had some persistently lingering thoughts about the nature of the Holy Spirit that he didn’t wish to assert directly:

“It was therefore assumed that light also needed to travel through something [as was the case for sound, upon which light was modeled], and the word ‘aether’ was coined to describe the medium through which light waves traveled. If you read old radio magazines, or listen to old radio programmes, you’ll sometimes find people referring to ‘waves traveling through the aether’. But by the end of the century it had become clear that light did not seem to need any medium to travel through. What had happened was simply that the logical necessity of one aspect of the model (sound) had initially been assumed to apply to what was being modeled (light), and this assumption was gradually recognized to be incorrect as the experimental evidence built up.

“And so it is with models of God. For example, we often use ‘father’ as a very helpful model of God, emphasizing the way in which we are dependent upon God for our existence. But for every human child there is a human mother as well as a human father. This would seem to imply that there is a heavenly mother in addition to a heavenly father. But this assumption rests upon the improper transfer of the logical necessity of an aspect of the model (father) to what is being modeled (God), in just the same way as the necessity of one aspect (the need for a medium of propagation) of the model (sound) was transferred to what was being modeled (light). . .”

“. . . Although the strongly patriarchal structure of society of the time inevitably meant that emphasis was placed upon God as father (e.g., Jeremiah 3:19; Matthew 6:9), there are several passages which encourage us to think of God as our mother (e.g., Deuteronomy 32:18). We shall be considering these two images together, and ask what they tell us about God.

“The first, and most obvious, point is that God is understood as the one who called us into being, who created us. Just as our human parents brought us into being, so God must be recognized as the author and source of our existence. Thus at one point in her history, Israel is chided because she ‘forgot the God who gave [her] birth’ (Deuteronomy 32:18; cf. Isaiah 44:2, 24; 49:15).

“The second point which the model of God as parent makes is the natural love of God for his people. God doesn’t love us because of our achievements, but simply because we are his children. ‘The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you’ (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). Just as a mother can never forget or turn against her child, so God will not forget or gturn against his people (Isaiah 49:15). There is a natural bond of affection and sympathy between God and his children, simply because he has brought them into being. Thus God loved us long before we loved him (1 John 4:10, 19). Psalm 51:1 refers to God’s ‘great compassion, and it is interesting to note that the Hebrew word for ‘compassion’ (rachmin) is derived from the word for ‘womb’ (rechmen). God’s compassion towards his people is that of a mother towards her child (cf. Isaiah 66:12-13). Compassion stems from the womb.”

A delightful feature of his discourses, remarkable for its rarity, is a description of God’s loving relationship to mankind in romantic terms. Another feature of his presentation is his lengthy discussion of the necessities of Jesus’ essence as both man and God, and of His resurrection.
Unfortunately, Dr. McGrath appears to be on less stable ground in his discussion of the Trinity. In his presentation of this dogma he avoids delving too deeply into God’s intrinsic nature or attributes by substituting in its place a lengthy experientially-based account of Him in terms of His interaction with mankind. He is careful near the outset of his discourse, however, to distance himself from any notion that the Trinity includes a female Persona. He does so in his chapter entitled Thinking About God by noting that intellectual models are subject to misapplication through the improper assumption that every attribute of a model must apply to its counterpart in reality. As already noted, he cites as an example the wave characteristic of sound as a model for light, as was quoted directly from his work above.

But is the assumption of a Divine Mother in the economy of God necessarily a misapplication of the human parent model? It could be, but that’s a long way from must be. Nowhere does Dr. McGrath justify the necessity that he associates with that application. Instead, he elevates a mere illustrative example to the status of a law.

Moreover, and again as we have already noted, a short twelve pages further along, Dr. McGrath equivocates a bit regarding the possibility of motherhood in God’s economy, citing a number of Scriptural passages that describe God in a role more appropriate to motherhood than to fatherhood.

Almost at the end of his book it can be seen how Dr. McGrath rescues himself from this apparent inconsistency: as discussed in more detail below, he does not posit a distinct member of the Godhead who possesses the attributes of femininity; instead, he attributes this characteristic to the same Person as the Father. But rather than solving the problem of the feminine side of God, he comes dangerously close both to ultra-monotheism and modalism. Beyond that, he defines a God with gender characteristics indeed, but in the same Person. According to 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10, this suggests a model for a human malady known as hermaphroditism, which is contrary to Scripture, even to the extent of being labeled as unrighteous:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

I find it hard to believe, given its treatment in Scripture, that in His own organization God would wish even to hint at sexual perversion, or even sexual difficulty.

The essence of McGrath’s description of Jesus may be encapsulated in this passage, found in his chapter entitled God as Three and God as One: “The difficulties really begin with the recognition of the fundamental Christian insight that Jesus is God incarnate: that in the face of Jesus Christ we see none other than the living God himself. Although the New Testament is not really anything like a textbook of systematic theology, there is nothing stated in the great creeds of the church which is not already explicitly or implicitly stated within its pages. Jesus is understood to act as God and for God: whoever sees him, sees God; when he speaks, he speaks with the authority of God; when he makes promises, he makes them on behalf of God; when he judges us, he judges as God; when we worship, we worship the risen Christ as God; and so forth.” Dr. McGrath goes on to characterize Jesus in his incarnate form as not actually comprising the fullness of God, but merely as a representative sample of God suitable for furnishing humanity with some comprehension, consistent with their limitations, of the far more complete spiritual God who resides in heaven. He claims in a similar vein that the Holy Spirit, like Jesus, is another manifestation of God, in this case one that indwells the believer, that furnishes another way by which redeemed mankind can encounter, or experience, God.

Dr. McGrath ends with this commentary:

“We can now see why Christians talk about God being a ‘three-in-one’. One difficulty remains, however, which must be considered. How can God be three persons and one person at the same time? This brings us to an important point which is often not fully understood. The following is a simplified account of the idea of ‘person’ which may be helpful, although the reader must appreciate that simplifications are potentially dangerous. The word ‘person’ has changed its meaning since the third century when it began to bed used in connection with the ‘threefoldness of God’. When we talk about God as a person, we naturally think of God as being one person. But theologians such as Tertullian, writing in the third century, used the word ‘person’ with a different meaning. The word ‘person’ originally derives from the Latin word persona, meaning an actor’s face-mask – and, by extension, the role which he takes in a play.

“By stating that there were three persons but only one God, Tertullian was asserting that all three major roles in the great drama of human redemption are played by the one and the same God. The three great roles in this drama are all played by the same actor: God. Each of these roles may reveal God in a somewhat different way, but it is the same God in every case. So when we talk about God as one person, we mean one person in the modern sense of the word, and when we talk about God as three persons, we mean three persons in the ancient sense of the word. It is God, and God alone, who masterminded and executes the great plan of salvation, culminating in Jesus Christ. It is he who is present and active at every stage of its long history. Confusing these two senses of the word ‘person’ inevitably leads to the idea the God is actually a committee, which, as we saw earlier, is a thoroughly unhelpful and confusing way of thinking about God.”

One certainly could not accuse Dr. McGrath of being a tritheist. On the other hand, despite his denial on the back cover of the book that he entertains the heretical notion of modalism, he’s on shaky ground there, being right on the edge or over it according to his own words.

Dr. Mcgrath is somewhat unique among other well-established theologians in that his scientific training has furnished him with an ability to be objective in his presentation and make use of useful intellectual tools such as models to make his points. Further, he at least addresses some notions that others avoid like the plague, as if they themselves might be infected by ideas they may have been taught were close to blasphemous. He has in common with the others, however, several notions regarding the Holy Spirit that are generally accepted within faithful Christendom: while all Members of the Trinity possess the same substance and are fully and equally God, they differ with respect to functional role; the role for the Holy Spirit conforms most closely to that associated with executive companion and motherhood; the Holy Spirit is a background Entity, more self-effacing than Father and Son; the Trinity (as confessed by the Church) is a mystery beyond man’s comprehension. The ‘others’ who share these particular view with Drs. McGrath and Ware include Dr. Peter Masters (The Faith) and James R. White (The Forgotten Trinity).

I agree quite thoroughly with all of these points except the last, regarding the mystery which appears to be beyond comprehension, with which I disagree quite thoroughly. To me, the incomprehensibility in understanding the Trinity is another typical case of man’s brain outsmarting his heart. What should be an extremely simple and intuitive understanding, man has turned into a riddle, in the process wrapping himself tightly around the intellectual axle.

A case could be made that in the many attempts made by scholars of Scripture to describe the Holy Spirit, they end up implying an association of the Holy Spirit with Wisdom. Wisdom, of course, is given a lengthy treatment in Proverbs, with a female gender association.

It must be noted that in every case, these respected theologians are consistent with each other and with general Church dogma, represented by the early Church Fathers, Zanchius, and Catholic theology concerning the absence of gender within the Godhead.

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER THREE

 

 

CHAPTER THREE: How the modern Catholic Church excludes sexuality from the attributes of God

As was noted above in the context of Father MacQuarrie’s view of the distribution of secondary gender characteristics within the Godhead, the Catholic Church responds to a genderless God in a unique way.  Having removed the female gender from the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church, to her credit, understands that an unnatural gap was thereby created in its sterilized perception of the Godhead.  She has filled the perceived and all-too-real void of a genderless or (mostly) all-male God with Mary, the mother of Jesus, whom she has elevated to a superhuman status that falls just short of deity.  It is Mary upon whom the Catholic Church places her love and devotion, restoring a semblance of the fervor of worship commanded by both Moses and Jesus in asking of us the entirety of our hearts, souls and mind in our love toward Him.  To most Catholic laypersons, Mary’s position of subordination to diety is so minuscule as to be nonexistent, wherein the veneration of her is indistinguishable from worship.

The Catholic text Mary in the Church Today, a compilation by Father Bill McCarthy of papal pronouncements and other official Catholic teachings regarding Mary, mother of Jesus, is an excellent source book for the understanding of the Catholic position regarding Mary.  The teachings, from which the following entries are gleaned, speak for themselves.

“’For,’ the text [Lumen Gentium, 62] goes on, ‘taken up to heaven, [Mary] did not lay aside this saving role, but by her manifold acts of intercession continues to win for us gifts of eternal salvation.’  With this character of ‘intercession,’ first manifested in Cana in Galilee, Mary’s mediation continues in the history of the Church and the world.  We read that Mary ‘by her maternal charity, cares for the brethren of her Son who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led to their happy homeland.’  In this way Mary’s motherhood continues unceasingly in the Church as the mediation which intercedes, and the Church expresses her faith in this truth by invoking Mary ‘under the title of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, and Mediatrix.’

“Through her mediation, subordinate to that of the Redeemer, Mary contributes in a special way to the union of the pilgrim Church on earth with the eschatological and heavenly reality of the Communion of Saints, since she has already been ‘assumed into heaven’.  The truth of the assumption defined by Pius XII, is reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council, which thus expresses the Church’s faith: ‘Preserved free from all guilt of original sin, the Immaculate Virgin was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory upon the completion of her earthly sojourn.  She was exalted by the Lord as Queen of the Universe, in order that she might be the more thoroughly conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords (cf. Rv 19:16) and the conqueror of sin and death.’  In this teaching Pius XII was in continuity with Tradition, which has found many different expressions in the history of the Church, both in the East and in the West.”

-exerpted from Redemtoris Mater, Articles 40 and 41

“Subsequently, in 1962, on the feast of the Purification of Mary, Pope John set the opening of the Council for 11 October, explaining that he had chosen this date in memory of the great Council of Ephesus, which precisely on that date had proclaimed Mary ‘Theotokos’, Mother of God . . . “

“2. At the second session of the Council it was that the treatment of the Blessed Virgin Mary be put into the Constitution of the Church.  This initiative, although expressly recommended by the Theological Commission, prompted a variety of opinions.

“Some, who considered this proposal inadequate for emphasizing the very special mission of Jesus’ Mother in the Church, maintained that only a separate document could express Mary’s dignity, pre-eminence, exceptional holiness and unique role in the Redemption accomplished by the Son.  Furthermore, regarding Mary as above the Church in a certain way, they were afraid that the decision to put the Marian teaching in the treatment of the Church would not sufficiently emphasize Mary’s privileges and would reduce her role to the level of other members of the Church. . .”

• excerpted from the ninth of Pope John Paul II’s series of catecheses on the Blessed Virgin

“Mary’s fundamental dignity is that of being ‘Mother of the Son’, which is expressed in Christian doctrine and devotion with the title ‘Mother of God’.

“This is a surprising term, which shows the humility of God’s only-begotten Son in his Incarnation and, in connection with it, the most high privilege granted a creature who was called to give him birth in the flesh.

“Mother of the Son, Mary is the ‘beloved daughter of the Father’ in a unique way.  She has been granted an utterly special likeness between her motherhood and the divine fatherhood.  And again, every Christian is a ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’, according to the Apostle Paul’s expression (1 Cor 6:19).  But this assertion takes on an extraordinary meaning in Mary: in her the relationship with the Holy Spirit is enriched in a spousal dimension,  I recalled this in the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater:  ‘The Holy Spirit had already come down upon her, and she became his faithful spouse at the Annunciation, welcoming the Word of the true God. . .’ (n. 26).”

– excerpted from the eleventh of Pope John Paul II’s series of catecheses on the Blessed Virgin

“The freedom ‘from every stain of original sin’ entails as a positive consequence the total freedom from all sin as well as the proclamation of Mary’s perfect holiness, a doctrine to which the dogmatic definition makes a fundamental contribution.  In fact, the negative formulation of the Marian privilege, which resulted from the earlier controversies about original sin that arose in the West, must always be complemented by the positive expression of Mary’s holiness more explicitly stressed in the Eastern tradition.

“Pius XII’s definition refers only to the freedom from original sin and does not explicitly include the freedom from original concupiscence [generally, the desires of the flesh in the Catholic vernacular].  Nevertheless, Mary’s complete preservation from every stain of sin also has as a consequence her freedom from concupiscence, a disordered tendency which, according to the Council of Trent, comes from sin and inclines to sin (DS 1515).”

-excerpted from the twenty third of Pope John Paul II’s series of catecheses on the Blessed Virgin

“In recounting the birth of Jesus, Luke and Matthew also speak of the role of the Holy Spirit.  The latter is not the father of the Child.  Jesus is the son of the Eternal Father alone (cf. Lk 1:32-35), who through the Spirit is at work in the world and begets the Word in his human nature.  Indeed, at the Annunciation the angel calls the Spirit ‘the power of the Most High’ (Lk 1:35), in harmony with the Old Testament, which presents him as the divine energy at work in human life, making it capable of marvelous deeds.  Manifesting itself to the supreme degree in the mystery of the Incarnation, this power, which in the Trinitarian life of God is Love, has the task of giving humanity the Incarnate Word.”

-excerpted from the twenty eighth of Pope John Paul II’s series of catecheses on the Blessed Virgin

“1. The intention to remain a virgin, apparent in Mary’s words at the moment of the Annunciation, has traditionally been considered the beginning and the inspiration of Christian virginity for the Church.

“St. Augustine does not see in this resolution the fulfillment of a divine precept, but a vow freely taken.  In this way it was possible to present Mary as an example to ‘holy virgins’ throughout the Church’s history.  Mary ‘dedicated her virginity to God when she did not yet know whom she would conceive, so that the imitation of heavenly life in the earthly, mortal body would come about through a vow, not a precept, through a choice of love and not through the need to serve; (De Sancta Virg. IV. PL 40 398).

“The angel does not ask Mary to remain a virgin, it is Mary who freely reveals her intention of virginity.  The choice of love that leads her to consecrate herself totally to the Lord by a life of virginity is found in this commitment.

“In stressing the spontaneity of Mary’s decision, we must not forget that God’s initiative is at the root of every vocation.  By choosing the life of virginity, the young girl of Nazareth was responding to an interior call, that  is, to an inspiration of the Holy Spirit that enlightened her about the meaning and value of the virginal gift of [sic, substitute ‘chasitity’] heresy.  No one can accept this gift without feeling called or without receiving from the Holy Spirit the necessary light and strength.”

-excerpted from the twenty ninth of Pope John Paul II’s series of catecheses on the Blessed Virgin

“2. It may be presumed that at the time of their betrothal there was an understanding between Joseph and Mary about the plan to live as a virgin.  Moreover, the Holy Spirit, who had inspired Mary to choose virginity in view of the mystery of the Incarnation and who wanted the latter to come about in a family setting suited to the Child’s growth, was quite able to instill in Joseph the ideal of virginity as well.”

-excerpted from the thirtieth of Pope John Paul II’s series of catecheses on the Blessed Virgin

This view of Mary, as described by the highest Catholic authority and seconded by the entire Church, presents Mary with the warmth of humanity.  But she, like the Godhead Itself, has been stripped clean of all sexual experience except for the pain of childbirth.  In thinking about that rampant sexual housecleaning, it seems strange indeed that Peter, the iconic and revered founder of the Catholic Church, was himself married, according to Matthew 8:14 and 15, while his successors and the entire body of clergy were and continue to be prohibited from doing so:

“And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw that his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever.  And he touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she arose, and ministered unto them.”

We all know how that worked out in practice: instead of taking wives and thereby participating in a relationship established and condoned by God, the clergy instead took the wives of other men, prostitutes and, ultimately, altar boys.

If anything can be said in favor of the Catholic view of God, it is consistent with the views expressed by the early Church Fathers.  It is consistent as well as with the views of Zanchius, although considerably softened by the treatment of Mary.

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER TWO

 

CHAPTER TWO: How the removal of sexuality from God propagated into the Middle Ages and beyond

A thousand years after the Church had formalized its dogma, her insistence upon purity had not only remained, but had crystallized into a rigid perfectionism.  This absolutely flawless state was enshrined by the medieval cleric Jerome Zanchius, a strict adherent of the heavenly perfection envisioned by Aristotle and Ptolemy.  To this day, Zanchius is held in high esteem by many mainstream Church leaders.  And why not?  Zanchius’ vision of God is perfectly compatible with the omniness, perfection and asexuality of the mainstream God.

In his rather pretentious sixteenth century work Absolute Predestination Stated and Defined, Zanchius included some Scripturally unjustified statements regarding the nature of God, of which the following excerpts are representative:

“VI.—I shall conclude this introduction with briefly considering, in the sixth and last place, THE MERCY OF GOD.

“POSITION 1.—The Deity is, throughout the Scriptures, represented as infinitely gracious and merciful (Exod. 34.6; Nehem. 9.17; Psalm 103.8; 1 Peter 1.3).

“When we call the Divine mercy infinite, we do not mean that it is, in a way of grace, extended to all men without exception (and supposing it was, even then it would be very improperly denominated infinite on that account, since the objects of it, though all men taken together, would not amount to a multitude strictly and properly infinite), but that His mercy towards His own elect, as it knew no beginning, so is it infinite in duration, and shall know neither period nor intermission.

“POSITION 2.—Mercy is not in the Deity, as it is in us, a passion or affection, everything of that kind being incompatible with the purity, perfection, independency and unchangeableness of His nature; but when this attribute is predicated of Him, it only notes His free and eternal will or purpose of making some of the fallen race happy by delivering them from the guilt and dominion of sin, and communicating Himself to them in a way consistent with His own inviolable justice, truth and holiness. This seems to be the proper definition of mercy as it relates to the spiritual and eternal good of those who are its objects.”

Zanchius continues as follows in his Chapter 1, entitled in grandiose manner “Wherein the Terms Commonly Made Use of in Treating of this Subject are Defined and Explained”:

“HAVING considered the attributes of God as laid down in Scripture, and so far cleared our way to the doctrine of predestination, I shall, before I enter further on the subject, explain the principal terms generally made use of when treating of it, and settle their true meaning. In discoursing on the Divine decrees, mention is frequently made of God’s love and hatred, of election and reprobation, and of the Divine purpose, foreknowledge and predestination, each of which we shall distinctly and briefly consider.

“I.—When love is predicated of God, we do not mean that He is possessed of it as a passion or affection. In us it is such, but if, considered in that sense, it should be ascribed to the Deity, it would be utterly subversive of the simplicity, perfection and independency of His being. Love, therefore, when attributed to Him, signifies—

“(l) His eternal benevolence, i.e., His everlasting will, purpose and determination to deliver, bless and save His people. Of this, no good works wrought by them are in any sense the cause. Neither are even the merits of Christ Himself to be considered as any way moving or exciting this good will of God to His elect, since the gift of Christ, to be their Mediator and Redeemer, is itself an effect of this free and eternal favour borne to them by God the Father (John 3.16). His love towards them arises merely from “the good pleasure of His own will,” without the least regard to anything ad extra or out of Himself.

“(2) The term implies complacency, delight and approbation. With this love God cannot love even His elect as considered in themselves, because in that view they are guilty, polluted sinners, but they were, from all eternity, objects of it, as they stood united to Christ and partakers of His righteousness.

“(3) Love implies actual beneficence, which, properly speaking, is nothing else than the effect or accomplishment of the other two: those are the cause of this. This actual beneficence respects all blessings, whether of a temporal, spiritual or eternal nature. Temporal good things are indeed indiscriminately bestowed in a greater or less degree on all, whether elect or reprobate, but they are given in a covenant way and as blessings to the elect only, to whom also the other benefits respecting grace and glory are peculiar. And this love of beneficence, no less than that of benevolence and complacency, is absolutely free, and irrespective of any worthiness in man.

“II.—When hatred is ascribed to God, it implies (1) a negation of benevolence, or a resolution not to have mercy on such and such men, nor to endue them with any of those graces which stand connected with eternal life. So, “Esau have I hated” (Rom. 9.), i.e., “I did, from all eternity, determine within Myself not to have mercy on him.” The sole cause of which awful negation is not merely the unworthiness of the persons hated, but the sovereignty and freedom of the Divine will. (2) It denotes displeasure and dislike, for sinners who are not interested in Christ cannot but be infinitely displeasing to and loathsome in the sight of eternal purity. (3) It signifies a positive will to punish and destroy the reprobate for their sins, of which will, the infliction of misery upon them hereafter, is but the necessary effect and actual execution.”

We observe in these few excerpts from his book Absolute Predestination Stated and Defined that Zanchius’ God, while exhibiting the stability of a rock, does not indulge in excesses of emotion such as fervor would induce.  Fervor, on the other hand, is precisely what God demands of us in our relationship with Him.  As Jesus declared in Matthew 22:37 and 38:

“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.”

Zanchius repeatedly cites like a mantra his justification for his view: God’s purity, perfection, independency and the unchangeableness of His nature.  But where in Scripture can we find such descriptors of God other than His constancy of nature?  Where in Scripture is purity defined in the manner that Zanchius intended to convey or in the manner that mainstream Churches presume to interpret?  More importantly, how can these attributes furnish justification for an assumed lack of passion that directly contradicts Jesus’ call for our fervor of worship?

In His absolute perfection, this God of Zanchius was of a remote grandeur.  This notion, which the Church leaders of that time and since rather naively bought into, gave rise to a God whose primary attribute is his majestic greatness.  By defining God with majesty in mind, love became a secondary attribute, despite John’s emphatic identification of God as the very embodiment of love.  They went (and go) too far.  The perfection embodied in their eulogies renders them sterile.  In defining God in this way, love automatically becomes a secondary attribute, despite John’s emphatic identification of God as the very embodiment of love.  Zanchius’ passionless God, in fact, is alien to the God of Scripture.  This is to be expected, as he assigns attributes to God without any reference whatsoever to Scripture itself.

Zanchius’ God, then, being positionally remote from and by nature very different from the mankind of His creation, is alien to it as well.  This perception of remoteness is evident in modern Churches, where pastors complain, with some justification, that mankind has a proclivity toward defining God according to what he wants God to represent.  In noting the truth of this objection by observing the numerous ways in which the modern Church has created gods that deviate quite strongly from the God of Scripture, we also note that the early Church did its share of creating a God apart from Scripture by the simple expedient of performing a hasty castration while maintaining a complete oblivion to its long-term collateral consequences.

Downplaying Scripture’s instruction to us in Genesis 1:27 that mankind was made in the image of the plural Godhead, Zanchius and his followers emphasize God’s difference from us.  While mankind may share some of the more superficial features of living beings with God such as our rationality and moral sense, the basic concept of gender is seen as over-the-top and a plainly inappropriate attribute of God.  But gender represents far more than mere sexuality.  It also involves the notion of complementary otherness, the idea that a team consisting of complementary others synergistically supports both love and function.  Without the sharing intrinsic to otherness, unlimited power automatically fosters narcissistic self-adoration.  The sharing of power with a complementary Being requires each Partner to contribute something lacking in the Other.  It is the self-humbling lack of completeness that so beautifully endows each Partner with adoration toward the Other rather than to Self.

It has been standard practice, to those who bother to think about the fact that some attributes of God are feminine in nature, to assign elements of both genders to each Member of the Godhead.  Such was the path taken by the prominent Catholic theologian John MacQuarrie.  I wrote of his approach in my book Marching to a Worthy Drummer:

One of the more intelligent discussions of the Godhead that remains within the Church-imposed boundary of asexuality has been supplied by Catholic Father John Macquarrie in his book Mary for all Christians.  In his chapter entitled “God and the Feminine”, he acknowledges the incompleteness of male alone or female alone without its complement.  While touching on the all-important notion of complementary otherness, he goes on to other topics rather quickly, largely overlooking the most important aspect of otherness, which is its necessity in supporting the noble selflessness intrinsic to God as emphasized throughout the Bible.

Father Macquarrie also openly states, reminiscent of medieval theologian Jerome Zanchius, that God transcends sex.  How does he apply that concept that God is above matters of gender to his perception of the incompleteness of a single-gender Godhead?  He does so in distressingly extra-Biblical fashion.  Being well-read in psychology, Macquarrie turns to C. J. Jung and his concept of shared gender.  In that context, Macquarrie asserts, all the Members of the Trinity share both male and female characteristics.

Many Catholic theologians, perceiving despite the Church’s grand elevation of Mary that there were some elements of the feminine within the all-male Godhead, grasped onto the Jungian notion that each of the divine Entities possessed both male and female attributes.  Here again is a view that suggests gender weakness in contradiction to Scripture.  In addition to promoting a divine narcissism in distinct opposition to the general tenor of Scripture, this notion is logically untenable in the face of the pronounced masculinity of both the Father and Jesus Christ and the proscription against male neutrality in Leviticus 21:20 and against male femininity in 1 Corinthians 6:9.  That leaves the Holy Spirit alone as the possible embodiment of the female gender.

As if the direct problems associated with the gender-neutral or all-male viewpoints of the Godhead aren’t bad enough of themselves, they sometimes create collateral difficulties.  Among some Christian communities the ever-present threat that these viewpoints will inhibit ardor in worship has led to further misunderstandings that are intended to correct their deficiencies and restore the fervor suggested by Scripture.  One such compensating offshoot practice is the Catholic veneration of Mary as the primary female persona of our religion.  Despite protestations to the contrary from Catholic authorities from the Pope down to the pastoral level, this veneration, as was noted in Chapter 4, approaches actual worship to such a degree that it represents a de facto integration of Mary into the Godhead.  Indeed, Mary is endowed in the Catholic Church with a number of attributes that rightly belong within the Godhead, specifically the Holy Spirit.

In opposition to Zanchius, Macquarrie and their numerous followers, Scripture paints a far more beautiful picture of God, depicting His majestic glory as His willingness to give up the majesty of greatness and power in favor of a love of great fullness and depth.  The Gospels appear to support this view, depicting Jesus Christ (as God) as a Being full of the attributes of love as we know it, including passion.  Examples that come to mind include His weeping over Jerusalem and Lazarus and His ordeal in the garden of Gethsemane.  It is difficult, for example, to picture the risen Jesus talking to His followers on the road to Emmaus in the context of Zanchius’ notion of God’s remote perfection.

Zanchius’ definition of God as remote from and alien to us not only suppresses His most important attribute of love, but inhibits those to whom Scripture was written from loving Him back.  This is a serious issue because it runs counter to His Great Commandment to love Him with all our hearts, and all our souls and all our minds.

One thing can be said regarding Zanchius’ view of God: it is certainly consistent with the alteration of Scripture performed by some of our respected Church Fathers under the motive of stripping sexuality from all things associated with God.

Our brief review of Zanchius and MacQuarrie can be summarized by the notion that God is an omni-everything, kind of a super-superman, complete with x-ray vision to peer into the hearts, minds and actions of His subjects.  Given Zanchius’ vision of the absolute nature of His mastery over our lives, we need to obey Him, because otherwise we can get into some very deep trouble.  Beyond this control, God differs from us in so many ways that we’d best not try to approach Him from the standpoint of shared weakness.  We must instead resign ourselves to the bleak fact that His majestic betterness can be used against us if we don’t toe the line.  We ourselves should pray with fervor that we will be undeserving recipients of His benevolence rather than deserving objects of His wrath.

Along with our prayers, we’d do well to read what Scripture has to say about God’s relationship with us, which pretty much contradicts just about everything in Zanchius’ and MacQuarrie’s views of God.  We should be particularly careful to understand God’s willingness to become a man, subject to every temptation we possess, for the sake of His great, overwhelmingly fervent and loving passion toward us.

 

 

 

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER ONE (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER ONE (continued): How some eminent early Church Fathers set the stage for the removal of sexuality from God

As the story of Abraham unfolds from Genesis 12 through 25, the narrative stresses the importance of his natural wife Sarah to God’s promises to him. It is in Sarah that the covenant promises reside through Isaac and then Jacob. The poignant account of Sarah’s death in Hebron is given in Genesis 23, where Abraham came “to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.” Abraham honored her memory by purchasing a cave in Hebron for her burial. It is the resting place for all the patriarchs, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their three primary wives.

Virtually every Christian recognizes that the story of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 represents a forecast of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our salvation. This event in Abraham’s life immediately and quite strongly identifies Isaac as a precursor to Jesus. Isaac is mentioned again in Genesis 24, this time in the context of his betrothal to Rebekah, which turns out to be an elaborate affair. The imagery in this prolonged event speaks quite plainly of another betrothal, that of Jesus to His Church, as described by Paul in Ephesians 5:25-32:

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but noourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of his body. Of his flesh, and of his bones.

 

          “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and his church.”

 

This passage so plainly states the spiritual role of the Church as the Wife of Christ that any negation of gender in the spiritual realm speaks only of the poverty of the skeptic’s understanding of God and Scripture, and of the blindness and deafness of his anti-gender presuppositions.

It has been argued in the past that Matthew 22:29 and Galatians 3:28 preclude the role of procreation in the heavenly realm:

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven.”

 

          “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

The key phrase here is “power of God”. In other words, if you subscribe to the notion that the spiritual realm doesn’t involve reproduction, lift your eyes from the mundane, thoroughly shallow little details and look at the big picture. Paul even spells it out for you in 1 Corinthians 12:12-20:

“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, every one of them, in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, were were the body. But now are they many members, yet but one body.”

Paul couldn’t have said it plainer than that: we as individuals are a tiny element of the Church, not the whole. Our being spiritually genderless doesn’t make the Church genderless, just like my genderless toenail doesn’t make me genderless in the flesh. Yet there are many people in the mainstream Church, even some who consider themselves to be among the spiritual elite, who are so blind to Scripture’s account of the Church’s future spiritual role as to be unable to differentiate the individual from the whole.

Beyond the Book of Genesis, there are a multitude of Scriptural corroborations of the essential role of gender in the spiritual realm. Among these is one of my favorites, the Shekinah Glory who inhabited the temples of Moses in the wilderness, as described in Exodus 40:34-38 and I Kings 8:10 and 11:

“Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode therein, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys; but if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

 

          “And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.”

 

It is generally acknowledged by Christian experts in the matter that the Hebrew word Shekinah is equivalent to the phrase glory of the Lord. It is also generally acknowledged that the word Shekinah is feminine. Furthermore, this indwelling function of the Shekinah has a counterpart, the indwelling of Christians upon their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. According to Acts 2, this indwelling is the Holy Spirit, as promised by Jesus in John 14. The parallelism of the Shekinah with the indwelling Holy Spirit is vividly described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and Ephesians 2:19-22 wherein Paul asserts that the Church herself, through her constituents, is a temple indwelt by the Holy Spirit:

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

 

          Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

Another favorite indication of feminine gender in the spiritual realm, again of the Holy Spirit, is the passage of spiritual birth in John 3:

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered, and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound of it, but canst not tell from where it cometh, and where it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered, and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered, and said unto him, Art thou a teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that which we do know, and testify to that which we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.”

But there’s plenty more regarding spiritual gender in the Old Testament. How about the Book of Proverbs, particularly in Proverbs 3 and 8, where the feminine Wisdom is personified as a Helper at the side of the Father in the creation of the world? According to those who take issue with the association of gender with God, the personification of Wisdom typically is explained away as merely a literary device. This attribution is an arbitrary claim without Scriptural support that does nothing more than identify the claimant as biased against gender in the spiritual realm. In contrast to this lack of Scriptural support against the personification of Wisdom, the notion that Wisdom is indeed personified by the Holy Spirit enjoys support from the Book of Wisdom, which is included in the Catholic canon but was deleted from the Protestant canon in 1827 by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

I noted in Marching to a Worthy Drummer in support of the Personhood of Wisdom the following statements by Jesus in Luke 7:35 and 11:49, 50 that associate Wisdom with motherhood, which is an eminently personal attribute:

“But wisdom is justified of all her children.”

“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation.”

In addition, Proverbs 8:22-36 and 9:1-6 directly link the act of creation to Wisdom, whereas the act of creation is also linked to the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:1-5, Job 26:13 and Psalm 104:30. This functional parallelism strongly suggests the equivalence of Wisdom to the Holy Spirit.

Then there’s the explicitly romantic Song of Solomon, which would be extraneous to the Bible if gender is missing from the spiritual realm.

This sampling of Scriptural support for a gendered heaven illuminates a face of God that is altogether more lovely, compassionate, firm in the intra-Godhead bond of family than the sterner, informationally-poor and remote face as understood by the mainstream Church.

But there is yet more: evidence that the Church was cleansed of sexuality through the tampering of Scripture

According to an Internet search of “feminine Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Scriptures”, multiple modern, deeply serious theologians and ancient language scholars share the view that the earliest Hebrew Christians had access to Scripture that presented the Holy Spirit as a feminine Persona; this feminine persisted within the Syriac and other Eastern branches of Christianity and within the Gnostic sect as well. A prime example of this is the Scriptural passage known as the Siniatic Palimpsest (a palimpsest is a recycled writing medium, wherein a second layer of writing was applied over the original, the original usually consisting of more important information) uncovered toward the end of the nineteenth century by Agnes Lewis. The original writing included portions of the Gospel of John of which a quote from Jesus Himself in John 14:26 asserts the following (translation attributed to Danny Mahar):

“But She – the Spirit – the Paraclete whom He will send to you – my Father – in my name – She will teach you everything; She will remind you of what I have told you.”

There is a suggestion, from a comparative review of this text with Paul’s letters that Paul, among the numerous early Hebrew Christians, used the version of John’s Gospel from which this passage came. References to the Siniatic Palimpsest may be found on the Internet. Unfortunately, many of the translations into English found under the search phrase “Siniatic Palimpsest” apply without justification the more conventional “he” rather than the “she” of the original language. Some Internet references, however, do acknowledge the proper “she”.

The identification of the Holy Spirit as feminine in the Siniatic Palimpsest is no small matter, for this document is the oldest of all copies of the Gospels, being dated to the second century A.D. It is a recognized principle of textual interpretation, even by the most conservative of Biblical scholars, that the older the text, the closer it is thought to be to the original Scripture. This is particularly important in light of the fact that there are no other Scriptural texts between it and the oldest Greek text dated to the fourth century A.D.

On the other hand, it is not really necessary to assert that Scripture was altered to change the references to the Holy Spirit from “she” to “he” to justify a feminine function of the Holy Spirit. As I had noted in both Family of God and Marching to a Worthy Drummer, it is more a matter of recognizing the Holy Spirit as functionally feminine in the face of the possibility that She may share in the masculine substance of the Father. This is certainly the case with the Church, in that Scripture describes her as functionally feminine, being the Bride of Christ, while the aggregate of individuals that describe her are collectively described as masculine, as in the term “mankind”. This view of collective masculinity and functional femininity is supported in Genesis 5:2:

“Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”

This differentiation between substance and function, in fact, is suggested by the Nicene Creed, in which in the original version the Holy Spirit is referred to as follows:

 

“And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.”

Around the sixth century A.D. the filioque (the words “and the son”) were inserted into the Nicene Creed after the phrase “who proceeds from the Father”. This insertion was finally approved by the pope in 1014, an act that contributed to an uproar among the faithful that led in 1054 to the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western branches of the Church. The insertion of the filioque into the creed suggests the loss of the Church’s initial understanding of the Holy Spirit’s role within the Godhead.

 

 

 

 

GOD, FACE TO FACE CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE: How some eminent early Church Fathers set the stage for the removal of sexuality from God

In the book Early Christian Fathers, edited by Cyril C. Richardson may be seen Justin Martyr’s attitude toward the place of sexuality within the Christian faith This commentary was written around the middle of the second century A.D., about a half century after the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation. In it, Justin clearly expressed his view of the importance of sexual circumspection:

“About continence [Jesus] said this: ‘Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in his heart before God.’ And: ‘If your right eye offends you, cut it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of Heaven with one eye than with two to be sent into eternal fire.’ And: ‘Whoever marries a woman who has been put away from another man commits adultery.’ And: ‘There are some who were made eunuchs by men, and some who were born eunuchs, and some who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake; only not all [are able to] receive this.

“And so those who make second marriages according to human law are sinners in the sight of our Teacher, and those who look on a woman to lust after her. For he condemns not only the man who commits the act of adultery, but the man who desires to commit adultery, since not only our actions but our thoughts are manifest to God. Many men and women now in their sixties and seventies who have been disciples of Christ from childhood have preserved their purity; and I am proud that I could point to such people in every nation. . . But to begin with, we do not marry except in order to bring up children, or else, renouncing marriage, we live in perfect continence. To show you that promiscuous intercourse is not among our mysteries – just recently one of us submitted a petition to the Prefect Felix in Alexandria, asking that a physician be allowed to make him a eunuch, for the physicians there said they were not allowed to do this without the permission of the Prefect. When Felix would by no means agree to endorse [the petition], the young man remained single, satisfied with [the approval of] his own conscience and that of his fellow believers.”

In writing about the sexual purity of Christians, Justin intended to contrast this behavior with that associated with the false gods and the rampant and often cruel immorality that not only was involved in the worship of them, but which had infected secular life as well:

“Far be it from every sound mind to entertain such a concept of deities as that Zeus, whom they call the ruler and begetter of all, should have been a parricide (killer of a relative) and the son of a parricide, and that moved by desire of evil and shameful pleasures he descended on Ganymede and the many women whom he seduced, and that his sons after him were guilty of similar actions. But, as we said before, it was the wicked demons who did these things. We have been taught that only those who live close to God in holiness and virtue attain to immortality, and we believe that those who live unjustly and do not reform will be punished in eternal fire.”

“Secondly, out of every race of men we who once worshiped Dionysus the son of Semele and Apollo the son of Leto, who in their passion for men did things which it is disgraceful even to speak of, or who worshiped Persephone and Aphrodite, who were driven made by [love of] Adonis and whose mysteries you celebrate, or Asclepius or some other of those who are called gods, now through Jesus Christ despise them, even at the cost of death, and have dedicated ourselves to the unbegotten and impassible God. We do not believe that he ever descended in mad passion on Antiope or others, nor on Ganymede, nor was he, receiving help through Thetis, delivered by that hundred-handed monster, nor was he, because of this anxious that Thetis’ son Achilles should destroy so many Greeks for the sake of his concubine Briseis. We pity those who believe [such stories], for which we know that the demons are responsible.”

“That we may avoid all injustice and impiety, we have been taught that to expose the newly born is the work of wicked men – first of all because we observe that almost all [foundlings], boys as well as girls, are brought up for prostitution. As the ancients are said to have raised herds of oxen or goats or sheep or horses in their pastures, so now [you raise children] just for shameful purposes, and so in every nation a crowd of females and hermaphrodites and doers of unspeakable deeds are exposed as public prostitutes. You even collect pay and levies and taxes from these, whom you ought to exterminate from your civilized world. And anyone who makes use of them may in addition to [the guilt of] godless, impious, and intemperate intercourse, by chance be consorting with his own child or relative or brother. Some even prostitute their own children or wives, and others are admittedly mutilated for purposes of sodomy, and treat this as part of the mysteries of the mother of the gods – while beside each of those whom think of as gods a serpent is depicted as a great symbol and mystery. You charge against us the actions that you commit openly and treat with honor, as if the divine light were overthrown and withdrawn – which of course does no harm to us, who refuse to do any of these things, but rather injures those who do them and then bring false witness [against us].”

Two and a half centuries later Augustine experienced much the same revulsion as Justin did over the moral tawdriness of the Roman society in which he lived. Having become a Christian thirty two years after his birth in 354 A.D., Augustine had spent much of his dissolute pre-Christian years in the enjoyment of the depravity of the society in which he lived. The shame and regret of these early years served to drive Augustine into a passionate rejection of loose morality and unbridled lust. The strength of his feelings in that regard are demonstrated throughout his book City of God, an example of which is given in Chapters 4 and 5 of Book II:

“When I was a young man I used to go to sacrilegious shows and entertainments.  I watched the antics of madmen; I listened to singing boys; I thoroughly enjoyed the most degrading spectacles put on in honour of gods and goddesses – in honour of the Heavenly Virgin, of of Berecynthia, mother of all. On the yearly festival of Berecynthia’s purification the lowest kind of actors sang, in front of her litter, songs unfit for the ears of even the mother of one of those mountebanks, to say nothing of the mother of any decent citizen, or of a senator; while as for the Mother of the Gods – ! For there is something in the natural respect we have towards our parents that the extreme of infamy cannot wholly destroy; and certainly those very mountebanks would be ashamed to give a rehearsal performance in their homes, before their mothers, of those disgusting verbal and acted obscenities. Yet they performed them in the presence of the Mother of the Gods before an immense audience of spectators of both sexes. If those spectators were enticed by curiosity to gather in profusion, they ought at least to have dispersed in confusion at the insults to their modesty.

“If these were sacred rites, what is meant by sacrilege? If this is purification, what is meant by pollution?  And the name of the ceremony is ‘the fercula’, which might suggest the giving of a dinner-party where the unclean demons could enjoy a feast to their liking.  Who could fail to realize what kind of spirits they are which could enjoy such obscenities?  Only a man who refused to recognize even the existence of any unclean spirits who deceive men under the title of gods, or one whose life was such that he hoped for the favour and feared the anger of such gods, rather than that of the true God.

Augustine went on to lament, as he called them, the obscenities performed in the worship of the “Mother of the Gods”:

 

            “The last people I should choose to decide on this matter are those who are more eager to revel in the obscene practices of this depraved cult than to resist them. I should prefer the decision of Scipio Nasica, the very man whom the Senate chose as their best man, whose hands received this devil’s image and brought it to Rome. Let him tell us whether he would wish his mother to have deserved so well of her country that she should be accorded divine honours. For it is well known that the Greeks and the Romans, and other peoples, have decreed such honours to those whose public services they valued highly, and that such people were believed to have been made immortal and to have been received among the number of the gods. No doubt he would desire such felicity for his mother, if it were possible. But let me go on to ask him whether he would like such disgusting rites as those to be included among the divine honours paid to her? Would he not cry out that he would prefer his mother to be dead, and beyond all experience, than that she should live as a goddess, to take pleasure in hearing such celebrations?   It is unthinkable that a senator of Rome, of such high principles that he forbade the erection of a theatre in a city of heroes, should want his mother to be honoured as a goddess by such propitiatory rites as would have scandalized her as a Roman matron. He would surely have thought it quite impossible for a respectable woman to have her modesty so corrupted by the assumption of divinity that her worshipers should call upon her with ritual invocations of this sort. These invocations contained expressions of such a kind that had they been hurled at any antagonist in a quarrel, during her life on earth, then if she had not stopped her ears and withdrawn from the company, her friends, her husband and her children would have blushed for her. In fact the ‘Mother of the Gods’ was such a character as even the worst of men would be ashamed to have for his mother. And when she came to take possession of the minds of the Romans she looked for the best man of the country, not so as to support him by counsel and help, but to cheat and deceive him, like the woman of whom the Bible says, ‘she ensnares the precious souls of men’. Her purpose was that a mind of great endowments should be puffed up by this supposedly divine testimony and should think itself truly exceptional, and therefore should cease to follow the true religion and piety – without which every national ability, however remarkable, disappears in the ruin which follows on pride. And thus that goddess should seek the support of the best men only by trickery, seeing that she requires in her worship the kind of behaviour which decent men shrink from even in their convivial moments.”

Augustine was enormously influential to the Christian Church at a time when Church doctrine was still being formulated and heresies were still emerging, to be debated upon and rejected. In his wake, the Church charted a course that polarized itself away from any hint of the depravities associated with the corrupt gods and goddesses of the world about her. This extremity of purification, for which purity was equated with chastity, cleansed the Judeo-Christian God of any taint of sexuality.

This view of sexuality as representing a taint frowned upon by God raises an issue that was brought up at the end of the Introduction: is the view Scriptural?

According to Genesis, it is not. Right at the beginning of Genesis, the creation epic describes the reproductive process extending even into the domain of plant life, wherein the fruit of the tree yields trees of its kind. Moreover, God saw this as good. Reproduction becomes more overtly sexual in the created animal life, wherein this life bore young after its kind. God also saw this as good. In the creation of man as described in Genesis 1:26 and 27, their gender differentiation now extends beyond mankind himself to hint of a like feature within the Godhead, here specifically described as plural:

“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 air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

 

In blessing Adam and Eve, He specifically told them to multiply.

This time God saw His creative act as not only good, but very good.

Many theologians down through the centuries have attempted to separate the gender differentiation of Genesis 1:26 and 27 from the creation in God’s image. All such discourses, at least the ones of which I am aware, are logically weak and based on the unbiblical presupposition that God is “above that kind of thing”. The passage says what it says, and does so without ambiguity. Moreover, if this gender differentiation is not to represent the image of God, then the feminine half of the human race would have no representation in God. Some religions take that notion to its logical extreme, its male members treating women as animals.

[to be continued]

GOD, FACE TO FACE INTRODUCTION

The she-wolf lay trembling but still in a dark cold cave, her eyes blinking in the face of a harsh wind that ruffled her fur, seeking to expose her flesh to its frigid bite. The cave itself was surrounded by a bleak and hostile universe, its antipathy to life as immense as its vast scale.

 

Nested underneath her was a pack of cubs, warmed and fed by the suffering body above them and oblivious to the stress she was facing to ensure their survival. They fought for the warmest spot and the most milk, thinking only of their own well-being within their tiny universe beneath her sheltering underside.

 

I realized with a shock that the cubs represented us and that the life-giving body above was the Holy Spirit.

Many years after I became a Christian, God granted me two insights, profound in their influence on my experience as a believer: the first was a mathematically-based understanding of details associated with the events of Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes¹; the second was an understanding of the nature of the Holy Spirit and of the Spirit’s role within the Trinitarian Godhead.

1. A presentation of the feedings is furnished in Appendix 2 to Marching to a Worthy Drummer

 

The former insight, once established, was easily verifiable, and thus provided a means to strengthen my faith in the divine Source of the latter. As such, it was instrumental in the maintenance of my confidence in the gifts that God so graciously handed me. The importance of this confirmation was made manifest by the severity of the criticism against my insight into the nature of God.

I had been aware from the very receipt of this insight that it didn’t square with the conventional understanding of God as professed by the mainstream Churches, both Catholic and Protestant, for the insight itself was consistent with the vision of the wolf and cubs I had received many years previous upon accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I was given to understand the relationship between the wolf and her cubs in that vision as symbolic of that which existed between God and the human race, the wolf representing the Holy Spirit. The vision awakened in me a hunger for the knowledge of God.

Why a wolf? I don’t know the answer to that, but to me a wolf is emblematic of nobility and strength.

The bigger question is why I was favored with the two insights that I acquired much later. I don’t know that either, but maybe it’s simply because I asked for it.

Attempting to share this vision with other Christians in my enthusiasm as a newly-minted Christian, I was quickly confronted with the displeasure of my peers. I kind of suspected that, because the image of a wolf can be taken by some as inappropriate and demeaning to God. But that wasn’t the problem at all. The problem was gender. The vision couldn’t be correct, because the Holy Spirit was referred to in Scripture as masculine rather than feminine. Given this negative reaction, I proceeded no further with the sharing, completely avoiding the pastoral staff in the matter. Until I was given further insight into the issue many years later, I put the vision out of my mind and focused instead on understanding Scripture. This in-depth review served me well upon receiving the gift of insight, as I was then able to confirm my understanding of the Holy Spirit’s gender through Scripture.

I subsequently wrote about the insight in my book Family of God, after which I submitted the book to a friend who possessed impressive theological credentials. As before, I was criticized for the view, but with a twist: the Holy Spirit was not considered by him to be feminine, but neither was this Divine Entity masculine; the entire Godhead was considered to be void of gender in the sense of participating in a procreative function. The entire Creation, in his view and in the view of the seminary from which he emerged with a degree in theology, and, in fact, in the view of virtually every Western denomination acknowledged to be Christian, was accomplished by some pure Godly process in which gender differentiation was not involved.

The form of my friend’s displeasure exposed the heart of the matter: sex. Sexuality was forbidden within the Godhead. The entire Church denomination to which he belonged viewed sex as basically evil and too earthy for God. His denomination was not alone in this dim view, which represents the official public assessment of the mainstream Church regarding all matters sexual in nature. In privacy, it’s an entirely different matter, as the world discovers in recurring episodes of sexual excesses within the Christian clergy and laypersons. A lesser-known manifestation of this sordid business among Christians is the startling estimate that 80% of Christian males regularly view pornography, a good half of them being full-blown addicts to this form of voyeurism.

In a subsequent book Marching to a Worthy Drummer, in which I enlisted the aid of Scripture to rebut the mainstream view of the genderless Godhead, I made in the Introduction the following commentary regarding the source of this mainstream viewpoint:

Love was in the air at the time of the Pentecostal birth of the Church. And hope besides, a freshness of season, a joyful anticipation. Despite the anger and persecutions of those who knew not Christ against those who did, the Church willingly, thankfully and even possessively took up the Cross, marching boldly toward a paradise restored.

A few short centuries later the Western Church, greatly enlarged and enjoying the status of a state religion, had lost its newness and its joy. It was an institution now, a secular power. In the acquisition of this comfort and lofty position it now stood as a receiver of service, having forsaken the love of serving others. Far worse than that, it had lost the joy of loving God at the most basic and important level, that of natural intuition.

Some might think that this loss was an inevitable consequence of the easing of conditions for the Christians. No longer faced with persecution, they became soft of spirit and their fervor of worship decayed into indifference toward God.

Indeed, that was part of the problem. The Church always has been at her best when forced to face suffering and persecution. But looming over that external nudge toward decline was a much bigger dilemma, an internally-caused one that drove Christians away from their love of God because they could no longer see God with the intuitive clarity they possessed earlier.

This urge for reformation that stripped them of their knowledge of God was a desire to distance the Church from the sea of false notions and pagan beliefs with which she was surrounded. Sensing the great danger their Church faced from these competing ideas, many of which were lewd and corrupt, the leaders among the faithful strove to set their faith apart from the baser systems of belief in order to ensure its uniqueness and, above all, its purity. They intended to accomplish this with a thorough housecleaning and, energized with this objective, they pursued this task as if on a sacred mission.

By the time they were finished their objective was achieved beyond all rational expectations. Sexuality was completely divorced from the Christian faith as practiced by the mainstream Church. If the realization of that objective required a certain “correction” of Scripture in a few critical places, well, so be it. God certainly wouldn’t frown on the desire to purify Christianity. Not only were Mary and Joseph purged of sexual experience beyond the pain of childbirth and the necessity of breast-feeding, but God Himself, being considered above the baseness of sexual experience, was neutered. The Holy Spirit was changed from a feminine Being to a weakly masculine one, and, as a consequence, the Godhead was stripped of its family context and instead came to be viewed as a fellowship of brothers.

Gone was the intuitive basis for love, as represented by the Christian’s own family and spousal experience. In seeking God, the believer was forced to approach Him with agape love, having been made to forsake any hint of eros and the possessive love it engendered. From this complete lack of understanding of who God actually was, it was only a matter of time before indifference toward Him set in.

All one has to do to verify the anti-sexual bias of the early Christian Church is to read what the Church Fathers themselves, including Justin Martyr and Augustine, had to say about the place of sexuality within Christianity. There also is much evidence that Scripture was tampered with to disassociate sexuality from God.

Like most committed Christians, I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture in the original autograph, and its inspiration, again in the original, by the Holy Spirit. But, having been exposed to numerous off-the-wall interpretations of Scripture, I certainly don’t have any faith in the ability of mankind to maintain that Scripture in its original, pristine state.

On the last go-around on this subject with my friend, he again responded negatively to the clear Scriptural evidence of the femininity of the Holy Spirit as well as the equally clear evidence of Scripture having been tampered with regarding gender and God. He said, in effect, that he would produce Scriptural evidence that was thoroughly contradictory to mine.

Now, as I eagerly await his substantiation of his claim, I cannot help but to anticipate what this evidence might look like. I sincerely want to see the face of this more appropriate God. And the Source of this picture had better be Scripture.

Why is that? According to John 1:18, we have not and indeed cannot directly see the face of God the Father.

“No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

 

Nevertheless, we understand from Scripture that Jesus (Col 1:15) is the very image of the Father, so that we know from John 14:9 that if we see Jesus, we also see the Father:

“Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”

 

How can we see Jesus, and thus the Father? Many great artists have attempted to paint his features, but we have no assurance of their resemblance to the actual Jesus. But Jesus wasn’t speaking of what He looks like, but what His heart looks like, and we have Scripture to show us that. His most preeminent attribute, according to John 1:1 and 14, is His role as the Word of God:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . .And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”

Having access to this picture of God in Scripture, it is incumbent upon us to adhere to it, understanding any view of God that contradicts His portrait in Scripture to be false and unworthy of our attention.

SOME APPALLING CHRISTIAN STATISTICS

In a recent televised broadcast of his weekly show Christ in Prophecy, Dr. David Reagan of LambLion Ministries presented some shocking statistics that he had acquired from Jim Garlowe, pastor of Skyline Nazarene Church.

Dr. Garlowe, who is an acknowledged expert in the field of Church history, sources the following appalling information regarding the practices and beliefs of evangelical Church constituents:

19% are living with partners outside of marriage

37% do not believe the Bible to be totally accurate

45% do not believe that Jesus was sinless

52% do not believe that satan is real

57% do not believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life

57% believe that good works play a part in gaining eternal life

Note that these figures pertain to evangelical Christians, those most noted for their obedience toward the Great Commission defined by Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:18-20:

“And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

These horrifying statistics come on the heels of an Internet edition of Prophecy News Watch that addressed the severity of another problem associated with the modern Church.

It was estimated in that article that almost eighty percent of Christian men regularly indulge in the viewing of pornography. It’s not difficult to imagine where that behavior leads. The number of actual pornography addicts is about half of those. That’s a very distressingly large portion of the Church. In effect, the cleansing of God of sexuality has not led to the cleansing of Christians from sexual deviation. To the contrary, it has had precisely the opposite effect. Not only have women been degraded in this monstrous misrepresentation of the Godhead, but Christian men have allowed themselves to be degraded as well. It doesn’t end there – degradation, whether or not it is perceived as relevant to God, leads directly to alienation from God.

Alternatively, this drift away from God may have less to do with a misunderstanding of the nature of God than a more basic indifference to God resulting from a complete devotion to the secular world.

The lack of interest in things godly represented by these statistics corresponds distressingly close to the description of the last of the seven Churches addressed by Jesus in Revelation. His message to the Laodicean Church in Revelation 3:14-19 reads as follows:

“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anount thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent.”

It appears that Jesus already has lit the fire by which the Church shall be refined as gold, for, in his A Prophetic Manifesto, Dr. Reagan outlined three steps toward a nation’s destruction as it turns its back on God. These steps (paraphrasing Dr. Reagan’s treatment) follow Paul’s presentation in Romans 1:24-32:

First, as a nation turns from God, God Himself politely steps back, allowing evil to flourish in the form of sexual deviation from the Biblical standard of monogamous male-female marriage (Romans 1:24, 25). This roughly corresponds to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

Second, God unleashes a plague of explosively rampant and ubiquitous sexual deviation (Romans 1:26, 27). This began in the 1980s.

Third, society at large is delivered unto a depraved mind. At that point, as described in 2 Chronicles 36:15, 16, there is no remedy – no return and no healing (Romans 1:28-32). We seem to be there.

Returning to Dr. Reagan’s presentation of Dr. Garlowe’s historical information, Christianity in America appears to be adhering to the following event timeline:

1607-1833 (236 years): Christianity represented the establishment

1833-1918 (85 years): Christianity was the dominant force

1918-1968 (50 years): Christianity represented a sub-dominant force

1968-1988 (20 years): Christianity became a sub-culture

1988-1998 (10 years): Christianity became a counter-culture

1998-2008 (10 years): Christianity devolved into an antithetical culture

2008-present: Christianity has become a persecuted culture

Keep in mind that persecution of the Church actually performs a healing function: the superficial are removed, leaving behind the fully-committed, within whom the light of Christ shines ever brighter against a darkening world.

[Note to the Reader: Carolyn and I will be heading out on vacation for 2+ weeks. Be back with you when we return!]

A SUMMARY OF THE FEMININITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

 

 

 

Direct Scriptural support

 

 

The Siniatic Palimpsest

 

According to an Internet search of “feminine Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Scriptures”, multiple modern, deeply serious theologians and ancient language scholars share the view that the earliest Hebrew Christians had access to Scripture that presented the Holy Spirit as a feminine Persona; this feminine persisted within the Syriac and other Eastern branches of Christianity and within the Gnostic sect as well. A prime example of this is the Scriptural passage known as the Siniatic Palimpsest (a palimpsest is a recycled writing medium, wherein a second layer of writing was applied over the original, the original usually consisting of more important information) uncovered toward the end of the nineteenth century by Agnes Lewis. The original writing included portions of the Gospel of John of which a quote from Jesus Himself in John 14:26 asserts the following (translation attributed to Danny Mahar):

“But She – the Spirit – the Paraclete whom He will send to you – my Father – in my name – She will teach you everything; She will remind you of what I have told you.”

There is a suggestion, from a comparative review of this text with Paul’s letters that Paul, among the numerous early Hebrew Christians, used the version of John’s Gospel from which this passage came. References to the Siniatic Palimpsest may be found on the Internet. Unfortunately, many of the translations into English found under the search phrase “Siniatic Palimpsest” apply without justification the more conventional “he” rather than the “she” of the original language. Some Internet references, however, do acknowledge the proper “she”.

The identification of the Holy Spirit as feminine in the Siniatic Palimpsest is no small matter, for this document is the oldest of all copies of the Gospels, being dated to the second century A.D. It is a recognized principle of textual interpretation, even by the most conservative of Biblical scholars, that the older the text, the closer it is thought to be to the original Scripture. This is particularly important in light of the fact that there are no other Scriptural texts between it and the oldest Greek text dated to the fourth century A.D.

 

 

The nature of the spiritual birth by the Holy Spirit points directly to a feminine Holy Spirit

 

Quoting from John 3:

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered, and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound of it, but canst not tell from where it cometh, and where it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered, and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered, and said unto him, Art thou a teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that which we do know, and testify to that which we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

Dr. McGrath on the Protestant side and John MacQuarrie on the Catholic side, among many other theologians on both sides, argue that each Member of the Godhead has both a masculine and a feminine side enabling each and every Member of the Godhead to perform that birth function. This argument is negated not only by the strong maleness of the Father and Son as presented in the Bible, the proscription against effeminate males in Deuteronomy 23:1 and 1 Corinthians 6:9.

Acts Chapter 2 makes a singular association between this rebirth described in John 3 and the Holy Spirit, identifying the Holy Spirit as the Birther. Because gender weakness is frowned upon in the passages cited above as well as the proscription against homosexuality in both Testaments, the Holy Spirit must be identified as functionally feminine.

 

 

A Feminine Church suggests a feminine Holy Spirit

 

The femininity of the spiritual Church was established in the article entitled The Church, the Bride, the Body and the New Jerusalem. The spiritual Church, being a feminine entity and the Bride of Christ, requires Jesus Christ to be gendered. This was the great mystery of which Paul spoke in Ephesians 5:31 and 32:

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and His Church.

 

This relationship between Christ and His Church elicits a profound question, one that can be answered rationally only one way: why, if Jesus partakes of both gender and marriage, would the Father and the Holy Spirit not?

Given the male gender of the Father, the obvious answer is that the Holy Spirit is the feminine Spouse of the Father.

The feminine Shekinah Glory points to a feminine Holy Spirit

 

Perhaps the most significant suggestion of femininity in the Bible may be found in the property of indwelling, a characteristic of the Holy Spirit that strongly connects the New Testament with the Old.

That the Old Testament Shekinah is the New Testament’s Holy Spirit is manifestly evident in the precursor role to the indwelling Holy Spirit of the Shekinah Glory who indwelt both the Tabernacle in the wilderness and Solomon’s Temple at their dedications. Since it has been claimed that the word Shekinah does not exist in the Hebrew Scriptures in its noun form (the situation there being similar to the absence in the Bible of a noun form of the word baptize), the following commentary will be made regarding its origin before proceeding with examples of the Shekinah presence.

In the Hebrew Targum, the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, the word Shekinah is used as a noun. It means “intimate dwelling” or “the presence of the Glory of the Lord”.   Justification for the use of this word is the use in the Hebrew Scriptures of its root word “shachan”, referring particularly to the pillars of cloud and fire that accompanied the Israelites in their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land through the wilderness. The prophet Isaiah referred to it quite graphically in Isaiah 4:5 and 6, linking this pillar of cloud and fire to a covering presence. It is generally understood that this same pillar is referenced in Isaiah 51:9 and 10, where the prophet goes out of his way to describe by feminine pronouns the same pillar of cloud and fire that accompanied the Israelites on their journey from Egypt. The Targum interpretation leaves no doubt that the Shekinah Glory is a feminine presence, and represents an equivalence with a feminine Holy Spirit. Isaiah 4:5 and 6, and 51:9 and 10 read as follows:

“And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion , and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defense. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.”

 

          “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not she who hast cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not she who has dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; who hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?”

Exodus 40 and 1 Kings 8 provide prominent examples of the Shekinah as a precursor to the indwelling Holy Spirit of the New Testament. Exodus 40:33-38 describes the indwelling of the Tabernacle in the wilderness:

“And [Moses] reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work.

 

          “Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys; but if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

 

The description “cloud of the Lord” , “fire by night” and “taken up” leaves no doubt that this “cloud” is equivalent to the Shekinah of the Red Sea adventure and of Isaiah 4:5. The corresponding incident with respect to Solomon’s Temple, taken from 1 Kings 8:6-13, is given below:

And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, into the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread forth their two wings of the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and its staves above. And they drew out the staves, that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the inner sanctuary, but they were not seen outside; and there they are unto this day. There was nothing in the ark except the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord. Then spoke Solomon, The Lord said he would dwell in the thick darkness. I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in forever.”

In this passage the meaning of “cloud” is closely linked with “dwelling place” and “glory of the Lord”, which again point to the phrase Shekinah Glory.

The connection between these precursor events and the Holy Spirit who indwells Christian believers is given in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and Ephesians 2:19-22, wherein Paul asserts that the Church herself, through her constituents, is a temple indwelt by the Holy Spirit:

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

 

          Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

The facts embedded in these passages are no surprise to Christians, who generally accept without question that believers are indwelt with the Holy Spirit and comprise, as the Church, a holy temple. What some of us may not be aware of is that this temple and its indwelling by the Holy Spirit was represented numerous times as the Glory of God in the Old Testament. Turning to the Internet, the Wikipedia entry for “Shekinah” begins as follows:

“Hebrew [Shekinah] is the English spelling of a grammatically feminine Hebrew ancient blessing. The original word means the dwelling or settling, and denotes the dwelling or settling of the divine presence of God, especially in the temple in Jerusalem.” An accompanying figure shows the Shekinah, or the Glory of God, indwelling the temple as described in 1 Kings 8.”

Noting the female gender of this indwelling Shekinah, we find here by comparing the indwelling presence of the Glory in Solomon’s temple with the description in Ephesians 2 of the Holy Spirit indwelling the human temple that Scripture itself, by furnishing this direct comparison, supports an interpretation of the Holy Spirit as a female Entity in the face of conventional Christian thought, as driven by the use in Scripture of the male pronoun in reference to the Holy Spirit.

This feminine gender attribute in Exodus 40 and 1 Kings 8 may have been simply lost in the translation from Hebrew (Aramaic) to English, which could have been a result of the lack of gender precision in the English language. (Actually, the first transference from feminine to masculine occurred in the Latin, for which the Holy Spirit was definitely presented as male.) But there is an associated gender misrepresentation in Isaiah 51:9, 10 that appears to be more deliberate. What the translators did in that passage was to substitute the grammatically incorrect ‘it’ for the gender-correct ‘she’ in reference to Shekinah. In their desire to maintain a fully masculine Godhead, they neutered the female. In the process, they inadvertently managed also to castrate their masculine God. As just one example of this removal of gender, Isaiah 51:9 and 10 refers to a neuter Arm of the Lord rather than the original feminine gender.

Proverbs points to the femininity of the Holy Spirit

 

The Book of Proverbs beautifully and harmoniously supports a female functional designation for the Holy Spirit., as the subject of this book is uniformly feminine, and whose functionality closely parallels that of the Holy Spirit. Of particular interest in this regard are Proverbs 3 and 8, from which the following excerpts are taken:

“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. . .She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. . .The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens. . .Doth not wisdom cry? And understanding put forth her voice? . . .The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.”

Several items come to mind from the above review of these passages in Proverbs. The first is that the Persona is female throughout; an attempt to assign some of these passages to Jesus Christ, as many do, would constitute an unnatural force-fit, most obviously in the issue of gender, but also with respect to function and role. The second is directly related to function, wherein the passages suggest a connection between Wisdom and the Holy Spirit as furnishing the most likely Person to which a female function may be assigned; the third is that the Holy Spirit was active in creation itself, as summarized in Genesis 1:1-3:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

 

The frequent Catholic attribution of Wisdom to Mary faces the equally grave difficulty of linking Mary with capabilities such as creation that are reserved for God alone.

 

In the context of Scripture’s general treatment of the Holy Spirit, the passage in Genesis quoted above more than suggests that the Father was assisted by or in union with the Holy Spirit in the act of creation, the result being, as Jesus Himself suggested in Revelation 3:14, a manifestation of the Son. I am not alone in this assertion regarding the active participation of the Holy Spirit in the creation event. As a matter of fact, I simply repeat the position of Benjamin B. Warfield, a noted Bible scholar who is well-respected among conservative theologians.

 

Any attempt at a rebuttal of this association must address Proverbs 3:19 in the context of Genesis 1:1-5, Proverbs 8:22-36, Job 26:13 and Psalm 104:30. The attempt to attribute Proverbs 8 to Jesus rather than the Holy Spirit must explain the out-of-context insertion into material descriptive of Wisdom, as well as the feminine description of Wisdom throughout the Book of Proverbs as opposed to the depiction of Jesus throughout Scripture as strongly masculine and the image of the Father. Furthermore, the attempt to link Wisdom with the Virgin Mary is unsustainable in the light of Mary’s full humanity and consequent absence in the creation epic, wherein according to Chapter 8 Wisdom was at the side of the Father during the process of creation.

Wisdom, as depicted in Proverbs, is strongly female and only female. The attempt at rebuttal must also avoid taking the Jungian notion of the human psyche, both male and female, as containing both masculine and feminine elements, and extrapolating it to his notion of the Trinity. There are logical difficulties in doing so, as described below.

Scripture rather exclusively associates the Father with the Divine Will, which, as an initiating role, also is exclusively masculine. Similarly, Jesus the Son is presented in Scripture as the Divine Representation which, as the perfect image in reality of the Father would also be predominantly masculine. The masculine predominance of Jesus is given further weight by Paul’s characterization in Ephesians 5 of Jesus as the Bridegroom of the (functionally feminine) Church. In Family of God I simply noted what to me was an obvious connecting function of the Holy Spirit between Father and Son: the Divine Means which, in union with the Divine Will, gave birth to the Divine Implementation in reality (Divine Representation). Obviously, this Divine Means, being so closely linked with the other two Members, is also Deity. Because the Divine Means performed a function that was responsive to the Will, an obviously female role, I attached a female gender to this Person. Scripture and Christian tradition both understand this third Member of the Trinity to be the Holy Spirit.

Another difficulty, and it is a big one, that I see in the notion of each Member of Godhead possessing elements of both genders is that such a state of affairs would promote self-adoration, a characteristic that I sincerely hope is lacking within the Godhead. Love and adoration require otherness. The alternative is narcissism.   I truly believe (and hope) that both Father and Holy Spirit are as selflessly noble as the Son demonstrated on the cross.

Indirect Scriptural support

 

 

The personhood of Wisdom in Proverbs

As for the interpretation of the association of femininity with the subject of Proverbs as being nothing more than a literary device, the same is no more consistent with the general tone of Scripture than Zanchius’ removal of passion from God.

Jesus Himself, in Luke 7:35, associates Wisdom with motherhood, an eminently personal attribute.

“But wisdom is justified of all her children.”

 

While that verse possibly could be interpreted as being merely a figure of speech, Jesus in Luke 11:49 and 50 more emphatically personifies Wisdom:

“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation.”

In further support of my equation of Wisdom with the Holy Spirit, I cite Isaiah 11:1 and 2:

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots; And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord,. . .”

Another item that presents itself in a reading of Proverbs with an eye to the Personhood of Wisdom is the implied intimacy between mankind and Wisdom in the warning given in Proverbs 8:36: he that sins against Wisdom wrongs his own soul. Could this imply that our own purpose and function in the spiritual realm might actually parallel that of the Holy Spirit? There may well be a correlation between this caution and the one expressed by Jesus in Matthew 12:31 and 32:

“Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”

These are strong words, and they make a strong connection between Wisdom and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps theologians instinctively sense this correlation. Perhaps also not wishing to shoot themselves in the foot and instead of attempting to truly understand what is being said here, they duck away from presenting anything controversial regarding the Holy Spirit. Historically, that has certainly been the situation with numerous theological expositions regarding the Holy Spirit, all of which end up complicating an extremely simple understanding of the nature of the Trinity by claiming that ultimately man is unable to grasp it.

I must express my disappointment with all such expositors for allowing this unjustified fear to prevent them from furnishing a richer, more love-inducing understanding of their God to the Christian community. How can we possibly fulfill God’s greatest commandment to us to love Him with all our hearts if we cannot understand Him? How can we truly worship God if we turn our hearts away from His own Word? I assert with the Revised Westminster Confession that the three Persons of the Trinity have but one substance – that of the Father, shared among them, and three distinct Personalities, or roles. I identify those roles as Father, Mother, and Son, wherein the Three constitute one God in the context of Family, by virtue of the love intrinsic to that structure which, of course, is idealized in its application to God. This identification I make does not represent any cleverness on my part; rather, its very simplicity gives me cause to suspect that many followers of God would do well to actually follow God in love tempered by fear instead of fear tempered by love, and to follow God Himself instead of adhering so stubbornly to the traditions of man.

Moreover, I would suggest that in a functional sense an all-male Godhead represents a model that can be construed with little difficulty to support homosexuality, in opposition to God’s detestation of that practice, as may be found in Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 and Romans 1.

Something the Catholic Church did for the feminine which the Protestant Church did not was to include the Book of Wisdom within the body of canonical, and therefore considered to be inspired, Old Testament books. This beautifully-written book furnishes several interesting passages suggestive of the identity of Wisdom as the feminine Holy Spirit. Selected passages are presented below:

“And in your wisdom have established humankind . . .Give me Wisdom, the consort at your throne . . . Now with you is Wisdom, who knows your works and was present when you made the world; Who understands what is pleasing in your eyes and what is conformable with your commands. Send her forth from your holy heavens and from your glorious throne dispatch her that she may be with me and work with me, that I may know what is pleasing to you. For she knows and understands all things, and will guide me prudently in my affairs and safeguard me to her glory . . . Or who can know your counsel, unless you give Wisdom and send your holy spirit from on high?

– Wisdom 9:2, 4, 9-11, 17

 

A family-based Godhead in which the Holy Spirit is functionally female, united in love, naturally and intuitively resolves the apparent discrepancy between monotheism and a Trinitarian Godhead.

In Matthew 22:37, Jesus identifies the greatest commandment as the one Moses gave in Deuteronomy Chapter 6: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Being the greatest of commandments, it is not one to be trifled with to anyone who wishes to be obedient to God. But its fulfillment requires one to seek intimate knowledge of the entire Godhead, including the nature of the Holy Spirit and of the intra-Godhead union. It certainly demands that one satisfactorily resolve the enigma of oneness in a Trinitarian setting.

Assuredly, a union within the Godhead involving love of a non-romantic nature can be proposed. However, a rebuttal alternative should carry as much intuitive and love-inspiring force as a relationship in which a family setting is central. A rebuttal should also explain in functional terms why there is a proscription against the gay lifestyle as presented in Leviticus 18 and Romans 1. Furthermore, a rebuttal should also address the centrality of family in Scripture as well as in life in general.

Linkage of the Holy Spirit with an executive function

 

This executive nature of the Holy Spirit was proposed by respected theologian Benjamin Warfield as well as others. It is certainly suggested in Scripture. An executive office is responsive to higher orders, this being within the Godhead the initiative of the Father, or Divine Will. A responsive office, in turn, is a distinctly feminine one. This creative response is distinctly different than Jesus’ role as the Divine Representation, or Divine Implementation, which is, as a perfect Image of the Will, the result of creative response to the Will.

The possessive nature of Jeremiah 10:10-13

 

In Jeremiah 10:10-13, God describes His creative accomplishments in a possessive way:

“But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king; at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power; he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.”

 

Wisdom, certainly, and often also power, are routinely linked to the Holy Spirit. To the person who views the Holy Spirit as feminine and bound to the Father in a family relationship in which romance is a major factor, this passage brings out the possessive nature of romance. In that context, the Holy Spirit belongs to the Father, as does the Father to the Holy Spirit. The passage above fits harmoniously into that supposition.

If, on the other hand, one presupposes that the Father and the Holy Spirit are more loosely bound in an agape relationship appropriate to an all-male Godhead, this passage would not speak of a possessive relationship between the two, and the attribute of wisdom would more appropriately be one possessed by the Father Himself. Of course, that assignment would create the collateral difficulty of rendering the Holy Spirit far less understandable as to function and attributes.

THE CHURCH, THE BRIDE, THE BODY AND THE NEW JERUSALEM

 

The beautiful mystery explained by Paul in Ephesians 5:25-32 has instilled in me the wonderful and moving view of the Church as the Bride of Christ:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the Word; that He might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church; for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of his bones.

 

          For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.

 

In repeating the words of Adam in the Garden and of Jesus in Matthew 19, both in the context of marriage and the physical union between a man and his wife, Paul, by placing this marital union in the context of Jesus and His Church, plainly stated that the Church will be the spiritual Bride of Christ.

This statement of Paul’s echoes the numerous allusions that Jesus made to His own future marriage, including the parable of the marriage feast in Matthew 22, the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25, and, of course, his first miracle at Cana recorded in John 2, wherein He changed water into wine in anticipation of the joy of His own future wedding. Further identification of Jesus as a Bridegroom of a feminine entity is furnished by John in John 3:29.

In addition to New Testament pointers to Church in a bridal/marital context, there are at least two strong indicators of the same in the Old Testament in Genesis 24 and the Book of Ruth.

Genesis 24 describes the betrothal and marriage of Rebekah to Isaac. In Genesis 22 God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, which identifies Isaac as a type of Jesus Christ. In line with that identification, Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah identifies her as a type of Christ’s bride. According to Galatians 3:28, in which spiritual individuals do not possess gender, this bridehood cannot be fulfilled in individuals: the fulfillment must come for a collection or aggregate of individuals, which would suggest the Church. This identification of the Church as the Bride of Christ is strengthened by Paul’s characterization of the Church in 1 Corinthians 12 as a collection of individuals, each possessing specific gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In the Book of Ruth, Ruth’s husband Boaz is routinely identified by the Church as the Kinsman-redeemer, a type of Christ. It follows that Ruth, a female, represents His spiritual Wife, the Church.

Relating again to the Old Testament, it would be extremely difficult, if the Church was not a feminine entity, to justify the inclusion of the Song of Solomon in the canon of Scripture. Why, if the spiritual domain is genderless, would this overtly sexual document be a part of the Bible?

Not only is the future bride of Jesus feminine, but she is a living being, as clearly stated in Matthew 22: 31, 32:

But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Note also in Paul’s commentary in Ephesians 5: 28, that So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, Paul emphasizes the image developed in the restatement of Adam’s commentary regarding Eve of two becoming one flesh such that in the marital union the wife is considered to be the man’s body.   Here Paul extends the image of the wife being the body of the man to Christ and His Church, in line with an alternate description of the Church as the Body of Christ.

Paul alludes to this equivalence earlier in Romans 7: 4 and 1 Corinthians 2:15-20, where he describes the spiritual nature of the Church at Rome and Ephesus as both a feminine spouse and the spiritual body of Christ through the union of gendered complements capable of bearing fruit:

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I, then, take the members of Christ, and make them into the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? Know ye not that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is outside the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

 

The plurality of the members of the Church, hinted at in the passages above, raises another issue, one that was touched on before. In Matthew 22: 28-30 and Galatians 3:28, both Jesus and Paul characterize the individual Christian as without gender in the spiritual realm:

Therefore, in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto the, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Note, however, that in both these cases the subject is the individual. But in 1 Corinthians 12: 4-28 and elsewhere in Scripture, Paul very plainly develops the idea that the individual is not the Church, but rather just a component of her, and a rather small element at that:

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit. For to one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another, faith by the same Spirit; to another, the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, discerning of spirits; to another, various kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of tongues. But all these worketh that one and the very same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

 

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Greeks, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath god set the members every one of them, in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble, are necessary. And those members of the body, which we thin to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need; but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.

 

Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the Church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best gifts; and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.

The Church, then, as a single spiritual entity comprising a multiplicity of components, is fully capable of being endowed with gender, in exactly the same manner that while the eyeball of a person is genderless, the entire person is indeed either a male or a female. Furthermore, just as Jesus is always identified as male, Scripture always identifies the Church as either a functional female or its equivalent as the spouse of Christ.

The gendered nature of the relationship between Jesus Christ and His Church is suggested in the strongest terms in the Song of Solomon, for why would this romantic, even erotic, relationship be included in the canon of Scripture if such was not the case? This remarkable passage has been equated by several respected Bible commentators as representing the eventual marital relationship between Jesus and the Church. A typical example follows, taken from Song of Solomon 1: 14, 15:

 

My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers in the vineyards of Engedi. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.

Scripture also describes the individuals comprising the Church as living human beings. Examples include Matthew 9:15 (also Mark 2:19 and Luke 5:34) and Ephesians 2: 4-7:

Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the Bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the Bridegroom will be taken from them, and then shall they fast.

 

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath made us alive together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

 

To this point, Scripture has shown that the Church is a feminine living body comprised of a multitude of genderless spiritual human souls which, in the aggregate is espoused to Jesus Christ as her future husband. Uniting spiritually through the marital union in the spiritual realm, the Church becomes the Body of Christ precisely as the wife is considered integrated into the body of the man in the material realm. But Revelation 21: 2, 9 and 10 paint an alternate picture of the wife of Christ that easily can be construed to represent an altogether different picture of this Bride:

And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband. . .And there came unto me one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come here, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

 

The passage above can readily be interpreted to suggest that the Bride of Christ is a building, albeit a beautiful and magnificent one, rather than the Church, which, as has been noted, is comprised of living souls. Several Scriptural passages that suggest the same thing come to mind, of which the following three are prominent:

1 Corinthians 3:9, 10 and 16:

For we are laborers together with God; ye are God’s cultivated field, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth on it. But let every man take heed how he buildeth upon it. . . Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

 

Ephesians 2:19-22:

Now, therefore ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together growth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Revelation 3:12, in Jesus’ message to the Church at Philadelphia:

          Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from My God; and I will write upon him My new name.

But note from these three examples that while the imagery is one of a building or components thereof, the components themselves are living human souls, all redeemed by Jesus Christ and therefore identical to the components of the Church. Given that identity, the imagery in Revelation 21 of the new Jerusalem is not mutually exclusive with the imagery of the Church. Indeed, the two images are entirely compatible with each other and mutually supportive, each adding color to the understanding of the Church as the spiritual Bride of Christ. This understanding brings this commentary full circle through Revelation 19: 7-9 back to the character of the Church as not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing:

         

          Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they who are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

 

 

 

HOME, SWEET HEAVEN INSTALLMENT #38

Chapter Thirty Seven

 

“We’re back!” Joyce cried joyfully as she looked about her in wonder at the lushness of the landscape, so perfect even in its imperfection. The scene embraced her participation in it, the colors more vivid in their multidimensional hues than anything she could have experienced on Earth. This is so real! Joyce thought with pleasure. The presence of God was everywhere, joyful in His radiance. “Oh, thank you, Wisdom! Will I ever have to go back to Earth?”

“Earth?” She asked with a grin. “What Earth? No. You’re a spiritual being for good now, but you might be going back periodically as you serve at Jesus’ side. But it’ll be your choice and you can return here – home – whenever you wish.”

“Can I see my Sammy now? Oh, where’s Earl? How beautiful this all is!”

“Slow down, darling!” Wisdom responded with a rich laugh. “No, you won’t have to go back this time. You can stay here forever, if that’s what you want to do. There’s a very big event coming up that you’re an important part of. We’ve been waiting for you to come back to it, the marriage of Jesus with His Church. As for Earl, he’s right beside you now, and Sam’s running our way with Earl’s Alicia in hand. Go ahead – merge.”

Without conscious effort, Joyce merged into Earl so that their togetherness was complete. Although they still retained their individuality, they were open to each other’s internal thoughts and emotions, becoming one in a sense that was impossible in the material world. They hugged each other and opened themselves to their former spouses, weeping without restraint in the emotion of the moment.

“Come,” Wisdom said after allowing them time to understand and appreciate their new lives together. “About that event- it will be happening now. For that you’ll be merging with a great many more Christians, those who comprise the spiritual Church. Don’t worry about that, Earl,” She said in response to his brief flash of negativity at this new revelation. You four are a special component of that Church. You’ll be operating together as a unit, so your interaction with others won’t be quite so close. Close enough to experience the mutual love, but not so close as to evoke thoughts of invasion. And wait ‘till you see your bridegroom!”

“Will our marriage be romantic, like between men and women on earth?”

“Yes, but more so. Much more. Jesus Himself gave you the tiniest of hints of that joyful occasion in the Gospel of John, Chapter 2.”

“Oh! I – we – know what it says! We don’t have to remember. It’s imprinted in our beings! Can I recite it?”

“Of course. Go for it!”

“’And the third day there was a marriage in Cana, of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they lacked wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw some out now, and bear it unto the governor of the feast. And they bore it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not from where it was (but the servants who drew the water knew), the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine and, when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana, of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.’

 

Wisdom spoke in response. “Besides the obvious fact that, being Jesus’ first miracle in His incarnation, it also was very important, there are a number of nuances in this passage. Do you recognize some of them?”

“Oh, yes! The wedding too, place on the third day, a reference to Jesus’ statements elsewhere that He would rise again on the third day, meaning the third thousand-year period since His resurrection.”

“Yes. Which, according to Psalm 90 and 2 Peter 3:8, would be the sixth millenium after the creation of man, the beginning of the Millennium. That also is why Jesus waited four days to resurrect Lazarus, for His incarnation, death and resurrection was in the fourth millenium, and in raising Lazarus He was prophecying His own resurrection.”

“And then there is the mention of His mother. I think You were there too as His divine Mother.”

“You’re right again, darling. I was there overshadowing Jesus’ earthly mother Mary, and it was a beautiful moment of anticipation for both of us.”

“Did it bother You that the Catholic Church gave all the credit for motherhood to Mary?”

“Of course not! Mary is a very special daughter-in-law to Me, too. I love her very deeply. She did indeed suffer along with Jesus at His crucifixion. And, of course, now that she’s among us and knows her true place, she’s an obedient and loving daughter. She really can’t wait for the marriage!

“Will we individuals, as just components of the Church, be able to participate in that romance?”

“As you already know, your individuality in the spiritual realm doesn’t imply the isolation that it did down in the material world. You are far more integrated into each other here than you were down there. Yes, to answer your question. Most happily, each of you, in the different circumstances that prevail here, will fully participate in that romance.”

“How can we, as created beings, marry God? Wouldn’t that sort of confer godhood upon us, too, being one with Him and all that?”

“Good question, and the answer is that yes, you as spirit beings will automatically partake of godhood. Whan Jesus merges into you,” Wisdom replied, “you will partake of His substance, elevating you into godhood. Beyond that, creation is a circular process, as you will have the ability to appreciate in the greater dimensional reality you will have in your marriage to Jesus. I’ll remind you that throughout the history of mankind, special people already have contributed under My supervision to the creation of Jesus as the Word of God in Scripture.”

“What are we going to do as Jesus’ bride?”

Wisdom laughed at that. “Oh, you have no idea,” She said. “I won’t spoil the excitement by telling you everything, but I will point out to you, as if you didn’t already know, that mankind has trashed the earth in a very big way. Somehow mankind managed to uglify the beauty We created beyond all rational expectations. The giant plastics industry turned out to create a huge mess; your playing with atoms didn’t work out too well, either. I could go on and on, but you already know all that, having lived there during the most profound destruction of the land, which included the greatest battle ever waged by man. You also saw the beginning of what We are doing to correct the trashing of your planet, something that you yourselves will become intimately involved in as the Wife of Jesus.”

“Oh? What would that be?”

“The planetoid that We brought close to earth – Our most direct method of participating in the battle of Armageddon – managed to perform some rather extensive cleanup work in the process of getting rid of so many evil little men and women. The catastrophe that We brought to bear on earth was planetary in scope, creating enormous earthquakes, and tsunamis, and windstorms. The water movement lifted up and deposited a brand-new system of strata. The earth movement created brand-new and pristine landmasses. Best of all, much of that plastic trash, much of those ugly chemicals, much of that radiation, is now down in the earth’s mantle where it belongs. But there’s still more of that disgusting trash still around. You’ll be busy creating and implementing means of cleaning that up and using the Millennium survivors to do the physical work. And then, there’s the restoration of Mars as well.”

“What about Venus and the rest?”

“In their own time, dear. You’ll have plenty to keep you very happily occupied.”

They came up to a quiet little stream. Looking down, they saw a large trout moving placidly up the middle. “Look!” Joyce exclaimed. “It’s smiling at us!”

“Yes!” Alicia said, laughing. “It’s that way everywhere here. I’m so glad that now we have a chance to experience this wonderful life together!”

They topped a rise and looked down into a bowl that contained an innumerable company of fellow Christians. Somehow they knew where and how to interact with them so that together they became a new entity whose features rivaled Wisdom’s own beauty. The amazing thing about this self-understanding was that they all were intensely aware of their composite Persona, just as they understood Wisdom.

“Jesus is about to join us,” Wisdom told them. “Let the music begin.” Accompanied by a thousand harps, and angelic choir sang the prelude to the Wedding March.

“Who is going to give us away?” came into Wisdom’s attention.

“It is my very great privilege, as your loving Mother-in-law, to perform that exceedingly welcome task,” She responded.

“Oh!” The gasp of awe was shared within the entire Church as she saw Jesus enter her assembly. What followed was a ripple of passion, like an electric shock, that permeated the Church as she saw Jesus in Truth and Light. The communal passion welled up into a romantic yearning for Him that transcended the earthly experience of imprinting between mates.

The marriage ceremony was performed by the Father Himself, His own perfect features visible to the Church for the first time. As they said their vows in giddy anticipation and were finally pronounced Man and Wife, Jesus turned to His new Bride and kissed Her deeply on the lips. With that He entered Her space and merged with Her, causing every element of Her being to glow with delight.

“It is finished!” the Father pronounced. “You are now Man and Wife, each God and together God. Welcome to the Godhead. Our Trinity is now a Quaternary!”

HOME, SWEET HEAVEN INSTALLMENT #37

Chapter Thirty Six (continued)

The drastic cutback of life repeated itself throughout the Earth. On the other side of the world from America a young girl named Jana happened to live in one of the rare and widely-scattered enclaves of human habitation where survival was possible. Her own continued existence was either a miracle or an odd freak of nature gone berserk. Born into modest but comfortable means nine years before the beginning of the Great Destruction, she was a toddler when the Wave came. Her mind mercifully blanked out most of the events of that day, but throughout the rest of her life she was constantly subjected to flashbacks of overwhelming terror that she was helpless to resolve. The certain knowledge that they would return to torment her kept her in a shy and humble prison of fear. The image that she most dreaded was the morning on the seashore, where she was playing on the ground with her mother in sight and the water close at hand, its gentle lapping just one of the many mild background noises. Then the ground beneath her began to shake and great cracks opened up everywhere. In one terrible moment her mother was gone, lost inside the voracious mouth of soil that had suddenly turned into a hungry monster. But it shook so badly that Jana couldn’t think beyond the terror. She could only stare without comprehension at her loss, the tense ground shivering in rage. The shaking went on and on, it wouldn’t stop, and she could see, again without understanding, great palls of smoke where red liquid gushed out of the ground to engulf houses and screaming people and turn trees bright red and sometimes white before they vanished. These images burned themselves into her mind, storing themselves for nightfall, when they would return during unguarded moments to torment her. Much later the shaking stopped, and she sat where she was, on an island of undisturbed ground, numb with shock. Not a soul came to her aid; she could see a few others but they were either quite still, like herself, or slowly and awkwardly reassembling themselves.

After a time Jana became aware of the intense, oppressive silence, and that was when she turned her head toward the coast and screamed in fright, for the sea was gone. Instead, the land continued out from the shoreline, brown mud and rock that dropped gently but steadily down into a plain that extended out to the horizon, as far as the eye could see. She stared at this new land in disbelief, her terror so extreme that she was unable to move. She was still staring when her mind dimly recorded motion on the horizon, a movement so vast that it was beyond the power of her brain to put it into the proper perspective. A dark line, glints of silver, marching across the plains below, expanding, a dark wall advancing upward, blotting out the sun. It moved faster now with the shortening distance, looming upward, filling the sky, filling the valley as it rushed headlong toward her. Roaring, peaking, cresting up, engulfing clouds, ripping them into streamers and wisps, the hurting pressure of her ears tightening in pain, the air exploding, lifting, hurtling headlong toward the town, spanked from behind, thrust faster, tumbling, overtaken, shaken, engulfed.

Jana hit something, flattened into it and continued to swirl and churn in the crushing grip of violently moving water. Every day thereafter she would vividly remember that first desperate gulp of air as the tree to which she clung tossed about on the restless water, traversing mountains that suddenly turned into valleys and then back into peaks. She would often wonder but never come to fully understand what freak motion of water or indentation in the ground over which it surged prevented it from falling down upon her and crushing out her life, as it did with the rest of her village. She wouldn’t realize that she was badly injured until several hours later. Only when the water deposited the tree and her with it scores of miles inland from her village, and the adrenalin subsided to be replaced by pain, did she understand her state.   Her left eye was damaged beyond healing from the blow of the initial contact with the tree that saved her life. Even in the sorrow that comes from remembered violence and loss she possessed the vanity of a pretty girl. She grieved over her damaged face, but was later able, with clever arrangement, to cover the empty eye with her hair.

Very soon after she returned to the ground she was seen by an aimlessly wandering man, a kind person who picked her up and carried her with him in his search for his village or someone he knew. They were very lucky; his village, being situated on a high plateau, was spared the violence from shaking and water that had destroyed hers. Although much of it was severely damaged, some shelter still remained and there were people who remained alive, with whom they could share experiences and talk out their fears. Jana was given to an elderly lady, old enough to be her grandmother, but she was also kind, and gently nursed her back to health. Jana remained with the old lady, a time when dark, murky clouds extended down to within a few feet of the ground and very little sunlight penetrated the gloom. It became cold and there was very little food to eat. The tiny village subsisted mostly on rats, who had become fat on the death that stalked the land. This unpleasant fare was washed down with stale, rank-smelling water from the marshland to the west.

In spite of the hardships and discomfort of attempting to survive in a world that suddenly had marginalized mankind, Jana was given a precious gift. The old lady with whom she lived was a devoted Christian, and every night at bedtime she was in the habit of imparting to Jana a portion of her knowledge of God.

Far below the turmoil on the surface, the earthmotion yanked at the underground communities scattered throughout the earth, where the majority of political movers and shakers now resided. The terrific heat from the moving crust-mantle boundary surged upward through layers of rock that were turning soft and in some locations molten, themselves merging into the boundary and becoming part of it. The effects, which were strongly influenced by latitude and crustal depth, were felt unequally. The pressure of moving ground drove the nearly plastic red-hot walls of the Malaysian shelter inward toward each other, squeezing the long-dead community inside into a soupy pulp that was forcefully mixed into the surrounding rock. The meltdown of the reactor generated an insignificant little belch. News of this disaster never reached the other communities. From the very first there was a sharp rise in electrical activity that rendered electromagnetic communication impossible. Earthshocks made a joke of the alternate laser communications, their violence completely overwhelming the optimistically-designed damping mechanisms. Then when the winds came and the lands were breached with water the ground was immediately swept clean of sensors.

The European governmental community located in Belgium was particularly ill-sited, having found itself covered by water to a depth of a mile and a half. The extreme pressure forced water down the cracked heat-exchanger pipes that were exposed on the surface, creating colossal jets of deadly liquid that sprayed into the shelter, uprooting people, buildings and equipment before the invading liquid eventually settled down to fill the caverns, drowning the trapped inhabitants. Here the reactor survived intact for a time, humming away happily in the midst of quietly floating bodies.

The Brazilian facility remained intact in its entirety, continuing to function through the directives of automatic control systems, its human inhabitants being dead to the last man. They simply couldn’t handle the sustained one hundred fifty degree temperature that was maintained by a greatly overloaded environmental system.

GLOW, of course, had rapidly moved into the nearest underground shelter that was available to him, which actually was very close to the position where Jacob and Moira, along with Sidney and Mary, lay at their observation post. This shelter was virtually unique, in that it remained intact throughout the major part of the bombardment from above. The facility’s communication with its above-ground sensors was destroyed, however, causing him to be irritated with his lack of information on the world above the shelter. Quickly tiring of this forced isolation from the world that he had come to understand as his personal possession, he took the elevator back up to the surface. He just had time for a swift glance around when a final piece shed from the comet stamped on his head and smashed him into the ground. Despite the finality of this event, there was yet another leg to GLOW’s involuntary journey. Eventually Wisdom would oversee his transportation to the fresh new daughter of Jupiter that still loomed over the Earth. There, in the somewhat warmer climate that prevailed in the center of that planetoid, GLOW would literally and quite spectacularly represent the name he had chosen for himself.

With a precision unique to God, there existed by His divine Hand a tiny enclave of life in addition to the hills below Dafna in Israel that escaped the general turmoil. This island of life was located in midwestern North America in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Here in the vicinity of Mount Rushmore the territory not only was spared the hurricane winds but became blanketed above by cloud, being located near a node of minimum atmospheric disturbance. The people who resided there in temporary but quite adequate shelters had very little knowledge of the worldwide disturbance, as their communication devices were inoperable due to intense ionization.

Shielded from the awful apparition above them, these people shared a thread of commonality: most were Christians who had come to this singular location at the nudging of the Holy Spirit; the others came, albeit reluctantly, as family members. They had in common one other thing, which was an extremely rare and precious circumstance: some of them continued to survive through the next day.

The Black Hills began to rise even as the giant tsunami rushed toward them from the east. As the land rose, cracks appeared in the soil and snaked upward to the precariously balanced rocks above. Responding to the shaking and the undermining, enormous pillars of granite toppled and rolled down the moving slopes, like giant sequoias, felling the trees in their paths and leaving scratches like giant claw marks. Jackrabbits and deer scattered out of their paths along with terrified humans. Most were successful. Some were not. Those who managed to dodge the monsters were troubled yet further by a noise from the east that rose above the nearby din of tumbling boulders.   Far below them the Cheyenne River became a metallic ribbon of reflected light from the leaden sky above as the outflow from the broken dam of the Angostura Reservoir cut into the changing topography to pencil out a new channel. But this insignificant line was dwarfed by an astonishing plane of pewter rimmed with silver farther to the east that stretched to the horizon. As the frozen people stared in open-mouthed awe, the plane continued to flow toward them like liquid mercury as the horizon itself rose perceptibly and light and shadow firmed to define a crest fifty miles to the east of the rapidly approaching trough. The scale was too large for the human mind to grasp, living beings never having encountered before such enormity of motion. Only when the new water tumbled over the changing Cheyenne River, completely dwarfing it, did the awful scene come into perspective for a few. As the magnitude of the liquid cliff became apparent the revelation evoked the dizziness of hanging over a sheer precipice; many were so overwhelmed that they simply stood there, puke pouring from their open mouths. As it bore down upon them, the white frothing vanguard of water was a roaring cliff of such incredible height that it appeared to be above them. The roar deafened them; before they fell onto their faces in panic the compressed air threatened to lift them into its turbulent maw and fling them headlong to the west. Then the wind front swept past, followed by the sea of darker water, furnishing a more constant reality to the nightmare. The level of onrushing darkness continued to rise about them with the approach of the first crest. But then it finally passed them and the water started slowly to descend. They began for the first time to breathe hope.

Through all this commotion the Christians had prayed fervently for deliverance, but they also were quick to appreciate that they were located at that spot for just that reason. With the passage of The Crest, as the peak of water would be called for generations to come, their prayers turned to thanksgiving. As the turbulent ocean continued to rush past beneath their amazed eyes and which had instantaneously turned their mountain into a western Atlantic island, they came to the conclusion that such force must necessarily have been related to a planetary event and pondered the significance of it to the rest of the world. Being attuned to the Biblical account of Noah’s flood, some had now come to appreciate that the Bible was far more accurate that the contradictory science to which they had been so thoroughly indoctrinated. Implicit in that new understanding was the realization that what they were now experiencing was a repetition of events that had occurred long ago.

San Francisco was still in nominal night as dawn arrived in New York; however, the large globe sitting on the western horizon lit the sky with a white glow that totally dispelled the darkness. Those who could bear the sight watched in horrified fascination as the comet noticeably increased in size before their eyes and then, as it approached the Van Allen zone, appeared to spread vast wings as an eagle swooping down on its prey. Most who watched this appalling scene from their apartment windows were unaware of the drama taking place on the waterfront below them. For the first time in over three thousand years the sea was transgressing its boundaries to complement its retreat from the eastern continental edge. Slowly at first, the tide kept rising. At an ever-accelerating rate, the black water engulfed first the docks, then the low-lying buildings, and began to mount the hills. The apartment dwellers first became aware of this new disaster indirectly, noticing first how slowly the comet moved below the horizon, and then how the reflected light of the comet on the ocean appeared where land was shortly before. Then the winds came and the ocean continued to rise, white caps gleaming, then great waves, monsters smashing into buildings accompanied by tornadic screechings and the jolt of buildings being ripped off foundations, glass breaking and frigid wetness.

Within a short time the western coastline of the American continent was inundated to a depth of over six hundred feet. San Francisco was now eighty five miles seaward of the new, violently battered shoreline. Then, as quickly as it had come, the sea receded back, forming an enormous mass of moving water that would cross the Pacific to smash headlong against Asian coastlines. The lifeless remnant of San Francisco would stand, dry, to receive the rays of a tropical sun. To the north, Portland lay buried beneath two hundred and fifty feet of mud, silt, and the remnant soils of what used to be the banks of the Columbia Gorge. Here, during the inundation of San Francisco, the mighty Columbia had been an immense river of saltwater that roiled up the gorge to smack into dam after dam, mountainous white spray bursting upward to the sky, cracking each in turn like a fragile eggshell. But each assault and breach claimed its toll of energy. As the sea reached its easternmost boundary, it spread out and gently licked at the dry plains. For a tiny instant, with mountains flaming and smoking, bleeding lava from thousands of rotten sores, the water itself was expended and quiet from the exhausting climb landward. Then, slowly like a brakeless freight train gathering downhill momentum, it began to recede. Shortly it was speeding out of control, sucking at the river banks, digging up new channels, creating a new Grand Canyon that, like its predecessor, now lay at a latitude that used to mark the boundary between Arizona and Utah. From time to time rumors of Portland’s existence would surface, but Portland itself would never be found again.

“Let’s call it a wrap,” the Divine Will said to His beloved Consort, who responded with an outstretched finger leveled at the threatening monster. Seen by fewer than a thousand people, a great sword of blue-white light connected for the merest instant the Carlson Comet with the Earth. Had the atmosphere been quiet instead of the raging maelstrom that it was, the thunderclap could have been heard around the world. But in that same brief instant the world was saved: no longer did the Carlson Comet loom larger with each second that passed.

The Carlson Comet came to within less than five earth diameters of the ravaged planet before hurtling away along its own path. Close as they came to actually colliding, and devastating as its proximity was to the earth and to the life upon its surface, pockets of life nevertheless remained, humbled and ready to fully accept the leadership of God and His Christ. To prepare the way for this welcome transformation, the physical devastation of the planet served to bury the ravages of man so far beneath the surface that for all practical purpose the numerous blights no longer existed. Particularly satisfying to Wisdom was the complete removal of all the disgustingly ugly wind farms, every windmill of which had deliberately been thrust past the Earth’s mantle to melt back into basic molecular constituents.

The strange violence on the surface of the Earth died out over time, but slowly. Its passing was reluctant, attended with endless battles between sea and land, taking its time to subside as the floor beneath the seas continued ever more slowly to restore itself to equilibrium.

Existence would be primitive from that time forward for over a century as the remnant of mankind learned to adjust to new latitudes and piece out the rhythms of new seasons. But God was now with them and, despite the hardships of their daily toils, they would sit by campfires at night and recount tales to their children of a great winged monster who shook the earth, and of enormous waves, and blood-red lava, and of God with them.

 

 

HOME, SWEET HEAVEN INSTALLMENT #36

Chapter Thirty Six

 

 

 

 

 

In its lust for oil the Chinese government turned its face from the portent of doom in the sky above. Its leaders, having survived many internal battles through cleverness of mind, had been quick to perceive that this Earthwide crisis was not the first to have been experienced in the memory of mankind. Recognizing the basis of the ever-present appearance of dragons at important events, they had early on made the association between portents in the sky and massive disturbances in the earth below. They reasoned that although this latest catastrophe might be the end of all mankind, whatever course China took wouldn’t matter. On the other hand, if by chance mankind managed to avoid its ultimate doom and survive, and China ended up taking possession of the earth’s greatest cache of oil, China would dominate the world from that time onward. It was worth the gamble; besides, what did China have to lose?

GLOW’s anger, meanwhile, had developed into an insanity that drove him to battle in the face of the bigger issue in the sky above.

 

Well before I-day the vanguard of the enormous Chinese expeditionary force crossed the now dry Euphrates River under a gray and threatening sky. It was initially unopposed, but GLOW reacted with a hastily-assembled army of his own, which raced into the Mediterranean Sea and along the land routes traveled before by the invading hordes of the Russians and their confederates. GLOW’s objective was the same: kill the enemy in Jerusalem and take over the state apparatus, particularly the control over the Israeli oil field.

GLOW’s response had restored unity to the ten regional governments, as did his demand for the immediate drafting of troops from each region. It didn’t matter that the draft quota that he imposed involved most of the workforce: if he didn’t get the oil, there would be no need for the workforce anyway.

In some respects the resulting battle for Jerusalem was a reprise of the earlier battle waged by the Russians and their Mideast cohorts. The objective was similar: remove Israel from the world map. The routes the GLOW power took to get to Jerusalem were virtually the same, and their entry into Israel began at the port that used to belong to Haifa. But other aspects of the battle were quite different: The motivation of hatred was replaced by an even more evil indifference to the fate of Israel in the greedy quest for oil. The routes of advance, while similar to the earlier ones with respect to GLOW’s Western powers, involved the additional route from the east taken by the Chinese army. Haifa, being the location of the first assault, now no longer existed, although the ground upon which it stood was trampled by the marching feet of soldiers too numerous to count. The advancing troops weren’t told that the ground beneath them was so radioactively hot that in merely being there they had probably signed their own death warrants. No matter: they’d last long enough to do the job.

The new combatants, in representing all the peoples of the world in a vast conglomeration, was more racially and ethnically diverse than the earlier invaders; there were more of them, too – far more.

Now, with the immanent approach of I-day, Jacob and Moira viewed the assault from the same position they had taken during the Ezekiel 38 war. This time they had Sid and Mary with them. “I don’t know how many angels that God is planning on deploying in this battle,” Moira said, “but from the looks of things down below, the entire world is showing up to kick the Jews into the Med.”

“Yeah, looks that way. Whatever’s going to happen next, it’s not going to be pretty. I feel badly for our brothers and sisters in the middle, engulfed by all that vicious sub-humanity. But at least you’re here and not there, and, I’d hope, safe from what’s going to go down in Jerusalem.”

Before he could speak further, Jacob and Moira were tossed into the air. They returned to the ground to be shaken like they were in the teeth of a violent, angry dog, complete with a rumbling growl.

They heard Wisdom speaking to them through the noise of this enormous quake. “Hide your eyes,” She warned them. “You don’t want to watch what happens next.”

Still shaking, they buried their heads in the ground. Even with their faces in the dirt, their eyes registered such an overwhelming brightness that they could see the bones in their hands. Multiple seconds later the shaking of the ground jumped to renewed life and the couple began to think that the end of the world had just arrived.

The shaking slowly subsided, only to be replaced by a windstorm of epic magnitude. Cautiously raising their heads as this new force diminished, they saw that most of the troops were no longer standing, but were flat on the ground. Looking back, Moira noticed that the blast and its aftermath had leveled the buildings of Dafna. The destruction saddened her. “Look behind us, Jacob,” she said. “No Dafna.”

“Too bad about that,” he replied. “But look on the bright side. There’s still us. Besides, Wisdom is around to comfort us. God matters more than anything else.” His eyes returned to the battle below, and Moira’s soon followed.

But then, as they continued to look, they saw the majority of the closer troops raise themselves back up to standing positions. “What was that, Jacob? God or man? Nuclear or something else?”

“No, it was nuclear, all right. Look at the mushroom clouds. They look like textbook photos. GLOW may have set them off, judging from where they hit southeast of Jerusalem. Look over there,” he said, pointing to the largest cloud. It was still glowing red from some massively hot internal violence as the central column reached for the stratosphere. “That entire area was filled with human beings before the bombs, and now look at it. It’s completely barren for acres upon acres around the central column, empty of soldiers. And I wouldn’t count on anything living inside the column itself, not even the meanest snake.”

The battle for Jerusalem continued to rage for three days. The attackers had breached the defensive lines of the city and had entered it, bent on the utter destruction of its terrified inhabitants. The horrified people of Dafna looked out on the distant slaughter taking place in their beloved city. Their own front had remained quiet, but the spectacle of what was happening in Jerusalem tore away at whatever relief they may have enjoyed.

“Bury your heads again,” the two couples heard from above, and responded instantly. What happened next dwarfed the turmoil of the nuclear blasts. As I-day arrived, the ground thrust them upward again, but this was an impact shock, not a quake. Several more shocks occurred in rapid succession, each closer to them than its predecessor. Once again, the air above them moaned in hurricane strength. After a chaotic eternity, this next phase of violence settled down. Once again Jacob and Moira lifted their heads, to be confronted with the shocking sight of massive dirty-gray columns that reached upward beyond their vision. They had the appearance of exceedingly broad tornadoes, but they were stationary. At their bases the ground bulged upwards in circular rims. Flecks of red revealed the molten state of the soil beneath the surface. The columns extended beyond the land to the Mediterranean Sea, where their color was whitened with water. Even as they watched, the water began to fall with majestic slowness into a sea troubled with enormous impact waves which raced toward the shore. Awe-struck with the overwhelming visual magnitude of the events playing out before their eyes, they recoiled in horror as the first tsunami breached the land and overwhelmed the waterfront buildings and continued inland, virtually unimpeded by the apartment blocks and even high-rise constructions and the hills upon which they stood. Before the first wave receded, another came crashing ashore, to be followed by many others. The troops, so impressive in their size before these catastrophic events, were washed out to sea like so many tiny ants.

“Now that looked like an asteroid strike!” Jacob said laughingly. “Did you see how it dwarfed the nuclear attack?”

“Give it to God. But I wonder about Jerusalem, being in the middle of all that.”

“I don’t know,” Jacob replied. “I can’t see it any more.”

The sky was so cluttered with the columns of smoke and pulverised earth that Jerusalem was no longer visible to the pair. “I wouldn’t worry, though,” Moira said. “Jerusalem’s special to God. Somehow it must still exist.”

Jerusalem did continue to exist, but virtually every city, town and community throughout the world fared less well. The American Midwest was hit particularly hard. The impact of that day on the newlywed couple George and Linda Kasik was typical of that area. Awakened by tremblings and rough shakings, they had arisen from their happy bed and left their country cabin hand in hand to survey the commotion outside, still secure in the knowledge that their love was sufficient to overcome any kind of trouble that life could throw at them.

They had walked about a quarter of a mile when the tremors sharply increased in amplitude. George and Linda continued to hold hands as they rode out the undulations of the ground beneath them. There was a sharp jolt and they squeezed each other fiercely in a mutual gesture of support and reassurance. Not more than half a mile to their front the ground reared up as if it had suddenly come to life. It refused to stop, but continued to rise more sharply. They realized to their horror that where they were on flat ground scant moments before they were now on a slope that was rapidly becoming steeper, and were looking up at a crest of ground that was reaching heavenward.

Looking back, George was astonished to see the ground recede below them. He was overcome by vertigo and put out his free hand to cushion his dizzy drop to the ground. As his hand touched the earth it recoiled from the intense heat, and George suddenly apprehended that the ground was smoking. Attempting to return to an upright position, he wobbled drunkenly as the surface gave way and a gaping red crevasse opened up beneath his feet. Fixated on the landscape rising above her, Linda felt his pull on her hand and screamed in horror as she saw him sink to his knees. Close to fainting from fright, she struggled to pull him free even as she saw the flesh of his legs bubble and redden. His eyes pleaded with hers and then she saw him accept his fate. He jerked his hand free and with remarkable grace allowed himself to sink into the widening crack. Wailing, Linda averted her eyes toward the rising peak.  They focused on another crack that was racing downward directly toward her. Screaming again, she ran downslope. The path she took ended abruptly a hundred yards ahead in a hump, the far side of which was rapidly developing into a cliff. Then the wind came up.

Screaming all the way, Linda ran down to the hump and just kept going out into empty air.

For over an hour after the Kasiks came to their abrupt end, their neighbor Billy West had been laying in a virtually prone position in the lee of a huge boulder, unable to move more than a fraction of an inch for fear that the screeching wind would pluck him from his shelter and fling him into the midst of the airborne debris that had hurtled past. Some of the debris had been human, damaged beyond anything recognizable. The ground here had remained cold, and it was robbing him of heat where he had soiled himself earlier. He was shivering, but he did not recognize his discomfort, for he was held in the thrall of a terror so complete that it occupied every nerve in his body.

Suddenly the vicious motion of the air stopped, as if something larger and infinitely more menacing was sucking it into its maw. The screaming ceased, to be replaced by a lower, more distant rumbling, so powerful that the ground trembled and quaked. This ominous sound was frequently interspersed with the hollow thumping of objects falling from the sky. Billy felt one land nearby. It had once been a dog, but was now a mixed bundle of fur and red flesh like he used to see infrequently on the side of the highway. There was another thump, and he saw another bundle of raw flesh, to which tattered strips of clothing still clung, smack into the dog. More human remains landed about his inadequate shelter and he began to smell the cloying stench of raw meat mingled with contents of stomach and intestines. He saw these things but he didn’t react, for fear continued to prevail.

His present location was several hundred miles inland, so Billy had no thought of danger from the ocean. This state abruptly ended as he peered around the boulder, looking to the east. In that direction a new mountain range stood as a sentinel to protect the land about him. But now he stared in disbelief above the mountains, so far above them that the distant intruder was obscured in haze, an enormous but rapidly moving wall. Even as he looked it passed overhead, blocking the sun and casting his world into deep shadow. He trembled involuntarily. Unnoticed, his bowels moved again.   As the top of the cliff receded into the distance tens of miles to the westward of his position he felt the shock wave as its base collided with the mountain range to the east. His eyes watched but failed completely to grasp the scale of the event they were registering as mountains were dwarfed by white spray. Moments later the ground began to vibrate and the spray spanned the thirty miles or so between his position and the mountains, and continued on past him like the top of the wall, a low, dirty grey roof that rapidly darkened as the wall continued to advance westward.

He had just a short but indelible glimpse of dark water following the white spray to breach the mountaintops when the mist began to settle about him and cut off his view. Now he was in the midst of a dark fog and could only hear the roar of the turbulent sea reaching toward him.

The first blast of water kicked him like a football. He was still conscious but trying to will his crushed chest to breathe as he tumbled through the air. He hit the ground and lost his consciousness a quarter of a mile from the point of first impact and remained unconscious as the water kicked him a second time and rolled him like a pebble. The third impact buried him beneath the moving wall of water and crushed him into jelly that quickly diluted into nothing.

[to be continued]

HOME, SWEET HEAVEN INSTALLMENT #35

Chapter Thirty Four

As the residents of the tent city in Custer Park near Mount Rushmore awoke and began to greet the day among their beautiful surroundings, that same Saturday morning began quite benignly elsewhere as well in North America. Springtime was becoming apparent in the pleasant temperature and new growth of grass and leaves. Despite the excesses of the government and the repression and slaughter for which it was responsible, the land itself appeared to be enjoying a rebirth of sorts. The hue of the sky above was a deep blue almost to the horizon where it paled almost imperceptibly, just enough to confirm the new warmth of the surrounding air. In those areas that had been the least troubled by the brutal events of the recent past, the world outdoors was a fresh tapestry of soft, brightly blooming trees and flowers and lush green fields. Birds called joyfully and their songs blended harmoniously with the lively warm air.

At precisely 8:15 that morning, Alan Carlson shut off his phone and returned to his breakfast nook, where he sat disconsolately sipping coffee. He was a lucky man to have coffee to enjoy. But then he had reason to be so favored. As an astronomer he was, like all prominent scientists, a quasi-governmental official who, although not permitted the amenities of the FEMA underground facilities, was blessed with housing and food in relative abundance. He was given guard protection as well. These niceties came at a substantial price: Alan had finally succumbed to the prodding of government officials and accepted the mark of the beast.

Dr. Carlson was not a happy man, the phone call having changed his day from joy to a bleak horror. Thirteen nights ago he had discovered through his telescope a previously-undiscovered comet, a finding that had given him an ecstatic boost and his name a household term, at least among those fortunate enough to remain in the possession of households. The comet was even labeled the Carlson Comet in honor of his discovery of it. Since that discovery, up until the phone call, he had felt a possessive bond with the object, as if it belonged to him personally. Very quickly, however, other experts had inserted themselves in on his find to evaluate its characteristics, including its size and particularly its path. The first surprise that confronted these experts on minutiae was its size: it was massive, almost the size of the moon. Comets of such size were of such rarity that some experts would have denied the possibility of this newcomer’s existence without visual proof, just as past peers of equal authority had denied the existence of meteors until they were forced to view the meteorites that had landed virtually at their feet. But it was the trajectory that stumped them, causing them to wait for several days’ confirmation before they officially announced the comet’s apparent destination.

After they had reviewed the numbers several times over, quiet panic set in among the astronomers who had so callously muscled in on Carlson’s new pet. Their preoccupation with this new object grew rapidly as communications networks carried urgent requests for support to colleagues around the globe. Ultimately, the government got directly involved by commissioning the world’s finest computer-knowledgeable mathematicians to perform more sophisticated trajectory computations as if man, by mathematical precision, could alter the path of a several thousand-mile wide rock. With the unwelcome confirmation they provided, GLOW tried briefly to suppress its disclosure to the rest of his government for regional security reasons. Finally the hitherto-omnipotent GLOW himself came to the disturbing realization that the issue was bigger than regional security. His unhappy mind churned out random thoughts that equated, in the aggregate, to his displeasure at being usurped by a mere object. Darkly appreciating that a problem of this magnitude took all the fun out of elitism, he removed all obstacles he had inserted in the information path between the scientists and his government functionaries. If there was anything good to come out of this flap at all, he thought with resignation, it was that if crises were useful tools for the manipulation of peoples, this was the mother of all crises.

Dr. Alan Carlson, who himself had been kept in the dark regarding the object’s path, had just been informed of it by the latest phone call. The problem was specifically that the trajectory of the Carlson Comet, as confirmed by at least a thousand independent calculations, was found to terminate a very short time in the future at a point in space that would be concurrently occupied by the planet Earth. From this time forward, the unfortunate Dr. Carlson would be identified not for his expertise as an astronomer, but as the first harbinger of Earth’s inevitable doom. The corresponding intra-governmental communiques were brutally truthful: man, with all his ingenuity and scientific prowess, would be helpless before this monster, unable to deflect it from its path by any meaningful amount. The beast was simply too massive, and time was too short. The advent of the Carlson Comet was a complete surprise.

Over the next couple of weeks the earth and the planetoid went on about their respective businesses with benign indifference to each other. People continued to suffer under the repression of the regime, which had become even harsher in the wake of the discovery. Those individuals who had accepted the mark and had been relatively well-off now were making general asses of themselves as they went through the grieving sequence of denial, anger and grudging acceptance.

The period of denial varied with the level of understanding. The average person took it on faith that the “science guys” would send up a nuclear-tipped rocket that would blast the cosmic intruder to smithereens. Having thus solved the problem to their collective satisfaction, this group quickly reverted to their usual activities. The “science guys” knew better: their period of denial was virtually nonexistent. They knew that the Carlson Comet was far too massive to be blown to smithereens by anything that they could cook up. Besides, even if they could have found a method to counter the beast, recent cutbacks of applied technology had made launch vehicles way too scarce to deploy all but the most puny firepower.

It would be theoretically possible, over a span of fifty years, to alter the comet’s trajectory with existing knowledge and materials found on earth. Fifty years, however, was significantly longer than the allotted time to collision. These intellectuals, who were a dollar short and a day late and knew it, knew also that the world was expectantly waiting for them to solve the problem. They made the first transition from denial to anger. Discarding their assumed images of disinterested professionalism, they shamelessly and with quite shocking vehemence blamed each other (and especially the hapless Dr. Carlson) for discovering the offensive object in the first place. Then they blasted their own shortsightedness and fixated next on the shortsightedness of government and the apathy of the common person with respect to scientific matters for their current inability to solve the problem. These carryings-on eventually filtered down to the common person, who finally perceived that indeed the “science guys” were not coming to the rescue. Once this perception was attained, they, too, immediately entered the anger phase. Of course the primary focus of their anger was the “science wimps”, chief among them the poor Dr. Carlson who, although just an innocent astronomer, was bombed out of his car one morning. Demonstrations were held; these pathetically inept demonstrations of the public temper quickly progressed into ugly riots with demands for governmental intervention by those who wore the mark and relied on the government to solve all their problems.

The transition to the acceptance phase was universally shared. Riots began anew and quickly descended into self-serving orgies of looting and destruction. Society throughout the world once again became disordered and chaotic, and with this breakdown of order the means of production and distribution halted. Just as the pinnacle of power finally had come into his grasp, GLOW realized that he might well become virtually ineffective, an understanding that made him very, very angry.

Chapter Thirty Five

 

 

 

 

The belligerent nature of the angry hot body extracted from Jupiter and set in motion by the Holy Spirit mirrored the troubled arrogance of the insignificant little specks on the surface of a distant companion in space, Earth. Angry with the descending quality of their lives under the brutal new North American regime and its sibling governments throughout the world but curiously stubborn in their insistence in ignoring their God, men of ill-will continued to clash one against another in their headlong pursuit of Self as they attempted to eke out acceptable standards of life in a land where such standards no longer existed. The government, even more devoted to Self than its subjects, continued its quest for absolute control over its miserable and impoverished subjects, committing a wholesale slaughter of both the land and the people within it.

But the new planetoid had a destructive potential that exceeded by a huge margin the capacity for evil of Earth’s occupants. This body now held all the cards, subject only to the will of the Father and the response of His Divine Companion.

In this cosmic game the unwelcome intruder slapped its first card on the table by interfering with Earth’s gravitational field and causing a movement of the mantle.

This new development reached North America with a deep rumbling sound like that of an enormous trumpet that pierced the air and white-hot rock belonging to the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted from the tortured ground in a massive outpouring. A vast wind came up and blew the enormous black cloud of ash eastward, enclosing the entire southeastern portion of the old United States in a suffocating, poisonous cloud that slaughtered millions of people, relieving them rapidly of their miserable lives.

In faraway Israel the land below Dafna began to be pelted with fast-moving rocks that rained upon the masses of intruding soldiers. Astonished people looked upward toward the source of this vast commotion to see a more amazing spectacle yet, that of a sky lit up like a Christmas tree and beyond that another moon that wasn’t their own familiar Luna. Awed people around the globe first assumed that this enormous object was an asteroid, but after a while they began to notice things about this new cosmic intruder that didn’t square with what they knew about the behavior of asteroids.

In the first place, it wasn’t barreling toward them with the speed of a bullet. It was just standing still, or if it indeed was moving, it wasn’t moving fast. Not only that, but it was much too large to be an asteroid. It looked more like a planet, or at least like the moon, which it appeared to match in size and brightness. It was barren and void of any atmosphere of its own, but it appeared to be shedding pieces of itself, some of which were igniting into flames and making the sky sparkle as they entered the earth’s atmosphere. The boulders that survived this fiery entry turned ugly as they hurtled into the militant crowds and left roadkill behind. In North America, the onlookers watched amazed as a particularly large chunk of extraterrestrial matter splashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island Sound, creating an enormous circular wave that inundated the surrounding area. The sight led the observers to switch their focus to the larger ocean beyond, which had become so turbulent that it was sinking many ships, both small and great.

As a catastrophe of planetary scope, the destruction and terror was almost universal. With a few exceptions in isolated localities, life for humanity became very basic and very, very ugly. At about that time also, the first real effects of the cometary encounter appeared with the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. With less than a few days to go before I-day (I for impact), the intruder’s gravitational influence became sufficiently large that the magnitude and frequency of earthquakes accelerated beyond the already-disturbing upward trend. Japan was almost obliterated by the explosion of Mount Fuji and the tidal-wave aftermath. In the Western Hemisphere Mount Rainier and Mount Baker both resumed activity. After burying several large communities under carpets of mud, Mount Rainier continued to grow, reaching a lofty altitude of over twenty three thousand feet before exploding in a gigantic eruption that sent two thirds of the mountain skyward in a cloud of dust. Mexico City buckled and heaved once more, this time taking seven million lives.

Each hour, as seismic activity increased, the source of this horror became larger and more apparent to the naked eye. There was no remaining doubt about the seriousness and inevitability of this event. One day before I-day the animal kingdom became generally aware of impending disaster. Animals of all kinds began to congregate together oblivious to the usual natural relationships. Most pathetic was the inbred reliance of the domesticated animals on their human masters. They looked to them for safety, but the masters turned away, focusing on their own plights and indifferent to the problems with the animals.

As I-day approached, the comet began to dominate the sky, mocking the helplessness of mankind to control it. By this time all the sequestered liquor, pills and drugs had essentially run out, forcing the elite to face their doom sober. Suicides increased to epidemic proportions; roadways of all sizes were impassable, littered to uselessness with shapeless hulks of vehicles whose drivers had raced headlong into welcome oblivion. Within the military, the sound of self-directed gunfire was commonplace until the bullets were all gone. Then the knives and razors took over, finding their ways to veins and arteries. The major cities began to smell of death.

The earth had by now reached an equilibrium of gravity-induced stress. Earthquake activities diminished dramatically. An ominous silence blanketed the earth, presided over by the giant and yet more rapidly growing apparition that dominated the sky.

The dawn of I-day arrived in New York on time. But at that point time had lost its usual meaning, for the sun took until noon to reach only halfway overhead, and there it remained. During that time the tide continued to ebb, outward, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. Land was newly exposed in inches, feet, yards and then miles. Ugly, barren, terrifying plains finally extended over the horizon. The wind came up, from gale to hurricane and quite unbelievably beyond, a smashing fist that broke every window in the city and then, one by one toppled every skyscraper. By early afternoon a shadow appeared on the distant horizon, shimmering and indistinct. With unexpected speed the shadow materialized into a wall of moving water that, had they remained upright, would have dwarfed the largest skyscrapers. This wall overshadowed the city like a tornado of infinite extent and, rushing through, killed every living being in its path. The wall would continue on across the great plains and beyond, finally dissipating itself on the western slopes of the continent. Although nobody remained to appreciate it, the sun itself was larger and hotter in the new, more southern latitude of the late New York City.

 

 

HOME, SWEET HEAVEN INSTALLMENT #34

Chapter Thirty Three

 

The soft but insistent whisper in his head gently woke him. “Time to saddle up and move out,” Wisdom told Earl. “I know it’s early,” She added as he glanced over to the clock on the dresser, “but you need to be on the road before dawn.” Earl woke Joyce and they quickly dressed. Joyce went to the neighboring door and softly knocked. She was greeted by Marge, who also was fully dressed, as was Ellery in the background. “Yeah,” she said, “She told us too.” Moshe and Miryam were already in the kitchen when they came in. Henry and Terry were there too. Terry softly wept as she cooked breakfast.

“How did this happen?” Terry wailed. “Why does my family have to go? How on earth did we get ourselves into this ungodly mess?”

“You said it yourself,” Wisdom interjected.

“Huh?”

“You said it now in one short word. ’Ungodly’ was the operative word, Terry. The United States, in particular, had chosen at the outset to align itself with God. The hand of God is on your constitution and many other guiding documents. That closeness to Us brought Us closer to you, and in turn gave you a special status, almost approaching that of Our beloved Israel. For centuries you remained somewhat faithful, falling away into complacency for brief periods. It was about the best We could expect from you. Up until recently most of you would repent and return to Us. But some of you never returned, and those of you who didn’t were a vital part of Our relationship with you and your country. Colleges like Princeton and Yale, which were established with the express purpose of teaching the Bible and Biblical principles to future leaders of your society degenerated into bastions of secularity, wherein the future leaders were taught the principles of material success over a relationship with God. This mindset bubbled over to infect the Christian seminaries, supposedly fulfilling their mission of preparing devout men of God to become pastors and spokespersons for God. Out of these terribly wounded seminaries came yet more secular attitudes and worse, doubts over the nature of God and whether He even existed. These seminaries turned a blind eye to the encroachment of false science, including Darwin’s theory of evolution, being indifferent to its obvious rejection of the Creation narrative of Genesis.

“Jesus said something very relevant to your collective turning away,” She added. In Luke 12:48 He said this:

“’But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. But unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him will they ask the more.’

“You began as a holy nation,” She continued, “willingly setting yourselves apart from other nations to serve Us in love. We gave you much in return.

“So now You’re going to ask much,” Terry said dully.

“We already have, and in the past you have responded admirably, helping yourselves to achieve greatness among the nations.  We’ve always given more than what We’ve received, and for a long period of time, you were among the happiest of people.  But then you began to turn away, exactly like Israel did after her glory years under the kingships of David and his son Solomon. I realize that you never read the blessing and the curse that We had pronounced over Israel who, even more than America, are Our special people. The major portion of it is in Deuteronomy 28. Since you don’t have a Bible either, I’ll give you a few excerpts, paraphrasing it a bit for your modern sensibilities:

“’But it shall come to pass, if you won’t listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you, and overtake you. You’ll be cursed in the city, and in the field. Your harvests will be cursed, and so will your offspring. . .The Lord shall send upon you cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that you set your hand to do, until you’re destroyed, and you die quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings, whereby you have forsaken me. The Lord shall make disease cling to you, until He has consumed you from off the land. . .The Lord shall smite you with cancer, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with extreme burning, and with violence, and with failed crops, and they shall pursue you until you die. . .The Lord shall change rain into dust. . .The Lord shall smite you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof you can’t be healed. The Lord shall smite you with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart. . .You shall marry a wife, and another man will have her; you shall build a house, and you shall not live in it; you shall plant, and another will harvest it.’

 

“I could continue with this litany of painful consequence,” Wisdom continued, “because there’s much more in that dark chapter, all of which Israel had to endure over the centuries after she divorced herself from Us. But I think you get the point.”

“So those things that have been happening to us over the past decades – they’re actually consequences of removing you from public conversation? The superstorms, the earthquakes, the droughts, and the diseases?”

“Yes, Terry. Some of you Christians have attempted to warn the public about that connection from time to time, but each time they did so, they were immediately shouted down. They should have stuck to their guns. After all, the Bible is very clear about it, and not only in the words of Moses. Listen, for example, what the prophet Haggai had to say in verse seventeen of his Chapter 2:

“’I smote you with blight and with mildew and with hail in all the labors of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord.’

 

“Over the years, that portion of you who stubbornly chose to separate yourselves from Us grew ever larger in proportion to the rest of society. Eventually that group became the dominant one and included the nation’s opinion-shapers. Then, with the extension to secondary and state levels of the takeover of the institutions of government and education the secularization of America metastasized and spread more thoroughly into the organs of everyday life. Teaching colleges pushed a secular agenda onto their candidates, who themselves were selected as future teachers not on the basis of academic excellence, moral clarity, character and a love of God, but rather for their shallowness of thought and secular outlook on life. Once those teachers entered the schools, the cancer of secularism spread very rapidly. Look around you, Terry, and you others also. Didn’t you ever wonder why you as Christians are such a marginalized minority? America wasn’t that way for a very long time. It was its Christianity that made it great, because We favored you with a loving Hand that matched and surpassed your loyalty to Us. Now you’re going to have a measure of pain and suffering, not so much by your actions as by the actions of your secular brothers and sisters. But there’s a silver lining in that. We’ll understand your trials and be with you all the way. You’ll end up having lived noble lives, possessing qualities that We’ll cherish forever.”

They ate breakfast in uncomfortable silence, assuming that Wisdom had left. Moshe scratched his head. “I don’t even know where we’re heading,” he told Earl. “Sturgis,” Wisdom broke in.

“Sturgis? Wow. I had no idea You’d go for that kind of thing,” Ellery responded as a kaleidoscope of lurid images entered his mind.

“Enough,” She told him, but with a smile. “This conclave at Sturgis isn’t going to be the drug-infested biker Woodstock of past years, with naked women riding men on bikes and the fully connected but unstable assembly wobbling down the street. It’s going to be a Christian gathering. As a matter of fact, it’s only a jumping-off spot for Mount Rushmore, which is your ultimate destination.”

“What is that about, a modern-day Masada?” Earl responded.

“More than you possibly can imagine,” She told them. “But let’s save the details for later. You’ll be taking your bikes, of course, for the protection they’ll give you from the authorities. I’ll leave it to you as to the route you’re going to take to get there, but with the warning that it won’t be an easy trip.” She left.

Henry brought out an old Triple-A map of the United States. The regime may have changed, but the highways hadn’t, except for some earthquake damage and much neglect. They decided to head north almost to the border and pick up Kansas Highway 36, which they’d follow to Oberlin, where they’d go into Nebraska to the town of McCook, then take 2 to 61 and north along 61 into South Dakota, where they’d travel a very short distance along Interstate 90 to reach Highway 34, which would take them directly to Sturgis, bypassing Rapid City altogether. Although motorcycles were usually effective in preventing checkpoint halts, there was no sense in asking for trouble by taking the more well-traveled highways.

The men left the house after breakfast to take care of last-minute packing chores while the women and Henry said their good-byes, knowing that Henry and Terry would be left behind for good, never to be seen again. Behind her sorrow, Miryam harbored a gleam of excitement in her eyes. Terry noted it and was comforted by it, knowing that at least Miryam possessed the possibility of happiness, however brief it might be. Understanding that her own end was likely to be both soon and bleak, Terry nevertheless resolved to be brave about it, as a host of predecessor Christians had been with the comforting help of the Holy Spirit that was companion to their faith in Jesus. She looked at her husband with fondness and linked her arm in his. I have God and a good husband to live and die with. What more can a person ask?

 

A gloomy dawn came with a steady breeze as they traveled westward across Kansas. The fractionally increasing light revealed thick dark clouds that threatened rain, and maybe worse. Despite the ominous weather, for the first couple of hours the riders thrilled to the new adventure, the men enjoying the fresh experience of two-wheeled travel and their mates enjoying the openness of the view. Around noontime the south wind, which had been increasing in gradual stages and causing them to lean to the left, suddenly strengthened to the point that the riders were getting buffeted so hard that their leaning became precarious. Earl in particular began to feel that he was right on the edge of control. The spindly extension to his right arm that Moshe had cobbled up began to ache and his control over the handlebar was beginning to slip, but he knew that he must persevere through the obstacle or risk falling behind and losing the others. Wisdom, please give me strength to handle this, he pleaded. He continued to fight the wind, gritting his teeth.

A brief respite came when they reached Oberlin and headed north into Nebraska toward McCook. The storm became a tailwind, which was much easier to handle. Before they reached McCook they stopped by the side of the road and ate the lunch that Terry had lovingly packed. The wind buffeted them again when they left McCook to head northwest, but that leg was short and Earl was able to handle it. He still was very relieved when they turned back northward for the longer journey up through Nebraska into South Dakota. His relief was so palpable that he operated the cruise control, stretched out his legs, and leaned back to relax. He hummed a tune. The relaxation ended abruptly with a blow to his kidney. “Don’t get cocky!” Joyce shouted into his neck. He stiffened his back. His feet went back onto the pegs and remained that way for the rest of the trip. They left the stiff wind behind when they turned westward again along the final leg into Sturgis, and by the time they arrived in the evening the sun had made a brief appearance.

Regardless of whether the rest of the country was in the grip of a repressive regime, Sturgis was biker country and off-limits to authority of any kind except the local sheriff, who, the town had made sure, was also a biker with a biker’s attitude. At increasingly widely-spaced intervals one authority or another had attempted to impose a stricter control over the town. Such visits were invariably brief with quick descents into violence that left the feckless visitors worse for the wear.

The three weary couples parked in front of a likely bar, stretched their legs, and went in. Emboldened by the feel of the place, Ellery walked up to the bartender, noting that he didn’t seem to be wearing the mark. “We’re pretty hungry,” he said, “but we only have cash.”

“We only take cash,” the man said. “Take a seat at a table and Janie’ll come around and take care of you.”

They plopped themselves gratefully into chairs and looked over the menus, which boasted of a large variety of beers and stronger drinks but was limited in food to burgers and fries. The thought of hamburgers appealed to them all. Halfway through the meal they began to wonder among themselves as to what to do after they ate. The question was answered for them as a few people began to enter the bar and drift over to their table and sit. The newcomers eventually grew into a substantial crowd. Ellery adjusted to this development by extending his hand in greeting to the first of his new neighbors, who responded in kind. “Where’re you headed?” the man asked.

“Rushmore,” Ellery told him.

“Same here,” the man replied. “There’s a park outside the main attraction, the Presidents and such. It’s a tent camp now. Got a lot of people, Native Americans too. Don’t know why, but they all seem to have gotten the word to be there and be quick about it. Same with us. Somebody in my Church seems to have an inside track to God, or so she says. Told her to get herself over here and bring the rest along. I’m part of the rest, kind of tagging along. Nothing for me back home, so I might as well be here as there. Hope you have a tent. We’re kind of filled up.”

“We do,” Marge said, thanking God for the insistence on being prepared.

 

Outside the bar the street was almost filled with bikes. The three couples decided to go with the flow and followed the group out of town and up the mountain toward the park. It was now dark but the clouds were gone and as they traveled the inky blackness above them was the sky was dotted with bright pinponts of light.

The drive up the Rushmore Parkway was smooth, the numerous curves being wide and easy and, from what they could see from all the headlights, beautiful. There were trees in abundance, tall conifers silhouetted by the full moon that had just arisen over the mountaintop. I can’t wait to see what it looks like in the daytime, Joyce thought to herself. Eventually the bikes peeled off into the park, where gas stoves and lanterns lit up the tents. It looked like a city. They found an empty spot and unpacked their bikes, lighting a lantern for the illumination they’d need to set up their tents.

When they finished the housework, by common consent they turned off the lantern and lay on their bedding looking up at the sky. In their own way, each of them thanked God for the adventure and their rest among the grass and trees of His natural creation. I wonder what God has in mind for us now, Earl thought.