Friday, June 22. 2012
Information is that which makes a difference. The concept involves the improbable, coupled with a high degree of specificity. It is the unexpected, that which startles.
Thus also it is with revelation of the biblical mystery. I would go so far as to say that such revelation typically has something the shocking about it – not in any disagreeable sense, but kind of analogous to the realisation, when the idea first begins to congeal, of how babies are made. Incredulity, intrigue ... whatever the initial impression, the matter continues to astound, to engage our sense of wonder, despite familiarity and rationalisation, when we happen to ponder it. And so it is, I maintain, with spiritual revelation.
Now, to clarify a point, I’m not saying that revelation is improbable in the context of existing revelation. All divine revelation is self-consistent. What I mean is that the revelation is improbable with respect to the mind of convention.
Now why should this be so? The answer is that spiritual revelation is opposed to the mind of convention, and here I emphatically include the mind of religious convention. Isaiah wrote: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. And Jesus further charged that ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Indeed the revelation is so strange, so subversive, so inconceivable to the carnal mind, that incredulity may reach the point of murderous paroxysm. Which, of course, is why they stoned the prophets.
Now why am I writing this? It is because of offerings in the realm of Christian literature which purport to expound the scriptures, and are accorded a high profile within the field, yet conform to the mind of convention and religious tradition. Recently one such work has been brought to my attention which purports to explain the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation – that text which, according to its own inner testimony, is called the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Now – no names please. If the reader is at all on my wavelength, she will know what I’m talking about, and be able to cite examples of her own. I will simply say this, that if our response to such a work is something like, um, well, ahem ... how interesting, before moving on to greener pastures – that, whatever we have before us, is emphatically not the revelation of Jesus Christ.
God is interesting. His Word – and God is one with his Word – is the very ground and substance of meaning. Which is why his Word – meaning, in the profound sense – is the bread of life, the sustenance of the soul, as I saw in an inspired moment. What the church requires for its spiritual life is spiritual meaning – not last week’s manna of religious tradition, not sophistry, rationalisation, and guessing at the scriptures – not piety, sentiment or religious emotion. What it needs is spiritual information – that which makes a difference – which is what we mean by spiritual revelation. It transforms the universe by transforming the soul, leaving us in rapt meditation, in profound in wonder and awe.
Reference:
Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Wednesday, June 6. 2012
Among the root causes of the grand historic apostasy within Christendom we may cite as foremost the trinitarian creed, formalised and adopted as orthodox doctrine by imperial decree at the Nicene ecclesiastical council of 325 AD. Concerning this non-biblical doctrine of the Nicene Trinity, and the theological controversy surrounding it, I wish to adduce a few summary observations. Here my concern is not with the relevant scriptural arguments, which are well understood, but certain meta-level observations concerning the dialogue as such.
Why is the trinitarian synthesis problematic? It is simply this – that it posits triune complexity where we would expect irreducible primordial unity. Intuition insists that God is One. And not as distinct from two or three, but One in a sense transcending number – as One which is also the All. We note further concerning the trinitarian plurality that it is ‘horizontal’ in nature, as among beings essentially on a par, sharing equally the essential attributes of divinity.
Against this one may posit a biblical plurality of reference along a quasi vertical axis, as of God and his creation. The biblical metaphor is that of root and branch. Christ stated in the Revelation, I am the root and offspring of David. Again, multiplicity of reference may be adduced in relation to the body of Christ, as comprising many members, and here it is valid to consider both a vertical and horizontal axis of communication. Yet it is not the body or its members which are God. It is God in the body and its members which is God. And thus we may account for multiplicity of reference with respect to God in exclusively biblical terms.
It is the vertical axis of relationship, moreover, as of God revealed in the human soul, which renders plain the redemption of God by reason of God’s essential oneness with his creation. The trinitarian doctrine obscures this fact, and herein Satan’s ploy is apparent of rendering God’s salvation obscure. Indeed as a theological construct, founded on scriptural argument, the trinitarian God is essentially on par with the idols carved of wood and stone. It is a mental projection upon the numinous ‘other’. The biblical God, by contrast, is the logos beheld as revealed in the human soul.
This briefly explain why, cognisant of the end-time prophetic restoration, we are not trinitarians.
Tuesday, June 5. 2012
Christ, the Holy Spirit, is referred to in the Bible as the archangel or angel of the covenant. He is the messenger of God’s covenant and indeed he is himself the message. As manifest in the world, he is the logos or Word, the defining archetype, as it is written, the law shall issue from the sanctuary – that is, the truth or structure of reality, issues from the heart, the redeemed human soul.
In 1975 I betook myself to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, New South Wales, with the specific object of finding the truth. I had at this time been on a spiritual quest for some two years, yet, although the path had be precipitous in its ascent, I felt I had come to an impasse. Thus it was to force the issue, so to speak, that I took up abode as a solitary recluse in the Mountains to devote myself to spiritual practices – reading, prayer, meditation, along with practices of a more occult or esoteric nature.
My outlook at this time was that of a universalist – all spiritual paths lead to God, such more of less was my position. My approach was accordingly eclectic and, while immersed in exotic forms of mysticism, I saw no reason to exclude the Christianity of my own culture. Thus it was that I fell in with the group at the Katoomba Pentecostal Bible College and the local chapter of the Assemblies Of God. My church attendance, which was regular, had at this time progressed from Catholic, to Anglican / Lutheran, thence to Methodist / Baptist and eventually Pentecostal in unwitting recapitulation of post-Reformation church-historic development. Yet, although I saw in Christianity a profound spiritual legacy, my attitude to its contemporary expressions was implicitly condescending. My immersion in comparative religion, my experience of the mystical and occult – these, I considered, made for a perspective essentially exalted above modern evangelical Christendom. Nevertheless I felt I had to ‘solve’ the Christian mystery. Because it was ‘there’ – as the next step on the path, so to speak – I needed to engage it. I had to come to terms with its truths. It was perhaps due to my failure in this regard – due to my seeking the righteousness, not of faith, but of works, as I now understand – that I fell into a depression.
It was in this approximate state when, like a bolt out of the blue, I received communication from certain spiritual companions concerning a prophetic message with the claim that it had changed the face of Christendom. Of course I was intrigued and upon enquiry I learned that the message in question had its origin in the ministry of the American evangelist William Marrion Branham (1909 – 1965). A video was shown in which Brother Branham (as we refer to him) related how he himself first encountered the angel and received his commission. And indeed I thought I had seen an angel, considering the man’s eyes, even if only on the flickering screen.
On a point of doctrine – as it was originally put to me in the course of dialogue – the trinitarian dilemma is resolved insofar as Mathew 28:19 and Acts 2:38, seemingly contradictory, do in fact concur. Here I quote the relevant scriptures:
Mathew 28:19: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Acts 2:38: 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 Ghost.
The answer, of course, is that Jesus Christ is the name (of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost), as the apostle Peter understood – he to whom, upon his revelation of the Christ (Mathew 16), were given the keys to the kingdom with the promise that ‘whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ – the apostle who, preaching on the day of Pentecost the inaugural sermon of the New Testament, turned the key. God and his Christ are one – in him is the fullness of God revealed.
I was accordingly baptised in the Christian baptism and received, according to the promise, the Holy Spirit. I remember well the night – it was some seven years later – when the angel of God appeared in my room and opened to me the scriptures. My life since that day has been a spiritual feast, as the angel continues to reveal himself, and with the prophet Job I am able to say: I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
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