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Tuesday, December 12. 2017The Apocalyptic Rapture
The year is 2017, and countless prophecies are heard within the Christen realm to the effect that a great spiritual revival is imminent in preparation for the expected coming of Christ in our time. One can well understand the sentiment behind such a notion. The strain of the times is being felt – the sense that something needs to happen – and it is rightly deemed that the church is in no condition to manifest Joel 2 or 1 Thessalonians 4, the latter usually referred to as the rapture.
The problem is that there is no scripture to back this assertion – namely in the sense of a worldwide spiritual awakening, of global repentance and conversion, and indeed of socio-political transformation toward godly models. Rather it is spoken of a falling away, of a spiritual famine, and of a world in thrall of the antichrist. As it was in the days of Noah ... and as it was in the days of Lot ... thus – so stated the saviour – shall it be when the Son of man is revealed. And neither of these ages experienced anything remotely like a universal spiritual revival – quite the contrary. Somewhere – somehow – there seems to be a great disjunction between the prophetic scriptures and the perceived need and expectation of our time. The churches are in a state of desperate crisis, such as yet retain a biblical model, insofar as the pastoral ministry is altogether incommensurate with the spiritual requirements of the age. It is a case of the blind leading the blind, after the scathing denunciation of Laodicea in Revelation 3. One of these days the foolish virgins of Matthew 25 will be caught unawares, and it will be asked, were not all these great things supposed to happen before the coming of the Lord? And the answer will return, it’s already happened and you did not know it. So it becomes us to ask, what kind of revival – what move of God – can we expect in our time? Is there indeed revival, and what form might it take? And what we actually observe, contrary to much zealous teaching, is that revival fires are everywhere dying down – namely in the conventional sense we have come to understand revival. Specifically we are speaking in this context of the great twentieth century pentecostal revival, which brought restoration of the spiritual gifts. While today there are greater attendance numbers, the quality of experience is not remotely what it was even a mere forty years ago, let alone that of the original outpouring after Azusa Street in 1906. And here lies the problem, in that the evangelic / charismatic churches are still pursuing a pentecostal message with undue emphasis upon the spiritual gifts, when another age is actually upon us. For this is the age of the calling of the bride, the opening of the seven seals, and the restoration of the Word of God in fullness. While pentecost, in the above sense, is certainly part of our message, we have today progressed beyond that into whole new order of ministry – of which ministry the established denominations are entirely unaware. We ask, how could this have happened, and we note that the said pentecostal revival occurred outside of the established churches, free from religious organisation and denomination. Indeed the fathers of the movement denounced religious denominationalism for the antichrist system which it is. Yet within a very few years, the pentecostal movement went the way of every revival preceding it, in that it organised and enshrined its non-biblical doctrines as binding dogma – and right there it died. Indeed the same holds for the entire history of revival and biblical restoration. Luther, Wesley or Pentecost – no spiritual revival ever originated from within the religious establishment and, once religious organisation took hold, God removed the candlestick and the life of the Spirit moved on, leaving behind the dead denominational husk. Yet every historic revival also built upon what was already in place, such that we are speaking of cumulative revelation, leading up to grand consummation in the coming of Christ. Accordingly there is a godly awakening among the elect – there is indeed revival – which, in its nature, however, goes entirely unrecognised among the religious denominations and centres of learning. What then is the message, the ministry of this present age, as characterised by the calling of the spiritual bride? A large number of scriptures may be adduced which broadly reflect the idea of consummation – which is to say, of the spiritual church conforming to the image of Christ. Below are presented three biblical passages which convey the essential idea. 1 Corinthians 13:9-10 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. We shall be like him (the Christ), for we shall see him as he is. Here, as throughout the New Testament, the emphasis is not upon human effort – it is not upon praying and fasting and zealous works – but upon the cognitive and receptive aspect of the gospel. It is upon seeing and cognising, upon knowing and understanding. Indeed we learn in Matthew 16 that revelation – divine revelation of who He is – is the spiritual rock, the foundation of the entire edifice of faith. Which brings us to our concept of the apocalyptic rapture – for the literal meaning of apocalypse is revelation. Concerning then revival in our time, it is not going to be revival as previously understood. It is not going to be a public affair, manifesting ‘out there’ with a lot of noise, with newspaper coverage and reverberations through the political and spiritual landscape. The only genuine revival we will see is that occurring within our own soul, and the world at large, including the nominal churches, will know nothing about it. Indeed we are speaking of a secret rapture and of Christ coming as a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5), which scenario is not to be confused with Revelation 19, where Christ appears openly as conqueror and king for his millennial reign. Where thus it is spoken of seeing him (the Christ) as he is, the reference is not to some historic or derivative Hollywood Christ of the religious imagination – which is to say, a man in a robe – but to Christ as the revealed Word of God. It is the Word of God which is quickened in the rapture, the Word which is the spiritual seed sown into the individual soul. Moreover it must be Word of God in its fullness – the seed in its maturity – not the dead stalks and husks of the reformed traditions. Specifically it is the opening of the biblical seven seals in our age, whereby the spiritual bride is quickened to the ministry of the age. As we read in the Revelation, the book of life was sealed with seven seals, such that no mortal was able to look thereon. In other words, through seven ages we were accustomed to seeing through a glass darkly – through religious tradition and theological guesswork – but now face to face, as the lamb of God releases these seals to his faithful. This is vitally important, insofar as it constitutes the true baptism of the Holy Spirit – not manifesting in signs or sensations, but in the revelation of Jesus Christ. It constitutes the oil of the wise virgins, as per Matthew 25, and marks the essential difference between doctrinal abstraction and spiritual experience. As states Job 42, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye beholds you. And again, Matthew 5, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Coming then to the rapture as a generic spiritual experience, we find that it is not a singular event but occurs in scripture a full seven times – the personages involved being: – Enoch (Genesis 5:24, Hebrews 11:5) – Moses (Deuteronomy 34, Jude 1:9) – Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) – Jesus, the Christ (Mark 16:9, Luke 24:51, Acts 1:9) – the Old Testament saints rising with Christ (Mathew 27:52-53) – the gentile bride (Thessalonians 4:16-17) – and the two witnesses to Israel (Revelation 11:11-12) What can we glean from these events? While the narratives are tantalisingly sparse, we observe, notably in the case of Elijah, an intersection of domains or experiential realms, of heaven and earth, with the suggestion of congruence or interpenetration. We find the same in 2 Kings 6, where the angelic host is seen encamped around his disciple, the prophet Elisha. The suggestion is that, in going to heaven, we do not fly off into space; we remain right here, translated into another dimension, existing at a higher rate of vibration. Such indeed we may assert, notwithstanding the biblical metaphor of ascending and descending to and from heaven. As remarked Jesus, speaking with Nicodemus (John 3:13), no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. We may speak in this connection of a parting of the spiritual veil, where the temple or tabernacle of Moses furnishes the essential type. The holy of holies, where dwelt the living presence of God, was separated from the sanctuary and outer courts by a veil. As a metaphor of the true or spiritual temple, its three partitions correspond to body, soul and spirit – the three principles comprising the human nature – where the veil of body and soul clothes the spirit. We find the idea expressed in John 12:21-24, where certain Greeks asked to see Jesus. Came the saviour’s answer: Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. Why could not the Greeks see him? As gentiles, unlike the Jews, they knew nothing of a prophet messiah, and would have merely seen a man in a robe – a man like any other man. Their time would only come when the veil of the flesh was rent, and Christ could be known as the Holy Spirit within. As Paul states in Hebrews 9:24, For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself ... Thus from the earthly tabernacle, where dwelt the shekinah light upon the mercy seat between the cherubim of beaten gold, we come to Revelation 4 and the ark of God in heaven. Surrounding the heavenly throne, as recounts the evangelist, John, were ‘living creatures’ – which creatures were full of eyes within, suggestive insight or spiritual vision. We understand concerning these creatures, the said cherubim, that they function as guardians against anything profane that would usurp the powers of the heavenly sanctuary. Only the high priest of Israel entered once a year, bearing the blood sacrifice in prefigure of the atoning death of Christ. Here we may compare Genesis 3, And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ... he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. We learned moreover, concerning the tabernacle of Moses, that it meant certain death for anyone to enter unbidden into the Most Holy. The way of the tree of life was barred – in symbol, the way of the sanctuary – until the cherubic sword pierced through the saviour’s heart, and the temple veil was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). It is moreover the cherubim of Revelation 4, described as being full of eyes, which bid the prophet, come and see ... as the lamb of God opens the seven seals, revealing the mysteries hidden from the foundation of the world. These entities – having the form of a Lion, a Bull, a Man and a flying Eagle – are not merely guardians, they also facilitate entry for those who are bidden to enter. Specifically they represent the fire of God which conveys the sacrifice into his presence, purging us from sin, as it is written in Psalms 104, he makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire. Yet, even as there is set in the material heavens a light too bright for mortal eyes, in symbol of the spiritual sun, so these holy cherubim likewise cover their eyes and avert their gaze from the divine radiance. And they rest not day and night, crying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. Where previously it was thus death to enter, we are now bidden to come and partake of the hidden manna. In a profound reversal of perspective, where previously the tree of life was kept by a flaming sword, that sword is now turned outward, as our vision aligns with that of the saviour to behold the mysteries of God revealed. Demons scatter, and the veil of the physical world dissolves before his gaze whose eyes are like flames of fire, the sword of the Spirit issuing from his mouth. It is the cherubic fire streaming from the eyes whereby we behold the open door and see into the heavenly realm. Our God is a devouring fire, as state the scriptures, which fire issues from the sanctuary to dissolve the material veil, vanquishing doubt and all that would obscure our passage, bringing us face to face with the eternal God. Tuesday, February 3. 2015God Hiding In Plain View
This thing was not done in a corner, it is stated of Paul in Acts 26, concerning the passion of Christ. Effectively the whole world bore witness, although the tremors registered but faintly through the halls of worldly power. It is no different today. The image of the Crucified is a universal icon. Whether by divine foreknowledge or accident of history, this image and its surrounding narratives have become intrinsic to what we call the Western canon. They are in our face, so to speak.
It is ironic then that spiritual seekers – in ages past no less then today – disdain the transmission in plain view, and seek for knowledge in realms of the esoteric, the hidden or occult. The Bible cannot be trusted, it is claimed – it has been edited, expurgated and contrived in accord with a sinister agenda. At best its asseverations pertain to the shallow and exoteric, to the outer courts of conventional understanding and myopic religion. For the real spiritual meat one must enquire among hidden and secret documents, among spiritual lineages suppressed and persecuted, among Hermeticists and Gnostics, perhaps in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi texts, in the writings of the Essenes and the perennial lore of the Grail. Such is the claim. While we might welcome this broader historic and cultural perspective, we know the essential claim to be false. Our biblical source documents, extant in thousands of manuscript copies, are remarkably consistent. Variants do occur, likewise in their thousands, but these are mostly transcription errors, such as the occasional word being omitted or misspelled. There is nothing to call into question the essential purport of the documents. Concerning biblical critics, one has the impression rather that such as seek to undermine the integrity of scripture are motivated by ulterior considerations. They are offended by its content – that content or purport, as they perceive it. As to the other claim, that of extra-biblical wells of the sublime and profound, one might ask what sublime and profound which is not also intrinsic to biblical scripture? The problem here is that no-one understands the Bible, and the majority of would-be critics – here one thinks of the so-called new atheists – do not even know its content. The churches are beholden of their non-biblical creeds, and secular critics have the overt historic church in their sights, thus being twice confounded and removed from the spiritual heart of the matter. Concerning the biblical transmission then, the God of the Bible is indeed hiding in plain view. The biblical legacy is ‘out there’ in the public domain, its text ubiquitous in millions of copies. It is hailed, expounded, debated and derided. And yet ... its purport is a mystery. This legacy, this presence, is rather like a beacon or ensign. It is saying, here I am, here is something ... But beyond that all is conjecture and confusion, a melee of claims and counterclaims, of creeds and sects and cults and traditions – namely insofar as the public eye and mind is concerned. Spiritually speaking, we assert hat God is hiding in his Word – that the Word (i.e. the canon of scripture) functions as a spiritual veil. The Word is also synonymous with the spiritual body – that is, through the sacrifice of the Word the spirit is released and God is beheld face to face. This is the significance of the atoning death of the cross, and of the new or spiritual birth. But, as the apostle further observed, there are none that understand. Thursday, June 27. 2013
Got To Be ... Rational ! ? Posted by Harald Kleemann
in Apologetics, Commentary, Evangelism, Holy Scripture at
16:18
Got To Be ... Rational ! ?
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. (1 Timothy 6:20-21)
Christian apologists are typically at pains to demonstrate that their faith is rational. By this they usually mean that (1) it bears scrutiny by some canon of reason, and (2) that the tenets of Christian belief are consistent with an arbitrarily advanced state of scientific knowledge – to whit, the perceived present state. It is perhaps not usually admitted, but the inference is clear – science and reason represent a standard of verity and confer validation regarding the faith. Conversely, something is generally considered amiss where these two epistemological systems – religious faith and observation / reason – are perceived to be at odds. If at this point a suspicion arises that exegetes have the whole thing back-to-front – well, I suspect this suspicion may be entirely justified. We are beginning to glimpse just how profoundly – and, indeed, how subtly – the Christian faith has been subverted in a rational inquisition, which goes back at least to the ecclesiastical councils of Constantine. Christianity, originally, signified the ingress of a transcendent mind, incommensurate and radically at variance with the historic continuum. Then, within a relatively brief period, it was ‘tamed’ – co-opted – rationalised ... thereby loosing its transcendent charter and, indeed, much of its redeeming virtue. Whereas the humanist tradition, which we trace to the ancient Greeks, holds wisdom or intellectual achievement in the highest esteem, the gospel peremptorily informs that here is something altogether greater – something greater not merely by degree, but in a manner incommensurate. As Isaiah (55:8-9) states the matter – 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. Of course, modern biblical scholars have turned this around, confidently asserting that their erudite cogitations are infinitely exalted above the parochial and primitive conceptions of scripture. And their basis for this assertion ... is science and reason. We know better, they claim, than the superstitious ancients who wrote the Bible. While extremes of this stance characterise such liberal and revisionist conclaves of the higher criticism as the Jesus Seminar, it’s leaven permeates no less the biblical evangelical mainstream. Its theological articulations, while paying lip service to transcendent verities, implicitly and ineluctably, bow down and worship at the shrine of reason. The stance, indeed is reflexive – it is part of the academic good tone, and entirely taken for granted. Reasonable – rational – formulations are the sine qua non of scholarly discourse. By contrast, the mystical, the prophetic, the revelational, the intuitive, the visionary, the spiritual as a means of biblical understanding – these are inherently distrusted and banished to the outer margins of acceptable dialogue. As one respondent put it to me – anyone can lay claim to a revelation or vision. To which I answer – quite. Nevertheless, the revelational or spiritual attitude has a chance of being right, for it is the way of God enjoined in scripture. Whereas the rational approach has no chance of succeeding, as the scriptures, again, make abundantly clear. The carnal mind is enmity with God, as Paul informs us in Hebrews – and the carnal mind, we may unequivocally assert, is the rational mind. It is the rational mind – with its handful of explanatory variables, its grounding in the relative, its infinite regress of analytic elaboration, without a sure foundation anywhere in sight. Indeed we may recall that it was knowledge – carnal knowledge, referred to in Genesis as the knowledge of good and evil, and all knowledge, in this sense, is carnal – which precipitated the primordial fall from divine communion. This ‘fall’ – assuredly – was from a holistic, spiritual and intuitive, vision to the partial, relative and analytic apprehensions of the rational mind. Consequently it is by no exertion of the rational mind that the conditions attending humanity’s spiritual exile can be reversed – and here, in a nutshell, is the failing of the modern church: its substitution of scholarship for spiritual revelation. The rational mind cannot relate, in any adequate sense, to the unfathomed and irreducible complexity of the organic. As such it is inherently estranged from nature, as it is estranged from the divine. Being finite in its conceptions, it is necessarily reductive in its modelling of natural process, even as it is reductive in its rendering of scripture in terms of a rational creed. The mystery of godliness reduced to a creed – that, in essence, is the plight of the church. For it is the rational mind which is implicitly elevated to godhead in the realm of human understanding. ‘Rational’ is the new godly. The matter is addressed by Paul, stating that the Greeks require wisdom, while the Jews seek miracles, and we moderns are mostly among the Greeks. Yet addressed in this manner are the both epistemological systems – the magical and the rational – and the gospel submits to neither. Both paradigms are rebuked in that we preach Christ crucified. A stumbling-stone to the Hebrews and foolishness to the Greeks. Christ crucified means the sacrifice of the Word – the cultural understanding, whether rational or magical, must needs perish for the spiritual to arise. This in part is what we mean by salvation and the spiritual birth. This is not to advocate an anti-intellectual stance. Our characterisation of the rational mind as enmity with God does to diminish its efficacy relative to a fallen world. But when directed at the highest, when approaching the asymptote of its own conceptual foundations, it necessarily fails. The reason, in its ultimate function, becomes cognisant of its intrinsic and ineluctable limitations, as indeed mathematicians discovered in the early twentieth century. Yet our cultural institutions – the church included – have failed to imbibe this lesson. The rush to deify the reason continues unabated, and its apotheosis is, no less, that abomination of desolation, standing in the holy place, as spoken of by Jesus. In biblical terms, the Word of Life – the transcendent mind of Christ – is rejected. All redemptive efficacy of the Word is lost as the transcendent revelation is lost. The human mind is not raised to the divine, but the divine reduced to the human. This – again – is the crucifixion of Christ in our age. Friday, August 10. 2012
On The Life Of The Soul Posted by Harald Kleemann
in Apologetics, Evangelism, Holy Scripture at
17:51
On The Life Of The Soul
O God – if there is a God, save my soul – if I have a soul !
Called the agnostic’s prayer, the above is attributed to Ernest Renan (1823-1892). It poignantly conveys the estrangement of the modern and materialist mind from the consciousness and discourse of spiritual things. The soul – much has been conjectured concerning this mysterious numen, and yet the matter has remained elusive. It is something of a mystery even among the religiously minded, and the secular verdict is that it does not exist. The problem, I suggest, is due to confusion concerning spiritual categories in general – that they are considered otherworldly and ephemeral rather than tangible. The soul, according to this view, is the subtle, rarefied, immaterial essence of personhood, perhaps intuitively placed in the region of the heart – for Descartes it was the pineal gland – and deemed to survive the death of the physical body. If it exists, it does so as an article of faith – not as an entity directly experienced. My purpose is not to contradict this conventional notion, but to suggest that it misses the point in significant part – that the soul is indeed the most obvious fact of existence. While it may be viewed as a kind of spiritual singularity – and I think the simile is singularly apt – in manifestation that singularity unfolds into a world of experience. It is not, therefore, an entity within the ambit of experience which may be objectively distinguished; it is experience as such – the whole of it. And thus the soul is ‘it’ – it is all. The soul – and only the soul – is the sole and singular fact of human experience. It is the point of view, the subjective nature of the self within the realm of experience. Waking or sleeping, from the cradle to the grave, it is the soul which is the singular fact of human awareness. Conventionally then, the soul is psyche or mind – the magical theatre of human experience which illuminates the worlds. While we might consider the soul the vessel of experience, the distinction is essentially a formal one. We do not observe a vessel as distinct from content, a ‘mind’ as distinct from thought and sensation. Yet it seems appropriate to speak of an entity – a whole – which comprises the subjective, and therefore the essential, nature of human individuality. Souls, therefore, are rightly deemed precious insofar as each soul is unique, and that comprehended within each soul is a world or universe of experience. Indeed we may speak in this context of worlds, of innumerable universes as the portent of the soul. And yet, while the whole may be considered one from the standpoint of the individual self, there is nevertheless a twofold aspect – a dual nature – to the soul. In manifestation there is the ‘tangible’ stream of human experience, such that the individual self or soul is comprised of that stream. It is identified with the world of its experience. Yet there is also that which beholds, and in this regard the soul partakes of the transcendent nature of spirit or consciousness. Genesis 2:7 states: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. From this I conclude: A soul is the intersection of spirit or consciousness with the material realm. (We note that the breath of life, the Hebrew ruah, also means spirit.) Indeed the principle may be observed in the creation of the world, where it is stated: (Genesis 1:2) The Spirit of God (ruah) moved upon the face of the waters. And again (Job 38:7) When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy – in other words, where the world was sung into existence. Here it is spoken of Christ, the universal or great soul, which is ruah elohim, the breath or Word of God – he who is called the beginning of the creation of God, in whom all lesser souls have their being. The transcendent Spirit moves upon the primordial waters, which is the manifest Word and mind of God. And as the Word is mixed with faith – which is the substance, according to Paul, the primordial substance of which all things are made – when God said, let there be light ... there was light. Christ Jesus, who is also called the faithful witness – he who bears witness of the light – further said of himself (John 5:19): The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing, that does the Son likewise. The soul of Christ is the dwelling of God. The same indeed holds for the adopted, or redeemed, son – or daughter – of God – in accord with the biblical principle that man is created in the image of God. Spirit or consciousness moves upon the primordial waters and conjures a reality, a world of experience, in accord with individual faith. As the scripture aptly states, be it unto you according to your faith (Mathew 9: 29). We see in effect that the act of universal creation is re-enacted in the life of the soul. Insofar as there are two creation accounts – Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 – we notice concerning the second that it is centred upon the human experience. The first, by contrast, appears Platonic or abstract in being seen through the eyes of God. Yet the soul partakes experientially of both events or phases of creation. The spiritual soul, as created in the image of the elohim, the transcendent self-existent being that is God, bears within it the knowledge of universal creation, which knowledge constitutes the ground of apriori apprehension, whereupon is added, in the course of a life, the knowledge of human experience. This indeed is the mysterious part, and what distinguishes the human from the sentience of animal life. Whereas animal consciousness is comprised of the natural given in space and time, the human soul apprehends from a transcendent vantage. It views the actual and given through implicitly all-knowing eyes, whence the God-like faculty of abstraction – of imagination and reason – as the universal human aspiration to regain the divine image. The so-called unconscious, accordingly, is not limited to elements of Freudian repression, nor is it altogether explained in terms of Jungian archetypes – ideas and images which inform the human soul and are independent of experience. More essentially, what the soul has forgotten, but for the occasional spark of genius – artistic, scientific, or prophetic – is its function as primordial image-maker and as the very fount of language – as the creative vessel or ark of God. Devine creation, accordingly, should not be considered entirely an event in the remote past, but also an a-temporal or timeless process in the eternal present of divine apprehension. While indeed it is spoken in Genesis of a beginning – in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth – it is a metaphysical contradiction to assert that time was created at some moment in time, albeit the ostensible first moment. Time, rather, is the concrescence of eternity, just as space is the instantiation of the infinite. Of these concepts – the infinite and the eternal – neither is found in nature. They are characteristic rather of the transcendent, of the creative Spirit of God which intersects and informs the space-time matrix at every point. The soul, as we have seen, is the focus of that intersection – the Spirit of God moving upon the primeval waters – such that the soul partakes equally of the immanent and transcendent. The soul is indeed one with the Creator, as it is one with all creation, insofar as consciousness and mind – or mind and thought – comprise the unity which is God and the creation of God. As states John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And thus within the human soul resides the power to create worlds. Space and time, as indeed the entire universe of human experience, is the unfolding of the mind of God in the context of the human soul. In that boundless creative capacity, however, also lies the potential for evil. We recall, concerning the soul in primordial Eden, that placed before Adam was the tree of life and the tree of knowledge – the knowledge of good and evil – and of death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, states Ezekiel 18:20, where sin is that knowledge, which separates the soul from the tree of life, which is life, and the source of life, which also is Christ, the empowered Word of God. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect, admonishes Jesus in Mathew 5:48. Indeed, given such unbounded creative potential, when projected upon eternity, it is apparent that even a slight deviation from the perfection of God would inevitably result in atrocity. For the evil of a mere six thousand years has weighed upon many souls to doubt the very existence of God. And thus God determined that sin shall have an end, and that end is death. It is for this reason, finally, that the soul requires a redeemer. And we understand that God, in his mercy, has provided the perfect redeemer. We saw above that Christ is the embodied Word of God, and it is Christ himself who became the sacrifice for sin, so that confession of the blood of Christ restores the soul to its primordial purity in the original creation of God. Indeed the blood of Christ not only vanquishes sin – which is unbelief in the Word of God – but the very effects and consequences of sin. This, in effect, is what we mean repentance – the soul in faith turning to Christ, understanding that Christ, the Word of God, atones for sin, restoring the soul to oneness with God. And although it does not yet appear what we shall be, given the gradual unfolding of the spiritual seed, the soul indeed bears the image of eternity. It goes all the way back, and all the way forward – past and future – transcending time while yet partaking of time. Transcending space while inhabiting space. And partaking of knowledge, while established in the creative fount of omniscience – in the Alpha and Omega, the mystical singularity, the ark of God. Oh, how wonderful! How mysterious and profound! And, oh, what a life – what a magnificent life of the soul! Friday, March 23. 2012If our Gospel be Hidden
But if our gospel be hidden, it is hidden to them that are lost. 2 Corinthians 4:3
Is the gospel of Christ hidden? I suggest that it is. At least two layers of obfuscation obscure its truths from the common view – one overt and one subtle. The overt obstruction is self-evident and basically clear-cut. It consists of all availing counterclaims – as of atheism and agnosticism, of other religious and philosophical systems – in short, of the vast range of competing ideas in the cultural domain. Two further problems may here be subsumed. The first is simply the confusion and distraction of too many contending voices. The second is misrepresentation of the gospel, whether unintentional or deliberate, resulting in its widespread misapprehension. Here one might reflect on the common notion that – whatever it is, this gospel of Christ – it is essentially understood, regardless whether a scholarly or folkloric understanding of the Bible is being referenced. I mean, legion are the quasi intellectuals who imagine that a science or humanities education qualifies the incumbent to render a verdict. Perhaps even more numerous are the men and women who believe they have heard it all. This brings us to the second, and more subtle, obscuration of the gospel of Christ – the church. Yes, indeed – the church, in all its historic and cultural manifestations, is not only a more subtle, but far and away more pervasive, source of relevant misunderstanding. Christianity is not to be equated with Christendom, this is to say, nor Christ with the church. Yet legion are the confessed Christians which fail to understand this – not to mention their critics, who take their creeds and confessions as representative of the faith. And – seriously – if confessed Christians misrepresent the gospel, what chance have critics and contenders in the atheist camp who view the subject through foggy binoculars? What did Terry Eagleton say of these Christians? They got the Ditchkins (the Hitchens and Dawkins) they deserve. What, moreover, can we say to all this, except that the whole thing is a muddle? To the Bible then, our source of clarity and illumination. St Paul, in leading up to our quoted verse, speaks of the veil wherein all spiritual truth is veiled. That veil was upon the face of Moses, and later upon the hearts – upon the understanding – of his spiritual heirs. In other words, the spiritual tradition is itself the veil, where today it is the traditions of Christendom which hide the truth. What does the scripture further say concerning Jerusalem, which in Bible symbolism represents the church? Revelation 11:8 ... the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt. That’s shocking, but that is the Word of God. It kinda puts a different complexion on things. Monday, March 19. 2012Where Is He ? – Finding Jesus and Recognising Him when You see Him
Sir, we would see Jesus, and, where is he that is born King of the Jews? – that was the cry in the first age, when the saviour first appeared upon the earth. And it has been the cry in every age, insofar as those who have heard of him want to see him. According to his promise, moreover, that he would be with his disciples to the end of the age, he is yet on earth today.
But how would we find him? Even more to the point, how would we recognise him if he was standing right before us? Many who claimed to be looking for him in the time of his first appearing failed to recognise him – that he was indeed the awaited messiah. His family failed to recognise him – his own brother James did not know him – not, that is, until he appeared to him having risen from the dead. That should give us pause. How would we know him if he appeared in our midst today? What should be expect? A man in a robe? (Of course there are plenty of those.) Or would that be an anachronism? Should we perhaps expect him to be dressed as he was then – in the common attire of the age? No doubt, many failed to recognise him because he was in many ways undistinguished from his peers. So, once more, how would we know him? The answer, I suggest, lies in who he is, and according to scripture he is the Word. John 1 states that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Christ is the Word then – the whole Word and nothing but the Word – where the Word is the Word of God, the holy scriptures. But how does that help us? The internet is awash with claims of scriptural authority; all churches essentially claim as much – we have the Word, He is among us. Yet many of them contradict one another, showing many of the claims to be necessarily false, as Christ cannot contradict himself. More accurate then it is to say that Christ is the prophetic Word – the Word of God to the age, the specific age in which he appears – and here we hark back to our earlier statement that God has his witness in every age. This is significant as, in his first coming, he was missed by those – notably the Pharisees – who referred to the Word of another age. They held to the teachings of Moses, and in the messiah perhaps they expected a Super Moses. Similarly, when we look for him today, we cannot expect to find him in the doctrines of Martin Luther, of John Wesley, or in any other of the great Reformation creeds. That was manna for another age. And we cannot find him in Pentecostal doctrine – so far as the Pentecostal denominations are concerned. For this is another prophetic age – the age of the Word in its fullness, of the spiritual seed come to maturity. It is the age of Malachi 4 and Revelation 10. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord ... and ... in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished ... It is the age of the Word unveiled, in the words of St Paul, of seeing face to face – of the logos beheld, as one contemporary put it – and as Job also framed the matter, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. This we should look for in his appearing today. |
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Syndicate This BlogArkangelArkangel is the weblog of writer Harald Kleemann, specifically regarding his work on biblical Christianity. Readers’ comments are naturally their own and their appearing on this site should not be taken to signify approbation by Arkangel, which is to say, its author. The same applies to linked material offsite, which should be taken on its own merits.
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