Monday 15 April 2013

WHAT IS IT

The last reformation deals with the absolute sovereignty of God the Creator of all things that includes the commonly known enemy of mankind called Satan. The Bible clearly portrays Satan as God's prosecuting angel and not as some rabid dog that chewed off his leash and goes around biting people. 

Just as we do not like the job of a District Attorney in the Court of Law so we do not like God's prosecutor, nor do we like God's discipline of which we read in Hebrews 12:6 “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” It happens that these words are a quotation from the Old Testament, which is addressed to the Jews (Hebrews) therefore God’s chosen—those who are under the eternal covenant with God. This falls under a completely different category than the church composed of the gentile Christians who are saved by grace. Period.

Anything beyond salvation deals with spiritual growth therefore repentance, maturity, and the Fatherly discipline; and these we also don’t like. So what do we like? We like to tell the devil off and do our own thing. We do only what we like. Like spoiled children that want only candies. I have never met a Christian who is hard on him or her regarding the holy and righteous discipline. But when it comes to jobs or moneymaking business the discipline is there. Strange isn’t it? Ambition in the natural is common. Raising our families, providing for our children requires discipline, but the same is not being applied to things of God and the righteousness of His Kingdom. Winning a war over the enemy is often the goal, but is it achievable? Hardly. Yet there is no wisdom that would make one act any differently. The Last Reformation is exactly that.

1.   God is sovereign over all of His own creation and that includes Satan.
2.   If evil was found in heaven and came down to the Garden of Eden to mislead and seduce the first pair then we should blame God for it for He made it so. Note the fact that Nechash (called Satan) was (HAYYAH) a beast of the filed or cattle, therefore a by-God-created being.  
3.   But when we go deeper, we find out that in fact God wanted us to eat of the Tree of Contrasts (knowledge) and then choose Him with the God-given gift of the free will.
4.  There are only three places in the Old Testament that mention Satan and each place speaks of God’s anger and the engagement of Satan as a result.
A.  1Chronicles 21:1 refers to God’s anger, which incited David to count Israel in 2Samuel 24:1.
B. This discrepancy occurred in the Babylonian/Persian exile where the Jews borrowed Satan from Zoroastrianism and ever since then played with.
C.  The book of Job, which was added to the Bible around the Babylonian exile, speaks of God’s utter sovereignty; for Satan did exactly as He was told, not more and not less.
D.  In Zechariah Stan appears when the high priest Joshua stood before God in filthy garments. As the high priest Joshua could not perform the work of the annual atonement (Yom Kippur) so the prosecutor Satan came as a faultfinder to instigate a change. After Satan’s mission was complete Joshua’s garments were changed and the priest was reinstated. The outcome was positive. (Although the melodrama is found in both books, Job and Zechariah, showing the exiles’ feelings regarding their fate and their God; nonetheless it does not take away from the fact that God is the fully in charge Boss.   
E.  The returning exiles from Persia—after the decree of Cyrus and the repatriation of Jews back to Jerusalem and Judah—gave Satan to the then appointed by the Hasmoneans Pharisees who developed their own doctrines about Beelzebul/Beelzebub and the hierarchical structures of demons.
F.  From the Babylonian exile until the time of Jesus elapsed 616 years by which time the doctrines of devils were already evident. This long period of Hellenization and mythological indoctrination further impaired the Jewish monotheistic thought. From the polytheistic many gods people’s imaginations were brought down to dualism (God vs. Satan, light vs. darkness and good vs. evil), which has survived to this day. 
G. The appearance of the Greek DIABOLOS (the devil) equating him with the Jewish Satan was also noticeable.
H.  Jesus did not come to reform our thinking, that’s our job today; He came to pay the necessary price and to redeem us not only from God’s wrath, but also from our foolishness.
5. Jesus reasoned with the Pharisees regarding ‘Satan casting out Satan and his supposedly divided kingdom.’ But He did not reform their thinking for they were Kenites. Jesus left them alone.
6.  He called Peter Satan. He prayed for Peter after Satan was given the permission to sift Peter like wheat. Judas was called the devil. Apostle Paul did not fight with the messenger of Satan ‘the thorn in his flesh’ but asked God to take him away, yet Jesus said that His grace was sufficient for Paul. Paul gave over to Satan two men in order to teach them not to blaspheme God.
7.  Peter emerged stronger from his sifting experience with Satan. Apostle Paul, like a hollow vessel the preacher of grace walked humbly with the Lord.

There is much more to explore and learn, provided that one is willing to go as far as loving the Sovereign over all of His own creation God. 

If you love the Heavenly Father more than theology then He will accept you and will reveal Himself to you in truth, just as He did to me. That’s why I can share this clarity with you. 

1 comments:

It is so much easier to be catapulted into a fantastic orbit then to examine details like these:

1. Sons of God came down from heaven - Luke 3 shows the genealogy of Jesus all the way to Adam who is called "the son of God" meaning the first son.

2. Logic. If he is called the son of God then it is Adam and his sons who were mixed with other people. The Bible meticulously traces Adam's genes in people, if Adam was the only human on earth then the biblical genealogies would make no sense, but it does. Why?

3. Jesus said in Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25 & Luke 20:36 that after resurrection we shall be like angels and we will no longer marry nor (sexually) procreate. So that invalidates the notion that the sons of of God were angels that came down to earth, mated with women and then produced giants.

Impossible.

4. Because angels are winds, spirits and flames (Psalms 104:4, Hebrews 1:7 and are genderless (point 3).

5. "... there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). This picture speaks of our state in Christ after resurrection.

The ancients mulled over these things; hence we have some allusions to chained angels in Greek subterranean regions like Apollyon, Abyss, Tartarus etc, but today we can trace it all back to the origins of these ideas. Why should we?

The answer lies in singularity and not dualism. One God, one way to Him and one Messiah. This unmixed direct approach liberates us from man's fantasy-spiked theology. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

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