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almndjin · 4 years

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Black Water Lillies | 1/5

● summary: It was normal for you to chase down a suspect on the night of a stakeout but when you get thrown (quite literally) into something supernatural, you might need a little supernatural partner to help you finish the job.

or; wherein you and Yoongi team up to catch the bad guy.

● pairing: witch!yoongi x detective!reader | ft. Namjoon and Hoseok

● genre: witch au, supernatural au, magic, mystery, fluff

● rating: SFW

● warnings: swearing, reader gets thrown into the ocean, mention of human sacrifice

● word count: 5.6k

● author’s note: I was listening to AURORA’s Black Water Lillies when I came up with this story. I am 100% sure there are multiple wrong descriptions about the reader’s and Namjoon’s professions. My knowledge can only go as far a watching some TV shows (I dunno if that makes sense). Feedback is always welcome!

The day started pretty normal.

When you arrive at the station your desk is already full of paperwork waiting for you to finish them. You grumbled at the sight and found yourself heading towards the break room for a cup of coffee to fuel yourself for the boring day ahead.

The weather didn’t help either. The gloomy cloud looming over the city didn’t motivate you to even get out of bed for work. You just wanted to stay inside the safety of your warm blanket and forget the world, but you have got bills to pay and food to eat for survival.

Maybe you shouldn’t have expected your day to go as normally as possible because once evening came and you were called for a stakeout, you weren’t prepared on how your day, your life, would shift.

“He’s heading towards the back alley!” Your partner yelled on the radio, almost making you yank the earpiece off of your ear at how loud his voice had suddenly gotten, “He’s armed!”

Your legs moved quickly, mind catching up a bit later. You're more of a do now think later kind of person anyway, and you were sure that it would get you killed one of these days.

You caught sight of the suspect, running a few meters ahead of you. Legs straining, you try your best to catch up. You caught a glimpse of his hands and noticed it was occupied by something. He was surely armed but that didn’t stop you from pursuing him. It has taken you months to get a lead on your suspect, and there is no way you would let him get away.

“Damn! I don’t get paid enough for this!” You huffed as you round a sharp corner of the narrow alleyway.

It was getting darker now, and a few drops of rain started pouring lightly. You curse at the dew drops pelting your way as your breath becomes haggard.

“Y/N stop! Backup is on the way, they’ll cut him off at the next street!”

“He’ll get away!” You argued as you watched the suspect turn his head to see if you were still running after him.

You can catch him.

At least that’s what you told yourself.

“Stop!”, You screeched at him as if he would listen to you.

He raised his arm and you knew instantly that you would have to dodge the bullet he would send your way. You didn’t hear the familiar ringing sound of a gunshot but instead you heard a loud crackle that sounded like lightning. The small explosion missed you just by a few inches, and only made you stop for a few seconds. You recovered quickly, to which the attacker was surprised.

You didn’t have time to think about what weapon he just fired at you. Blinded by your goal of finally catching him, you surged forward.

You were nearing the port. The smell of the sea fills your nose, and the air becomes thicker as the rain pours. The sky was becoming darker now as the evening approached.

You were becoming tired as you ran to where he was headed. You knew that you would get the upper hand, you can clearly catch him.

As you neared the ocean, his movements slowed and he turned to watch you. You didn’t stop your fast approach, and you were about to tackle him into the ground.

You knew you had made a mistake when you saw the smirk stretching on his lips. It was too late for you once you realized.

Once your body collided with his, he quickly grabbed your shoulder, avoiding your body weight with one hand. Then, there was a flash of light.

You closed your eyes, the light too bright for you. There was pain where he touched you, and you suddenly feel fatigued. Your body sways away from him and the feeling of falling is what you remember. You were sure the asphalt ground would be your landing but that wasn’t the case.

You heard it before you felt it. A loud clap followed by the sound of a body hitting the sea. Your body.

You tasted the salty water as it filled your mouth, your whole being panicking. You look around for the suspect, but he was nowhere to be found.

What boggled your mind was the fact that you were deep into the ocean. Not only that, but you were also surrounded by what seemed like seaweeds. No, not seaweeds.

Flowers.

You grabbed some in your hand before you swam up towards the surface, ignoring the pain in your shoulder.

You gasped for air, the taste of oxygen satisfying after being in the water for so long.

Your mind can’t comprehend what just happened and before you could, your name was already being called, stealing your attention.

“Y/N!” You hear Namjoon’s voice from above you instead of the earpiece that you were sure was already broken.

Great, another cut from your paycheck.

You look up at the boat where Namjoon stands. His face was ridden with exhaustion, but most of all relief.

A towel was wrapped around your shoulders as Namjoon handed you something warm to drink. He sat down beside you, confusion written all over his face. He was probably wondering how you ended up in the water, and frankly to say you were in the same dilemma as he is.

How did you end up in the water and how long have you been here?

Namjoon answered your last internal question, “We lost contact with you 3 hours ago and I-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence as you choked on your drink at the revelation.

3 fucking hours? What the fuck?

His large hand pats your back gently, his eyes wide and frantic as he asks if you’re okay. You gave him a nod, unable to speak due to the fact that you almost drowned and choked to death.

You were sure you lost contact as soon as you were transported at the sea but it didn't feel like 3 hours.

“I guess my radio broke when I was still chasing him.” A sorry excuse but what else can you tell him. You hoped that he wouldn’t ask more questions, not when you hadn’t come up with something logical just yet.

You aren’t even sure what happened yourself and there is now way it would remain that way. You have to find out eventually.

Inside the plastic ziplock were the flowers you found.

They were water lilies, its petals so dark as if it was fed with nothing but jet black ink.

As far as your knowledge goes, there is no such thing. You even searched the internet for water lilies growing in the ocean, and water lilies that possessed the color black.

Water lilies don’t belong in the ocean, and there is no such thing as black water lilies. Yet here it is inside a bag. Just looking at it filled your chest with dread and fear, reminding you of what had occurred last night.

After being pulled out of the water, Namjoon questioned you endlessly and you dismissed him quickly. You don’t want to sound crazy in front of your superior, so you simply told him that you lost the suspect around the pier and you fell.

You hid the lily inside your coat pocket. You thought that showing Namjoon would certainly be a bad idea. You would tell him the truth once you figured out what exactly happened and you had to figure it out alone. You just need to figure out something that would make you seem less crazy when you finally decide to tell him.

When you arrived at the station, you knew everyone was informed about what happened and before you knew it all your hard work would be given to someone else.

“Hey.” Namjoon’s soft voice broke you out of your reverie. You didn’t realize you had zoned out, staring thoughtlessly at the board in front of you. You’ve been doing nothing but zone out as soon as you left the Captain’s office.

“They are transferring the case-”

You cut him off with your palm towards him and stared at the ground. You can’t bear to look at Namjoon’s sorry face. He knew how long you have been working on this case, hoping to get a lead on the suspect and when you did you let him out of your sight.

You heard the news loud and clear. The case is out of your hands after your failed attempt of catching the suspect.

What hurts the most was the fact that you worked endlessly for months. You were finally getting more clues and bizarre evidence as to why the killings had happened.

Human sacrifices, you told them but now you know it was more than a sick cult that murdered those three girls and there is more to it than a sick mind that could lead to those deaths.

Something more out of this world and if the sea and the lilies incident isn’t an obvious slap to the face that you’re dealing with something else then you don’t know what is.

“Y/N.”

Namjoon was worried about you. You can tell by the way he had been talking to you and you were thankful for it. Thankful for him.

If it weren’t for his help and support regarding the case, you wouldn’t have reached this far. Though he was opposed to some of your decisions, Namjoon was still supportive but that didn’t mean he would let this die down with an ‘I told you so’.

“It’s okay, Namjoon.” You sighed, “I already got an earful from the captain, I can take it.”

“I’m not here to say I told you so, I’m here to see if you're faring well.”

“I am.” You gave him a tight lipped smile, “Faring well, that is.”

Namjoon rolled his eyes and snorted, “Then drink with me and forget about the case.”

You perked up at his offer, not passing up the opportunity to get free food from him. You needed a light distraction from all this.

“Only if we get the fried chicken that I like.”

“Anything for your crushed spirit.” He starts packing up.

You threw a crumpled paper at him, ignoring the sudden pain on your shoulder.

“I’m serious though,” Namjoon says suddenly as soon as you both exit the station, “This case. We need to let it go.”

He looks at you, a pleading look in his eyes that you rarely see. Namjoon wasn’t one to speak about your habit of getting attached to your cases, hell he’d even praise you for it.

Shooting him a confused look, you say, “Why? You think we can’t handle it.”

You bump your shoulder towards him, his lips twitching into a smile before he clears his throat as both of you start walking.

“Y/N. Promise me you won’t go behind our backs to solve this one like you always do.” He sighs, “And yes, I think we can’t handle this one. Let the others risk their lives for once.”

You hated this. You always hated lying to your friend. Especially when his eyes shine with nothing but worry for your life, something you never did yourself.

“I promise.”

Sleep was out of the question.

Just because the case was not your concern anymore doesn’t mean you would let it go that easily. Investigating behind the division’s back was nothing new to you. Hell, you’d solved more cases going rogue than having the permission to do so. You only felt bad because you had lied to Namjoon but even he knows you won’t be able to let this go.

After the bizarre way the suspect had escaped and you ending up in the sea, you became more thirsty for answers now more than ever.

You waited out the rain before grabbing the lilies from the table, along with your car keys and wallet.

The certainty of finding answers was close to impossible. Impossible was what happened to you that day, so you need to start somewhere.

You arrived back at the place where you chased down the mysterious suspect. That was when the nerves decided to kick in. You wanted to go back home as fear settled in your bones. To just turn away and forget what happened. To forget the case like what Namjoon had suggested.

You didn’t know why you were apprehensive now. Why you decided to feel afraid now is annoying the hell out of you. How would you be able to think straight if you were being such a coward?

The loud humming of the car engine died down, leaving you in silence.

“Wait. What the fuck?” You muttered, horrified.

That was the first of many signs that says you had just made yet another dumb decision.

With a twist of your key, you tried turning on your car and you already decided that if it turns on, you would go straight back home. The car made the decision for you when it refused to roar back to life. Maybe it is just old, you told yourself.

Namjoon did say it was a piece of junk but what the hell did he know about cars when he doesn’t even drive. He’s not wrong though, it is quite old.

Yeah, maybe that’s it. This is not some dreadful sign that you were about to die. Your car is just old.

Since your car refused to start, you might as well continue your investigation.

There was something eerie about the way the street lamps illuminate the pavements. The orange light reflects your surroundings giving it a hellish impression. It is quiet, just the sound of the sea in the distance giving you something to hold on to.

At least the area didn't sound as dead as it looked like, you tried to reassure yourself.

You slammed the door shut, loudly, just because you wanted some noise to fill your ears. You hated the silence engulfing you, you hated how it made your heartbeat seem loud in your ears.

You had expected the streets to be empty, it was late into the night and it had just rained but you have never expected it to feel empty. You have been into situations like these and not one of those late night investigations ever felt ominous.

Taking deep breaths, you retrace your steps and begin.

You went back to the place where you were positioned before Namjoon informed you that the suspect was coming your way. Clearly you need to start somewhere.

There was nothing out of place, it looked like the usual back alleyway; narrow and unkempt. The fact that you ran and chased the suspect using this unkempt path was uncanny. Adrenaline makes you blind once you zeroed on your target, too bad the target escaped you.

There was nothing out of the ordinary and that should’ve put you at ease but it didn’t. Normally, you would brush aside the normality of the situation but because of what happened to you everything seemed wrong.

Once you reached the spot where the suspects stood, you now realized that at that moment he was waiting for you to attack him. He stood still and waited for you to tackle him. He had calculated your next move and did something to you.

You approached it slowly, heart thumping loudly. With a quick turn of your head, you noticed a pier. The pier that you used for your excuse on how you ended up on the water.

It was far from where you are now, where you both really confronted each other.

How the hell did he do that?

“What are you?”, you whispered into the air, mortified. It is as if he transported you far away from him and escaped. The sudden sting in your shoulder reminded you that he left without hurting you first.

Just what did he do to you?

You remembered how you examined your shoulder quickly once you got inside a bathroom. There were no marks and it looked normal but it didn’t calm the brewing anxiety inside you.

You spot the pier again as if it was calling out to you. Maybe it did, seeing as you were getting nowhere. Deciding that it would be best to get this over with, the pier being the last destination for tonight, you head towards it next.

The sea welcomed you with it’s salty air; at night it looked like a dark abyss waiting to swallow you whole. The waves and the wind was a comforting sound after being in the quiet street for so long.

The sound of your boots hitting the wooden deck accompanied you towards the end of the pier. You didn’t notice that you stopped feeling afraid all throughout the night once you felt fear again as you reached the end of the pier.

It was as if someone had set their eyes on you and the thought of it made you shiver.

With a quick turn you try to spot if someone was really watching you. It was quite odd that someone was on your tail because you saw not one single soul in the area. That thought alone should’ve made you run or call for help.

You turn your back once again and face the dark sea. Namjoon must’ve thought you were crazy; swimming about and looking confused as hell but all you heard from your friend were concerned words. Namjoon doesn't like prying, he takes what he tells you even if it bothers him internally, and you thanked him for it.

With the thoughts of your fellow detective, you even considered telling him about it just so it could ease his mind but you know deep inside you can’t. Not when you have no idea what was really happening.

You sighed and reached inside your pocket and felt the plastic containing the black water lilies you found floating around you when you were under the water.

It was still there, the proof that you were not hallucinating. All the teleporting into the sea was real. It is what anchors you to the new reality you have seen.

“Black water lilies.”

An unfamiliar voice disturbed the calming sound of the sea.

It was as if a cold knife had stabbed you in the back and it ran it all the way up your spine. You jumped at the voice, turning around quickly at the source.

You were faced with a man, three steps away from you. Maybe having your back at the ocean isn’t such a good idea as soon as you realized that this man can push you anytime.

He was close enough for you to memorize his features, just in case he decided to boot it and he was connected to the suspect after all. Why else would he be here?

He was small in frame, you can tell even from the large, dark coat he was sporting. He had dark hair in contrast to the paleness of his skin. His hands were in his pockets and it terrifies you that he might pull a gun and just shoot you out of nowhere.

His doll-like lips moved once again and you were dumbly just staring at him, not even hearing what he just said. You were awfully distracted by how good he looks which was dumb for you to even consider regarding the situation you were in. You were dumber than you thought you were, how the hell did you graduate from the academy?

His sharp eyes leered at you, obviously annoyed by the lack of response he was getting.

You shook your distracted thoughts away and focused. This man could kill you damn it.

You hid the lilies behind your back as if you were a child who doesn't want to share their goodies.

“Sorry?” You asked him, hoping he’d have the patience for your slow dumb ass.

“I said,” He took a breath and closed his eyes for a bit, “How did you get your hands on that?”

“On what?” Maybe you could play dumb seeing as you were already good at it.

He took a step and you almost took a step back. If it weren’t from the chain link fence stopping you or else you would have taken a dive into the ocean once again.

The hand inside his pocket moved when you did, as if he was reaching out for you. Afraid that you would fall. You were sure he wasn’t concerned for your well being, he just wanted answers. Or maybe he’d just shoot you.

Damn it, you didn't have anything to defend yourself with.

“You’re dumber than you look don’t you.” He looked at you up and down, sizing you up, “Well, I should’ve expected that.”

“Look,” You said, your eyebrow twitching by his choice of words, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He groaned, “The black water lilies you’re hiding. How did you get it? I’m not fucking dumb, I saw you holding it out for everyone to see.”

His deep voice was rising, you expected him to shout at you but he remained calm. You can see from his expression that his patience was wearing thin.

You wanted answers from him as well but he just got the upper hand now. There is no way you could outmatch the intimidating aura that he has plus you were cornered. So you have no choice but to compromise.

You bring the lilies in front of you and you notice him wanting to get closer, wanting to reach for it. You stared at him, watchful of his movements and his reactions. Whoever this man is, he is connected to the suspect, the killings, and to what happened to you.

“I found it here.” With your free hand you pointed at the black abyss that is the ocean.

His face darkened and it worried you what the expression meant. You observed the distance between you two, he was closer than he was earlier. If he is like the suspect as you have concluded then he is someone capable of something dangerous.

He talked about the flowers as if they were a natural thing to exist, like a person pointing out roses rather than non-existent flowers which were now on your grasp.

“Give it to me.”

Okay, now you can’t agree to that. The lilies are the only clue that you have regarding the mysterious suspect and the dark, bizarre killings. There is no way you would just hand it over to someone that might have something to do with all this.

There is a thought in your mind that is trying to argue that your life is worth more than solving this case. Namjoon’s voice echoing inside your head.

You looked down at the black water lilies then back at the stranger. He raised his eyebrows and stretched his arm, palms up as if he’d expect you to hand it over.

“What if I don’t want to?” You challenged him, trying your best to sound brave, “What are you going to do?”

His dark eyes glimmered and your breath stopped short at the action. Eyes just don’t glimmer literally.

His reaching arm retreated, eyebrow raised as if he found your words amusing.

“You don’t want to find out.”

You gulped as he approached you, growing close for comfort. You could almost smell him and you don’t want to admit it but he did smell nice as he looked. Your eyes never strayed away from his sharp ones despite the fear blooming in your chest.

“You’re a stubborn one.” He mumbled, looking straight into you then down at your hands where the plastic bags are held tightly. You can feel the warmth radiating off of him and you sure felt it when he touched your hands.

You didn’t know you were shaking until you felt him try to make you relax. Just what is he doing to you?

You tried to get yourself together but as if you were in a trance, you reached inside the bag and gave him the lilies.

He smirked, “That wasn’t so hard was it?”

Before you could even say something as you felt the spell wear off, you noticed how he quickly glanced behind you, panic quickly replacing the smug look on his face. He said something that sounded like a warning but it was too late.

You felt yourself fall backward and you soon realized the sea had pulled you in once again.

There was a tight grip on your bicep and a flash of light before you closed your eyes and waited for the impact. The difference between the previous fall was the lack of pain on your shoulder and this time you weren’t alone when you hit the water.

You notice there is a lack of black water lilies surrounding you except the one you gave to the stranger.You were about to reach for it but just when you were about to, it had vanished right in front of your eyes and then you felt an arm around your waist and you were being pulled up.

“It’s gone!” You gasped before having a coughing fit, trying to pry away the hands on your waist that are keeping you up.

“We can’t get them back the sea is too dark-”

“No, it disappeared.” You cried, “It vanished right in front of me.”

The stranger who had a tight grip on you gave you an incredulous stare.

“How the fuck can you even see underwater?” He spat, “I didn’t see shit disappearing in front of me.”

You were breathing heavily, “It was the only evidence I have from the psycho maniac who fucking teleported me here!”

You ignored what he was implying, that you were unbelievably crazy for seeing in the dark.

“No it wasn’t. You have me.” The stranger stated calmly after your rant. He was too close, closer than the distance back at the pier when he made you give up the lilies. With that thought, you tried to push him away, afraid of what he can do.

You stared at him bewilderedly, “What the hell do you even mean by that?!”

“Calm down, I'm not like them.” He tried to hold on to you tight enough so that you wouldn’t be able to escape his arms. “Sort of.”

Not like them? Wait, you didn’t even mention anything.

“You’re scared.”

“Of course I am! One minute I’m trying to do my job, trying to catch the suspect and then I’m fucking transported to the sea surrounded by black water lilies which is fucking impossible and now a stranger shows up and -”

“You don’t have to be scared of me, I won’t hurt you.” He cut you off and you were glad by his interruption. One more word and you would’ve burst into tears.

You swallowed the lump that was forming when you were trying your best not to cry. Somehow, deep inside you, you trust him. If he wanted you dead, he would’ve done so once he got what he wanted but instead he tried to save you from falling which resulted into him being thrown into the water with you.

No, no. You still have to be careful.

You remained quiet, still looking at him as he searched your eyes. He seemed to do that a lot so now you were deathly aware and terrified if he could hear your thoughts.

“How do I know if I could trust you?” You mumbled, looking down and away from his eyes. You were still too close to him and you were still floating in the sea near the pier. It might’ve seem stupid that you would consider trusting him but he’s the only one who could answer your questions and that could help you solve this case.

“For starters, I would introduce myself but we’re still floating in the sea and I would very much like to get out.”

Swimming towards the shore had taken most of your energy and you would’ve collapsed against the sand if not for the stranger accompanying you. He still didn’t tell you his name and you didn’t tell him yours. You wanted to know his first and besides, he is the one asking for your trust.

Once you reach the shore, you wring your clothes and hair to at least remove some water off of you. You looked at the stranger and you found him doing the same.

All you could hear between you were your ragged breaths and the waves of the sea meeting the shore. You would kill for a shower and to crawl into bed and forget everything that just happened.

“Yoongi.” The stranger said, exhausted, “My name is Yoongi.”

He wasn’t looking at you as he introduced himself, his eyebrows furrowed. He was too focused on getting the water out of his clothes as hard as he can. Your actions halted as you stared at him. His black hair clung to his forehead like second skin and yet he still looked ethereal as for you, you probably looked like a wet rag. He felt your stare at him as his head shot up to look at you. You looked away quickly, hoping he didn’t notice you studying his features.

You cleared your throat, ignoring the way your face became suddenly warm. “My name is Y/N.”

Since he didn’t give you a last name, you didn’t give him yours and he doesn’t seem like he minded.

Fair enough.

“The black water lilies,” You started but you couldn’t get the words out. Without them in your hands, it seems so bizarre to even talk about.

“You’re wondering how I know about them.”

“Yes and I’m wondering how you seemed so calm when you saw it. That it’s normal for you for such a flower to exist because when I saw them I was-”

You were terrified but he didn’t need to know that.

“You’re right to feel scared. It’s not a good sign to have seen such flowers.”

The feeling of apprehension came back. Just what did he mean by that?

“What the hell are you, Yoongi?”

With your harsh whisper, Yoongi seems to be contemplating his next words. It didn’t make the feeling go away. You were scared to know the truth about Yoongi, about everything despite the thirst for seeking it. You just wanted to solve the case, not to uncover the secret of the fucking universe.

“Someone who is seeking the man who committed such a heinous act. The same man who gave you those black water lilies.

“You didn’t answer my question. What are you? You’re obviously not human, you’re something else.”

If he wanted you to trust him he better tell you the truth right now and you see it in his face. He needs you and in order to have you by his side, he needs you to trust him.

“I’m a witch.”

You released a shaky breath. That made sense in a weird, twisted way.

Somehow, you weren’t shocked about the revelation and you even believed that such an occupation existed. If it weren’t the suspect, probably a witch as well but a more twisted version, along with the black water lilies, you would’ve laughed but you didn’t and once again you wished that weren’t the case.

You wished that the suspect was just some normal serial killer but no, he just had to be something not human.

“I’m guessing the man we’re after is a witch as well.” You said, a heavy sigh escaping your lips. Hearing it come out of your mouth seemed so bizarre.

Yoongi nodded as he stared at your defeated form.

“Does that mean I should let the matters fall into your hands oh great Yoongi?”

It would be nice to forget about all of this. If he suggested that you stay out of it, you would. You welcomed the idea. You don’t want to deal with anything more than what you bargained for. You did go back to the pier to seek answers and well, you got one.

Thanks to Yoongi, now you know it is something you should not meddle with.

“No.” Yoongi deadpanned, staring at you with no humour, “It seemed like humans are now involved in this matter so you should be by my side.”

Your heart dropped.

“You mean I have to help you.”

“If you don’t want more humans to die. Then yes.”

“God, why me?” You whispered but it seemed like the warlock heard it. “What can I even do?”

“Like it or not, it seems like you have gotten yourself involved more than you wanted to.”

“I just wanted to do my job.” You stated as you started walking farther away from the sea, Yoongi following after. You fished for your phone, hoping it was working. You were lucky that you didn’t bring your phone last time, so it was saved from being dunked in the water but your luck had run out and now you have to buy another one.

Yoongi looked at you, amused, obvious from the smile he was showcasing. You raised a questioning brow at him, earning a dry chuckle from the witch.

“I just didn’t expect to be working side by side with a human.”

“Well, I didn’t expect things like witches to exist.”

“You’d be surprised at what you humans don’t know.”

The thought didn’t stir right in your chest. What more could be out there?

You wished you wouldn't have to find out but as you stared at the man walking beside you, both of you soaking wet and cold, you figured you would have to eventually.

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#kpop scenarios #min yoongi scenario #witch au #bts supernatural au #bts mystery au #bts fic #bts fanfic #suga #suga fanfic #suga scenario #yoongi scenario #yoongi fanfic

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goprandall · 6 years

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DC MASTERPOST >3

It’s no secret the DC universe is something of a DCpointment. There’s no cohesion in sotrylines, films are released at odd and illogical times and I decided to rewatch and give proper reviews.

MAN OF STEEL 2013 7/10

This film is something of an outlier on the DCEU, because it is not terrible.

The strengths of this film are defiantly the first act, I feel it was a clear and concise way to create backstory without the stereotypes of following him through childhood into adulthood, they did a great job of creating krypton and establishing an antagonist with a clear motive. I liked the jump straight into adult with flashbacks when confronted with items from his past, it allowed us to understand his past without saturating his journey all at once. Arguably the first arc of this film is completed here with Clark/kal discovering who he is and why he is here. The second arc of General Zod trying to bring back his people is still very well done, providing us more relevant backstory and shows logical actions from both sides of the fight nearing the end of the film. The biggest weakness of the film in my opinion is that it is 20 minutes too long. When superman destroys Zods ship killing the artificial children of krypton, I feel this arc was complete, although the after fight solely fought between SM and Zod does show us the struggle superman goes through becoming the last kryptonite in exaistance, this does not outweigh the pointless mass destruction this causes, on top of a already destroyed city. In my cut this would be disregarded.

Final thoughts of the film; my favourite part was the shot of ‘ALERT’ that slowly turns to ‘Toner empty’, a good transition and piece of direction. I’m giving this film 7/10, in my classification would make it a good Netflix film, one I’d be happy to watch but not pay money to solely see. It was a hard choice to not make it a 6 however, I rank wonder women as a 7, and this is more than equally as good, the only things preventing me from giving it a higher rank is it’s rewatchability. Personally I rarely would due to its lack of joy and humour, and overall darkness, not just in plot but also in cinematography and colour grading.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN 2016 6/10

Batman v superman had all the the ingredients to be the summer blockbuster, but as predicted it followed every DC film and tanked.

Their are some aspects of this film that are genuinely good, giving it a 6, one of those things is the first act of the film where we are introduced to Batman, although I didn’t personally feel the need for another origin story, the way this scene is directed especially with the earl sequence is fantastic, adding depth and differing from older versions of the same story. The other good thing about this film is the Batman fight scene, it is so well articulated and choreographed, i struggle to see how it fits within the wider film which is strangely badly directed, edited and in-cohesive.

Continuing from this idea, I feel the dream sequences are one of the leading problems for the in-cohesion of the film, the issue with these sequences is, if they are not well done it stops the audience trusting more daring scenes, ultimately taking you out of the story. Next, I feel another reason this doesn’t live up to its hype is, again, DCs continuous frenzy of oversaturating it’s film with characters. Here I argue Wonder women is not needed in the end fight, the fight could just have easily gone on sitbout her, or, if they had released wonder women before this film so we felt more engrossed in the character it wouldn’t been fine. However her and all the other justice league promo clips, should not have been in the film in the context they were as they’re a corporate shoehorn, promoting further projects. The other character I feel is unneeded is ‘Doomsday’, he’s quickly thrown in at the end of the film, and honesty an antigunist shown to us at the end of the film will never give the depth and fear of a hero fight, as a villain shown throughout the movie.

To me, Batman V Superman is a movie. Not a film, crafted and worked on to create a narrative for the audience, but a summer movie to get the kids out the house. The idea of having two meta humans as important as Batman and superman battling each other should boggle the mind, as the first avengers did for me or civil war for a closer comparison. But the difference with the MCU spectaculars is, they earned their right to blow people’s minds, DC is playing catch up and trying to get praise and awe without the hard work.

SUICIDE SQUAD 2016 3/10

Wow. This review has been hard to create and will most likely feature ideas from other reviews via podcasts and YouTube due to the fact this movie boggled my head in the sheer awfullness that ensued.

As always, I begin with the strengths of the film. In this instance it’s slight. I loved the aesthetics of the branding for the film, the colours, the neon animations, I loved it all. The mini descriptions in the film were funny and added to the VeRy little personalities of the characters. It is important to point out this clearly wasn’t present in the first edits of the film, but due to good feedback of later trailers that were released they were added, which is why this element of humour is the only of its kind that lands in the film.

Next I normally look into the storyline and the character arcs of the film, arguably my second favourite aspect to look for in a film. In suicide squad there is none, and there aren’t any. That sounds harsh, but the reality is there is no cohesive storyline, it follows no one character individually and the film darts back and fourth between every character, no matter the timeframe. Dean Dobbs (from adventures with dean and Bertie’s podcast) best describes this as ‘like playing a video game where someone is skipping every cutscene’ and this is absolutly true, especially when looking at the relationship of the joker and Harley Quinn. This film is so badly edited, As jack Howard describes, this film contains no scenes, it is obvious the whole film was rehashed and re-edited after the release of BVS (which crashed at the box office) and the final trailer was released, which was very different from the first few as it showed humour and action, and it is evident they cut out almost everything apart from these things. I would best describe it as many GoPrandall videos I have scrapped as I tend to forget to film opening sequencers and filler clips to show the progression of the story told apart from the action, and this is exactly how I felt about the editing of this film, they did the best with what they got but it wasn’t enough.

Although there was a lack of character arcs, this film had an ABUNDANT amount of characters to fill its shoes. This film crams as many famous faces in as many characters

As it can, because for some reason DC refuses to create stand alone films due to the catch up to the MCU that’s going on. We’ll start with the joker, or more exactly the 10 minuets of joker we got. Many scenes with the joker were so heavily edited, and deleted, it is hard to judge Jared Letos performance, because he didn’t have chance to give one. But, as a side note the hand on the mouth laugh is one of the WORST cinema moments I’ve experienced only closely beaten by ‘were bad guys it’s what we do’. Yuck. But we’ll finally look at the ‘suicide squad’, although looking at them it’s hard to identify why they are in this squad. We’ll start with reason no one on the team seems to have a reason to be there, aprt from deadshot, who had his daughters arc to think about. All the others just seem to around and don’t want to die and get out of prison. VERY good motives DC, you’ve outdone yourself this time. Next we can look at the abilities of this so called ‘meta human’ squad and how under utilised they really are, which could show why this film failed so badly. Firstly deadshot- ‘never misses a bullet- amazing at trick shots.’ Who in the film performs close quarter headshots, the same as the Seal team next to him, and in the film performs 1 trick shot. 1. That was in establishing scene right at the beginning, but he isn’t the only victim, we can look at Boomerang, my favourite character by far, with one the coolest abilities, who throws a total of:5 boomerangs and catches: 2. Let’s be honest Harely is there as the jokers Love Interest and to keep him in the film. We can also look at el deablo, the man that can shoot fire but refuses until he’s bullied for a whole minute. The worlds worst archaeologist who starts the entire battle, after BREAKING AN ANTIQUE immediatly after finding it (bravo) who if wasn’t attempted to be weaponised, would’ve skipped this whole mess. Slipknot, a man who could climb any wall or anything, who immediatly dies after climbing a wall, but don’t worry because they don’t even want you to worry about this due to the fact they don’t even intro him before he magically appears on the squad, hoping the audience will react ‘oh he’s going to be important!!! What a mystery man!!’. This is almost as bad as Katana, who adds nothing the story apart from a short intro and when she cries to her dead husband, at which point I began to cut my toenails, something I gave more of a shit about.

But, it is obvious I’m a teenage marvel fanboy just shitting on DC,and I hate when people complain without offering another viewpoint, therefore, to fix this, I would dedicate this film to the viewpoint of deadshot, giving him the character arc of changing with the goal of seeing his daughter- eliminate the extra characters- slipknot/katana and either dedicate more time to the joker and harley sub plot or eliminate entirely, NOT BOTH. With this, better editing around these eliminated plot points could make a more coherent story with more empathetic story arcs. I have a full idea for a plot but this is too long as it is.

WONDER WOMEN 2017 7/10

Wonder women is a refreshing instalment into the DCEU, showing they seem to e learning, but are still falling behind on some of the most basic hurdles.

Firstly, as always we’ll start off with the strengths of his film, firstly it is vividly important to recognise that this is the first major Superhero film to be directed, and sustain a heavy female cast. It does so fantastically and leaves me more excited for the next instalment now knowing female directors and stars now have evidence for an accomplished superhero movie, which arguably has outdone the past 2 major films. With this we see a brilliantly refreshing opening act with a subtle and bright, vibrant origin story.

However, this film slowly returns to madness throughout the film when major plot holes appear, and the film making quality slowly deteriorates. Firstly, the iggest plot hole that has been so easily overlooked is the WW1 aspect. Given a World War Two film, having the Germans be the sole enemy is obvious and logical, however WW1 is not as simple as this and the use of Germans as the enemies is vaguely lazy. Also, as DC loves to do, it adds in extra characters and neglects to give them logical and coherent backstory and arcs. We only need to look at the ‘best marksman in the war’ who doesn’t fire a single shot, and continues not too all the way to the end of the film, showing no growth. The final plot hole is what draws it into the wider EU. The entirety of this film is showing Diana that the human race is bad and should be left alone, although when she defeats arias, this is meant to break this curse and peace seems to be restored. But, in BVS she claims to have stopped helping mankind because of their evils, neglecting Stalin, WW2 and the Vietnam war to name a few, but making a reappearance for- lex Luther. Wow.

Although in almost most of its entirety this was a pleasant watch, my personal issue stopped this at the third act when the final fight begins. To me the film returns to DCs favourite colour scheme of dark and clouded, and uses quite frankly some of the worst CGI I’ve seen recently, making me wonder why they didn’t at least try to incorporate real elements, such as Marvel, but this is still the best DC film after man of steel and I’m excited to see more female led and directed films come to screen.

JUSTICE LEAUGE 2016 5/10

This will be the shortest of the DC reviews, this is the film I’ve seen least of the lot and I feel I’ll need at least another viewing to get a full understanding. To premise this I fully understand Zack Snyder had personal issues leading him to leave and Joss take over, and this is in no way mocking him.

But I’ll dive in, maybe the fact I’m struggling to write this review tells me a lot about the movie. Wonder women was one of the only saving graces of this move, she was well understood and I feel her likeness as a character was well transferred from WW to JL. Contrary to this, I’m struggling to write about cyborg and flash, we were given next to no backstorys, although the flash’s was hinted at at least twice that I recall and what we were given were quite chaotic. Batman was a major letdown for me, coming down from BVS where he was a certified badass taking on superman, he turns into a wimp and hides for a majority of the film, quite evidently showing Ben affleck Clearly does not want to be there. I feel the overall plot of the film was almost underatsnvle, but had the taken the time to set up this storyline in previous films it would’ve been much better, this movie lacked the right to have all these characters on screen together. The characters had adequate screen time each, but contrary to its biggest rival ‘the avengers’ this really wasn’t that special, most of the characters had the same abilities, barring the flash, and the way the avengers films have shown all the characters working together simultaneously in cinematic mastery, you can see hints of Joss attempting this, but with a bad set up it’s an impossible task.

I conclude, not going into the issue with the CGi because I don’t have that much time.

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christianstevefinnell · 3 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

Many excellent books have been written that discuss the principles involved in understanding the Bible. Within churches of Christ, for example, several fine volumes have been produced to assist the Christian in comprehending the Bible’s intended meanings (e.g., Dungan, 1888; Lockhart, 1901; Kearley, et al., 1986). One feature of the process of interpreting the Bible is the Bible’s own ability to shed light on its meaning. The Holy Spirit caused the Bible to be written with the specific intention that people would be able to understand its message. Consequently, the Bible shares in common with other books the basic characteristics that one might expect any piece of written communication to possess. It utilizes the same laws of thought and language, and it assumes that the honest, sincere, dedicated student can arrive at the meanings intended by the Author.Perhaps the greatest deterrent to a proper interpretation of the Bible is the widespread and growing sense of uncertainty in the acquisition of absolute truth. American civilization has been inundated with pluralism, and has been brow-beaten into accepting the notion that one belief is as good as another, and that it really does not matter what one believes. Since so many people hold to so many conflicting beliefs, it is commonly thought that no one should be so intolerant, arrogant, and mean-spirited as to think that

has a corner on truth. One belief is as good as another, so we are told. And the same principle applies to religion, ethics, and virtually every other facet of human existence. Agnosticism (the philosophical posture that insists that one cannot

know

) has literally come to dominate our society. Perhaps the majority of Americans now feel that one cannot know whether the God of the Bible exists, whether the Bible is the one and only Word of God, whether Christianity is the only true religion, or whether New Testament Christianity is distinguishable from denominationalism.

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

about knowing anything. It goes without saying that this viewpoint is self-contradictory. Yet many continue to believe it.Of course, the Bible is filled with statements that presuppose (and, in fact, absolutely demand) that we reason correctly, weigh evidence, and come to correct conclusions regarding God’s will. Through Isaiah, God beckoned: “Come now, and let us reason together” (1:18), and “State your case, that you may be acquitted” (43:26). The noble Bereans “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Paul said he was appointed for “the defense of the gospel” (Philippians 1:17). He insisted that the Thessalonians “test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). He told Timothy to rightly divide the word of truth and to correct those who were in opposition (2 Timothy 2:15,25). Peter urged us to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). John warned: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). And Jude said that we must “contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude 3). Every single one of these verses, and many, many more, demand that the individual engage in a process of assessing facts, investigating circumstances, weighing evidence, diligent thinking, and reasoning, in order to arrive at the truth.Yet, the

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

, a wide range of viewpoints exists with a multiplicity of variations and shades. How can so many politicians adamantly insist that abortion is absolutely right and good, while many other politicians, with equal vigor, insist that abortion is evil and wrong? How can people be so diametrically opposed to each other’s viewpoints? In

religion

, the diversity and cleavage is incredible. Christendom is hopelessly divided due to differing doctrinal views. The vast majority of those who claim to be following Christ adamantly maintain that water immersion is not necessary to salvation. Millions believe that it is appropriate to sprinkle infants, or to worship God with instruments of music, or that you cannot fall from grace. The religious division that exists in the entire

world

is even more staggering, since, for example, Islam (representing over a billion people) and Hinduism (representing about a billion people) are in absolute and complete contradiction to each other. By the very nature of their views, they cannot possibly “agree to disagree.” Atheism maintains that

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

to society.With such irreparable, irreversibly deep diversity, no wonder so many have thrown up their hands and concluded that we cannot know for sure who is right and who is wrong (or perhaps more commonly, it really does not matter what is right and wrong). But after surveying the disconcerting, discouraging condition of the world’s lack of interest in ascertaining spiritual reality, one can return once again to the Bible, bring the entire state of affairs back into focus, and make perfect sense of the situation. It has ever been this way! The vast majority of humanity has always chosen to go its own way—for a variety of reasons and motivations. But

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

without excuse (cf. Romans 1:20).The notion that the Bible is its own best interpreter was articulated during the Reformation as a reaction to the Catholic notion that the church was the final interpreter of God’s Word. The reformers took issue with this claim, and insisted instead that “Scripture is its own interpreter” (

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

). What they meant was that the totality of the Bible must be allowed to interpret every part of the Bible. Thus, “no part of Scripture can be so interpreted as to deform the teaching of the whole of Scripture” (Ramm, et al., 1987, p. 23). As Milton Terry observed: “God’s written word, taken as a whole, and allowed to speak for itself, will be found to be its own best interpreter” (n.d., p. 162; cf. p. 222).There is much to be said for the recognition that to really understand the Bible—to really

know

the Bible—one must study the Bible book by book, giving attention to the contextual variables that characterize each individual book, and grasping the overall argument and line of reasoning inherent in each book. Clinton Lockhart, a Christian who authored a textbook on hermeneutics in 1901 that, by some estimations, surpasses the work of Dungan, pointed out that “no man that reads the Bible merely as a collection of proverbs or disconnected texts can ever understand the real nature of the sacred volume” (p. 233). Indeed, there is no substitute or shortcut to Bible interpretation. One must develop a broad and thorough familiarity with the entire Bible

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

The Scriptures contain within them the keys to their own interpretation. Take, for example, the question of Holy Spirit baptism. The charismatic community typically associates the expression “Holy Spirit baptism” with the phenomenon that enables the believer to speak in tongues, heal someone, or work other miracles. In other words, Holy Spirit baptism is simply a

generic

reference to miraculous empowerment. Anyone who can speak in a tongue or perform any other miraculous action is said to have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. He is said to be “Spirit-filled.” However, the Bible actually alludes to Holy Spirit baptism in a very narrow, specialized, even technical sense (see

Miller

, 2003). Just because a person could speak in tongues or work miracles did not necessarily mean he or she had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. The principle of the Bible being its own best interpreter is well illustrated in the verses that allude directly to Holy Spirit baptism: Matthew 3:11; Acts 1:5; and Acts 11:16. In all three verses, Holy Spirit baptism is mentioned by name, and the language that is employed links the three occasions together. Thus, one critical principle involved in allowing the Bible to interpret itself is to recognize and accept the explicit explanations that verses often give on a particular subject.

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

Another example where we see the Bible being its own best interpreter pertains to baptism. The Protestant world has insisted that water baptism is a secondary and subsequent action to salvation. Various religionists have maintained that it serves as “an outward sign of an inward grace.” They claim that baptism is a

symbol

—a visible expression of the forgiveness already received at the point of faith. But the Bible nowhere articulates this provocative, illicit concept. It is the figment of someone’s vivid imagination that has been taken up and repeated so often that it sounds “biblical.” When Ananias prodded Paul to “arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16), he said nothing about an alleged symbolic cleansing or post-forgiveness washing. He uttered not one word that would lead the unbiased reader to even remotely conclude that Paul’s sins were washed away

before

he was baptized.The grammar that the Holy Spirit selected by which to express Himself is very often a key to allowing the Bible to interpret itself. In Acts 22:16, the grammar further militates against the denominational interpretation so often placed on Paul’s baptism. The Holy Spirit utilized two participles and two verbs in verse 16 that clarify His intended meaning:

anastas is an aorist active participle: “having arisen” or “rising”baptisai is an aorist middle imperative verb: “get yourself baptized”apolousai is also an aorist middle imperative verb: “get your sins washed away”epikalesamenos is an aorist middle participle: “you will have been calling”

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

)—are “causative middles” (Robertson, 1934, p. 808) in the aorist tense, and so relate to the aorist middle of the participle that follows (“calling”). Hence, a literal translation would be: “Having arisen, get yourself baptized and get your sins washed away, and you will have been calling on the name of the Lord.” In other words, Ananias was telling Paul that the way to accomplish “calling on the Lord” was to be baptized and have his sins washed away. The Holy Spirit deliberately formulated the grammar of every passage in the Bible so that His writing would interpret itself!But doesn’t the Bible teach that baptism is, in fact, a

symbol

? Doesn’t baptism have “symbolic” significance? Yes, the Bible assigns symbolic significance to baptism in regard to at least three distinct features. Paul said that water baptism symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He used the terms “likeness” and “form” to pinpoint this symbolism (Romans 6:5,17). He later identified a symbolic link between baptism and Old Testament circumcision—the idea that as skin was cut off by circumcision, so sins are cut off at baptism (Colossians 2:11-12). Peter added a third instance of baptism’s symbolic value. He compared a person passing through the water of baptism in order to be saved (by Christ’s resurrection) with the eight persons who were saved “by,” i.e.,

through

(

dia

) the water of the Flood of Noah’s day (1 Peter 3:20-21). Notice carefully how the Bible is its own best interpreter: baptism symbolizes: (1) Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection; (2) the “cutting off” of circumcision; and (3) the waters of the Flood. How in the world could anyone get out of this that baptism symbolizes

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

The account of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus has certainly spawned a great deal of resistance to the role of water baptism in God’s scheme of redemption. While the bulk of Christendom for most of the last 2,000 years has recognized that “water” in John 3:5 is an allusion to water baptism (Shepherd, 1894, pp. 320-338), in the last few decades, many have attempted to assign a different meaning to the word—everything from “blood,” “sperm,” and the “Spirit” to the “water” that accompanies the physical birth of a child (i.e., amniotic fluid). However, once again, the Bible is its own best interpreter.The context yields three useful factors. In the first place, Nicodemus thought being “born again” entailed physical birth (vs. 4). Jesus would not have followed up that misunderstanding by confirming it! If “water” in verse five refers to physical birth, then the flow of thought was that when Nicodemus asked if Jesus was referring to physical birth, Jesus responded that He was: “Do I have to be born physically a second time from my mother’s womb?” “Yes, you must be born of water….” In the second place, Jesus would not have told Nicodemus that one of the prerequisites for getting into the

spiritual

kingdom is physical birth. That would have Jesus making the redundant and ridiculous statement: “Before you can get into My kingdom, you first have to become a human being.” To frame such a statement would not only make Jesus appear oblivious to the fact that Nicodemus was

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

permitted entrance into the kingdom.In the third place, while multiple occurrences of the same word in the same context can have different meanings, attendant extenuating circumstances would be necessary in order to realize the distinction. No such factors are evident, especially since, eighteen verses later, the writer informs us that John the baptizer “was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

Premillennialists are fond of calling attention to the concluding prophetic remarks of Amos: “‘On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the Gentiles who are called by My name,’ says the Lord who does this thing” (Amos 9:11-12). They insist that the fulfillment of this prophecy is yet future. They say the Temple, which was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Romans (Matthew 23:37-24:35), will be rebuilt on the Temple platform in Jerusalem (a site currently occupied by the third most holy shrine of Islam—the Dome of the Rock). They say that Jesus will return after the Rapture, the Tribulation, and Armageddon, and set up His millennial kingdom. They say He will reign on a literal throne for a thousand years, and incorporate the Gentiles, in addition to the nation of Israel, into His kingdom. On the face of it, this prophecy certainly possesses terminology that fits the millenarian interpretation placed upon it.However, two Bible passages dispute this interpretation, and settle the question as to the proper application of Amos’ prophecy. The first is the great Messianic prophecy uttered by the prophet Nathan to King David regarding David’s future lineage and royal dynasty (2 Samuel 7:12-16). Nathan declared that God would establish and sustain the Davidic dynasty. Even though he also noted that a permanent form of the Tabernacle (that God refused to allow David to build [2 Samuel 7:1-7]) would be built by David’s son (i.e., Solomon), God, Himself, would build David a house, i.e., a dynasty, a kingly lineage. It is this

lineage

to which Amos referred—not a physical temple building.The second passage that clarifies Amos’ prophecy is the account of the Jerusalem “conference” (Acts 15). Following Peter’s report regarding Gentile inclusion in the kingdom, James offered the following confirmatory comment: “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written” (Acts 15:13-15). James then quoted Amos 9:11-12. In other words, on that most auspicious occasion, James was noting two significant facts that had come to pass precisely as predicted by Amos: (1) after the downfall of the Jewish kingdom, the Davidic dynasty had been reinstated in the person of Christ—the “Son of David” (Matthew 22:42)—Who, at His ascension, had been enthroned in heaven, thereby “rebuilding the tabernacle of David that had fallen down”; and (2) with the conversion of the first Gentiles in Acts 10, as reported on this occasion by Peter, the “residue of men,” or the non-Jewish segment of humanity, was now “seeking the Lord.” I repeat: the Bible is its own best interpreter.A fitting conclusion to this feature of God’s amazing Word might be the remark made by Peter on the occasion of the establishment of the church of Christ on Earth. You no doubt remember how he and his fellow apostles, empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak foreign languages to the international audience gathered on that occasion were nevertheless accused of being intoxicated. After noting it was too early in the day for such an explanation to be plausible, he prefaced his quotation of Joel with the following words: “This is that….” Much of the effort that we expend in coming to a correct understanding of God’s Word will be directed toward that very goal. Peter was telling his Pentecost audience: the Bible is its own best interpreter.

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

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New Post has been published on https://passingbynehushtan.com/2019/11/14/atoning-sacrifice-symbolism/

How Can a Man Be the Atoning Sacrifice for the Sins of the World? Only One Way. Part 5. The Man and Symbolism.

This is an article in a series. Please see:

How Can a Person Atone in a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World? Only One Way. Part 1.

The Atoning Sacrifice of Jesus on a Cross for the Sins of the Word: The Man

Ok, what do we have so far?

We have righteousness and sin as originally spiritual, not physical.

I repeat that this does not mean that physical activity does not follow a righteous spiritual action and state as its reflection. It means its not a very good physical representation; it’s only indicative, and a two-dimensional one at that. You could say it’s the sin of the symbolism of the Holy.

It’s never a 100% reliable reflector. Sometimes it is so bad that it does not even look like it could have any resemblance. Physical action is a symbol of the internal state, and as such, it is a superficial means to the apprehension of any internal movement and state. The point of righteousness and sin is never external, any more than the point of life. Life indicates externally, but it exists fundamentally only internally with a directly unintelligible aspect, something that God can only understand without a symbol. This is why in 1 SAM 16:7, there is a sharp distinction drawn between one’s inner core and how it shows openly, that man looks on the outer appearance, but God looks on the heart. Jesus’s constant complaint of the Pharisees is that they rejected this so that whatever the heart is, it is represented comprehensively by its inferior: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”

It seems like 2+2=4, but don’t underestimate it. If the logic follows carefully, it is the beginning of exposing what righteousness and sin really are and what this special man is all about. Physical activity is not diving a final judgment on spiritual reality. That reality may be fake.

Physical things are objects, actions, and spoken and written words, tangible symbols of authorities of origin. Symbolism is just pure cause and effect. You can see results, those things, in spatio-reality, and so there may be their immediate cause. However, it is not rational to take their cause as immediately apparent and evident as our usual view of physical reality. Often the reason is entirely invisible, mysterious, and is operational in and on the physical world but is not thought of as another object, but some force behind it, such as gravity.

But what about people?

The body picks up an object. The object moves as an effect of your hand, contacting it and moving it. But the more distant causes are unseen, beginning with the internal processes and structures within the body hidden from view. There are again innumerable things about how the body works that are describable medically. But physical life itself is a mind-boggling, nearly infinite concert of chemical and physical processes working together every nanosecond that we don’t fully understand. Still, all of this, those two dimensions of apparent and hidden, when the hidden is moving far from understanding, are only matter or its forces locked to its operation if we are only looking at someone’s body. This apparent-effect to hidden-cause relation goes much deeper if we think of persons as more than bodies. The more difficult, inaccessible, and often more mysterious abstract force of an influencing object carries over into the limits of casual perception of a person’s actions in knowing that person accurately.

In this cause-and-effect, when you think of the hand as a symbol of its effect in the moving of the object, matter and its movement become associated with the most inscrutable and crucial dimension and goes to the essential aspect of identity. The hand, the symbol of the physical activity, represents a physically aligned, abstract symbolic signification, what the Bible calls carnal, of one’s intent, will, and attitude. The person attached to the hand now has plans for the object behind a particular motivation, which are engaged to bring physical reality in line with his incorporeal but physically concerned side. Those plans and motives are not to be found somewhere in the cells of the brain. They don’t have mass. The symbol, or effect of his action, is essentially now a sign of him as a mich more different thing than matter, of many abstract forces working all at once within him that without which that hand would not have picked up that object or picked it up in that way. Now, only at this level, you have to say that the symbol of the hand’s movement is somehow representative of that which is beyond it concerning moral intentionality. That moral intentionality is associated with and emblematic of an overall sentient cause, and that hand motion, that external moral emblem, is cursory by comparison.

What I describe is the automatic, mechanical aspect of a human being. He is smart, can plan out a goal that fits into a larger purpose, and engages his body to carry it out. Humans devise, judge, calculate, and mentally feel for their benefit. But this level does not involve belief, love, and non- physically concerned or selfless emotion and empathy as the forces behind the action. These actions are effects of those still more abstract and more profound forces not found attached to the material world at all. They are for themselves, of what we may call spiritual, directly non-physically aligned causes. Here, physical actions and objects are still morally typical, but not as much and not as accurate because of the increased distance between outer and inner.

Physical action does not naturally involve activities for the realization of spiritually aligned intent, or morality, only those of self-preservation, pain, desire, and calculated practical purpose. The spiritual intention is expressed perfectly and originally only in his spiritual aspect, one’s noetic motivators and actions, which can then attribute to physical expression. Here, physical expression is expected but not so accurate in showing a direct correspondence to its cause.

Spirituality and physicality mark the difference between what you might call a biological android and real human sentience as relating to morality. One is said chained in a relationship with his body, mind, and self-satisfying emotions. The other led by things much more incorporeally motivated that are of no value to those limited physical considerations whatsoever, and his material life may even be in danger for such spiritual motivators.

Here is the crossover into man’s multidimensionality

At some point, the spiritual cause becomes even more distant and unlike physical reality. So remote that it brings it into proximity with God, for which some kind of agreement occurs between the two essences. Even the idea of externality or superficiality or symbol becomes at this point less connected to the outside world and more that of an inside one. The reason we tend not to think so in religion is that physical symbols, physical actions, are more in line with the physical motivators and affections with which we are obsessed. We would very much like it if real, transcendent spirituality is believed rightly determined by the transient things in which we have already invested ourselves. That spiritual symbols were the same as physical symbols. Ideally, “Grace” is, you see, free of transcendence, not only free that it’s without cost to us.

External symbols for these much deeper spiritual motivators and realities, which I will discuss, still signify the morality of the spirit in the same way that specific physical actions signify the integrity, health, and soundness of the physical individual. The same way, but not to the same depth or accuracy. Spiritual symbols, which are real reflectors of transcendence, have no other symbolic function than showing the reality and soundness of the spirit alone. The idea is that if this kind of spiritual morality of actions and soundness of belief is complimentary in cause to God’s mind, then there is a Holy agreement between one’s spirit and another based upon what God is, not what we are naturally.

This distinction is fundamental because if we don’t get it right, then physical action will more inform our morality than will the spiritual dimension. There are a lot more critical ways the superficial determines the substantive than is represented by the length of someone’s phylacteries indicating righteousness. Don’t think that Jesus is telling you that long, loud prayers in the marketplace are an example of an ultimate posing in the name of God, or even that taking food out of the mouths of children and the persecution of the innocent are the most compelling examples of sin. If so, that this is the revelation of a real God of transcendence for which the world waited for millennium until Christ, Christ could have stayed home and left Confucius to do his work for him.

If Christ is a revelator, all of his references to moral action by some bodily movement are symbols of the influence of spiritual truths, meanings for which no other sense can represent, and only one response by man can evidence its contact. If these truths were limited in consciousness to and stop at a meaning which only refers to its dimensional category, categories are not revelational. They are pedestrian and common. They have been the language of religion and philosophy for centuries because Man was without a real revelation from a transcendent God. In that condition, you can only speak about him in the most general of terms. For example, the revelatory meaning would not conceptual, such as “spiritual” or “truth.” Man constructs all ideas. It would be a particular spiritual truth that is unreproducible by man. We look in revelation for the end of the symbolic signification process, where we finally have a symbol that can point only to a truth dependent upon an unnatural, non-contingent, and intelligent power. A symbol which, by definition, is impossible to reduce or modify to some other until that same power gives it. What kind of “spiritual truth?” Where is it found in the mind of transcendence? Is it sufficient to be called the informational equal to God?

Christ’s moral actions and teachings are not about physical symbols of “spiritual” truths of whatever we think is revelational, that place in the Church that we insist on holding them. Mans’ response in faith is not primarily about physical actions by a belief in “spiritual truths.” It is a response in a spiritual activity because of the influence of a spiritual truth that is so close to what God is that it can act independently as a means of representing his existence and nature until God decides to give something more, and not before. If God is supernatural, so is this symbolic revelation. Morality is then acting like God, being his moral symbol, but in being his Imago Dei is possible only because of the direct power of the moral disclosures of knowledge about him not replaced with something else out of man’s head and hands. Therefore, the meaning of Christ’s moral actions and moral teachings do not stop at and are not about physical movements in a display of “spiritual truths,” the unqualified idea. They are about how we are to symbolically, morally handle God’s truth, the knowledge behind the concept, which objectively and exclusively proves his moral, Holy existence in a rebuke to the notion of all false gods, who are not and cannot. You know, about faith in something? Real moral faith is a spiritual symbol of representing one kind of spiritual truth, which kind is at best expected by natural man to be honored but never given a place of supreme importance over his creations and personal choices.

Here is how it goes:

Physical symbols of physical things (primitive man)

Physical symbols of spiritual things (religious man)

Spiritual symbols of spiritual things (spiritual man, end of symbol to signification process)

Symbols of spiritual things are symbolic of the moral implications around certain revealed spiritual truths by the Divine. They are so powerful they stand-in for a personal manifestation of God in consciousness. Spiritual symbols are actions in mind, concerning the search, engagement with judgment, the decision over and spiritual truth claims, the most pressing and consequential of which, for example, is whether Jesus historically fulfilled the words of the prophets, the purported messengers of God. We are in the highest kind of moral action to decide in the affirmative, aligning this with God’s essence in an act of fundamentally spiritual, not physical morality in caring for his creation out of love, purposing to give them the one means of being like and living with Him. Spiritual symbols, after this affirmation of original spiritual truth, then become all thoughts oriented to its supreme importance, its understanding, and dissemination into the world. Physical actions follow, but not always perfectly, not always fast, not always consistently, not always recognizably associate. They can also look perfectly and consistently like these real truths spiritually influence them, but as far from them as the east is to the west.

Religion Like Politics: Missing the Moral Point

Giving to the poor is possibly signing this spiritual morality, but if its the primary reflector of such morality Christianity, it’s not the earth-shattering and unique disclosure of the mind of God that it pretends. It’s just as well a self-help book written and sold by Oprah than by Paul. The essence of morality is the movements in and around the truth that saves spirits by placing them in contact and agreement with its essence, God, not the movements in and around bread that saves bodies by placing them in contact with its essence, God.

I digress, but I write this in the age of Trump. One presidential candidate is an open homosexual while simultaneously affirming himself as a devout Christian. His “Christian” voters are motivated and energized by the biblical contradiction because so is their faith motivation a biblical contradiction. The other using his more than arguable Christian faith as a voting inducement while his voters pretend that its biblical, the motivation coming from an enamor of personal professions over evidence. Perhaps this time like no other shows how broken is public Christianity under the default assumption that Christ’s morality is primarily expressed physically and driven by nothing transcendent.

I hate politics, but because we are in a representative republic, it is part of our duty to participate for the good of all. It’s not part of our responsibility to treat our faith like politics or politics like faith. I’m a conservative, but I hope my conservatorship is exclusive with truth’s a little more heavenly than the Scandinavian appearing Elizabeth Warren’s professional advancement by claiming to be a Cherokee Indian, as bad as that is. Guys, politics, and it’s like by any physical act, is heavenly and of ultimate spiritual expression only in the fallen fever-swamps of our macabre theological imaginations.

Christ’s morality by mortals is expressed in part physically, but in that imperfectly, symbolically, not literally. But the thought of this unfulfillable and a purely philosophical spiritual morality thought possible goes hand in glove with a culture that increasingly believes that only by its own efforts and within Man’s creative spirit can Christ’s righteousness be found in us. Conservatives cry about the sin of homosexuality (yes, its a sin) being condoned by the Church while clear passages of the Bible denounce it as sin. Liberals cry about how evangelicals could support such a reprobate subject as Trump while still holding to a Christian ethic. What we can’t seem to understand, or want to, is that no matter how hypocritical Christian Trump or Buttigeg supporters are, real hypocrisy with Christian morality lies not in a difference between scripture and physical practice, which can only be its imperfect representation. It is the hypocrisy of motivation for belief in scripture by its potential and ultimate fulfillment in any external human expressions like heterosexuality or the public denunciation of Christian posers. It is at the crucible of spiritual motivation that accepts a truth, far from one’s efforts to transfer that truth to physical reality, where is the place of real sin, and only upon which any physically expressed righteousness counts as acceptable to God as an evidence of faith. Physical acts are sins of possible indicators of something much deeper. If you take them as the primary kind of transgressions, its no wonder why there is no sermon or theology book to help Christians understand where faith should begin, not end?

Open, proud homosexuality in a professed Christian is a powerful indication that this person fails to understand and give importance to the biblical truth claims that underlie its prohibition, not its similitudes, its outward expressions. It’s only an image of possible and deep dysfunction. You will not change the signification by changing the symbol. The symbol exists at the command and pleasure of the original meaning.

Aligned conservative Christians who put “give under Ceasar things that are Ceasar’s…” as an admonition to dutifully pay taxes, nothing more, or support a presidential candidate because he is a Christian when it is obvious to anyone that he is only using Christianity, are no less giving indications than the liberals that they might be anti-revelational. I say this as a Trump voter. Not politically anti-revelational, because politics is a cultural phenomenon. Spiritually anti-revelational. But you can’t be too sure.

Still, nothing that you can do with our body is a great indicator to use in the judgment of a person’s soul, of your fundamental spiritual state. And nothing that Jesus ever said about morality was meant to be fully emulated by bodies either, only symbolically indicated. It’s about spiritual actions around “who do you say that I am.”

The only way to perfectly satisfy Christian morality is in the spiritual act of dipping from a Holy, entirely spiritual well of divine knowledge, drinking it, deciding its true, and wanting more in that spirit. Every other act is potentially as messed up as everything else that exists in which things happen, that is, the carnal world in which things happen. Our actions will be less messed up and more reflective that original truth if was are animated by it, but its always going to be messed up and infinitely inferior to that original truth and its display by spiritual action.

We should be sexually in line with the created order because, like that fixed order, we establish God’s will for creation to come in line with his will for revelational reality and ideality. That they are to oppose but love each other in the way of making new spiritual life. We fail. The best you can do is admit it and try harder. We should be kind because God, in foretelling and willing Christ into the world, is given to all, the wicked and the righteous, so that Truth might save them. We often are not. Admit it, and try harder to make a good symbol of His kindness. We should pay our taxes because of the authorities in charge of the carnal world, like God, secure and regulate the physical conditions under which this Truth may thrive and reach all. We often revile and refuse to honor them. Admit it, and try harder. And guess what? All attempts to tinker the political world into a configuration that produces the kind of righteousness that Christ preached is doomed to either capitalist materialism and inequity or socialist genocide, slavery, and autocracy. Either they are real but not ideal or ideal but can never be real when God’s economy promises both at once. This world can is capable of rulership righteously and in line with Christ only as His faith is ruled perfectly only by a supernatural being and His knowledge. Admit it. Honestly, the most powerful kind of Christian political symbol is no symbol, unless it can only point directly and unwaveringly to the prophetic revelation of the Messiah, predicted, fulfilled, and coming again.

Belief and Spiritual Movement

Spiritual symbols are effects, reactions, and indicators of abstract and more profound internal substances of authority and use, which can only be knowledge. A belief, one of these essential spiritual symbols which I now introduce, is a spiritual symbol of this authoritative information, like the trust and idea Jesus is Lord. But, again, this motivating information why Jesus is Lord is not driving such action if it’s not deeper and more remarkable than the concept symbol in the mind of “Jesus is Lord.”

You don’t trust anyone because, well, you trust them, or because if you say “I trust him, I trust him” 100 times, then you trust him. You trust him because of information about what he has done to deserve that trust. He walked your dog every day when you were away. He picked up your kid from school when you could not. He goes to your church and is an excellent person to everyone. Not that you had a dream in which an angel told you, “trust him.” Because of a demonstration of his.

But I say again, trust in your neighbor, a physical symbol when in some physical action of yours, can be justified by things that only you could know about him with respect to how he has treated you. But still, he cannot show this trustworthiness to everyone on the planet, and in a way that would compel us to think that every culture is equally obliged to accept it. God cant judge the world for how it regards the righteousness of your neighbor. Trust in a universal savior is a trust in something that he has done in disclosing the truth to everyone, everywhere, and it’s so powerful that its acceptance and denial are life or death. It has to involve not just things incidental to a point in time but for all history and all people that will come.

But most importantly, what God did in the physical world, no matter what is not to benefit the physical world any more than to help the carnal mind. If he did something, if it’s for the benefit of anything, it’s the spiritual mind. Anything done physically has no eternal value at all unless it’s some representation of a universal truth about the nature and content of righteous spiritual action, which determines spiritual, eternal life. Giving to the poor is our duty, our obligation, but there are far more essential actions for a far deeper hunger for far more important things than food. These are beyond concepts, creedal bullets, propositions, traditions, self-benefit, and good feelings.

We hate it and bristle at the mere suggestion of this idea that you do anything spiritually. We never go there. “Spiritual action,” “spiritual symbol,” are not precisely theological or pulpit buzzwords. You will never hear them. Why?

We talk around them by speaking of faith as something that only involves knowing something and making some decisions over. We never use these terms because what is “spiritual” is supposed to be emotional and intuitive. And we sure don’t talk about what from God exactly, biblically, informationally, is supposed to precipitate and demand faith in the spirit. It’s supposed to be anything that turns you on, anything that is compelling you.

But the spiritual expression of faith, a spiritual action, is much closer to what faith is and what is fundamentally driving it. Within this spiritual dimension of expression, honest judgment, and love of truth are closer to what God is than emotion, intellectual attraction and desire, romantic love, self-love, and autonomous reason. Again still, what is fundamentally diving a real love of truth and honesty in judgment is closer to what God is than any of your possible spiritual expressions. There is no way to honestly avoid the crucial idea of the fundamental moral action as spiritual if we are also obliged to entertain “judgment,” “faith,” ‘choice,” “trust,” and “truth.” If they are not spiritual objects and actions, they are nothing.

Physical Symbols are Not Spiritual Ones

That was probably at least as hard for you to read as it was for me to write.

You can answer “what is Christian faith” all you want as “trust in Jesus” or “preaching the gospel” or “love and compassion to your fellow man” or “giving to the poor,” but it won’t change the fact that these are physical symbols and only possible spiritual ones. It remains to be answered, “trust in Jesus,” “preaching,” and “gospel,” and the ultimate kind of compassion for your fellow man. Only if the answer is the informational equal to God himself do you have the spiritual action “faith.”

Quickly put for spiritual states and phenomena are physical symbols, actions, and words that may not reflect them. Even when spiritual content is not physically aligned and concerned, they are incapable of being infallible spiritual indicators of a real spiritual cause that cause proves its reality, which only God does. We think that the only way to show genuine faith is to do something and say something and feel something, and of course, this is compulsory and essential for the transmission of faith to others, as well as a subjectively to yourself. But these without real transcendent content are incompetent in showing the reality of faith to God. The actual display does take place in the heart far out of reach of the eye and the ear, but only when compelled by the informational phenomena of God chosen by Him for that purpose. Any show of faith is essential, but it has to be shown to God first, and there is only one kind of show and one kind of spiritual financing of that show in the end.

The Conceptual Talisman

Any false symbolic reflection, especially physical ones, taken as sufficient for showing the most important thing about a conscious human, is the result of treating spiritual symbols like physical ones, like a car. As I said, you can have a false spiritual reflector of faith in your beliefs, attitudes, and feelings as well. But our problem is overwhelmingly that of thinking that a physical and manufactured object, like a car, is a good analogy for the kind of revelatory information we need to engage in and show genuine faith.

You get in the car and drive it to go somewhere for your benefit. It gets you where you want to go without you having to know a thing about how it works. Even if you’re blind from birth, you don’t have to know what it looks like to get in it. Indeed, it is true that the stuff that we believe is supposed to drive us, and that we have to get in it and trust it before we do. Also, it is people who build up the belief motivation’s power to fulfill its designed function, to compliment the desire to travel, transferred to its driver by its casual use.

Bt when we think that statements like “Jesus is Lord” or “the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin” are like a car, that the spiritual state in which one becomes saved is like ending up at the store where you drove an idea. Like the car, the idea thought effectively used by minimal possession, handling, and engagement. We are now in la-la land. You cant drive these kinds of spiritual concepts by emotion, whim, independent reason, self, or any other physically influenced motive to a real spiritual destination. They are not operated by anything that does not refer necessarily, by way of demonstration, to a divine origin for the spiritual car. They are bare tropes, which can emerge and thrive encased entirely within Spatio-temporal reality, capable of independent existence and power without any spiritual cause of a transcendent God.

Driven by one Holy informational motivation is the real vehicle of faith, the exclusive vehicle for salvation. Unlike “Jesus is Lord,” it is not an idea, not a feeling, nor reason which can operate effectively independent of this divine knowledge, or a mental construct at all, but is that data which is as close to being God himself without actually being him. No one drives this car but God. We become driven in this car, and we get in it because we thought about it legally, morally, unhypocritically, and with due care, by authentic spiritual action, and honestly decided that it is what it purports to be. Without this, saying “Jesus Is Lord” and believing it is only your dream of moving to a destination that is spiritual in anything spiritual.

I rant over and over about concepts, like “Jesus Is Lord,” to try to bring home this fact. There is a tremendous difference between the idea “God” and God himself. But it’s fantastic the billion people who believe that their grasp of God is satisfied by holding the (true) concepts “God” or “Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the World” in their hearts, like some Holy, supernaturally infused object, or God himself. But if you love a concept and not that knowledge which demands it’s existence, you love nothing, and if an idea informs you, you know nothing. What you are supposed to love is God himself. Since God is more substance and symbol, you need contact with something else of God, which is also not a symbol but is in the form of knowledge, and it must be very close to God’s substance. Only then you need a symbol, a demonstration, a reflector of that state, a spiritual sign, and what it shows is not you but him within which is you, in the same truth that you found him.

Faith is the result of a blend of God’s will in establishing his Word, which is his spiritual Symbol, and its agreeable meeting with man’s love and belief of it, becoming by Man God’s ultimate symbol. But only after man’s active, conscious, deliberate, thoughtful engagement of God’s essence in his informational phenomena, which is man’s righteous spiritual action. That symbol by man is either valid or corrupt, either informed directly by God or merely the idea “Jesus is Lord.” That is not a desire to self-benefit, or a desire to have confidence, or a desire to feel good about yourself, or a passion for intellectual puzzles and exercises, for love of tradition or informed by a feeling. It begins with an unadulterated and honest love for spiritual truth that animates the spirit to know the truth of things beyond the physical world. Love of spiritual truth has found its desire after God seeks you with it, and you allow it control over your search for it. You reach out to hold that revelatory hand of God because it has proven itself real. And no, it’s not only a subjectively benefiting and infinitely arguable “proof” that you prayed, and God healed your cancer. Prayer to God is either a prayer to an idea or a real Person. If to a Person, its communication with him through what informs you of that person. Only with God through what is biblical and positively affirming of him.

There is nothing that man can “use” in any of this, no concept by unconscious or passive engagement, any more than God uses something other than himself in the exercise of his will. Each party moves separately to fulfill his will and his love. They meet at a point of similarity and end and fulfill at a point of total agreement. The only thing in any sense used by man is the product that God makes for the attraction of your love of truth in his Word. This thing is nowhere near something that you can fix or change because it’s perfect and only for acceptance by moral-spiritual movement. And you can’t know how it works except by those processes which its maker has given to be known, because it’s not conceived, made and deconstructed by people.

Christ and Symbolism?

Christ is the act of producing a symbol of God’s righteousness only to give people access to his and its benefits. But since God is giving sinful and unrighteous people that access, the means of access is by faith in his righteousness through the symbol he produces of it, not directly to God. This operation is called mediation. Now, are we speaking only of Christ, the person as a mediator, or what he biblically signifies as well?

Now, a pause on this symbol thing. A symbol mediates meaning between one person and another person. It’s not the person or some cursory appearance, however, and it also not, strictly speaking, the meaning, but its the whole thing at once. It’s an abstract device, a strategy, and an event of information that gives the meaning of one person intelligibility, acceptance, and presence within another after its acceptance. The symbolic is the object and the phenomenon of its revelation. It’s the moment of the happening of the transfer of knowledge by something between one entity and another, which is the knowledge and the transmission. It’s the symbol and signification together as a mediator triggering a transfer of knowledge and an agreement over it. When this is applied to Christ, it only starts to become problematic when you single out meaning and symbol and apply either one or the other to him. But together, it looks a lot like a powerful entity of information an apparent and an abstract core, just as any person. It comes to accomplish a mission of revelation. Doing so, it leaves the scene.

Furthermore, not only does the symbol encompass something deeper among its parts. Every symbol is in a hierarchical relationship with other symbols that are more fundamental and foundational to its operation of getting the knowledge from its source of obscurity to clarity and effectiveness within another.

The Microsoft logo is a symbol, but only so in the sense of being a recreation of its real symbol, which is a vision and attitude and belief of the company specially tooled to give it power and presence within the mind as the company intends.

The company is a product, but also a distant, vast organization of many moving parts and people. The company aligns with the signification of its created symbols meant to summarize and token that organization in a simple form. Microsoft gets stuffed into a graphical shape and color. The intention of the graphical is to recreate in your mind the original fundamental “abstract” reality of the company. But the only symbol of the company in this is not physical.

This symbol, which is not material and which is in its original form, is the idea of Microsoft informed by that tangible symbol and everything you know about it. Such knowledge as your personal experiences, news article, gossip, exchanged opinions, and any other data. But, still, even that idea is not the original symbol for which an external, tangible one was created to influence and modify it. There is another one.

It is not there except for the nanosecond needed to open a hole in your awareness of that external company, the creator of the outer symbol. This opening is so that information will start to flow between them about Microsoft according to Microsoft’s wishes, and it’s tied to that event that began it, which is the real symbol, and real mediator here. A symbol is an object of knowledge and an event of the transfer of knowledge.

The merchant wants to tell you its there and its good. The consumer wants to know what’s there and is good. Microsoft creates the logo. It carries a particular emotion about what is extant and good for which the company wants association. To the extent that the logo already aligns with what you already know or can absorb about goodness, the conceptual symbol of the Microsoft of the extant and good, triggered by the physical logo, is re-instantiated in you. It’s transferred to your consciousness so your relationship with the company may positively be secured by a changed attitude about it in line with theirs.

What is first effected is your symbol of attitude by the knowledge of Microsoft that it is transmitting. But the new symbol that is changed and existing within consciousness by the external Microsoft symbol is one thing. The moment that this occurred is another, which is a fusion of the two lobes of the emblem, its form and its meaning — the fusion of the word of “Microsoft” with yours. Now, since symbols are in a hierarchy, and we believe that the hierarchy is external-to-internal-to-transcendent, this moment of communication, as well as instantaneous transference, is most importantly between man and God, then a man and himself and man and man. So what does this imply? To me, it looks a lot like conversion and evangelism.

First, don’t look for the symbol, because it’s not there except for a second, and it’s irreducible. The symbol is as much a phenomenon of connection as it is a carrier of information through which that connection it will pass. It is the real-time instantiation of knowledge, dynamically joining you to another, or you to your brain, or anything so obscure, big, complex, and confusing that it needs a means of simplification, summarization, and remembrance tagging. This strategy allows you to find and prioritize that information in a vast matrix of lower forms, collate, and make sense of it all. Recalled is the symbol, the connection made to that knowledge, and it recedes back into the ether after its work concludes. We know they all must exist objectively in the mind of God somehow, almost like spirits, and never destroyed, but everything else we call a symbol is only a copy, a facsimile of this real one. It’s not art, nor metaphor, nor word, nor analogy, nor any appearance, but a token, a second in time, a comprehensive and straightforward piece of knowledge and, by acceptance of another entity, an opening of worlds just before it retreats, having done its job. Everything else is a mere copy but a hard and inseparable link to it. It underscores again the truth about how far away we naturally are from doing this in our own power from the beginning. You can think you are the creator and destroyer of the fundamental symbols and meanings of existence. However, where God is concerned, a symbol is first a moment of revelation that is as unique and unreproducible as the proprietary Truth that it carries.

I think this symbolic fusion of knowledge and event into a person is a much more accurate picture of Christ, rather than to separate him in consciousness into either a physical presence and form, a person or an idea, or a mere collection of data and “truth” about him. It forces us to take into account the crucial importance of understanding that Christ is both Person and revelation. When he is not here physically his being is transferred to us in the form of an idea of transcendence linked to the specialized, revealed knowledge of him that he brought. That knowledge being paramount, with its exclusive personal idea a means of its spiritual control. The moment of the salvation of man instantiated by Christ is the same symbol understood as the moment of linkage, a moment where this Christ of God joins them because man’s spirit that corresponds with God’s. In return, God sees Man in his highest possible moral state and act of wanting that fusion.

Looking for the Transcendent Solution

I know, ill get to Irresistible Grace in a moment.

Philosophy has always been a blind squirrel that occasionally gets a nut, but it can only use the symbol as a vital existential and overarching phenomena as a basis for the ultimate point of contact with truth only when its a wholly human-made thing. When it accepts it as such, even then, it becomes the means of relativism and deconstruction, not of the means of bridging the gap between the ultimate subject and object. Transcendental realism. Transcendental idealism. Empirical idealism. Empirical realism. All try to reconcile within the mind the notion of immanence and what is beyond that is not self-contradictory. They accomplish nothing because this is attempted by presupposing that it is impossible except through scholarship and a mostly opaque, irrelevant, impractical, and artificial concept.

But here’s the kicker when we take this into theology: It struggles with the same thing. Theology, despite its pretensions, finds no singular necessary abstract object, which is a combination of immanence and transcendence competent to accept and carry man’s meaning and God’s together in a way that allows truly rational and emotional confidence in their connection and communication. The object is too man weighted, in which you get the extreme of God as a mere feeling, losing his transcendent objectivity. Or, also, God weighted, putting God as too strange and Holy to approach without a complete relinquishing of man’s will and conscious awareness. Propositional knowledge, primarily doctrinal statements, is in all theology set in the place of this missing object. They are symbols as ideas of the divine, but they do not self-identify as transcendent. Then there is emotion and intuition that are the main influence of an idea expected to grease the skids between man and God. However, it is also insular and still does not self-identify and demonstrate as objectively influenced.

The missing idea must be something miraculous, and evidently so, as well as mundane and very human at the same time, but what could it be? Perhaps pairing reason with emotion? Same problem. Lost in mystery and given an objectively false but effective reality in the subjective experience? Same problem. Maybe pairing the “bible” with “faith.” Same problem if “Bible” is the whole thing and anything, and if faith is just personal conviction about it. Not all of it shows as objectively demonstrative of God, and the “faith” idea is too broad in what is thought its legal influences. To fix this, you would have to find something particular the Bible which is independently miraculous and refine a definition of faith as one only of that very same phenomena. But how, when it is already determined that the Bible contains no one compelling, overarching moral reason to believe God, and faith is essentially ineffable and idiosyncratic, compelled by its own manufactured reasons?

What is a symbol which is at once a meaning? A symbol with an impossibility of separation from its meaning due to it not being another symbol but miraculous information? I am not looking for the symbol “existence is nothing but matter” nor “God created the universe,” where those symbols respective meanings point to information from the observable universe or subjective universe of objective objects or mental objects. This kind of representational token of appearance and knowledge involves only psychological or physical things. So there is nothing else but ourselves and our universe in which to become our knowledge and exclusively forces our belief expressions. What I’m looking for is a model for our expressive symbols of faith which is not in another insular mental or physical object, but a genuinely transcendent, proven one.

This Knowledge, this fount of pure spirituality made up entirely of Truth, sent out a simpler copy of itself, sent its symbol among the contingent objects of matter and mind, to which it will make the supernatural Knowledge understood and fulfilled. The subject, man, and the object, God, is, before this, a fought for, flimsy, precarious, and earned relation, always near breaking because the glue which binds them together is with the same dead material which is the subject and object. We need first a real transcendent symbol, and if it’s transcendent it points only to a transcendent demonstration. This, in turn, we emulate in our faith, a faith in that transcendent symbol informed exclusively by that conclusive evidence in a knowledge which is not from here or in here, but way out there.

But in our Church and in our halls of learning, where is the peace today, where is the meeting point, where is the mutual and moral and perfect agreement between man and transcendence? It can never be there continuing to look for it in “man” or in “God,” or directly between one idea and another, nor any combination or mixture of the two. Its there only in a divine symbol that only God could give of himself, which is equally imminent and transcendent, with a piece of information that is at home, for the brief moment it exists, in his world as in ours, but not found in either. It’s not to be said exactly alive or dead. It’s more like a manifestation, a shadow thrown by someone, speaking of something that is correctly understood and rational in man’s mind but is so foreign to it that it is just as readily rejected as accepted on moral grounds as a miraculous point of contact.

The symbol is much like a lubricant between two surfaces to eliminate friction or an electrical outlet between the interior wire supplying a charge and the objective appliance using a charge. It is the one giant and overarching idea of conscious existence: how two radically incompatible ontologies communicate and agree over impossible distances, but nevertheless over something that facilitates an intelligible flow of information back and forth. What could trigger means of an opening at the point of greatest similarity and agreement with respect to what is moral between incompatible ontologies? So self-resistant to replacement that your theology has no choice but to identify only as this equivalent of God, instead of something that is as attributable to the mind and the hand?

Wait! Jesus!

Wait. Aren’t we talking about Jesus? A mediator between God and man to secure a relationship upon which communication can move between them across impossible ontological boundaries? Someone that was here but for a brief time and then was not, leaving that desired real, fundamental, abstract symbol of himself, of transcendence, behind for this continued connection? A physical body that is no more, but resurrected into a glorified, spiritual body? Jesus, the Man/God? Jesus, the Divine and the carrier and demonstrator of transcendence, but at once a man? Isn’t He this symbol? Well, maybe, if he is not only a Person or an idea.

I remind you that a person, anyone, is not in himself a self-revelation of transcendence by his authority, but only by offering proof of his credentials. The idea that is in our minds pertaining to Christ is our own. There is a version willed by God, but basic morality is our forming of the True symbol of Christ by our love of truth and our spiritual activity which is guided by the Holy Spirit which influences us. We are moral only when the Spirit’s will and our spiritual products align. In the end, nothing of this is credited to us because nothing of our existence is credited to us, even our free will.

A person in consciousness is an idea. The idea needs positive confirmation of being originally in line with the divine will, not just touted by that person or another. Then, the idea is not the point, its what he means, and what it means can only be the personal concepts credentialing knowledge. The credentials, his knowledge, his information is his authority as a Person of transcendence to faith, especially if this person, manifested physically, should leave. It becomes him in his place and becomes the only signification of this personal symbol to the mind. If this is so, maybe what we are looking for is not a positive symbol between God and man, but a negative one. Not negative meaning “bad,” but negative in that the motivation of man that it represents and the work of God that it represents cant establish on anything that this world can produce and call its own, such as a “person” or any autonomous idea. It’s negatively immanent, not positively, being in our world yet obviously not from it.

That negative result is one that would solve the age-old (since the 18th century at least) war between secularists and religionists that there is no possibility of a satisfactory metaphysical knowledge of either ideality or reality.

One prefers a kind that must be real to the inner man and the other one that must be ideal evidence. One is not impressed by the conservative grab-bag of external evidences and the other is not impressed by the grab-bag of internal liberal experientialism. They both tout the ways in which Christianity is sufficiently said true or at least effective by one or the other when the truth is that liberalism and conservatism are each, by definition, problems looking for solutions either singly or together.

What they mean but do not say is that what is needed is the fulfillment of the demands of both results and motivation, the real and the ideal, the intellect and the emotions from one single informational, historical phenomena which is as transcendently real as ideal. In other words, what is needed but never said is neither liberalism or conservatism. The subject of such a missing object, if it existed, would swallow up conservative and liberal assumptions by one evidence and one internal experience of that objective phenomena. Overwhelmed by that which is not only capable of becoming God to faith but capable of becoming the ultimate moral judge of human consciousness in a single informational token. Experience is then God and evidence is then God, but not worshiped like the Person, but only supremely valued as the singular means by which he is known. The subject stands before the Beatific Vision in a view as close as can be obtained through a moral compulsion before the compulsion of death forces us before Him.

Why is it that the one most apparent choice that solves every single theological paradox is the one that is rejected and never discussed? Because this great symbol of God is nothing if identified not as messianic prophecy, and talking about that in the context of faith is talk about essential information and spiritual contact with God that few care about as awakener, magistrate, and maintainer of that faith. That makes us feel unsaved when we are not that much impressed by it, and that cannot be. But if this messianic knowledge is put by God as his sole power on the conscience, rejecting it as such is the rejection of God for what could only be human constructs.

There, I said it. But I won’t mention it again and will continue to talk around it so that you can see it for yourself.

Jesus, God and the Image of God

We don’t like to think that Jesus is a symbol of God because we believe this implies that he is not God, but a human-made and superficial token of God. But this understanding is about as far from the truth as I am the Messiah. This is the result not of a correct understanding of Jesus, but a bad one about symbolism as purely manufactured through the methods and resources of the world. Do we need to broaden our notion of symbolism somewhat? If you don’t, then the only way you can see Christ is divine a person, the symbol, not a divine knowledge that is the reason for that divine person. Wanting to avoid the thought of him as a symbol ironically dooms us to believe in him directly as the same superficial caricature of religion in which we secretly desire to approach him, a figure epistemically disconnected from his proof of divinity, that we thought we were avoiding.

A symbol is not only a synthetic, artificial means of communication as it operates between one person and another, or Man’s mind and God’s, its the content and consequence meaning itself. From God’s perspective, since he is not a symbol his emblem is the same as His signification until man enters the room, and then only for man’s benefit. the difference being that for Man the symbol is embedded in man’s contingency and can be conceptually different from its meaning by choice and then dealt with as an independent force on consciousness. It’s this choice that establishes morality and sin through the acceptance or rejection of fundamental meaning. Man is carnal, and ours is naturally a closed system, but a world in which the divine can in some way inhabit. But since God’s world is himself and nothing else, God’s meaning remaining fixed in him, when you talk to the symbol Christ you talk to God himself invading our world, manifested in another form, simpler, more comprehensible, to fit the human context and space. When this symbol of God who is a man does something, he makes other symbols of himself, which are in turn points of access to God’s essence, nature, existence, meaning, mind, and plan of God from different angles, but all of which are foreign to human experience and means. If Christ is not a symbol in this way then it encourages epistemic and emotional sin and seduction by insular influences, becoming easy to see why we can so easily form religions around personal ideas and deny the divine knowledge which either accompanies them or they die.

Man is a symbol too

Man potentially has one kind of potential symbol within him and one natural symbol that is the default. The first is righteous, natural righteousness, and one is sinful natural sinfulness. Between the two, the balance is corrupt because the standard of judgment is God’s perfect, righteousness in respect to transcendence, and to him, sin is the same perfect state against transcendence. Not first against those ideas, but against those ideas informed by their programmed divine meaning, their knowledge. That means its Mans’s potential symbol of real righteousness and sin is dormant without transcendent activation by exposure to this ultimate meaning through God’s symbol, but active when that knowledge is known through a view of that symbol.

I would like you to think about all this symbolically. Not just tossing around concepts in your mind, but with true symbols, those which are appearances and information together. If you handle one you handle another. If you talk about “sin” and “righteousness” you have to pair them with their ultimate biblical examples in a kind divine, revealed information. It is here, in the spiritual action, consciously or unconsciously, of honoring God by the most basic means, that God could possibly say that in any sense someone was righteous or, refusing, unrighteous.

The things man does and believes in his natural state remains a perfectly acceptable version of morality and sin in and to the world. That is, only to physical righteousness. This state of man is not competent to display God’s spiritual righteousness, the whole point of righteousness, neither of God’s antithesis, sin, unless activated by accepting or rejecting contact with the one that God prepared for his conversion to righteousness or conversion against sin. How does he then display this morality or its antithesis? What is this point of contact? Where is it found?

Man is still in sin before this contact, either in his affective and rational estimation of righteousness or sin and his regard for spiritual things, just not primarily in his actions. He is potentially, virtually sinful spiritually, but not through his body movements to its expression. If the man is “in sin,” it’s not Man “in sin” as in relation to a concept of sin, but in sin as being against or undirected by Christ/Divine Knowledge, the meaning of the symbol concept. When God’s righteous activation takes place, this corrupt sin and righteousness become “exposed” and “covered” by the symbol, the relative superficiality to this knowledge which nonetheless acts as for this purpose as its equal.

The result is that people are virtually in sin before contact as they are virtually righteous after contact, “covered” by a relative cursory instance of their spiritual state for its entire representation, but that which is either given by themselves or given by God. One is cursory in your cursory regard for spiritual things, your cursory morality, the other cursory in the relative difference between a symbol and its saving meaning. Underneath the cursory instance lies your spiritual reality, one, the reality of how dismissive and careless you are with spiritual things in general, dis-allowing you to go to specific, salvific ones of overarching substance. The other the reality of your opposite love, but here upon the mere contact with that specific meaningful one which overwhelms and subsumes all general categories. One is imputed sin through his superficial morality in an active and sustained display, in every thought, of a disregard of Truth, representing his entire moral substance. The other is imputed righteousness through what God considers his substantive morality, which is not in every thought, and certainly not in every action, but instantiated through his momentary exposure to a divine phenomenon which proves him real, the “cursory’ then standing for him in the representation of the entirety of his spiritual state.

The righteous version is a temporary and artificial solution by God, not only to allow Man to be seen acceptable or truly sinful but so that it remains open to Man the extent of the mystery and the distance Man is from seeing it clearly. It’s as much a solution as an incentive to one, but as much for the purpose that man becomes what he is not and what he does not know as it is to lead his love of Truth ever toward fulfillment of its vision, and therefore God’s vision of Man. Imputed righteousness is like a permanent and exclusive invitation and guarantee of its continued acceptance, which is an invitation to grow in the same knowledge which it is. Again, this is not only about religious rites and God’s direct actions, about His covering of our sin that happened somewhere in the heavens, it’s about our action of the acceptance of His revelation, and His by setting us on a course to know more of the same thing, coming into closer alignment with God’s substance than with his virtual aspect. Therefore let’s not talk about imputation like its only an act and not a miracle of knowledge to which man must be led and come to know. “Miracle” is God and his act, but “miracle” is also in a knowledge of his own that he gives to the world for such an act to take place. Without Man, without his awareness, affections, and choice, nothing any more takes place with Man as would take place by God on man’s behalf without Man.

Sin is “exposed” by God’s righteous original and that sin is simultaneously is “covered” by God’s righteousness.

This is a no more complete, substantive exposure of the full extent of sin as it is a taking on of the full extent of God’s literal righteousness. Of course, it means they are virtually exposed and hidden, imputed, counted as sufficiently complete to God, the man remaining in relation to God sinful but acceptable. But, again, we are talking not about imputation or exposure only in the sense of Divine operations. Do these not mean that corrupt ideas and that which informs Man about God, which are hopelessly broken and impossible to correct on his own but show proximity to the Truth, are given a Holy course-correcting starting place for their increased but never perfect advancement toward God propelled by Man’s continuing but reset love of Truth? Or, in respect to his understanding of sin, and ever-advancing but the never perfect realization of its nature, coming closer to God’s understanding of sin while at once never coming close? If so, we ask what are these “corrupt ideas and which informs Man about God” which is our point of departure?

You start with the fact that it’s not just that righteousness and sin have to be taken as a natural unit of a bad idea against another, perfect divine pair which will be given Man, a transcendent pair, but that you cant talk about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to sinful man, or righteousness and sin theologically, only by God’s fiat. If not only by his fiat, then it leaves only by one other irresistible thing.

Why we resist that irresistible thing is to release man from any responsibility, first in the initial point of imputation and in his advancement by loving and knowing something specific. This has the benefit of our sounding pious, by giving everything to God and rat once releasing us from the haunt of our own true affections. And we have a whole line-up of heresies which are not any more fundamental heresies as we are counted by God righteous, to pitch our correctness, like Pelagianism. Yes, they are sins, but not fundamental ones. Fundamental sin is putting non-ultimates for ultimates.

If you do then Man, at least in time, is stripped of his duty to know some specific truth and morally judge the truth, and if so then the Truth, the knowledge of God in all this falls through the cracks and disappears in a theological definition of righteousness and sin which is in turn not responsible for knowing a divine reality, only a feeling that feels divine.

Do you see how, in view of the foregoing on symbolism, if we speak in an orthodox fashion of a divine “symbol,” one can put “Christ” in its place with no change in doctrine (unless under Calvinism)? I don’t think I have said anything which is heretical and unorthodox even once by going so far afield of the theological obsessions that we call Holy. But what we are beginning to expose here by speaking in this way is everything that our cultural baggage and corrupt epistemology have taught us that results in the putting out of our minds that which is inseparable from Christ. Let’s continue on this tack.

I repeat, the good symbol to God of moral man before this conversion by God’s righteous symbol, although effectively dormant with respect to transcendence, is not to say inoperable and not contributing. The whole of the fleshly body similarly could never occupy transcendence, but without it, there would be no point in God’s redemptive program. It’s dormant of effective divine expression until conversion, but not non-existent! The body is evil only by direct comparison to God. So is man’s spirit. But in the context of transformation, it becomes the instrument of God’s praise. Its divine potentiality before conversion rests in a person’s ardent and unchanging love and pursuit of spiritual truth, used by God so that the sinful symbol of him can be overwhelmed and covered by God’s symbol through which it believed and showed potentiality becoming imputed but Holy fulfillment.

What About Total Depravity?

Irresistible Grace and Total Depravity? What is Grace and in what manner is it irresistible? The question we will attempt to answer is if these concepts are Orthodox or a linguistic trap created by carnal object orientation by our theologians. “Grace,” God’s undeserved favor, is the fulfillment of the Prophets to the world by Christ, I hope you will agree, and I hope you will also agree that to someone who loves spiritual Truth, like yourself, it is surely irresistible!

To say that this symbol of man’s righteousness is entirely the result of an action by God in any crucial sense, where even faith is a prohibited “work” in man’s conversion, is the equivalent of the abolishing of man to an object of use in the transaction. It denies that man has a body or a spirit with essential grounds upon which God can turn attributable to his free will and love. The spirit, like the body, is not an empty shell, a form without its preexisting biological functions that give it health and animation, nor is the spirit a hollow ghost without personal content and moral function. Man’s spiritual symbol is not lost before justification any more than his physical one. Man’s spiritual symbol is has a positive but disabled potentiality. It’s not gutted until God fills it in its entirety, it’s like a prophecy by Man awaiting God’s fulfillment insofar as its one about the possibility of the existence and knowledge of divine Truth but made without the pretensions of making divine knowledge himself, of which only God is privy.

Calvinist soteriology is the result, again, of what happens when messianic prophecy is thought not compelling enough to carry all of our theological water, where its only replacement comes by the worship of religious ideas and words giving it the appearance of piety.

Predestination is the keyword in this. Along with Grace, it is an action by God underserved by what man “does,” by his “works,” defined as not restricted to the actions of the body but any and all action, even faith. Indeed, it is undeserved by anything that man does to earn it, but if this goes to the spirit of man in respect to any sense of “earn” then the gospel becomes only a way to insert machine code into a robot engineered to receive it and run by it unattended. If a man is free to choose something, in using it he does so freely and by some reason of his own. This is what is called here “spiritual action.”

Man accepts justification by the predestination of God, that God sets him as saved before he was born. This is quite biblical. But by physical works, not by spiritual works, physical work being that indicative, cursory symbol I have been talking about. But when the spiritual work of Man is in respect to the predestination of God and of himself, what kind of spiritual work, around what, are we talking about? If its no work of any kind, then it doesn’t matter what it is because man cant use it. However, “predestination” means, literally, “prophecy,” and if God predestinates he prophesies an event in the future and a person who is to fulfill it, namely, a salvation event.. its easy to see that God prophesies and what he prophesies must come to pass, but its not so easy to see how man fulfills it as well if he is but mortal. Well, the way he fulfills it is by taking his love of Truth and declaring God’s prophecy true, the spiritual action. The prophecy that God delivers for him and the prophecy that he believes to justification is one not only for salvation but the reason for this salvation, which is both Man and God’s agreement that the Truth which binds them is that Christ fulfilled the prophetic promises and man is set to be its publisher and explainer to the world.

Predestination is used corruptly by stripping it of its one informational center and restricting it to a divine act or operation. When you do this, like with any divine act, its placed entirely outside of man, either by his physical efforts or by any spiritual state of action. But only if its kept as a divine act. People can even be justified because they believe in God’s sovereignty before justification, which is the essence that Calvinist’s give predestination. But what happens when we introduce predestination as, for example, “the prophecy of the justification of a man, made by the exclusive power of God, where both love the existence of an ultimate demonstration of divine power by a local, objective agent?” When predestination becomes what it is, “messianic prophecy?” We then have a sovereign act by God where its only possible reason for existence is for a spiritual act by a man in affirming that no other example of the divine is more remote from us yet more wanting of exclusive attention. Changed essentially to “messianic prophecy” and predestination as God’s act and man is not possible but mandatory. It is evident that the Messianic Prophecy of Jesus of Nazareth is evidence of God, the only one, and if evidence of God it is meant only for man’s attention, handling, judgment, and dissemination, indirectly before it its known and affirmed, and wholly after.

You see, “predestination” does not really have the importance with Calvinist’s that they pretend. Without a demonstration by God and man, namely, the predestination of God through the prophets pertaining to Christ and the church, it’s just a worthless and powerless religious idea with no divine confirmation of being true. Neither is God or man then true irrespective of our desires and wants.

This doctrine of total depravity, the negation of free will, and pre-spirit, if you will, is the result of confusing the apostolic conception of “work,” which is conceived only as acts of the body, with the operation of the spirit. I have spoken much of this “spiritual action, ” but I will elaborate here.

Our theology, not just Calvinism, is obsessed with the conception of spiritual symbols like physical ones. The biblical writers never referred to anything the spirit does as work, and it remains sound that no “work” that it does mention can go to salvation, as a symbol, is of no power to create its meaning, only sign it. Yet, they also constantly speak of faith, belief, hope, love, choice, volition, and thought, and the preaching a gospel for the consideration, conviction, and righteous judgment. These are spiritual actions, “works,” which shares the “work” concept but not the word as the apostles used it.

It remains that no “work,” a symbol, does anything more than sign a signification of its substance, even a “spiritual work” as I conceive it. But there are more fundamental symbols that are closer to substance, and more competent to be spoken of as the same thing. And there are more fundamental significations of God, and more competent to be spoken of as the same thing, than that for our one and only conception of “work.” As I speak about this, I speak of “spiritual work” as a precondition of salvation as a sign of his true condition, not the cause. As a symbol to signify the state of man’s spirit which is set on and loves spiritual Truth which is possible, a state of love which is still attributable to a man outside of any spiritual tokening by his spiritual actions around it. If you’re going to use “work” at least use it to speak of the most basic and important kind, not an inferior kind.

You must differentiate and not confuse ontological content with containers. What is done is a container, the symbol. Why is content, within the container. The content is presented and controlled by the container. In conversion, God cant make contact and agreement with any container, symbols, but only what they represent, content, meaning, essence, a spiritual potentiality, a potential point of attraction to him, and a spiritual building block of attraction for his use. You do different things, but for different reasons. When reason’s change, your actions follow. The body is the body, not bodily actions or their motivations. But to say the spirit is the spirit, not spiritual operations and motivations, is to say that what makes it up is involuntary, essentially nothing. Because the spirit, if it is not motivations, attitudes, beliefs, justifications, judgments, volition, worldviews, loves, habits of operation and their accumulative results, then the reason why God gave you salvation is found entirely in a divine mystery. They then cant be the spiritual things of God that are exposable to that spirit and are exclusively emblematic of morality for its agreement.

One then has no moral responsibility to believe God for any particular reason at the point of salvation, nor though the subsequent process of sanctification. It is entirely God acting through the man that controls man’s spiritual actions, not initially attracting spiritual essences. Thus, the spiritual container, the symbol, is likened to the physical container, to what the body does. It is made entirely into an object of God’s sole possession and responsibility, and like a programmer inserting a piece of code into a machine man follows along without any say of free will of its own. It is very disingenuous to suggest that this is not the case. If you want to understand Irresistible Grace and Total Depravity any other way it’s through paradox by reason and a rather unstable and suspicious affirmation.

But the biblical message is that we cant credit ourselves in any way for our salvation not because we are automatons made by God to blindly follow. We cant credit ourselves because what we believe, Christ and the Work of God, the prophetic stream of Scripture, which morally replaces our own insular and selfish motivations with one that only God can do in his sovereignty. The reason that Calvinism must think that the spirit contains nothing essential to salvation before his justification that is a basis for God’s choice to save is that they think that there is nothing of true transcendent quality and agreement with God in that spirit prior to salvation, including this prophetic revelation.

Science, not the Bible, informs the corrupt view. Science also believes that there is no single, miraculous point of contact with God that can be known or compelling enough to act as a means of the judgment of man for its dismissal. They are, like the physical world, all mixed up in propositions and calculations and measurements of insular objects, and found slowly and messily only through a struggle through confusion.

Calvinists, and the whole of the Church, retreat into ideas of God. Since to them, faith propositions are the only possible Holy symbolic interface with God, while also knowing that these ideas of God are not demonstrably divine except through inference with biblical facts. They rightly conclude that man cant be saved through them because they suggest man’s work. And so he can’t, and so they do. But the biblical facts which demand them, which man must know, hold and believe for these propositions to have presence and power in the spirit, which are not symbols and are miraculously not a product of man, are acting as the presence of God himself in man’s spirit.

Science does not believe these biblical phenomena, these facts are worth a hoot, and protestants and Catholics and the rest don’t either, which is why science deals in the objects of matter and Christianity in the objects of mind. When the divine, or ultimate conceptions, are mixed with this carnal single-mindedness, it can’t but proceed to obliterate free-will, individuality, objective value, and God as it falls deeper and deeper into itself.

God does not save because of man’s works, he saves because of his, and man knowing and believing those works is not a work in the physical sense, and attributable to man, because what man believes is God, not himself. The question is not about what you think is “work” by propositional sentences and logic, but what God thinks is work, and what he thinks is work is not a concept, not a proposition, but phenomena of Himself in the world which finds love and a place in man’s spirit with the consent of man and God. If that is God saving because of man’s work, then it’s a kind that is as far from man’s attribution as man is ontologically from God.

The question is whether symbol or signification is at the heart of the issue for both God, man, and Christ.

Since sin is internal with an imperfect and superficial symbol externally, what occurs will be an act of the imputation of Christ’s righteous spiritual state to the receiver’s sinful spiritual state. Through the agreement with Christ’s external symbol of righteousness as it moves through man’s internal state of potential righteousness. This moment, in turn, cancels out the power of the representational power of the sinful symbolic counterpart while in the same act both using and destroying man’s potential and powerless righteous symbol. The point is that nothing has substantially changed of the man being thought by God changed any more than God is changed by man’s faith in him. Only that God is now truly, legally, not falsely, thought real, trustworthy, moral and sovereign, and man is his spiritual dependent. The representational symbol of God changes to the right one for God and the salvific one for the man. If not, man remains as he was, counted symbolic only of physical displays, and God remains just an idea and a person to man’s mind, not a revelation.

You can see that tons change when we think of these things in terms of symbol and signification because we know so well what symbols are. We make them all the time. This article is made up of thousands of symbols. The symbols are nothing shapes on a screen. It’s all about what they mean, not what is seen, but only thought about and experienced spiritually, mentally.

Through divine symbols, God reaches the mind of man. But they are, by definition, not like this article, understood by learning, but by direct experience with that divine meaning, the reality of the transcendent. Not by the experience of yourself, your feelings, or your intellect. By the witnessing of a weird hybrid of here and there, by which your feelings, understanding, and love are engaged and awakened anew. Like the reanimation of a corpse by a lovely perfume, in which spiritual things we are dead. But, without a body, there is nothing to reanimate and certainly no particular person. The body is dead in ineffectiveness, not dead in non-existence. The only part of your spirituality which is capable of the apprehension, acceptance, and love of God’s through his revelation is not through a singular act of God or a singular act of man, but a symbol, a weird combination of you and God for the sole purpose of this joining of minds. It exists neither here or there but is formatted to be radically the same and radically different. This symbol of the agreement between you and God is as much attributable to God as his virtual righteousness, which you have accepted is virtually covering your sin: totally.

If we are talking about demonstrations of internal states meeting, which affects the imputation, or counting, of the spiritual state of the receiver like Christ’s spiritual state, and Christ’s is supernatural, and the exchange is as well, then whatever symbol of a demonstration of Christ that meets and results in a change in the receivers spiritual state is by faith in the supernatural demonstration by Christ, not the physical symbol, but the spiritual substance of Christ in a revelation represented by his personal symbol.

That is, by supernatural, spiritual symbols, displays of him which must originate but can’t stay in the physical world. The degree and surety of the objective fact of Christ’s demonstrative supernatural symbol, both physical and spiritual, must be exactly the surety which must exist within the receiver for this imputation to take place by faith, or trust in that demonstrated truth. Faith completes a connection between the two because faith is receptive before it is active, failing but minimally competent to symbolically emulate Christ’s work. Faith within the spirit will itself be a spiritual symbol of man in God’s new imputed spiritual state. If so, then in order for faith to fulfill this, the kind of information which awakened it before imputation must be the same information that will sustain it and cause it to increase. Since the physical symbol of the man is imperfect, but the original symbol, faith, the spiritual kind, is perfect in reflecting its own body, then the information of Christ within the spirit that has been accepted as true is the equivalent to that spirit of Christ himself, not as an imperfect reflective indicator of it as a physical symbol of a spiritual state.

This is why it is so deadly to assume that a physical display, or symbol, is the only kind, or treating a physical display, only a possible symbol of something spiritual and informative, like a spiritual one. Treating it like a physical one is taking its imperfections and limitations into a view of the spiritual as an unreality or entirely under human control. If you do that, you can think that whatever is compelling of an acceptance of Christ, which is informative, is nonexistent, imperfect, imprecise, voluntary, and a not necessary for certain identification to the same degree that Christ himself exclusively identifies.

If you do this, then it will be easy to think that receiving a spiritual object is like a physical one, which only requires hands to reach out and grab to accept. That metaphor of grabbing informs the kind of laying hold of a spiritual object when spiritual objects can only be so accepted and handled by first affirming that they have a substance which is worthy of grasping, and which can be grasped and kept. It will be easy to think that the content of the faith by which the merits of Christ’s spirit is displayed by his actions is dissimilar from the nature of what he displayed, which is exclusively a supernatural display which makes the content of faith only possible around the apprehension of supernatural information. It will be easy to think that this only need be an acceptance of the empty tomb, or that he healed people by a supernatural power, or faith in the story of a miracle he performed, of acts which can be taken as supernatural and locked exclusively to God and not necessarily to a dependence upon a prior informational equivalent of God to faith.

The persistent and ultimately sinful insistence that the spirit is more like the body than something closer to God has caused a terror, bloodshed, ingrained religious wickedness and an insularity and inbreeding of thought that is hard to see but far more destructive than any mention of the occult practice, physical adultery, the hypocrisy of act against belief, and the entertaining of false theological propositions. This is the real battleground upon which Christ is lost or won: “who do you say that I am?” It is upon that confession that faith and the church is built, and you’re never going to know what “who” is for this confession until you can look at Christ not only as a person but first as an exclusive and particular revelation upon which you will either know, understand and accept or reject on your way to Christ or your other place far from him.

In summary, what we get with this attribute of Jesus on the Cross with respect to his righteousness and our sin, ours which is covered by it, is that what covers can’t exclusively represent by a physical display by Christ. It must be covered primarily through an internal display, some kind of representational appearance of God, which is Christ’s physical symbol’s spiritual symbol-to-signification counterpart. It also means that this physical display of the Cross which covers sin is primarily a spiritual display to the receiver which can’t be like a physical symbol with an interchangeable and voluntary meaning, but is as fixed, lawful, supernatural, miraculous and special as God himself.

Here is my closing comment on this section. I won’t mention symbolism, but you can apply the principle yourself. What you do could never be the same as what God has done, but what you believe can be the same as what God has done. In that, there is no praise or attribution to you, even though you must know and accept what God has done and is true. This is because you only believe it, and for that to be believed you cant do it. Why you could do something could never be the same as why God has done this, but why you believe can be the same as why God did it. So, I ask, what and why did God act, which becomes your faith?

We have a man who is set for the atonement of the sin of the world.

Some of this is a repeat of what has already been said, but I need to put it only in this context.

Christ does not atone for the sins of the Word by the Cross before he is on it. It’s after he dies and resurrects. From the time he comes into the world to the Cross he is in the progressive act of fulfilling the whole of God’s Word concerning him. You know, what the prophets said should come, that which Paul said was the only thing he ever preached? He finishes it with the seal of God’s approval. After he fulfills all. But how is a man set for the atonement of the sin of the world? You will never, never know until you know what this sin is…exactly.

This is not entirely answered before we discuss the Cross, but I hope you can see where I’m going.

Atonement is an atonement for the forgiveness of sin. As I said, sin is internal, and so sin can’t be dealt with externally, and however it’s done, it’s done by supernatural means in the spirit. Does this mean only a supernatural act by God, like him waving his hand over you, or some rite performed in Heaven on your behalf? Or does “supernatural means in the spirit” refer to your active belief in a supernatural act by God that he performed for the whole world to know him? One is just a religious notion. The other is you engaging with a kind of knowledge about who God is by what he has done which is miraculous and confirming of his existence, nature, and plan of redemption. If that is true, sin is sin against it, which is the pretending in some way that that thing that is not God and from God is sufficient to take his place.

If you’ve ever been disturbed by our commentators on Jesus’s declaration of the unforgivable sin as sin against the Holy Spirit, leaving it as “putting the things of God as the things of Satan,” this is nowhere near his intention. God is spoken of as the same as His miraculous works, Christ’s same works, in which he historically fulfills the mission of the Messiah. Sin is the denigrating, beating, disrespecting, abusing, spitting on, relegating, rejecting and apathy toward that revelation and preferring tradition, feeling, learning, reason, works and self-esteem over it as a reigning power over religion. That is Satan, the other is God.

I told you I had a perfectly orthodox identification of God, but if you are orthodox, you may not want to hear it? Just think about that.

Since the spirit is belief itself, and is a quintessential action itself, the object of its handling has to be a different spiritual object which establishes God so far above and beyond humans that, after this object is found proof of it and accepted, we are counted as having, while not being and actually having except as a mere image, an image of him which perfectly represents him. What spiritual image is it then that perfectly represents him, which we have and which blots out sin?

Whatever it is, this is what Christ is on the Cross to fulfill and give to the world, to which attachment one is saved. Christ is not atoning for physical sins, but for spiritual sin. Christ is not atoning by a mysterious, heavenly religious rite ex operato, he’s giving a truth about God and man which man could never have otherwise, and the rite by man is the formal giving of what is most precious about God back to God spiritually, by mans spiritual hands of free will and honest moral action and engagement. Christ is not atoning for you not obeying the 613 Rabbinic laws, or because one day you got angry and cussed out a waitress for accidentally spilling your drink on you, making you unfit for heaven. What keeps us out of Heaven for which atonement is a compulsory fix is that our minds, our hearts, our spirits, our souls, because of their loves and attractions which forever make them like a negative pole to God’s positive pole. Somehow we come up as a reversal of that polarity, a switch in that corrupt love by exposure to and acceptance of another: God’s. God’s love is Truth because God is the personification of Truth, of ultimate reality. Reality is a public fact, not a personal feeling. Christ is not atoning to change your purely insular and voluntary feeling and you don’t accept it by your feelings, but for your spiritual fact, your fundamental spiritual, moral reality through his. There is only one kind of information that is exclusively biblical that qualifies for this spiritual object of atonement, which is the equivalent of Christ by which knowledge of and a decision over must be made.

We are getting there. This is about a certain kind of sin of ours defined against a kind of righteousness that Christ is displaying in spades here. What kind is it?

We have a man who is righteous in a way that no one else but himself could be

We have a man who is God

#atonement #atoning #Jesus #sacrifice #sin

0 notes

goconservativechristian · 4 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

know

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

religion

world

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

know

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

generic

Miller

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

symbol

before

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

symbol

through

(

dia

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

spiritual

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

lineage

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

#READ MORE AT. steve-finnell.blogspot.com

0 notes

antoniosteffan85 · 4 years

Text

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0 notes

stevefinnellp-blog · 5 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

know

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

religion

world

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

know

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

generic

Miller

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

symbol

before

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

symbol

through

(

dia

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

spiritual

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

lineage

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

0 notes

stevefinnell-blog · 5 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

know

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

religion

world

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

know

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

generic

Miller

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

symbol

before

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

symbol

through

(

dia

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

spiritual

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

lineage

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

0 notes

megaonewayjesuslove-blog · 5 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

know

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

religion

world

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

know

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

generic

Miller

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

symbol

before

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

symbol

through

(

dia

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

spiritual

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

lineage

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

#READ MORE at. steve-finnell.blogspot.com

0 notes

bestnewsmag-blog · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Bestnewsmag

New Post has been published on https://bestnewsmag.com/this-photo-of-a-girls-arm-is-the-latest-optical-illusion-the-internet-is-obsessing-over/

This photo of a girl’s arm is the latest optical illusion the Internet is obsessing over

It wasn’t very lengthy in the past that a photo of a white and golden (or what is blue and black) get dressed boggled the minds of many on the Internet. While many factors behind the distinction in human beings’ perceptions of colors cropped up, it continues to send humans into a tizzy. Not simply that, many such comparable optical illusions’ creating pix have started to crop up at the Internet now. The state-of-the-art to join the bandwagon is a photograph of a set of human beings putting out at a membership. Shared through a Twitter consumer whose manager goes via the name Elle Bailey, the photo has a collection of five human beings posing for a photograph in a membership. While that seems a genuinely normal factor to do, it’s far the hand of the lady in black that has were given social media careworn. The female, with a drink in one hand, appears to have an alternatively long hand. Bailey took to the micro-running a blog site to publish the picture with the caption “My sister’s arm on this club picture seems about 6ft long I’m crying.” But of a path, there have been individuals who virtually found out what after all, was wrong with her arm inside the photograph. “Leave me to be only to peer this as an everyday picture and now not see the intended lengthy arm,” one Twitter consumer said. “That’s loopy, took me a minute to determine out that the arm is from the lady on the left,” says any other.

Power of Illusion, Illusion of Power bobbi kristina hospice photo

In my remaining articles, I pointed out the deadly flaws of the modern ruling paradigm; the paradigm of materialism rooted in dualistic questioning. Materialism now not only fails to give an explanation for many important elements of our reality, however, its logical structure also fails.

Materialism fails to provide an explanation for past lifestyles remember, reincarnation, close to death experience, telepathy, telekinesis and so on… Even though proof for a majority of these phenomena is nicely documented and statistically unassailable. Materialism fails to explain the starting place of life on Earth, speciation, awareness… And yet technology is keeping on to this fake notion machine, this illusion, reputedly at all cost.

Materialism additionally fails via internal good judgment; remember, taken into consideration essential via materialism, is convertible into power and energy into depending. Nuclear power and particle accelerators try this conversion each day, surely. If rely upon were virtually fundamental, the last foundation of all existence, this conversion couldn’t appear.

For remember to be converted into electricity and for power to be converted into relying upon there must be a commonplace functioning precept thru which the conversion happens… And the CFP of count number/energy must by using definition be extra essential than both matter or electricity. Matter and energy are the turn sides of an extra fundamental CFP, anything it may be.

The electricity of illusionary perception is huge; mainstream science is restricted by way of false belief, with the aid of phantasm. The dogmas of materialism technology are rooted in phantasm; no proof showing the failure of the triumphing paradigm or phantasm is examined or maybe admitted to exist. The taboo towards such research is just too powerful for all, however, a few mavericks who investigate reality in spite of mainstream dogma.

History is full of examples of the electricity of illusion; when the illusion that the Earth flat prevails, voyagers were afraid to tour out to sea due to the fact they could ‘fall off the threshold’. When Galileo confirmed that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, the powers that be… In his case cardinals of the Catholic Church… Refused to look through his telescope. Looking for the evidence was forbidden by means of taboo. Looking and seeing would be an admission that their beliefs, aka illusions, were incorrect.

Eventually, all phantasm is shattered; once the phantasm of a flat earth vanished, sailors crossed the seas with none worry of ‘falling off the edge’. Once the illusion that the Earth is in the middle of the universe vanished, technological know-how and cosmology improved without limitation.

The largest phantasm of all is the illusion of electricity. Specifically, actual electricity is conflated with the illusion of energy. The US navy is arguably the most effective within the global. The destructive strength inherent inside the myriad weapons, bullets, rockets, and bombs this army command is beyond doubt. The illusion lies in the perception that an unmarried guy, the Commander in Chief, controls this awful strength. The phantasm is that loads of lots of people act at the whim of 1 man or woman; that the ‘chain of command’ represents actual strength.

The chain of command is a phantasm and has energy most effective if and as long as the phantasm stays intact. Mutinies, navy stand-downs, revolutions, civil wars are all examples of shattered phantasm. Once shattered, illusion loses energy. Such is the destiny of all phantasm, even supposing exquisite efforts are made by way of TPTB to hold an illusion.

In the Soviet army, as soon as taken into consideration the second finest energy on Earth, communist ‘commissars’ followed the troops… To make sure that orders had been obeyed, that the illusions of Communism were upheld, at the ache of death. Indoctrination, brainwashing, threats are used to preserve the reputation quo, the ruling illusion… But finally the illusion shatters, and the power of the phantasm vanishes.

At this very second in records, we’re witnessing the destruction and coming near breakup of the electricity of a chief phantasm.

Ebola is a terrible discomfort but it brings every other phantasm to the vanguard. If Ebola virtually is going ‘viral’, the illusion of the electricity of mainstream medicinal drug might be shattered at a wondrous pace.

In a recent interview, an American physician gave away the phantasm, through pointing to its heart. Many different doctors see the reality, see thru the phantasm… See the fact that is being withheld by using ‘the powers that be’, with the excuse that ‘we must act to save you panic’.

Another American health practitioner, simply returned from Sierra Leone, has shown that Ebola may be cured by an easy method of blood remedy the usage of ozone. The ozonation of blood kills the Ebola virus and helps to alter the immune gadget. Immune gadget over a response to viral invasion appears to be the proximate motive of symptoms and death; Ebola is an autoimmune sickness.

The powers that be refuse to permit ozone treatment… Because it’s far taboo, as it violates the contemporary phantasm that vaccination is the solution… And to be brutally frank; there is no wealth to be made the use of ozone therapy. Ozone is dirt reasonably-priced, vaccines are beneficial.

The reality is that ozone treatment is forbidden… At the ache of a medical doctor dropping his license to exercise. But this ‘license to exercise’ is just a piece of paper. Who cares approximately a piece of paper if nasty, imminent death threatens? Even although many docs still obey, others are ready to shatter the paradigm notwithstanding threats through ‘TPTB’. The risk of death via Ebola is more potent than the danger of losing the piece of paper.

Real strength lies within the strength of treatment, not within the piece of paper. As the truth emerges that a reasonably-priced, safe, smooth technique to treatment the horror of Ebola exists and that some medical doctors are the use of this approach to keep lives, the energy of fact will effortlessly overcome phantasm. The electricity of the medical status quo will shatter and scatter like chaff in the wind.

This brings us full circle to the maximum insidious, damaging illusion of all; the illusion that Government issued paper with numbers published on it is money. This pernicious illusion underlies the electricity to govern and control the arena economic system to the advantage of the perpetrators, at the price of the rest of humanity, the sufferers.

Enormous energy lies in the illusion of Fiat ‘cash’… But like all phantasm is the challenge to being shattered through reality. Once the illusion of the ‘religion and credit score’ that purportedly backs Fiat currencies is destroyed, a brand new era of actual cash will emerge. Real cash, Gold; no longer paper notes borrowed into lifestyles without restricting. The truth will replace the phantasm and lies of Fiat.

Just because the strength of a gun is actual, but the electricity to command wherein the gun is aimed is a phantasm, simply as the electricity to therapy ailment is real but the license to therapy is a phantasm… So the energy of Gold to extinguish debt is real, however, the electricity of Fiat is the phantasm.

Rudy J. Fritsch turned into born in Hungary in 1947 and fled Socialist tyranny throughout the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. His own family had lived via WWII and the consequent Hungarian hyperinflation, consequently, he has intimate revel in with financial destruction.

Have You Ever Fallen for an Illusion?

A phantasm is whilst something appears to be real but is just a trick of the eyes or senses to make our minds consider something this is clearly now not.

This 12 months I actually have made sizeable strides in progressing closer to my dreams. I actually have evolved new disciplines and habits, preserve kicking worry where it hurts, and urgent thru resistance to see my goals grow to be truth.

I recognize this truth. When I awareness on this, I actually have so much gratitude, and happiness that God has blessed me with His grace to persevere and that I have made the choices to maintain going.

Despite this, there are moments after I get so down, discouraged, and experience defeated. In these moments I sense like a failure, that matters are taking too lengthy, that I’m wasting my time, electricity and money constructing something that hasn’t given me the monetary go back or outcomes I become awaiting at this factor.

But it’s just an illusion. Something crept into my mind and has created an illusion to purpose me to suppose and sense hopeless and defeated. When you’re experiencing these emotions, recognize that it’s far a phantasm. It’s now not real. Something is tricking the eyes and senses to make your mind consider that something is going on that really isn’t always.

When you face those moments you MUST shift your interest. As someone of faith, I shift my attention to my author. I call out in prayer asking for assist. I ask that my eyes see the truth and that the phantasm leaves. That the lies are uncovered and the supply leaves. And it does.

Today, I commenced off in gratitude and excitement to complete the duties of the day. But then things started out taking a piece longer than I expected. I commenced sending panicked that I was delaying my progress. Then I felt discouraged and prefer a total failure because once more I failed to finish my to-do listing.

That’s after I did the above. I shifted my perspective. I knew the one’s mind had been no longer right or based on fact. They might also have been how I felt- but emotions are rarely reality.

Determining to permit emotions to skip rather than lead and dictate what I do or do no longer do has been very helpful in establishing emotional intelligence.

After getting beyond my non-permanent “funk” I ended up having a completely efficient day. I turned into capable of see past the phantasm and move ahead. Sure, there are nonetheless matters left undone on my to-do list.

It does not make me a failure. It just manner that I’m still learning how a whole lot time things take to do well. I can definitely adjust my to-do listing and expectancies.

I’d alternatively make an extra practical to-do listing and upload to it than to have one that really won’t get entire and sense like I’m not making any progress.

Over to you- have you ever fallen for an optical illusion photo? How did you shift your view to see the truth of the problem?

0 notes

goconservativechristian · 4 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

know

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

religion

world

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

know

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

generic

Miller

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

symbol

before

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

symbol

through

(

dia

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

spiritual

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

lineage

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

#READ MORE AT. steve-finnell.blogspot.com

0 notes

stevefinnellp-blog · 5 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

know

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

religion

world

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

know

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

generic

Miller

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

symbol

before

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

symbol

through

(

dia

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

spiritual

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

lineage

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

0 notes

stevefinnellp-blog · 5 years

Text

The Bible is its Own Best Interpreterby

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

know

TRUTH, LOGIC, AND KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted, and whether the Bible is its own best interpreter, lies the deeper question of whether we humans are capable of

knowing

anything for certain, whether we can use logic to

reason

correctly, and whether we can arrive at

truth

. These preconditions for understanding the Bible may seem obvious and self-evident to Christians. But we are living at a time in which most people have been influenced to think that we cannot be

certain

magnitude

of disagreement that exists in the world is astonishing. It is frustrating, depressing, heart-rending, and mind-boggling. For example, in American

politics

religion

world

all

religion is crazy. Karl Marx said that religion is the “opiate of the people.” So to the communist, evolutionist, and atheist, religion is actually

harmful and detrimental

the truth can be ascertained

! Hence, they are

all

Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres

know

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

generic

Miller

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON BAPTISM AS A SYMBOL

symbol

before

An adverbial participle is a participle that is used as an adverb to modify the verb. “Calling” is an adverbial participle of manner. It shows the

manner

in which the main verbs are accomplished. The verbs (“baptized” and “wash away sins”)—joined by the coordinate conjunction “and” (

kai

symbol

through

(

dia

past

forgiveness that was achieved

prior

to being baptized?

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE NEW BIRTH

spiritual

already

a human being, but also would put Jesus in the absurd position of thinking He needed to inform all non-humans (i.e., the animals) that they are

not

water

there” (John 3:23, emp. added). Was John baptizing in that location because there was much

amniotic fluid

there? Or because there was much

blood

there? Or because the

Holy Spirit

was there? The Bible is indeed its own best interpreter!

THE BIBLE: ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER ON THE KINGDOM

lineage

REFERENCES

Dungan, D.R. (1888),

Hermeneutics

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light).Kearley, F. Furman, Edward P. Myers, and Timothy D. Hadley, eds. (1986),

Biblical Interpretation

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Lockhart, Clinton (1915),

Principles of Interpretation

(Delight, AR: Gospel Light), revised edition.Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation,” [On-line], URL:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2572

.Ramm, Bernard, et al. (1987),

Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).Robertson, A.T. (1934), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman).Shepherd, J.W. (1894),

Handbook on Baptism

(Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1972 reprint).Terry, Milton (no date),

Biblical Hermeneutics

(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), reprint.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

0 notes