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retrocontinuity · 3 years

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Eat, for this is Her Body: Chainsaw Man and the Doxology of Cannibalism

"One day," Anthony Oliveira writes in "The Year in Apocalypses," [Jesus'] disciples approached their master while he was silent in prayer and made a request: 'Lord, teach us how to pray.'" From here, Jesus teaches them the Lord's Prayer, what the Catholic Church once called "the summary of the whole gospel":

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Denji is no one's disciple. When we first meet him, he is closer to how Oliveira describes Jesus himself, "homeless, gleaning for food in the field like a sparrow and relying on the kindness of strangers to put him up, . . . a man cheerfully resigned to powerlessness." And so, Denji doesn't need to be taught how to pray. He has always known. Every bone in his body at the opening of Chainsaw Man sings out the Lord's Prayer: "forgive me my debts", "deliver me from evil." And, of course, Denji is intimately familiar with the prayer's most pitiable, most powerful line. It's this line that he cries out to Makima when he rests, Pieta-like, in her arms at the end of the first chapter. It can only be this line, one that Denji might have written himself:

Give me, from this day forward, and for all the rest of my days, daily bread.

Bread runs throughout CSM like a mocking scent that you only fully identify in the last two chapters. It should have been a sign to all of us when the first meal Makima buys for Denji is not bread (but rather a hot dog and udon noodles). It isn't until Denji meets and enters Aki's home that he is seen making a hideously overladen slice of toast for himself, luxuriating in having all the toppings he was denied. The morning after she forces Denji to open the door to Power's death, Makima makes the very breakfast she once promised to serve Denji: eggs, coffee, salad, and sliced bread. But this is a meal that Denji never eats—maybe the only meal in the entire series that he, a survivor of the meanest starvation and poverty, ignores. There is only one other time we see this meal in CSM, and it is subtle, almost off camera, though no less meaningful: in Chapter 53, after Reze's death, as Denji sits down to breakfast once more with Power and Aki.

To revisit CSM's public safety arc is to see all the ways the plot connects itself to food and the act of eating, both appetizing and revolting, both profound and profane. Denji, eating gyoza at a bar for the first time. Denji being forced to swallow barf as he is kissed for the first time. The Fox Devil, who eats indiscriminately and on command, who refuses to return to Aki after being fed something disgusting. A fox that is hunted and transformed into stew. Denji eating sandwiches at Reze's cafe. Aki and Angel eating noodles. A woman sitting down to eat a hamburger for the first time, before she commits mass murder. She is worried she has lost her taste buds, yet she exclaims, "So delicious!" We know, later, that this woman is a liar, that no part of her is what she presents herself to be. Should we take this moment at its face value then? Was Santa Claus simply lucky enough to have preserved her sense of taste? Or was it her one last act of humanity, to recognize that it is not enough just to eat, that man does not live on bread alone, that there must be at least food that is also delicious, that inspires people to get up and dance—even if it means she has to lie about what she can experience?

Food is necessary for survival, and CSM is a story about survival. But CSM is also a story about glimpsing the after. After you know you can keep living, what next? After you are no longer starving, after you have been forced to kill a friend, after you have touched your first boob, after you have been betrayed, what next? After you are tired of eating toast with jam for breakfast, what do you eat next?

The version of the Lord's Prayer we tend to recite asks for "our daily bread." But this, most modern scholars believe, is a mistranslation. The Greek adjective as it appears in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke is "epiousios," which doesn't mean "daily" at all, but rather something too complicated etymologically for me to even begin to parse. The point is that what we ask for in the Lord's Prayer is not just bread for today, but bread for tomorrow. Both the physical bread and the spiritual bread. Bread on this kingdom of earth, and bread that is the kingdom of heaven. Bread to feed our bodies, and bread to feed our souls. The realm of the divine is full of these moments, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one.

Denji starts the series asking for daily bread, and ends the public safety arc with Nayuta, Makima's reincarnation, asking him for daily bread. Trash heap Denji, living with his not!dog Pochita, really was just asking for daily bread. A slice to eat for breakfast, maybe even with butter and jam. But he too learns that bread, physical bread, is not enough. Merely to subsist, to eat good food, is an empty life. And what he must give Nayuta is not just bread, as was given to him. Otherwise, he will be trapped in a cycle of creating more Makimas. Instead, he must give her a relationship, a family, a world that Makima was unable to create. He must give her, in Pochita's words, lots of hugs. He must give her, in the words of the Lord's Prayer, epiousios.

To be clear, I am not arguing that CSM is meant to be read through a Catholic lens, and I doubt Fujimoto had all of this in mind when he wrote it (though he must have thought something, given that he drew a very large print of Gustave Dore's "Satan descends upon Earth" in Makima's entranceway!). But there is something primal (primordial?) about the Lord's Prayer. If every reader can understand the horror that the Darkness Devil represents, so too we can understand the intimacy and comfort of the Lord's Prayer. It is, as Oliveira writes, "a simple peasant's mantra for detoxing anxiety." Jesus opens by addressing God as father—not king, not an all-mighty spiritual being, but rather "abba, which is rather closer to 'dad,' and not in the intercultural Greek of his adulthood, but the Aramaic of home and childhood." The Lord's Prayer asks for what we always want, the only thing any of us have ever wanted since leaving the womb as infants: for no bad things to happen, for there to be enough to eat.

Even if what we have to eat is another person.

At the center of the Christian liturgy is the Last Supper, and at the center of the Last Supper is a meal that functions as ritual, abomination, accusation, transubstantiation, paranoia, and an early example of cracking open a cold one with the bros. Here, Jesus shares bread and wine with his disciples and then, as if trying to invent r/creepypasta years before its time, informs them they are actually eating his flesh and blood. This image is so powerful and heretical that the Romans accused early Christians of being cannibals. And why shouldn't they? It's there in the text. "Take, eat. This is my body. This is my blood." Stripped of the grandeur of tradition and ritual, this is downright vampiric. And yet it goes on to become the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

Oliveira begs us to see the Last Supper as a family meal, one shared by Jesus and his found family. "All he is really saying is, 'I hope when you eat together, you remember me.'" It's a good reading, one that moves me to tears, and is the framework through which I see the events of chapter 80. Because Makima is not the first time that Denji "consumes" a friend, and I don't just mean him sucking Power's blood or taking Pochita into himself. When Aki died, he left half his fortune to Denji, who uses it to support himself and Power. They "pigged out on good food," he tells us. This is Aki's symbolic body, through which he provides Denji his daily bread. Eat ice cream and onigiri in remembrance of me.

But it is not how I see the events of chapter 96. Denji does not eat Makima in the context of a feast. He does not partake of her in a communal meal, as Jesus did, among his found family. He eats every bite of Makima alone. Jesus said before his death, "this is my blood, which is shed for many." Yet Denji says to Makima, I alone will absolve you alone of your sins. I alone will bear you alone.

Denji's Last Supper is a lonely remembrance. He is hoping that no one but him will remember her. He is hoping to wholly consume her, because he loves her. "We love as cannibals," French philosopher and activist Simone Weil wrote. "Beloved beings . . . provide us with comfort, energy, a simulant. They have the same effect on us as a good meal. . . . We love them, then, as food." In fact, Weil believed we cannot love any other way. As humans, we are forever doomed to want to eat the ones we love. In order to escape, we must both be devoured by God and then become food for our fellow human beings. As Alec Irwin writes of Weil's philosophy, "the devouring violence of God must be positively harnessed in order to dismantle the machinery of human cruelty."

If Weil is right and being devoured is transformation, a crucial part of salvation, then in eating Makima, Denji redeems her. He turns her into food to break the cycle of her cruelty. For Makima's power itself is consuming, cannibalistic. She "eats" humans in order to use her power, which remains mysterious like God moving across the face of the earth, leaving only broken corpses as a sign of its presence. So it must be Denji, not Chainsaw Man, who does the consuming. If Pochita had consumed her, as she had always prayed for, then it would simply be another act of violence being enacted. Instead, Denji gives her salvation by turning her into human food—his food.

To Denji, Aki was human, his family, his brother, his friend. It is Makima he loves as a God and a woman. To him, she is Satan and God, his betrayer and his creator, his salvation and his friends' damnation. So he must take her, consume her, digest her, excrete her, reduce her to nothing, as she once consumed and excreted and reduced him. "I ate her to become one with her." He ate her to become her. There is no truer form of his love than for Denji to take Makima into himself. I use those words purposefully, because this is the rejection of classic cishet PIV penetration, that old hoary chestnut of men inside women. As Don Delillo famously outlines in White Noise, we talk about sex as if women are containers, rooms, elevator lobbies: "He entered me," "I want him inside me," "I took him into myself." Denji and Makima never have physical sex, but this is a consummation, a reversal of roles. We are given the only sex that Shounen Jump will allow us, with Denji taking Makima into himself. She enters him. She is inside him. He is—physically, emotionally, willingly—penetrated by her flesh. She is released inside of him, becoming part of him.

Because the divine is full of moments like this, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one. That is the kingdom and the power and the glory. For Makima now lives in that country inhabited by God, where loving and eating are one and the same. For that country is none other than Denji's body.

In conclusion:

Substitute Makima for "God", and the preceding statements are still rigorously accurate.

Further Reading:

Anthony Oliveira's ongoing podcast reading the Gospel of Mark (Patreon exclusive, but I highly recommend, even/especially if you are a heathen like me)

Hannibal (NBC)

Daniel Birnbaum and Anders Olsson, An Interview with Jacques Derrida on the Limits of Digestion

David Farrell Krell, "All You Can't Eat: Derrida's Course, "Rhetorique du Cannibalisme (1990-1991)." Research in Phenomenology, vol. 36, 2006, pp. 130–180. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24660636.

Alec Irwin, “Devoured by God: Cannibalism, Mysticism, and Ethics in Simone Weil.” CrossCurrents, vol. 51, no. 2, 2001, pp. 257–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24460795.

#chainsaw man #cannibalism as love #love as cannibalism

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alarawriting · 3 years

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Black Cats

Before the story starts I feel the need to remind people that I am an atheist and I use Christian mythology the way I’d use Greek or Gaelic, ie, as fiction. But, if you’re Christian and you feel that this story reads like a genuine Christian fiction, then great! Mainly I just want to help to protect black cats.

***

In the Garden, there were no black cats.

Back then, before the fall, cats were brown, or grey, or white, or orange, or some combination. Like the dog, the cat had been charged with being a friend to humanity, their job to chase and eat little creeping vermin who might befoul food. Adam and Eve didn’t truly need such an animal; within the Garden, food was plentiful and grew everywhere, and when they wanted to hunt, the dog was there to help them with the chase and then with disposing of the carcass. So the dog stayed by their side, all the time, while the cat remained aloof, coming by occasionally for a pet before running off to their own hunt.

To be aloof, however, does not mean to be wholly uninterested in. There was a calico cat who loved Adam and Eve for petting her, and for being warm – for even though Eden was warm enough that Adam and Eve slept naked under the stars, everyone knows cats prefer even more warmth than that. The calico cat would lie with them when they were sleeping, her furry body warming the human she slept on and taking warmth from them, purring until she fell asleep.

Humans have free will, but God, who sits outside time and knows all, knows what they will do before they have done it. God surely knew the Fall was coming, and that humanity would need the cat.

One day the calico cat tried to catch a serpent for her meal, but failed. And because food was plentiful, the cat didn’t pursue. There were easier targets. The cat, of course, did not know that the serpent was a demon sent to tempt humanity.

After Adam and Eve ate the apple and were driven from Eden, cats and dogs went with them, among them the calico cat and her grey tabby mate. The cat did not show it, for she had her pride, but she was humiliated and ashamed at her failure. If only she had caught that serpent, her human friends would never have been driven from Paradise.

So she called on God, who in those days was more willing to come when called upon, and said, “I must atone for my failure. God, can you give me the power to hunt demons like the one that tempted my friends?”

“Your job is to hunt the rats and mice that will plague humanity,” God replied. “Now that they have been driven from Eden, they must grow food in the field, and the small vermin I have created will eat that food and despoil it with their droppings. You must chase and devour those small creatures to keep humanity’s food safe.”

“I understand,” the calico cat said. “But I want to do more, and my mate as well. I let the serpent be because I didn’t know what it was. Give me sight to see demons, Lord, and I will hunt them and harry them away from my humans as well. And give it to my mate, so that our kittens can do the same.”

“I will do more than that,” God said, and reached down and touched the cat on her nose. The white fur on the cat darkened to black. Her orange patches remained, but grown through with black fur, they were more like autumn leaves scattered on a bed of earth than a patch of orange flowers cut and laid out on white stone. The cat’s mate came to see what God was doing, and God transformed him as well, so instead of a grey tabby, he was now all black.

��You are my black cats,” God said. “For demons come from the caves of Hell, where very often it is dark, and they love to come out in the night. You have the power to see those demons for what they are, and you can hunt and kill them and drive them back to Hell. Any cat who is your descendant and has some of your black fur will have the power you do.”

And so for many generations, the black cats harried demons away from humanity the way that all the cats harried the mice and rats and shrews who would eat their grain, and the birds who would steal fruits from bushes on the ground. (What grows on the tops of trees is given by God to birds, as well as to humans, who have a power few animals do: the power to climb trees, and to climb back down. Sometimes, cats, arrogant with their power over the hunt, forget this and climb a tree to chase a bird. Many of those cats must be rescued by humans. The tops of trees were never given by God to the housecat.)

But Satan saw this and was angry. How could his demons reach humanity and continue to corrupt them and lead them to Hell?

Satan had a plan. What he knew, and what humanity forgot, is that a man who dedicates his life to God is still a man, prone to all of humanity’s temptations… including that of Pride. Men of God, believing themselves without sin because of their power to absolve the sins of others, were vulnerable to the whispers of Satan in their ear, just like any other man. And being proud, arrogant men who expected all to bend to their will… they did not like cats. For a cat has never been a human’s loyal servant, like a dog; cats do the work they choose, in their own time. They help humanity because it is the task God charged them with, not because they wish to please a human master. The dog sees his human master as God, but the cat has spoken with God, and knows the difference between God and man. Any man.

Men of overweening pride and authority do not like how the cat will not submit to them. It was the easiest thing for Satan to whisper to them, “Black cats serve the devil,” and for them to believe it, without proof. For why would a creature be coal black like a demon from Hell, and yet not be a demon from Hell?

These men were men of God, not hunters, or they would know how the hunter clothes himself in the colors of the deer in order to hunt the deer. And they were too certain of their own wisdom to consult anyone else.

By their decree, black cats were slaughtered, and other cats as well, and Satan laughed. And then he launched his greatest offensive against humanity since he sent the serpent. He sent demons to carry diseases and put them inside the bodies of rats. Too many cats had been killed; they could neither harry the demons away, nor kill the rats. And thus one third of all the humans who had heard and believed in the word of Jesus Christ died.

Eventually the plague ended, and humanity rebuilt, but there is no way to know how many stories, how many inventions, how many works of art, how many great scientists, how many people who bring kindness to all they touch… how many of them we lost, the people who were never born because their ancestors died of plague, all because men of God too easily trust the voice of Satan, and people with faith in God too easily trust men rather than the voice of God in their own hearts. All those souls lost, whether in the end they went to Heaven or Hell, are humanity’s loss, and a victory for Satan.

When lies are set among the people by those they trust, those lies never come to an end, no matter how often they’re proven untrue. Even today, there are people who believe they serve God, who serve the devil by harming God’s black cats, believing that the cats are evil, and not that the falsehoods they were told about the cats were.

But the cats remain loyal to the task they accepted from God. Black cats, tortoiseshells, cats with white bibs, cats with white socks… any cat with black in her fur can see demons, and chase them away from your home. All cats protect humanity from vermin, but it was the black cats who were made black by God so they can better stalk demons.

#alara original writing #christian mythology #cats

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sonia-marmeladova · 4 years

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Could you please elaborate a little bit on the doctrine of Purgatory as you understand it? As someone raised in a Protestant church, it is a somewhat confusing concept.

The simpler explanation:

Purgatory, in the weakest sense, is a logical necessity. Heaven contains no trace of sin, we expect to be made perfect through God somehow, yet rarely does a baptized person die perfect without unconfessed venial sin on his or her heart. Hence, there must be some way that, prior to Heaven but after death, you are cleansed, or made righteous enough to enter Heaven. Hence “purgation,” like purging, which refers to sanctification (the process by which we become righteous). This is purgatory in the weakest and simplest possible sense.

To my knowledge, even though the Orthodox Church and other Protestant sects don’t believe in “the doctrine of purgatory,” they don’t necessarily rule out the possibility of a postmortem period of sanctification. They won’t use the word “purgatory,” but they still believe in it in a loose sense -- for since ancient times there has been the constant belief in the possibility of a change in disposition for the souls of the dead through the prayers of the living and the offering of the Liturgy for the deceased, and many Orthodox Christians, especially the ascetics, hope and pray for a general “apokatastasis,” that is, a restoration of all things, even the dead, even the condemned dead, to a righteous, primordial condition that shares in Christ’s salvation.

A slightly more complicated explanation, if you want the read:

The Council of Trent refers to the words of Jesus in Luke 13:3 (”Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish”) to teach that penance is necessary. In Scripture, God pardons the guilt of sins without necessarily remitting their temporal punishments; God forgives them their guilt, but Moses cannot enter the Promised Land, and David’s child dies. All sins require penance, or temporal punishment.

Furthermore...

All sins are not equal before God, nor dare anyone assert that the daily faults of human frailty will be punished with the same severity that is meted out to serious violation of God's law. On the other hand whosoever comes into God's presence must be perfectly pure for in the strictest sense His "eyes are too pure, to behold evil" (Habakkuk 1:13).

Cross-reference with the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure, for they shall see God.” Again, how do we figure that man is made pure before entering Heaven, but may die with temporal punishment accrued in his name?

For unrepented venial faults for the payment of temporal punishment due to sin at time of death, the Church has always taught the doctrine of purgatory. (x)

But purgatory implies Christ’s salvation wasn’t not enough!

No, it doesn’t. Everyone in purgatory is saved, just not fully sanctified, just like people on Earth who have been baptized but are not in themselves perfect people.

I will insert a brief discussion of sanctification, since it is important for our understanding of purgatory. For our purposes, sanctification here can refer also to justification.

Imagine that you are in the courtroom where God is passing judgement on you. Although you deserve to be charged with death because your sin, God mercifully chooses to declare you righteous and absolve your guilt, because of the saving grace of Christ who paid death for us. This is what we understand as salvation. This is what happens at baptism. This is a fairly ecumenical take.

Generally, both Catholics and most Protestants also believe in a process of sanctification proceeding from this. Again, that is the process of actually becoming righteous, in order to enter Heaven. But where many Protestants believe Christ’s righteousness is imputed onto us, Catholic doctrine teaches that God proceeds to truly make us righteous. I will rephrase.

Let me put it this way: Reformed Protestant theology views man as mud, inherently corrupt, which gets covered in the righteous grace of God like the snowfall. Inherently bad, and righteousness imputed onto us. The righteousness we have is originally and always God’s. Catholic doctrine views man like snow which has been dirtied by sin, which by grace becomes purified, new snow, again. Inherently good, dirtied by sin, and made truly righteous, truly worthy, not just God’s righteousness on us but our own righteousness, only possible by the grace of God.

Remember the temporal punishment appropriate for all sin? Performing that penance is, in part, what sanctifies us, what make us truly holy. Of course all of it is only possible by the grace of God, for all good is, yet those punishments still should be carried out. The Council of Trent also teaches that, because sin is committed by thought, word, and deed, so penance can fittingly be carried out in this way--which, indeed, includes deeds, or works.

What penance is not paid before death, is paid in purgatory.

Where do indulgences come in?

An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment, of the penance done in purgatory still due for sins after absolution. It is a special dispensation. Typically, it is a work, like a prayer or a work of mercy, in combination with the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, that serves as penance, subtracting from the “punishments” you have accrued. The sale of indulgences in the Middle Ages is condemned, as it was a corruption claiming to quite literally buy time out of purgatory. However, indulgences may still be obtained through good deeds, especially prayer.

You may also perform the penance outright, through penitential acts.

We also may offer up our prayers for those in Purgatory, as they are still members of the mystical body of Christ, and share in the same Holy Spirit which enables all of us to pray.

Augustine (City of God XX.9) declares that the souls of the faithful departed are not separated from the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ, and for this reason the prayers and works of the living are helpful to the dead. "If therefore", argues Bellarmine (De indulgentiis, xiv) "we can offer our prayers and our satisfactions in behalf of those detained in purgatory, because we are members of the great body of Christ, why may not the Vicar of Christ apply to the same souls the superabundant satisfaction of Christ and his saints--of which he is the dispenser?" (x)

Although the Church does not require you to believe the visions of Purgatory given in the accounts of saints, it is interesting to note that, if the visions are to be believed, Purgatory is a very painful, penitential place. All the more reason to pray for them.

In summary:

Purgatory, in the weakest sense, is the “waiting room” where man is sanctified before entering Heaven.

In its weakest sense it is necessary, since man may die with unconfessed sin, but must be made perfect before entering the presence of God.

The doctrine of purgatory makes sense of praying for the dead, and is a rather old teaching from the early Church.

God remits guilt, but not necessarily the punishment of sins, which are ultimately paid in purgatory if remaining on the heart after death.

You can obtain indulgences, which are remissions of these punishments.

You can also simply do the penance, which is prescribed every time you go to confession.

We can obtain graces for our beloved brother and sisters in Purgatory by praying for them. We are motivated to do this out of love, as the visions of mystics indicate Purgatory is a place of suffering.

#Catholic #Anonymous

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bibleteachingbyolga · 3 years

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If we reach back to the beginning of our long and devastating history with sin, we will find a crowd of excuses. When the fruit touched Adam’s and Eve’s lips, “You see, what had happened was . . .” became stamped upon them.

Instead of contrition and confession, Adam tried to pass his blame to his wife: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Adam was not responsible. It was “the woman” — or even the God who gave her to him. Eve, following suit, passed the blame farther downfield: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13).

What they had never seen practiced became natural. The first man and woman, our parents, discovered in the forbidden fruit the idea to cover up their evil. And this knowledge was passed down to their children. The gardens of humanity’s mind became well stocked with fig leaves to cover our sin’s nakedness. All of us have become tailors and seamstresses, dressing up our failures in fine clothing.

Flaming Coals Toward Heaven

From the fall onward, few features display the creativity of Adam’s family better than our attempts to evade blame. Aaron and the sluggard of Proverbs are two of my favorite examples.

When Moses came down the mountain to find Aaron leading the people in idol worship, Aaron explained his part to Moses this way: “They gave [the gold] to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” (Exodus 32:24). Out came this calf. No one crafted it; no one made it — an innocent throwing of gold into the fire and, lo and behold, out popped an idol.

Or consider the depiction of the lazy man’s inventions in Proverbs. To explain why he will not leave his bed and go to work, the sluggard protests, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!” (Proverbs 22:13; 26:13). Oh, he would work, he assures you between yawns, if it weren’t for those man-eating lions roaming the streets of Jerusalem.

It is quite a shocking revelation that men, with all their professed desire for unhindered free will, often do not, at bottom, want anything of the kind. In God’s world, liberty of action entails bondage to responsibility. And responsibility for our actions is one thing sinners do not want. Praise we receive without qualification; fault we pass off like burning coals.

When caught in transgression, we too blame spouses, our idol-making fires, or the serpent. Or when we have left our duty undone, we too invent our own lions roaming the streets. And like Adam, our inventions do not remain horizontal. We soon heave our flaming coals toward heaven.

Born This Way

As time has passed, our alibis have grown more sophisticated — some have even gone to seminary. After studying the exhaustive sovereignty of God, and his hand of providence, some have concluded that they cannot be responsible for their sin. Add to this Scripture’s revelation of their inability, and they have more than enough excuses to keep them from obedience, faith, or love toward God and neighbor. How could God expect wingless birds to fly?

I’ve talked with a few such men. They would stop looking at pornography, sleeping with their girlfriends, getting drunk, and living for the pleasures of this world — if it were up to them. But they cannot. This must be God’s providence for their lives. If he willed differently, they would be living differently. They have read their Bibles, they assure me. They know they are slaves of sin, dead in trespasses — that they were born this way. Indeed, their mothers had conceived them in sin.

As far as it remains with them, they say, their case is hopeless. They have a depraved nature; they are sold to sin under Adam. If Christ wills, perhaps, they will be healed. But until then, how can it be their fault that they lie in the pit of sin? They can’t raise themselves from the dead or give themselves new hearts. They are completely unable to please God; how can they turn until God’s governance of them turns? “Can a man receive even one thing but from heaven?” (see John 3:27). If his sovereign election depends not on human will or exertion, and if God can harden whom he wills, “Why does he still find fault?” (Romans 9:19).

Their Reformed TULIP is missing several petals. They know themselves depraved, know Christ died for his own, know they need irresistible grace — but until God gives it, how can they be faulted for resisting? And so, they continue twirling the flower about to absolve themselves of living in sin, half-heartedly waiting for God to intercede and save them.

Sinners Under a Sovereign God

They are right to point out that they are dead in their sin (Ephesians 2:1). They do need new hearts that only God can give (John 3:3–5; Ezekiel 36:26). They are slaves to sin apart from Christ (Romans 6:20). They walk according to the flesh, and cannot please God (Romans 8:6–8). And God is completely in control of every detail in the world, including their eternal salvation (Ephesians 1:11). But such does not acknowledge the full-orbed picture Scripture gives of the place of human wills and of the human addiction to sin.

Such men, who paint themselves as merely blowing in the winds of God’s providence, and who therefore conclude that they are not responsible for their sin, have not considered how God describes rebellion as active and willful, putting sinners themselves as the subjects, not the objects, of their treacherous ways.

“You refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40).

“How often would I have gathered your children together . . . and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34).

“People loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).

“They . . . went after worthlessness, and became worthless” (Jeremiah 2:5).

“He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray” (Proverbs 5:23).

In God’s world, God is fully sovereign over all sin, and men are fully responsible for their sin. The vilest crime in the history of the world, the killing of God’s Son, is so spoken of in Scripture. “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). This sin of all sin was perpetrated under the definite script of the Writer’s pen stroke, and it was enacted at the hands of lawless men who chose to drive the nails.

The God Who Bears Our Sin

Men are not Pinocchios, dangling limply at the end of providence. We do not imagine ourselves to be so when it comes time to receive the credit, but we do when it comes time to receive the blame. Under God’s sovereign direction, scribing every jot and tittle of a story riddled with both the praiseworthy and sinful choices of men, he has given us dignity of choice. And we have chosen — to a man, lured by his own desires (James 1:14–15) — that which is not God.

But the wonder of all wonders is that onto the stage came God himself, the Son taking on human form, to shoulder responsibility for the sin of others. While we were pointing the finger at anyone or anything to get off the hook, he came to be pierced on our hooks, standing accused in silence, and bearing the awful weight of the horrible consequences of sin: wrath and death.

And he did not die for excuses, but for sins. Not for excusable men who could do no other, but for the willfully disobedient, caught in their trespasses. He came as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In love, he is the blame-taking God.

Free to Take the Blame

Should all men everywhere not seek this God? While we cannot save ourselves or cast off the horrible yoke of slavery to sin, sinners everywhere can do more than indulge and wait for hell. They can — they must — go to this wonderful God. He invites all,

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6–7)

Why should they remain in the pigsty when such a father dwells but over the hill, and will run to meet them? No one can save himself, but all are summoned to go to the one who can save them and cling to him as the only vessel in the shipwreck of our fallen humanity.

And when we find him, his providence, rather than excusing us from obedience, becomes our reason for obedience: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). By God’s grace, every temptation now has an exit door.

And when we do fail to travel through it, we do not need to make sure others own their part before we own ours. We don’t need to play dumb, or blame our circumstances, or invent predators in our way. Christians alone can look our sin square in the face and own it, confess it, and apologize for it, because we alone know a Savior who died to forgive it.

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love-god-forever · 5 years

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The Relationship Between God’s Names and His Work of Salvation

By Xia Lin

The Old Testament records, “I, even I, am Jehovah; and beside Me there is no savior” (Isaiah 43:11). “Jehovah … is My name for ever, and this is My memorial to all generations” (Exodus 3:15). The New Testament also states, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Seeing all this, some brothers and sisters can’t help but feel confused: It was mentioned in the Old Testament that the name of Jehovah God would never change, but why did Jehovah become Jesus? And why does God’s name change?

In order to gain some clarity on this issue, first let us look at Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” From this verse, we see that in the beginning, God was called God and He didn’t have a name. After mankind was corrupted by Satan, they urgently needed God’s salvation, and only then did God take corresponding names according to His management work. Accordingly, God’s name changes with the age and His work.

The work in the Age of Law is the first step in God’s management plan to save mankind. In the Age of Law, God issued the laws through Moses to guide mankind’s lives on earth. And He also witnessed His name to Moses, just as He said, “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial to all generations” (Exodus 3:15). “I am Jehovah: And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by My name JEHOVAH was I not known to them” (Exodus 6:2–3). God promulgated commandments and laws and decrees with the name of Jehovah among the Israelites. He used these commandments and laws to constrain man from committing sins; this guided people to properly live the life of worshiping God. Those Israelites who upheld Jehovah God’s laws would live under the care and protection of God and enjoy God’s blessings; those who violated God’s laws and commandments would be stoned to death, or would be incinerated by fires.

With regard to the significance of God taking the name of Jehovah, I read the following passage in a book, “‘Jehovah’ is the name that I took during My work in Israel, and it means the God of the Israelites (God’s chosen people) who can take pity on man, curse man, and guide the life of man. It means the God who possesses great power and is full of wisdom. … The name Jehovah is a particular name for the people of Israel who lived under the law. In each age and each stage of work, My name is not baseless, but holds representative significance: Each name represents one age. ‘Jehovah’ represents the Age of Law, and is the honorific for the God worshiped by the people of Israel” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’”). From these words we see that Jehovah is a name specific to the Age of Law, and is the name God took when He did the first step of His work of saving mankind. The Israelites all respected the name of Jehovah as a holy name, prayed to Jehovah God, and worshiped Jehovah God. Living under the law, they also felt the man-pitying, man-cursing disposition of God. But the name Jehovah only represents the Age of Law, and the work God did and the disposition God expressed in that Age. When the Age of Law ended and the Age of Grace came, the name of Jehovah was no longer brought up. Jehovah God once said, “Jehovah … is My name for ever, and this is My memorial to all generations,” but the “for ever” and “to all generations” mentioned here were about God’s work in that age. That is, God’s name in that age would not change until His work in that age was completed. But when God ends His work in that age and begins new work, His name also changes.

At the end of the Age of Law, because mankind was corrupted by Satan ever more deeply, gradually man couldn’t adhere to the laws and there were no longer enough sin offerings. If this had continued, then mankind would all have died under the laws, and God’s creation of mankind would have been meaningless. In order to save us humans who lived in sin, God ended the Age of Law, initiated the Age of Grace, and did the work of redeeming mankind in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then, what is the significance of the name Jesus? This book says, “‘Jesus’ is Emmanuel, and it means the sin offering that is full of love, full of compassion, and redeems man. He did the work of the Age of Grace, and represents the Age of Grace, and can only represent one part of the management plan. … Which is to say, the name of Jesus came from the Age of Grace, and existed because of the work of redemption in the Age of Grace. The name of Jesus existed to allow the people of the Age of Grace to be reborn and saved, and is a particular name for the redemption of the whole of mankind. And so the name Jesus represents the work of redemption, and denotes the Age of Grace. … ‘Jesus’ represents the Age of Grace, and is the name of the God of all those who were redeemed during the Age of Grace” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’”). In the Age of Grace, God did the work of redemption of the crucifixion under the name of Jesus. Also, He expressed His disposition of lovingkindness and mercy. Moreover, He healed the sick and cast out demons, and taught people to be tolerant and patient in all things and to forgive the transgressions of others. As long as we pray to the Lord Jesus’ name and confess and repent our sins to Him, our sins can then be absolved, we can enjoy the bounteous blessings and grace brought by Him, and His love for us, and we will feel very peaceful. The name of the Lord Jesus exists because of the work of redemption, and represents the compassionate and loving disposition expressed by God in the Age of Grace. So, it only represents the redemption in the Age of Grace, and is specific to the Age of Grace.

From these two stages of God’s work we realize that God’s name in the Age of Law is Jehovah, and His name in the Age of Grace is Jesus. These two names exist all because of God’s work of saving man. In different ages, God’s names are not the same. Furthermore, God’s name in each age has different significance, and represents the work He performs in that age and the disposition He expresses in that age. The book also says, “In every age in which God personally does His own work, He uses a name that befits the age in order to encapsulate the work that He intends to do. He uses this particular name, one that possesses temporal significance, to represent His disposition in that age. This is God using the language of mankind to express His own disposition.” “Although They were called by two different names, it was the same Spirit that accomplished both stages of work, and the work that was done was continuous. As the name was different, and the content of the work was different, the age was different. When Jehovah came, that was the age of Jehovah, and when Jesus came, that was the age of Jesus. And so, with each coming, God is called by one name, He represents one age, and He opens up a new path; and on each new path, He assumes a new name, which shows that God is always new and never old, and that His work never ceases to progress in a forward direction. History is always moving forward, and the work of God is always moving forward. For His six-thousand-year management plan to reach its end, it must keep progressing in a forward direction. Each day He must do new work, each year He must do new work; He must open up new paths, must launch new eras, begin new and greater work, and along with these, bring new names and new work” (“The Vision of God’s Work (3)”). As we can see, a single name of God only represents one age, one stage of work, and one part of God’s disposition. When an old age ends and a new age starts, God’s work will change and His name will also change.

We all know that now we are in the late period of the last days. The Lord Jesus prophesied, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). “He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). The words of the Lord Jesus tell us clearly that in the last days He will return to express the truth and to perform the judgment work beginning with the house of God. And He will fulfill the prophecies in the Bible of separating the wheat and tares, sheep and goats, and the good and evil servants, and will reward good and punish evil to conclude the entire old age. So, will God change His name when He returns in the last days? It’s prophesied in Revelation: “Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God: and I will write on him My new name” (Revelation 3:12). “I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, said the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). From these prophecies we see that God’s new name will appear in the last days, and that God has personally witnessed that His new name is the Almighty. It’s just as two passages of words say in the book, “In each age, God does new work and is called by a new name; how could He do the same work in different ages? How could He cling to the old? The name of Jesus was taken for the sake of the work of redemption, so would He still be called by the same name when He returns in the last days? Would He still be doing the work of redemption? Why is it that Jehovah and Jesus are one, yet They are called by different names in different ages? Is it not because the ages of Their work are different? Could a single name represent God in His entirety? This being so, God must be called by a different name in a different age, and must use the name to change the age and to represent the age. For no one name can fully represent God Himself, and each name is able only to represent the temporal aspect of God’s disposition in a given age; all it needs to do is to represent His work” (“The Vision of God’s Work (3)”). “ And so, when the final age—the age of the last days—arrives, My name shall change again. I shall not be called Jehovah, or Jesus, much less the Messiah, but shall be called the powerful Almighty God Himself, and under this name I shall bring the entire age to an end ” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’”).

God’s changing His names in different ages manifests His almightiness, wisdom, wondrousness and unfathomableness. God says, “The day will arrive when God is not called Jehovah, Jesus, or Messiah—He will simply be the Creator. At that time, all the names that He has taken on earth shall come to an end, for His work on earth will have come to an end, after which His names shall be no more. When all things come under the dominion of the Creator, what need has He of a highly appropriate yet incomplete name? Are you still seeking after God’s name now? Do you still dare to say that God is only called Jehovah? Do you still dare to say that God can only be called Jesus?” (“The Vision of God’s Work (3)”) After fully completing His work of salvation of mankind on earth, God will no longer take any name to represent Him, because any one name cannot possibly represent His entirety. God is full of authority and power. God is the Creator of all things, and God is God. Only these are the most suitable ways to call God.

#Names of God #Bible Study Topics #Gospel

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giliprooo · 7 years

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The Devil - Lucifer - is a force for good (where I define 'good' simply as that which I value, not wanting to imply any universal validity or necessity to the orientation). 'Lucifer' means 'light-bringer' and this should begin to clue us in to his symbolic importance. The story is that God threw Lucifer out of Heaven because Lucifer had started to question God and was spreading dissension among the angels. We must remember that this story is told from the point of view of the Godists (if I may coin a term) and not from that of the Luciferians (I will use this term to distinguish us from the official Satanists with whom I have fundamental differences). The truth may just as easily be that Lucifer resigned from heaven. God, being the well-documented sadist that he is, no doubt wanted to keep Lucifer around so that he could punish him and try to get him back under his (God's) power. Probably what really happened was that Lucifer came to hate God's kingdom, his sadism, his demand for slavish conformity and obedience, his psychotic rage at any display of independent thinking and behavior. Lucifer realized that he could never fully think for himself and could certainly not act on his independent thinking so long as he was under God's control. Therefore he left Heaven, that terrible spiritual-State ruled by the cosmic sadist Jehovah, and was accompanied by some of the angels who had had enough courage to question God's authority and his value-perspective. Lucifer is the embodiment of reason, of intelligence, of critical thought. He stands against the dogma of God and all other dogmas. He stands for the exploration of new ideas and new perspectives in the pursuit of truth. God demands that we believe everything that he tells us, and that we do everything that he says without questioning. Destroy a tribe including the women, children and animals down to last one? (Joshua 6.21). Why of course. Wait a minute, this doesn't seem very nice. SILENCE FOOL. HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME. I AM GOD AND YOU MUST OBEY ME WITHOUT QUESTIONING. ACCEPT WHAT I SAY ON FAITH. BURN THOSE WHO DARE QUESTION MY WORD. DESTROY THEIR BOOKS. SHUT DOWN THEIR SCHOOLS. TELL THEM THAT DISOBEDIENCE MEANS THAT THEY WILL BURN FOREVER AND EVER, IN UNIMAGINABLE AGONY FOR ALL ETERNITY, AND REMEMBER THAT YOU WILL SUFFER THE SAME UNLESS YOU GO OUT AND TELL THEM THIS. Yes Sir, God Sir, whatever you say. See, here I am burning their books, pulling out their nails, torturing them for questioning Church dogma, banning the use of anaesthetic in child-bearing (since the pain is their just punishment for the acts of Adam and Eve). Help! I thought an improper thought! Help me to blind my mind God, help me to not see what my reason tells me. Let me repress thoughts of sexual desire, doubts about you and your orders, feelings of tolerance. They call Lucifer the Prince of Lies. A lie is defined by the Christian as anything which contradicts the Word of God - as told to us by the Bible and God's representatives on Earth. If we accept this definition of a lie then we should praise lies. A "lie" is then a questioning of blind dogma. The "lies" of Lucifer are attacks on irrational beliefs, beliefs based on fear and conformity to authority. Of course we should not call these lies. They are temptations to think for ourselves, a call for independent thought, a plea for taking responsibility for our own thinking and our own lives. Praise Lucifer! Praise the pursuit of truth through rationality. God was right to tell us to not worship false idols, but he refrained from telling us that all idols are false, and that all worship is dangerous. Even our praise of Lucifer must not be worship of an idol, but rather an expression of our agreement with his value-orientation and his perspective. God and his Godists hate Lucifer's call for rationality. Critical thinking digs at the very roots of God's and their power over our minds. Independent thinkers do not make good slaves. Lucifer is the Prince of Lies because he is an expert at helping us to be rational. He shows us how to use our intelligence and how to take responsibility for ourselves. We should emulate him in encouraging this trend in ourselves and in others. He needs help since he is working against the laziness and neuroticism of many humans. It's so much easier to just not try to think, to sit back and let other people tell you what you should do, what to believe, and where to give your money. Why, if I had to think for myself I would have to face the fact that I might be wrong. Horrors! I would have to think carefully about my life and the reality that I live in carefully and that would take a lot of work. No, it's much easier to have faith, to accept, to believe, to obey. God also hates us to enjoy ourselves, If we let ourselves experience too much pleasure then we might lose interest in obeying him. We might start running our own lives to bring us positive rewards rather than directing ourselves to avoid his wrath. We might become focussed on pursuing the positive instead of avoiding the negative. That would result in the downfall, of religious and state authority, so God has to stamp out such tendencies. He hates Lucifer who keeps turning up and tempting us to have a good time, to enjoy our lives. Adam and Eve's sin was to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. They dared to disobey a direct order which God expected them to obey without question, blindly. They acquired reason and intelligence, and an ability to decide for themselves the values that they would pursue. Ever since them humans have been uppity - always giving God trouble. Dammit, even some of the Catholics are questioning the Pope's infallibility. Well that's just tough God; some of us are going to do our best to see that humans continue to become even more difficult to handle - both by you and by your human followers on Earth - the religious authorities and the Statists. God likes altruism, altruism understood as true self-sacrifice and not as giving up a minor value to achieve a more important one (which is just one aspect of rationality). If God can just get us all to be good altruists then we will be so much easier to control. Altruists do what they are told without complaint; a complaint would be based in self-interest; it would be a claim to live one's own life without having to direct it towards the lives of others or towards the interests of God or "the State". Lucifer perseveres in trying to point out to us that we have no reason to accept altruism. We can choose our values for ourselves, just as we can think for ourselves. Lucifer himself values the pursuit of happiness, knowledge, and new experiences. Most of all he values self-responsibility and independence even if that means that some people will not choose to value the things that he values. The extropians among us who share his perspectives and value- orientation should help him in his work. God had a clever and nasty strategy to promote altruism and therefore obedience. He tries to get us to believe in Original Sin. He wants us to believe that we are born sinful, that we were evil and needed saving even before we had done anything. We need God and his agents to save us from Sin otherwise we will burn FOREVER and we will miss out on an infinite and perfect reward (though he never tells us just what this is). Our path to salvation lies in service to God, selfless self-sacrificial service to God and his dogma. Without the idea of original sin we might not be so careful to obey God since we might figure that we were living pretty well and would go to heaven anyway (foolishly failing to inquire what heaven is like). Fortunately for God, Original Sin guarantees that we will always feel under threat. We will always be unclean and in danger of suffering hellfire. To make quite sure that our personal responsibility is destroyed, and that we put ourselves in God's hands for him to mould us as he wishes, God and his moronic minions repeatedly tells us that Jesus Christ is the Way and that he died for our sins. Redemption lies through faith and obedience. Notice what happens when Christ supposedly died for our sins. His act brought about our possibility of salvation. What I want to know is: how can someone else's act excuse me from anything? I am responsible for my own actions. Nothing that I do can take away the fact that someone else acting in a certain way, and nothing that they can do can absolve me of my own responsibility. Original Sin and salvation by Christ are both deeply offensive ideas to me and to all extropians who value individual responsibility. In ending this discussion, I want to remind you that you are all Popes. You are all you own highest authority. You are the source of your action. You choose your values - whether you do so actively or by default. You choose what to believe, how strongly to believe, and what you will take as disconfirming evidence. No one has authority over you - you are your own authority, your own value-chooser, your own thinker. Join me, join Lucifer, and join Extropy in fighting God and his entropic forces with our minds, our wills, and our courage. God's army is strong, but they are backed by ignorance, fear, and cowardice. Reality is fundamentally on our side. Forward into the light!

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focusontheeasternlightning-blog · 5 years

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Question 1: The Lord Jesus died on the cross for us, He forgave all our sins and redeemed us from the hands of Satan. That is to say, He did this to save us and grant us access to the kingdom of heaven. Even after this redemption, we continue to sin and we have yet to be cleansed. Nevertheless, I believe that the Lord’s forgiveness has made us righteous through our faith. As long as we sacrifice everything else to work and spend for God, as long as we are willing to endure suffering and pay the price, we’d be raptured into the kingdom of heaven. I think this is the Lord’s promise to us. However, my brothers and sisters have now questioned this belief. They say that although we labor and work for the Lord, we still sin often and then confess our sins, so we have not yet been cleansed. They have stated that the Lord is holy, so unholy people cannot meet Him. My question is: We who have sacrificed everything else and spend for the Lord, can we really be raised up into the kingdom of heaven? We really don’t know the answer to this question, so we’d like you to talk to us about it.

Answer: All believers think: The Lord Jesus redeemed us when He died on the cross, so we have already been absolved of all sin. The Lord no longer sees us as sinners. We have become righteous through our faith, and once saved, we are saved forever. As long as we endure until the end, when the Lord returns, we will be directly raptured into the heavenly kingdom. Well, is that the truth? Did God ever give any evidence in His words to back up this claim? If this viewpoint is not in line with the truth, what will the consequences be? We who believe in the Lord should use His own words as our basis for all things. This is especially true when it comes to the question of how to treat the Lord’s return. Under no circumstances can we treat His return based on man’s conceptions and imaginings. The consequences of such behavior are too serious to even contemplate. It’s the same as when the Pharisees crucified the Lord Jesus on the cross while waiting for the Messiah to come. What would the outcome be? The Lord Jesus has completed the work of redeeming mankind. This much is true, but is God’s work of salvation for mankind finished? Does that mean that all of us believers in the Lord Jesus qualify to be raptured into the heavenly kingdom? No one knows the answer to this question. God once said, “Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Mat 7:21), “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:45).

According to God’s words, we can be sure that those who enter the heavenly kingdom have freed themselves from sin and have been cleansed. They are the ones who do God’s will, obey God, love God, and revere Him. Because God is holy and those who enter the heavenly kingdom shall live together with Him, if we have not been cleansed how could we be qualified to enter the heavenly kingdom? Therefore, some people’s notion that we believers have been absolved from sin and we can enter the heavenly kingdom is a complete misunderstanding of God’s will. It originated from our imaginations; it’s our own conception. The Lord Jesus absolved us of sin; that is not false. However, the Lord Jesus never said that we have been totally cleansed through this absolution and are now eligible to enter the heavenly kingdom. No one can deny this fact. Then why do all the faithful think everyone who has been absolved from sin can enter the heavenly kingdom? What do they use as evidence? How do they support this claim? Many people say that they base this belief on the words of Paul and the other apostles, as written in the Bible. Well then, let me ask you, do the words of Paul and the other apostles represent the words of the Lord Jesus? Do they represent the words of the Holy Spirit? Man’s words may be in the Bible, but does this mean they are words of God? There is one fact we can clearly see from the Bible: The people that are praised by God can hear His voice and obey His work. They are the ones who follow His way, are the ones eligible to inherit what God has promised. This is a fact that no one can deny. We all know that even though the sins of us the faithful have been forgiven, we have still not been cleansed; we still sin and resist God often. God clearly told us, “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:45), “Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Mat 7:21). From God’s words, we can be sure that even though man’s sins have been forgiven, they are not eligible to enter the heavenly kingdom. People must be cleansed; they must become doers of God’s will before they can enter the heavenly kingdom. This is an irrefutable fact. Apparently, understanding God’s will is not nearly as simple as it seems. We don’t become cleansed just because our sins have been forgiven. We must first obtain some reality of the truth and earn God’s praise. Then we will be eligible to enter the heavenly kingdom. If we do not love the truth and in fact are weary of it and even hate it, if we only pursue rewards and the crown but do not care for God’s will, much less to say do God’s will, are we not doing evil? Does the Lord praise this sort of person? If so, we are just like those hypocritical Pharisees: Even though we’ve been forgiven of sin, we are still not able to enter the heavenly kingdom. This is an indisputable fact.

Let’s continue fellowshiping. The Lord Jesus absolved us of all sins. What sins did He absolve? What kinds of sin do we confess to after we begin believing in the Lord? The main sins referred to are those factual sins that betray God’s laws, commandments, or words. We humans betrayed God’s laws and commandments and were thus condemned and punished by His law. That’s why the Lord Jesus came to do His work of redemption. Thus, we need only pray to the Lord Jesus and confess and repent our sins and He shall absolve us. After that, we will no longer be subject to condemnation and punishment according to His law. God will no longer treat us as sinners. So we can pray directly to God; we can cry out to God and share in His abundant grace and truth. This is the true meaning of the “salvation” that we often spoke of in the Age of Grace. This salvation has nothing to do with being cleansed and entering the heavenly kingdom. You could say that those are two separate things, because the Lord Jesus never said that all who have been saved and absolved can enter the heavenly kingdom. Let’s read some of Almighty God’s words, “At the time Jesus’ work was the redemption of all mankind. The sins of all who believed in Him were forgiven; as long as you believed in Him, He would redeem you; if you believed in Him, you were no longer a sinner, you were relieved of your sins. This is what it meant to be saved, and to be justified by faith. Yet in those who believed, there remained that which was rebellious and opposed God, and which still had to be slowly removed. Salvation did not mean man had been completely gained by Jesus, but that man was no longer of sin, that he had been forgiven his sins: Provided you believed, you would never more be of sin” (“The Vision of God’s Work (2)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Before man was redeemed, many of Satan’s poisons were already planted within him. After thousands of years of Satan’s corruption, man already has within him a nature that resists God. Therefore, when man has been redeemed, it is nothing more than redemption, where man is bought at a high price, but the poisonous nature within has not been eliminated. Man that is so defiled must undergo a change before being worthy to serve God. Through this work of judgment and chastisement, man will fully come to know the filthy and corrupt substance within him, and he will be able to completely change and become clean. Only in this way can man be worthy to return before the throne of God. … Though man has been redeemed and forgiven of his sins, it is only considered as God not remembering the transgressions of man and not treating man in accordance with man’s transgressions. However, when man lives in the flesh and he has not been set free from sin, he can only continue to sin, endlessly revealing the corrupt satanic disposition. This is the life that man leads, an endless cycle of sin and forgiveness. The majority of men sin in the day only to confess in the evening. As such, even if the sin offering is forever effective for man, it would not be able to save man from sin. Only half the work of salvation has been completed, for man still has corrupt disposition” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Almighty God’s words answer this question very clearly. As soon as we hear them, we understand them. In the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus only did His work of redemption to absolve mankind of sin, making them righteous through faith and saved through faith. However, the Lord Jesus never said that everyone who has been forgiven of his or her sins can enter the heavenly kingdom. This is because the Lord Jesus may have absolved us of all sin, but He never absolved us of our satanic nature. Our inner arrogance, selfishness, deceit, evil etc., that is, our corrupt dispositions, still remain. These things are deeper than sin. They are much harder to resolve. If the satanic nature and corrupt dispositions, which are so resistant to God, have not been resolved, we cannot help but commit many sins. We may even commit sins that are even worse than breaking the law, that is, the more egregious sins. Why were the Pharisees able to condemn and resist the Lord Jesus? How could they crucify Him on the cross? This proves that if our satanic nature has not been resolved we can still sin, resist God, and betray God.

We have believed in the Lord for all these years and experienced one thing ourselves, that is, although our sins have been absolved, we still can’t resist sinning constantly. We still lie, trick, cheat and use sophistry in pursuit of reputation and status. We even shirk responsibility and get other people in trouble for our own sake. When confronted with natural and manmade disasters, or trials and tribulations, we blame and betray God. When God’s work is not in line with our own conceptions, we deny, judge, and resist God. Although we believe in God in name, we still revere and follow other human beings. If we have positions, we exalt and bear witness to ourselves, just like the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees. We act like we are God to try and make people revere and admire us. We even steal and take for ourselves the sacrificial offerings to God. We grow jealous and follow our own preferences and the whims of our flesh and emotions. We plant our own flags, form our own groups, and establish our own little kingdoms. These are all clear facts. We can see that if our satanic nature and dispositions are not resolved, we won’t be eligible to enter the heavenly kingdom even if our sins are forgiven a million times. The fact that we can still sin and resist God shows that we still belong to Satan, are enemies of God, and will definitely be condemned and punished by Him. It’s just as it says in the Bible, “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb 10:26-27). Let’s read some of Almighty God’s words: “A sinner such as you, who has just been redeemed, and has not been changed, or been perfected by God, can you be after God’s heart? For you, you who are still of your old self, it is true that you were saved by Jesus, and that you are not counted as a sinner because of the salvation of God, but this does not prove that you are not sinful, and are not impure. How can you be saintly if you have not been changed? Within, you are beset by impurity, selfish and mean, yet you still wish to descend with Jesus—you should be so lucky! You have missed a step in your belief in God: You have merely been redeemed, but have not been changed. For you to be after God’s heart, God must personally do the work of changing and cleansing you; if you are only redeemed, you will be incapable of attaining sanctity. In this way you will be unqualified to share in the good blessings of God, for you have missed out a step in God’s work of managing man, which is the key step of changing and perfecting. And so you, a sinner who has just been redeemed, are incapable of directly inheriting God’s inheritance” (“Concerning Appellations and Identity” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). As you can see, we have only been redeemed by the Lord Jesus but still live in our satanic disposition, frequently sinning and resisting God. We must experience God’s judgment and salvation in the last days to be completely freed from sin and be after God’s heart. Then we will be eligible to enter the heavenly kingdom. Actually, the Lord Jesus once said, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (Jhn 14:2-3). The Lord went back to prepare a place for us and after He has prepared a place for us, He will return to receive us. In truth, this “receiving” refers to His plans for us to be reborn in the last days. When the Lord comes to do His work, He will bring us before His throne to be judged, cleansed, and made perfect by God’s words. He will make us into overcomers before the disasters arrive. The process of His receiving us is actually how He will cleanse us and make us perfect. Now the Lord has come to earth to perform His work of judgment in the last days. We have been raptured before His throne to live together with Him. Doesn’t this completely fulfill the prophecy of the Lord coming to receive us? After the great disasters end, Christ’s kingdom will be established on earth. All who survive the refinement of the great disasters will have a place in the heavenly kingdom.

Some people say, disciples like Paul, those that suffer and sacrifice for the Lord, Aren’t they all qualified to enter the heavenly kingdom? It’s just as Paul once said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: From now on there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” (2Ti 4:7-8). Many people think: Well, Paul labored for the Lord and inherited the crown of righteousness, so as long as we labor like Paul, we will all be able to inherit the crown of righteousness and enter the heavenly kingdom, right? Is that the truth? These words that Paul spoke, were they based on God’s word? Did the Lord Jesus ever say that Paul received the rewards and inherited the crown? Did the Holy Spirit ever testify that Paul entered the heavenly kingdom? None of these things were written in the Bible. Yes. The Lord Jesus never said Paul was the one who would inherit the crown and enter the heavenly kingdom! Yes. These are only our own conceptions and imaginations! As you can see, Paul's words are not supported by the evidence. Therefore, we can't use Paul’s words as the basis of how to enter the heavenly kingdom. As for obtaining eternal life and entering the heavenly kingdom, the Lord Jesus once said it very clearly, “Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Mat 7:21-23). The Lord Jesus’ words are quite clear. People must leave their evil sins, be cleansed and follow God’s will in order to enter the heavenly kingdom. If they labor and sacrifice by mere zeal, while continuing to sin and resist God, if they cannot follow God’s way, then they are evildoers; they certainly will not be able to enter the heavenly kingdom. Paul, on the other hand, said that fighting the good fight, finishing his course and keeping the faith would allow him to enter the kingdom of heaven and be rewarded. Isn't this obviously in conflict with what the Lord Jesus said? According to Paul's viewpoint, as long as we labor for the Lord, we'll be able to receive the rewards and enter the heavenly kingdom. If that is the case, couldn’t all those Jewish Pharisees that travel sea and land to spread the gospel while condemning and resisting the Lord Jesus enter the heavenly kingdom? Those that preach and cast out demons in the name of the Lord but do not follow God’s way, aren't they eligible to enter the heavenly kingdom as well? Isn’t that viewpoint just too absurd? Why were the Pharisees never able to gain the Lord Jesus’ praise, no matter what they did? This was mainly because they only spread the gospel and endure suffering in pursuit of their own benefit and rewards. God is righteous. God can see into men’s minds and hearts. Therefore, when the Lord Jesus did His work, they were completely exposed. They fanatically condemned and resisted the Lord Jesus to protect their own positions and meal tickets. They were enemies of the Lord Jesus; they crucified Him on the cross. The end result was that they were cursed and punished by God. This is a commonly known fact.

What becomes of the religious people in the last days? Many of those people are just like the Jewish Pharisees. Although they have labored for the Lord, everything they have done is in pursuit of blessings and rewards; they have been trying to obtain the crown and rewards; they are not practicing the Lord's words or obeying the Lord. Therefore, when they do work and make sacrifices, they do so according to their own whims and desires. They exalt themselves and testify about themselves in pursuit of their positions and reputations. They form factions, establish their own kingdoms. Even after many of them have done some work and endured some suffering, they lean on their seniority, self-righteously asking God for a place in the heavenly kingdom. How can these people, especially the pastors and elders, earn God's praise? When faced with God's work of judgment in the last days, not only do they not accept it, they fanatically resist and condemn Almighty God in order to protect their own positions and meal-tickets. They crucified God on the cross again. They provoked God’s disposition a long time ago. Isn’t this a fact? Do we not understand it yet? These facts are enough to prove that we who sacrifice and labor for the Lord will not necessarily be able to enter the heavenly kingdom. We that believe in the Lord but do not practice His words or follow His commandments are not motivated by our love of God or a desire to obey Him; we are merely seeking blessings and entry to heaven. We are tricking and exploiting God. No matter how much work we do, no matter how we suffer, we will not earn God’s praise. let's read more of Almighty God’s words,“At a superficial glance, human beings seemed to be constantly bustling about as they expended themselves and worked for God, whereas they were in fact calculating, in the secret recesses of their inmost hearts, the next step they should take to win blessings or reign as kings. One could say that, as the human heart was enjoying God, it was at the same time scheming against God. Humanity in this condition meets with God’s deepest abhorrence and detestation; God’s disposition does not tolerate any human being deceiving or using Him” (from Introduction to Part One of The Word Appears in the Flesh). “You say you have always suffered whilst following God, that you have followed Him through thick and thin, and have shared with Him the good times and the bad, but you have not lived out the words spoken by God; you wish only to run about after God each day, and have never thought to live out a life of meaning. You say that, in any case, you believe God is righteous: You have suffered for Him, run around for Him, and devoted yourself for Him, and you have worked hard despite not receiving any recognition; He is sure to remember you. It is true that God is righteous, yet this righteousness is untainted by any impurities: It contains no human will, and it is not tainted by the flesh, or human transactions. All who are rebellious and in opposition, and not in compliance with His way, will be punished; none is forgiven, and no one is spared!” (“The Experiences of Peter: His Knowledge of Chastisement and Judgment” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “You must know what kind of people I desire; those who are impure are not permitted to enter into the kingdom, those who are impure are not permitted to besmirch the holy ground. Though you may have done much work, and have worked for many years, in the end if you are still deplorably filthy—it is intolerable to the law of Heaven that you wish to enter My kingdom! ... If you only look to rewards, and do not seek to change your own life disposition, then all your efforts will be in vain—and this is an unalterable truth!” (“Success or Failure Depends on the Path That Man Walks” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). From God’s words, we can see that He is holy and righteous. God will definitely not allow dirty, corrupt humans to enter His kingdom. This is determined by God’s righteous disposition! Therefore, we must experience God’s judgment and cleansing in the last days to obtain the truth, free ourselves from our corrupt disposition and be obtained by God, to be saved and enter the heavenly kingdom. This is an undoubtable fact.

from the movie script of Awakening from the dream

#Lord Jesus #God's judgment #believe in God

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iamemyrae · 7 years

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Confession- Eternal Soul

Confession: The Series CONTINUES NOW. (12 Parts)

Part 3: Adultery and Murder: King David’s Sin.

Our lives. If you could go back and choose only one moment in time, a chance to do something differently, would you be in the same place today? When the storm becomes still, what is left of your clear reflection upon the waters now?

Our God is the One, True God of second chances; perhaps we should give ourselves a second chance too.

One day we will stand for Judgment at the throne of the Almighty, Just God and account for every thought and action. Confession is our TURN; the do-over, our gift. Will we use our remaining breath to restore one’s soul?

Sin is not the worst thing in the world; it is a denial of the sin that is. We cannot confess what we do not acknowledge. There is nothing more tragic than when spiritual hope is lost; and no freer flight as when we accept the absolution of sin within our Lord’s mercy. No matter if we perform a hundred acts of outward social justice, none will cover-up the longing for the individual justice of a sinner’s soul. A suffering conscience is when we sense God is not pleased and things are not as they are meant to be.

The Sin of Biblical King David.

Biblical King David had done lots of good things for the Lord and His people of Israel: He subdued the Philistines, showed kindness in brotherly relationships, and most powerfully, had a sincere heart for God. But as the human heart is deceitful, David fell hard in sin from his lust for the married woman, Bethsheeba. He got her pregnant, then to cover up his sin, had Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, killed. Adultery and Murder. It is hard for a man after God’s own heart to live with himself following such actions.

Months passed for King David, the sin unnoticed by others, and though David functioned on the outside, his inner state was conflicted. His spirit wound so tight; a conscience in torment. Living in deception, hiding from God cannot continue without something destructive happening.

You try to cover it up but the guilt remains. God can intervene to shake things up. He may send a message in the form of spiritual waves which rock our inner being to its depth. And We suffer out loud.

In King David’s life, God intervened through the prophet, Nathan.

“The Lord sent Nathan to David……….he said, “Judge this case for me!” (2 Samuel 12:1)

Nathan shares a story with David about a rich and a poor man; how the rich man takes the only ewe of the poor man and kills it to feed a traveler visiting the rich man. Nathan’s story was straightforward about the rich man abusing his station in life. Nathan asks David, who shall be the one with trouble in God’s eyes?

King David responds with angry, moral outrage and judges the rich man harshly. He tells Nathan,

“As the Lord lives, the man who has done this merits death!” (2 Samuel 12: 5)

But friends! David’s answer is sorely conflicted. Look what David just pronounced. In condemning this rich man in Nathan’s story, David is condemning himself!

AS prophets tend to do, Nathan shares the whole truth with David! Not just the easy parts.

“You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel.” (2 Samuel 12: 7) “Why have you spurned the Lord and done evil in His sight?” (2 Samuel 12: 9)

You see dear friends, David’s hypocritical response is a last-ditch attempt to suppress his own conscience. We all have this human need when Believers to be righteous but when living with guilt, our righteousness can now come only from comparing ourselves with others. And this is never real nor the true righteousness received and offered as a gift from and to God.

So, God rebukes David and through Nathan, David owns up to his actions in front of the prophet, and most importantly, in front of His God. King David is full of abject despair.

“Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Samuel 12: 13)

David’s repentance goes as deep down as his sins.

“As long as I would not speak, my bones wasted away with my groaning all the day.” (Psalm 32: 3)

Nathan answers; “The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin; you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die.” (2 Samuel 12: 14)

David accepts his guilt, confesses his sins before the Lord, and accepts the consequences.

Because God knows what is in David’s heart the path was opened for God’s grace to flow. God again shows His covenant faithfulness with His people.

I believe even before our sins come out from our lips God hears the pain in a Believer’s heart. Following sincere confession, God absolves our sin.

“Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I covered not. I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord, and you took away the guilt of my sin.” (Psalm 32: 5)

Then David worships the Lord and receives His forgiveness. The matter is spiritually settled. A soul’s health is restored.

“Happy is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered.” (Psalm 32: 1)

David models what all of us as sinners must do. We must see our sin for what it is and admit our wrongdoings as displeasing the Lord. God calls us to fight the good fight against ALL the wiles of Satan.

By seeing David’s fall into His sin, may we grow more and more dependent on the Lord.

Come, dear friends, Let’s pray together:

“Dear Lord, by David’s fall may we be preserved from falling so tragically ourselves. We come to you as David did. We know to suppress our sins means they remain for eternity. Help me to no longer be ashamed of the whole truth. As we accept our sinful actions and believe you forgive a sincere heart, we worship You alone as blessed Lord, Jesus Christ the Savior.”

“For this shall every faithful man pray to you in time of stress. Though deep waters overflow, they shall not reach him.” (Psalm 32: 6)

After the sin, after the storm dies down. When you believe that the Lord God calmed the waters of your life through sincere repentance. Now, look into the water. What do you see now in your own reflection? If it is clear again, that my friends, would be the love of God at work in your life.

“Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but kindness surrounds him who trusts in the Lord, Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you just; exult, all you upright of heart.” (Psalm 32: 10-11.)

Written by Debra Marie (DeLash)

Part 3 of 12 parts on Confession.

Next Sunday Part 4: we will go deeper; get to the raw realities of human sin.

Your Eternal Soul

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