W W W W World Wide Web Witness Inc

W W W W World Wide Web Witness Inc. Home Page What is New

REDEMPTION OR REVOLT

Dilettante or Disciple

Nothing New under the Sun, or All Things New

Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson

Published by World Wide Web Witness Inc.

January 2011

ISBN 978-9870886-2-8

PREFACE

Recently, a radio announcer speaking of floods or rains or some natural disaster, said that it seemed that Someone up there, had a grudge against us.

Little could be more monumentally mistaken. It is rather saying that the butterfly shows that the Lord has no sense of the minute! or that an elephant shows that He is limited to little works.

In fact, there is love and compassion, showered upon creation, discipline and directness, pre-announced for the fruits of seductive autonomy as in Genesis 3, and a judgment settling on the earth the way the fog does on the open seas, its fingers probing the nearby valleys, and its hidings making ships like forlorn sea monsters. In rebelling against His working instructions (manualled in the Bible), how to use the glorious gift of being created a member of the human race, man is like a dissident student who, being told that to be found smoking would require 'six from the lawyer' (as one Headmaster put it), then complained when showing his pipe freely and openly to a supervising teacher! It would vex the imagination even to consider how such a vaporous verbal glitch could be made as to call this a grudge! In fact, this student did not complain; but the point remains. What, in any case, came to the student ? He was expelled. The Headmaster was determined that the lung abuse would not mar the school.

A trudge certainly (though the student concerned left in a taxi), is implied, but justice for man from the Lord, as announced, so far from being grudge, even when apparently profound (though the recent Australian case of massive inundations is not near the flood, which had a long prelude - Genesis 6), is the precise opposite. This cavalier criticism ignores

	the Creator's knowledge for the way to treat His creation, man, singly and jointly, duly imparted in the Bible.
	His action to provide free redemption and the soaring cost to Him of doing so.
	the goodwill incorporated in this pinnacle of sacrifice and the continuing provocation in a world often moving back to the hideous sins of self-will, even when as in this land, superabundantly blessed in the time of at least some measure of worship of the living God, giving glory to His name for His redemption in Christ Jesus; and
	the maintenance of the offer of free redemption despite all, to each one, including any who falsely suggest grudge, in the very midst of mercy, that the race can continue at all amidst such condign disloyalty, unthankfulness and spiritual inertia.

While it is possible to err in attributing any one disaster to one specially chosen cause, yet some steady aggravation of cause may precipitate a decisive result: as in the destruction of Sennacherib's army (an immediate cause was the pompous pretension of the monarch, seeking to compare the living God to the idols of the nations, and to exalt himself as if a god) as seen in Isaiah 36ff..

God is not offering wisdom for general living, at the crux, but how to BE ALIVE. It is no mere phrasing, for the alternative is eternal condemnation (II Thessalonians 1). He is not suggesting more sanctification but demanding justification, so that the STATUS of the SOUL may be one that is acceptable to God, since it is only His OWN righteousness which can be satisfactory, and man's sins know almost no depth control, the pit being likewise bottomless. This we find in Romans 5:1-21 the reconditioning required, yes far more, the regeneration wrought on the basis of faith in the salvation of Jesus Christ, long prepared and on its due date, granted (cf. Christ the Citadel ... Ch. 2).

Comparative religions are comparative revolt; and all are utterly in revolt, since NONE but the offering of Christ get ANYWHERE with God (Acts 4:11-12), since none other is appointed (Acts 13:26-46,17:31, John 14:6) and His saving work was done ONCE (Hebrews 9) and for all! Since He redeems, pays for what is repentant, purified and purged, rescued and covered in cost for the restitution to the status of a child of God: therefore it is simple. It is one. It is clear. It is revolt or it is redemption.

Such is the status of our race. Such is the fate of the furious, the spurious, the seduced and the seductive, except they repent. Such is the provision. God is no octopus: He hands down His one solution for our one problem, taking its heart and core as one and its cure and consequence as one, and making in one act, in one Person, for one motivation, that of love, the necessary provision (Hebrews 8-10).

This simplicity moves like an express train throughout so many so sophisticatedly spectacular problems, and so many subtly deep ones, so that, to get on board the express, and relax the contentious cavils and anxious swivels, is delight: view from the window is both varied and comprehensible. On the other side, away from this survey, this transformation from treading to triumph: there is only confusion. Whatever the number and placement of the worms in an apple, the core is the place of depth for it all.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

A Birthday Gift

Chapter 2

Designs on, by and for Design

The Frankly Amazing Human Case

Chapter 3

DIVINE MULTIPLES

Concentrates and Foci for Faith

A Multi-Partite Presentation from the Bible

Chapter 4

CONDITIONS FOR LIFE AND LIVING