EXPOSITION OF 5 POINTS IN I CORINTHIANS 15

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Chapter 9

THE GLORY OF RESURRECTION

Immutable Reliability,

Victorious Viability,

Effective Defiance, Ejective Deliverance

Immortality ? yes, and a body for it and a life in it

EXPOSITION OF 5 POINTS IN I CORINTHIANS 15:20-48ff.

and EXPLORATION OF ITS END

THE FIVE POINTS

1) Types of Flesh (15:35ff.)

The very fact that Paul, in explaining the nature of the body to come in the resurrection speaks of different MATERIAL types of things, not ethereal at all, makes it clear that he is not moving from the objective to the subjective, or from the classically evident to the mystic.

This accords well with the fact that in I Corinthians 15:1-4, as Machen pointed out, the THING that was put in the grave ('He' is indicated of the body as the mode of reference), is the thing which is extracted. A spirit was not put into the grave, nor was one extracted.

2) BODIES VULNERABLE and INVULNERABLE,
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL

in I Corinthians 15:41, there is not reference to a fleshly body contrasted with a spiritual body. It is not sarkikos (1) which is named and the then pneumatikos, but fusikos (2)contrasted with pneumatikos. What does this mean ? It is not flesh in contrast to spirit, but natural in contrast to spiritual. Flesh is not subverted, but converted, and the natural is not diminished but consummated, its heavenly accreditation for those whom God has received, who also have received God, being what is fitting not for this degrading and degraded universe, falling down following its creation, through sin and the ageing that goes with it, but in the heavenly home.

It is rather like a visa operation: if you want a certain country as home, then you need a visa for it; and the one matches the other. A spiritual body for a spiritual eternity is what is fitting, and what is obtained through the resurrection of Christ, a 'fix' which is not in the eye and will not meet the heart of those who do not have the Christ who gives it, any more than those who sit in the shade will have the beauty of the solar rays to warm them.

What then of this contrast, NOT the fleshly and the spiritual, for this is not what is here written; but the natural and the spiritual, for this is what is written. . Had the former been used, then there could have been a contrast of the physical, the individual domain of individual specificity, with something of a different order altogether, not simply more glorious and impervious. However, in using the second of the two contrast set out above, with fusikos (natural), we find ourselves facing a very different contrast. It is that of the preliminary with the ultimate. It is a NATURAL thing (the term physics etymologically relates) which is the prelude and a SPIRITUAL thing which is its consummation. Now the natural is that where the curse operates, where trial and test, from the very first, were the order of that day. The second law of thermodynamics with its NATURAL loss of specificity and availability, showing the movement towards entropy, it is this which is applicable.

It is not so in the spiritual domain.

Here the mortal is CONTRASTED to advantage of retention, not loss of reality and individuality. It is, indeed, quite the contrary, the lesser, the natural, being the mortal, while that which is to come is the immortal.

What had been in body in the 'natural' domain is now removed from the grip of decay and death, pain and problematics, and moved into that where an intimately related but entirely more glorious, indeed permanent, eternal body is in operation.

The sting of death EXITS, the humiliation of DEGRADATION departs; but the body in receiving these graces, in being transmuted into a spiritual body, is not contrasted with flesh -

as if to lack the dignity of individuality, memory and reality
in that intimate if not ultimate degree
which makes life so glorious in potential and so personal in mode,
encasing beauty and friendship, nobility if so be
and that grand scope of penetration of mind
with which God graciously endues man.

Rather it is contrasted with the natural, of which the potential to mar, decay and be subject to death is by this transition most eloquently and emphatically removed.

BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD

In I Corinthians 15:29, the apostle Paul mentions the clause 'who are baptised for the dead'.

This is not some ceremony of strange and unique proportions, brought into some unapostolically classical modality. Rather, within the domain of already clear scripture, there is here simply a martial imagery. In the midst of trials and endurance, warfare on the right and left to deliver the people of God to suffering and seeking to seduce, while they trumpet the truth and encourage many to find it in Christ, there is in contrast a nobility of tenor, a rigour of determination on the part of those who follow Him. It involves what Paul elsewhere calls the discipline, the self-discipline of soldiers, of athletes striving for a crown (II Timothy 2:2ff.).

Against destruction and evil, there is the constant valour of the spiritual soldier who seeks to overcome, not with military weapons but spiritual ones, and this not merely in personal accountability, but in effectual results, by all means rescuring some through the Gospel. This nobility of spirit and grandness of enterprise, then, is here evident once more. Let us picture it in a practical manner to make it clearer.

In this case, it is as if the people on becoming Christians, and seeing the Church like an army (as in the Song of Solomon 5:4), and in the midst of the heroic milieu of the saints to which body they now belong, on contemplating baptism, if they have not received this before, are looking ahead. They are determined to complete a role of a special kind.

Indeed, they are looking to substitute for the fallen, like soldiers, On seeing a gap in the lines, at once they desire to fill it with body and courage alike, lest there be any cave-in, any weakness, any failure (heaven forbid!) in that part of the line. As they are being baptised in the normal way, and are thus objectivising the internal and lending sacramental blessing to the reality of new faith, it is a faith in CHRIST the COMMANDER (as in Isaiah 55:4) they they acknowledge, and Him whom they desire to serve. Just as those under Joshua had a sacred task to fulfil, not allowing any slackness to spoil the victories or foil the splendour of the operation into the promised land of rest, which would become the platform for the Messiah indeed, so here in the Church, baptism is a mode of objectified entry which gives them occasion for a spiritual patriotism as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven (Philippians 3:20), so that it may the more exhibit itself.

Now, it is as if they cry, NOW I can fill this gap, make strong that bulwark, lend more impact to that sector where another solider having fallen in death, at the end of his pilgrimage, there is need for me to fill the place.

What, Paul proceeds, in argument (I Corinthians 15:29ff.), could be the possible value of being so baptised with such enterprise, loyalty and fidelity to the cause, till victory being manifest, all rest, if there IS not victory! What use is this exalted delight in serving Christ, substituting for the fallen (those who have already passed on), if there IS no such war, if this is a mere dream, ephemeral, if there is no resurrection! What is the value of such spiritual valour and expectation, loyalty and passion if Christ were not raised and the triumph were not accomplished! It is in the application of that triumph that we all proceed, that those newly baptised envisage their duties. It is in this that those baptised with that far greater baptism, which is the testimony of a good conscience towards Jesus Christ through the resurrection from the dead (I Peter 3:21), are operating, as seeing Him who is invisible, who became both man and sacrifice for sin, to break death and pay for pardon, as they spread the Gospel of pardon and peace.

It is in this that so many for so long and with such valour have striven, that all might be blessed, as far as the arm of the Lord reaches.

If this Gospel is no gospel, if Christ's body had rotted, if the triumph were a mirage, what is the use of carrying it forth with such sacrifice over successive generations, until the Gospel of the word and grace of God in Christ Jesus has skirted the world, broken up the fallow ground of inattentive souls and gripped the mighty! But now is Christ risen from the dead, as Paul so singularly emphasises of His body, now the grave is dethroned. Now is the victory both profound and personal, vicarious and provided, now is it to be applied and made so applicable that as He is, so are we to be (I John 3:1-4). As He was resurrected, the body a ground of condemnation but then in Christ, a site for restoration, so will we be, and so will we all meet (as in I Thessalonians 4), the dead in Christ rising first, and we who have filled in the gaps in the line, added to them so that all in one composure worship Him who sent them, in the felicity of the finale (I Corinthians 15:58ff.).

THEREFORE there is MUCH point in such a militant imagery as this, being 'baptised for the dead', to replace their gaping holes with new soldiering; and there is enormous point in seeing it from the triumphant beginning to the glorious end, as with vast sufferings the Church provides the world with this window of opportunity, exposing the minions of wickedness, the principalities and powers, with the whole armour of God the vital equipment (Ephesians 6). Thus baptism carries in this PERSPECTIVE, the thrust of new members in an army, removing the desolation and grief for the cause of those who, having fought, have gone to be with their Lord, by adding fresh faces and new enthusiasm, to make strong the line. So does the thrust of the apostle's argument proceed smoothly in its whole context.

CONTRASTS FOR THE NEW BODY

One has already noted the mortal-immortal aggrandisement for the body, at the resurrection. One recalls Christ speaking to Mary, that He was not yet ascended to His Father (Matthew 20:15ff.), with whom He would be glorified (John 17:4-5 cf. John 17:24, Daniel 7:13ff.). What splendour has that body which in addition to being able, on resurrection, to eat fish (Luke 24:42-43) and have fingers poked without mortality, into wounds, is yet further ennobled and enabled in being when the One who brought it through death, is 'glorified'. Indeed, HIS glory is not only in the resurrection, but in the nature of His place with His Father before time was, and it is to this, as banisher of death and ground-breaker of the path of truth for man's coming, that He returns. "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."

In particular, this resurrected, non-rotting body (as in Psalm 16 and Acts 2), robbing the grave of its confining walls (or the tomb, in this case), and death of its malodour, has a history. While in mankind the body, sown in corruption - corruptibility its potential, deadly flaw, one realised because of sin, judgment thus coming in the context of the initial failed test of our race (Romans 5:12ff., Genesis 3) - fails in death; yet in Christ, it is yet raised in incorruption. Its new title deeds, vested in the pathfinder, exemplar of Christ, whose body it will resemble in resurrected quality (I John 3:1-3), are those of immortality, incorruption, spirituality and not earthiness. They are those of the celestial and not the passing terrestrial which, for all its wonder and intricacy, is to pass away altogether, in a universe departing with vast noise, as one reality being removed, a new heavens and new earth replaces it (Matthew 24:35, Revelation 20:11, 21:1, II Peter 3).

Thus "as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man" (15:49); and indeed, as in 15:47, just as the first man was of the earth, so "THE SECOND MAN IS THE LORD FROM HEAVEN."

God is not ashamed of having made man, and glorious were and indeed, in no small measure are the potentials, because of redemption, at first in the offing and then, as now, in the offering. Yet He does not and WILL not rest (Ezekiel 33:11 shows the depth of the determination of divine will, in conjunction with Hosea 13:14) in the reduced status of fallen man, let alone take pleasure in man's ignominy, deserved as it is.

DEATH! He personally will be its plagues, and HELL ? Its notice of default will be stamped 'cancelled' for those who receiving by grace through faith His gift of righteousness (Ephesians 2, Romans 5:17ff.), are given the immortal credits of His accreditation, declared to be the Son of God with power by the Spirit in the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

Thus He went so far, to such an extreme, and endured in His own personal Being such rigours as flesh enabled Him to find when, stripped of the outward powers of implicit and unalterable personal Deity, though not its internal realities (God does not lose identity because He is ALWAYS the same - James 1:17, Malachi 3:6, Psalm 102). Doing so, He took sin as an inheritance. In this vicarious horror, He proceeded as planned to impart glorious holiness, in meeting the deadline of death with His own, and imparting the lifeline of life to His own, His own people.

Thus man indeed it was, not something else, which was the basis of the Fall, Adam, as in Romans 5; and man indeed as there also, so here, is the harbour for restoration. As we read in I Corinthians 15:47, it is THE SECOND MAN, who is the same as THE LORD FROM HEAVEN, who accomplishes this triumph. In man, the fall, man of the earth, earthy; in man is the rising, the Lord from heaven THAT man.

So He has come and crushed death by dying with it, warranted life, by rising over the very chagrin and penalty of death, innocent and triumphant. Now, being representative, exemplar and glorious commander, having commanded life to enter the spiritually dead lives of those in default through sin, He brings to His people, the body incorruptible, immortal and spiritual, fit for life in that sphere. There sin has no entrance, and so its accoutrements, its clothing, its conditions no place (cf. Revelation 21:4,6).

Through man's practice, man's life came to ruin; through God's performance in the habitat and format of man, man's scope for life has come to triumph: and in each case the body was a site for action, in the former, for that default which is death, as in the latter of that victory OVER the invidious, the insidious. We are not dealing with riddles or mysteries for thought; but there is a clarity of the very heavens in all of this. The man, the body, the fall, the death, the scope and penalty of sin, the God-man, the love, the purity, the performance, the breach of death by power and persistence, the arising from the dead, the grant of eternal life thus verified, the format for eternity secured (cf. II Corinthians 4:17-5:3, I Corinthians 15:57ff.).

What then ? the due plot of the grave, in a body which as distinct from the place of angels, moved from an earthly particularity in its natural setting, to a celestial particularity in its non-death, no-curse, no-more-pain format is the pivot of the history of the universe, this in its incarnation, crucifixion and asphyxiation of death, through the vitality and purity of its life. This ? it is on the part of Him who was dead, and is alive for evermore (Revelation 1:17-18). It is He who has the keys as there declared, of hell and of death, and in Him is life, life indeed still protested, proclaimed and offered to the very fifth last verse in the Bible (Revelation 22:17). There we find that those who thirst, to those of them who come, there are given the waters of life freely.

DELEGATION, RELEGATION AND REALITY

Penultimately, we come to I Corinthians 15:27-28.

What, someone may ask, is this ? Christ who was IN THE FORM OF GOD (Philippians 2), SO THAT equality with God (as in John 10:30ff.) was not a thing to be snatched at, being there already, is THIS Christ to become subordinate to God ? Is this what the text is saying ?

What does this mean ? Does He who as in John 8:58, openly declared that before Abraham so much as hit the tarmac of time, He Himself was there (as in Proverbs 8, as in John 1), and not only there, He was there in a special mode. It is not a case of "I was there", but "I am". Time has over Him, no jurisdiction, none whatever.

It is He, the Christ, who bears in Himself nothing less than the signature authenticity of ALMIGHTY GOD - the "I AM" of Exodus 6, He of whom the case is this: . Not before Abraham, I was, but before Abraham I AM! This was His declaration.

Like a model brand in a car, known to represent a certain car company, so and more so, is this amazing use of the time designation for God, so that it is not what contains HIM, but what as a creation (Romans 8:37ff.), HE, the Creator, contains, that figures. It is He who as an author contains His book which so far from containing Him, is a content receptacle for some of His thoughts and imagination, whether to be wrought or not.

In Exodus 3:14, 6:12, we see the clearest of designations. It could grammatically mean "I am" or "I will be", what I am, I am, or what I will be, I will be.

Yet God is not telling Moses that whatever He will be, unknown, undecipherable, abstract, mysterious, incapable of being a basis for any covenant since it may all be for a very different God of other intent and purpose at any time, this He will be. He is certainly not saying that a wholly incognito God is about to make a contract. Imagine if anyone said to you about buying a house, "I, the seller, will be what I will be, so that you have no way of telling how I will be situated, and must just adjust to this fact, before making any agreement with me!" How absurd. God DOES NOT CHANGE (Psalm 102, James 1, Hebrews 13, Malachi 3:6). Time is His creation (Romans 8:36ff.). He is not about time, as to His own Being; it is about Him.

Thus, if the words in Exodus meant in Hebrew, "I will be what I will be": that whatever He will be, that He will be: that is inconceivable except as a sort of sporting humour. It is merely slippery meaninglessness. It is I AM WHAT I AM. The Maker is not subjected to the limits of the made. The Maker of all is not subject to any, any element, process. He IS.

On the contrary, in Exodus, in this affirmation of who He is, there is not only a SECURITY, that God's being is an essential reality to which the decadence, change and degradation of the flesh does not apply. It goes further. He is an entity, a Being whose nature is incapable of penetration, self-existent, self-determining, above all, beyond all, yet able to reach to any as He will, as an author might, and much more so. It is He who is THE CREATOR, who in the beginning constructed our world of materiality, space and time, as receptacle for the spirit which inhabits man, as seen in Genesis and Isaiah so frequently. We may change; but He remains the same, as the Psalm advises.

He is not correlative to things natural, like Egyptian idols, and indeed, He expressly went, as it were, right out of His way to show that this species of 'god', of which the Egyptians had many examples, is nonsense, susceptible to absolute humiliation by having itself made into a curse, as with frogs and flies in the scenario of Egypt's rout.

Indeed, God is not even correlative to the passage of time, though IN that very passage, He implements PRECISELY what He pleases, and knows both what the Pharaoh will do, and what He in turn will do to overthrow all of this, just as He knew for how long (Genesis 15:13), as He spoke with Abraham, recorded in Genesis 15, Israel would BE in Egypt before He would - as He did - bring them out!

This God, therefore, not only does not change; He knows what changes are to be made in His creation and why and where and when; and carries them out (cf. Isaiah 43-46, Ephesians 1:11, Acts 15:18). Indeed, this He does in deliberate and intended contrast with cultural gods, and national entities, made by man with whatever intention.

In what sense, then, does Christ, as in I Corinthians 15, hand back the authority to God, having put all things under Him, the mission granted ? It is of course, precisely as the word indicates: it is His MISSION with its appointed authority (as in Psalm 2, concerning the resurrection), which is relayed back to the Father. It is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED AND CONCLUDED, OVER!

That has nothing to do with the Godhead as trinity, but with this commission to save and redeem and breaking death, grant peace and find His own. Then back into His trinitarian splendour (as in Philippians 2), He resumes, passing back all that was in the Son (heaven does not have child-birth, but this has an analogical relationship) as sent as Saviour and Lord, to the Father, so that the Trinity, GOD, should be all in all. It does not say, so that the Father might be all in all, but that GOD might be all in all. That then is the way with it.

CHRISTIAN, RELAX AND BE RIGOROUS,
TRUSTING AND TRAINING,

FOR YOUR LABOUR IS NOT IN VAIN IN THE LORD

Let us now consider how these things relate to the spiritual service to God which so many desire to give, in Christ's name.

Just as, then, there is this celestiality of wonder above the terrestriality of plunder, the Man from heaven, the LORD indeed from heaven, overcoming the failure in the man of earth, so there is the exultation in the exaltation of the Lamb, to the very wonder of Trinity to which He came. What a vast and prodigious undertaking (as in Isaiah 48:16), and what a profound operational result!

What then ? vitality vitiated by sin, its vulnerability exploited by sin, has its evil potential realised through Adam, and the results of that consumed in the love of the Almighty, consummated by the sacrifice, resurrection and power of God in Christ (as in II Corinthians 5:17ff.). THEN there is a profound basis for spiritual service.

In what way is there a basis ? It is in this way: Paul declares that in view of all these things, as spread out in I Corinthians 15, the beloved brethren should be "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord". Why in particular ?

It is because, in view of the triumph on which the Church is based, the incarnation-crucifixion-resurrection reality of Jesus Christ -

where God became man so that the Man from Heaven could bring man back with Him,
as many as believed and THEREFORE received Him,
and thus received His Spirit also (Romans 8:9)
who does not speak of Himself but as He hears, being sent by Christ from heaven:

there is a glorious consequence.

What is this personal consequence for the believer ? It is not alone that he or she is to be resurrected in body, to a celestial body inhabitant as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven (as in Philippians 3:20ff.), so that all things are brought under the power of God "according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself", be they bodily or of any other kind (Ephesians 1:11). It is moreover that there is an enduring, spiritual, intimate relationship thus gained, a peace with God, the power of God, the grace and place of God nearer than hands and feet, His word and Spirit in the heart, so that to serve Him is not like an atom searching for a molecule, a dog for a master. It is a natural, because supernaturally newly engendered, relationship of love and desire to serve.

It often delights and rather amazes me, that a dog is so very willing and able to serve his master, some staying by the grave or body of the master when the latter dies, and many staying near the heart of the master, absorbing, it appears, up to several hundreds commands, and often the dog DELIGHTS to execute these commands. To the dog, very often, it is a translation of love that he MAY be permitted to do so!

In this, there is much that is felicitous for us. We, being made in the image of God, that is with provision for fellowship with Him on HIS basis, may well and should delight to serve Him, and when saved this is the norm. It may have the grumps here or there as with Jonah, for this or that reason, but the norm is not pathology but purpose in purity. What makes this yet more wonderful is this: of His infinite gloriousness, since the infinite God is bringing to pass an intimacy of wonder for His people in a "city which has foundations" and not merely in a decaying world, there is scope for a certain friendship of co-operation, not in salvation, entirely of the Lord as in Ephesians 2, Romans 3, but in service. If a dog has delight, what then is the scope for human relationship in service of the Almighty; and you see something of this felicity in such passages of the Bible as Zephaniah 3:12-17.

"I will leave in your midst

A meek and humble people,

And they shall trust in the name of the Lord.

^"The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness

And speak no lies,

Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth;

For they shall feed their flocks and lie down,

And no one shall make them afraid."

Sing, O daughter of Zion!

Shout, O Israel!

Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,

O daughter of Jerusalem!

The Lord has taken away your judgments,

He has cast out your enemy.

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;

You shall see disaster no more.

^"In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:

'Do not fear;

Zion, let not your hands be weak.

The Lord your God in your midst,

The Mighty One, will save;

He will rejoice over you with gladness,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.' "

As there is only one Saviour (Isaiah 43:10-11), only one Lord (Ephesians 4:4), only one Gospel (Galatians 1, 3, 5), only one God (Isaiah 44:8,24, 45:18-19,22, 46:8-10), so what comes to the remnant of Israel, with the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ, dying at that time predicted (by Daniel as in Daniel 9 cf. Christ the Citadel... Ch. 2), is in spirit just the same, in covenant just the same, in newness and nearness of life, just the same as that which comes to Gentiles, for at this level there is no difference (Galatians 3:28-29). Here then is something of the summit of experience of gladness and rest with peace in the Lord, available to His people.

Here, based on His obliteration of the guilt of sin for the believer, and mandate of the power to overcome it (as in Micah 7:19ff., Romans 6), IN the life of Christ (as a vine branch abides in the vine plant), there is a special delight in service. It might be compared in some elements with helping a friend, caring for a baby or child, as a friend or parent; but it far surpasses this.

Indeed, now one may care in Christ for those to whom one is sent, and know in Him, this, from Proverbs 3:5-6:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him

And He will direct your paths...";

and from Psalm 37:3ff., this:

"Trust in the Lord, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

Delight yourself also in the Lord,

And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

"Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him,

And He shall bring it to pass.

He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,

And your justice as the noonday."

Now we come to the additional feature which brings more wonder yet, and more encouragement yet to the believer on this earth, so that each such one should be valiant, confident, immovable. What is it ? It is this.

Because God has this very power, has so demonstrated and not merely remonstrated concerning it, since the laboratory session in history is past, since Christ is the power and the wisdom of God and the criterion of faith, being alive from the dead, indeed alive for ever (Revelation 1:18), there is a certain result, indeed resultant. You WILL NOT LABOUR IN VAIN.

WORK done for Him in this way, cannot be in vain, empty, a failure, a lapse because, thus made immovable and sustained, with such an inheritance and in such a place in the Saviour's care (as in John 10:27-28), THAT WORK WHICH YOU ENDURINGLY ENGAGE IN, HUMBLY INSIST ON IN THE LORD, AND DUTIFULLY PERFORM, ENABLED BY HIS POWER THROUGH THE SPIRIT, IT HAS THAT VERY QUALITY.

What then is this quality which your work for the Lord has ? It is this; IT IS NOT IN VAIN.

Consider World War I. How often and in how much literature you see, feel, find and even empathetically experience the delirium of hope, the certainty of feeling, that after enduring for four horrid years all but unthinkable engulfment in mud, vomit, waste, blood, in trenches where 40,000 men could be sacrificed in sallying forth, in one night, that there would be no MORE WAR. The species of human pathology, it was felt, would no more come. Humanity, weak as it is, yet it was felt, was not so unwise, that it would suffer another such war. It would not again pay such a price, in youth, in broken hearts and families, would not yet again endure such grief, defile so many and bring agony to so much.

You see this sort of feeling creep, indeed move with some vigour in the novel of L.M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside. A new generation, someone felt, would reap the benefits of that war in a distillation of spirit which would be ... somehow better.

It would, it MUST, it was felt, learn from all this and ripened in development, the human race would rise above those turbulent years and fears.

It was not so. It was based, this assurance, on false premises. Neither the League of Nations nor the UN could do very much at all to change the human heart, the deep pathology of which is the equivalent to lung cancer and tuberculosis, making the race subject to very unroyal flushes (Ephesians 4:17-19).

Would that finish it ? Humanism, as always, had much to learn. The work and pain of war, of failure, merely whetted the appetite, increased the vanity, made greater the idolatrous pride to which the human race, in much of its domains, is so susceptible.

Man would soar ? indeed, he would. He would soar, to be sure, but not in pity and understanding, nor in godliness, which means such a knowledge of your Creator, according to HIS invitation to such a privilege, that you may relate both to Him and your fellows according to the plan and purpose prepared for the race. THAT includes repentance, realisation, restoration through the redemption provided in Jesus Christ, with the love thereby engendered, now applied as He has shown.

Without Him, it is not so; there is only one way, and that is according to spiritual specifications in the first place; and in the second place, God being God, the very idea of some substitute method is in itself infinitely wrong. The case is infinite, we are finite, and the error in such humanism IS therefore infinite. It does not work because it CANNOT do so; and life in the 21st century is a continual evidencing, exhibition and verification of this fact. God is not an option; despite the exalted state of man, able to know God in principle, sin apart, and capable of understanding, and indeed in another way because of it. In what way then ? It is in this: the ramblings of man become merely the heralds of doom, forwarded over the generations, clouded by conceit and eventually, ruined by misuse, the worse as power for man increases over time, with more understanding of the natural world created about Him.

The more power man is given, and the more energy installed in the universe, the more the 'clever kid' syndrome, the ardent rebel, the autonomous race pathology works to man's own ruin.

Man, then has indeed worked his way with no small intellectual clout and perseverance, into new technologies, instruments of torture and convenience alike, and lacking nothing in vindictiveness and lust, is surging like one of a series of waves, once more reaching to the breaking point. As before, ready to break, it then collapses in a weakness as devastating as its potential was before.

In fact, man did much the same, as before, in a mere 20 years, as the peace movements of 1919 became the war declarations of 1939.

Never again, however, this so admirable United Nations would see to it, never more would the now so civilised race, be so foolish! So does plan and purpose in man relate to results and resultants. Man's plans at THIS level, the ultimate, the intimate, the quintessential are NOT a matter where cleverness is the answer. Try to service a Boeing 737, if you are a waitress by skill, and you would have more scope of success than trying to act as man, without God. Man does not even know how to make man, not even with the blueprint before him, nor how to make the powers of decision, free from outside control, let alone outside the control of his own psyche. He is limited by being himself, and only in relationship to God is there even any possibility of his being free enough to make guilt meaningful, behaviour his own responsibility and moral deliberation better than insane.

Far from insane, man is merely without God, now by nature, and needs to be brought back, in order that his dimensions of liberty, beyond himself but for himself in the hand of God, become meaningful and the follies of determinism are given an absolute answer (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Christ Incomparable ... Ch. 2). Indeed, philosophy has nothing to give, but God, and not usually wanting that, the revealed God whose approach is specified and assured in Christ, it has no answer. Hence it always argues, and tries to presuppose what being false, of necessity will not because it cannot work. Leave the engine out of a car, and you can indeed scoff at sustained motion.

Being RIGHT is a necessary pre-condition of any prediction! Being wrong is the assurance of doom to the precocious, the persistent, the impenitent, who will not succeed in rational rule and spiritual peace, because in their sovereign sinfulness, they cannot change, and as in pneumonia, change is needed.

ONLY GOD can change them, and in the humanist milieu of mess and imagination, what is excluded a priori, is what is necessary. Hence they fail, again and again, as if failure is the very name of the game. One might almost imagine that the race is intent on showing the truth of the divine prophecy found in Ezekiel 21:26-27:

"Remove the turban and take off the crown,

Nothing shall remain the same.

Exalt the humble and humble the exalted.

Overthrown, overthrown,

I shall make it overthrown!

It shall be no longer,

Until He comes whose right it is,

And I will give it to Him."

The address is to the ruler. He who is to come (as in Micah 5:1-3) is the ruler, and as in Isaiah 11, is He whose rule is to be over all the earth, before it departs (Isaiah 51:6, II Peter 3). It is the Lord who is ruler, it is the Christ who is regal for the due rule over earth, and neither autocracy, nor democracy, nor oligarchy, nor theoretical rule, nor practical rule, nor pragmatic rule, nor atheistic rule, nor idolatrous rule will do. It will fail; it will be, as it has been, overthrown UNTIL He whose right it is, the Lord who having become man and died for Him, has rights of creation and redemption. UNTIL He whose wisdom is infinite and through whom man was created, comes and occupies the rule, peace will have a baulked entry, and war an accelerated pace, as the end of divine longsuffering and Gospel presentation approaches (cf. Matthew 24, Luke 18, 21, Revelation 6).

Meanwhile, they try, they talk peace and make war, and even some religions are renegade enough to seek to obliterate in order to rule, what displeases them.

Some, for example of Islamic mould, seem to have no concern at all at endeavours to obliterate another nation, indeed PLAN to do that; such seem to consider this sort of thing an occasion for Islamic faithfulness. For such work, they envisage, for victory in such contest, they bear in mind from the Koran, certain results. These include the enjoyment of some notion of paradise, with running waters. For the faithful, one of whose great features is to carry out all the militant commands, there is reward. What is the nature of these gardens with running waters ? On occasion, we find these to be of evidently marital kind, with special virginal women, or houris, of sumptuous sort available, with youth and young boys, like pearls, ministering variously to masterful man in his consumption: we find this the realm of the gardens with flowing waters, springs, to be apt gift for them who are the faithful.

Amongst what are conceived to be the most faithful actions, it is clear in the Koran, is the obtaining of victory, overcoming opposition to Islam, and for such things such rewards in the gardens appear to figure strongly. Indeed, on the other side, failure to fight for military victory can cause almost illimitable lost, while success on the other hand, seems a veritable pass-word to the gardens. Victory is an imperative: this can thus become the reward for such disregard of humanity as becomes in the eyes of some today, mere elimination of a few millions (cf. Koran, on The Mountain, Man, Victory, Repentance; see also Koran, 8:36ff., 8:59ff.,9:12 to 27, 9:121ff., 48:2ff.). Millions ? of what ?

Millions ? Not as in the borrowing programs of some nations, of dollars, no, not that: rather is it to be found in the elimination of what is deemed to stand in the way of victory, for the being deemed Allah. With the President of Iran, what is this ? It is, to name it, the State called Israel. Al Qaeda has broader horizons for elimination (cf. Lord of Life Ch. 8, *1).

This is one example of such religious furies. There are many more which have been examined and have had similar lack of restraint, whether ostensibly secular, religious or hiding from the presence of the Lord by other means, the results of which are more indirect, but not always less spectacular^*1.

In more recent history, those triumphing in war made a UN nest for themselves, with some having victorious powers expanded in the voting; and of course the Islamic section has an enormous vested interest domain for its voting, a bloc of many nations amid the rest, well contrasted, for example, with the Israeli camp, with just ... one nation, itself to act.

Nevertheless, despite the plain enormities of the case, the United Nations would see to it. It must. Such was the thought as with the League of Nations, before it. Would not man learn ?

The Cold War nevertheless set in, as if it were just the Winter of a yearly cycle of seasons. Nothing seemed to have been learned. There was a reason for this. It is not denunciation which is primarily needed, but renunciation; and what is to be renounced, is not some foolish program or other, merely, but the whole domain of sin against the Maker: while what is to be announced, it is not some platitudinous and manipulable series of human syllables and sentences, tied into sometimes pompous paragraphs, founded on desire, not reality: it is surrender to the Most High God, and to the call of Christ the Conqueror. (Cf. Daniel 7:20, II Peter 2:18).

There is no other who has practically done and shown and been authenticated on every side in every way as none less than God (cf. for example, SMR, esp. Ch. 6, Design and Deity .,..). The God of the Bible alone sits in that summit, indeed, it is the post beyond summits and summitry, that of the Creator and Redeemer.

The tests for such a claim are both obvious and lethal to any body which, like the Jews, has the expectations of infinity in the One so named. ANY failure in wisdom or might, or meeting challenge suitable for the Almighty as man, is at once the end of any protestation by any 'messiah' of being the one to be sent. Christ never failed, THOUGH HIS PATH BUBBLED WITH OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEFAULT! Hence His death became necessary to those who pragmatists, found this expedient (John 11), as did the high priestly sector of Israel's official authorities in Christ's time on this earth. The position in principle is not different today, except in this, that His physical body not now being available, but only those who as Christians are His 'spiritual body' of which He is the Head, these rather than He directly, are in line for the rampage. It is so in India, in Egypt, in the Middle East broadly, in some Islamic countries and of course, in the Sudan, in China so making a very large part of the population of this earth.

Moreover, since Christ is indeed risen from the dead, and is to return, the issue is STILL WITH HIM, so that in Revelation 19:19 it is expressly against the Lord Himself that war is being made; and the disparagement, the innovative mutations, the distillation, dilution and management of 'christ' becomes an art form for this generation. They seek in great measure to denude Him, deride Him, exalt him as a superstar without deity, make him a revolutionary, a clown, a code, ANYTHING which in the rampage, can become a mode of extermination. The case is war already, and the results are observable in many of the smaller wars. It is like poisoned water: it is drunk, and it makes sick.

HE, GOD, is on record (Ezekiel 21:26-27). HE will overthrow, indeed He repeats the word for emphasis, He will overthrow whatever raises itself up: there is NO OTHER WAY but His. So it has been, with all the empires, whether having their good points or not, founded, then foundering, making object lessons of the certainty of the fall, whether as in Gibbon's masterpiece, or in any other way.

There is no other Lamb; but there is also no other Lord! There is none so omniscient, so pure and so powerful; and there is no other Creator. For my own part, I would not DARE to entrust myself or my affairs to ANYONE but God, for all others may lack wisdom, fidelity, reliability, or possess certain circumstantial weaknesses, being liable, now here and now there, being liable to failure in some sense or another. In the delightful fear of the majestic and invulnerable God, I delight to have all my affairs and heart and life and future and situation placed with an entire confidence. Hence no one else has any such place. Such is the Christian norm, as in Luke 14, and it does not dabble.

The world does not find its heart (if any) to be so. It DOES constantly seek to trust in the League of Nations or in the United Nations or in the United Religions movement or in some idolatrous heresy, such as Romanism, or the sects in their particular woes^*2, or some combination. It never rests. The is the way with the wicked, for it has no peace (cf. Isaiah 57:19-21); and as to that name, 'wicked', it is biblically paramount in applicability to those who are not only sinners (as are all men on this earth), but double-dip sinners, rejecting the remedy as well as continuing constant in sin! This is where rebellion has its final crisis.

Now it almost ALWAYS WARS, that evidence the divorce from the living God, because as power increases

-really an increasing awareness of the terrestrial modes and modalities of God's creation and its powers, enormous in energy, to be tapped in this way or that
with increasing technical knowledge on the part of man -

so does the vulnerability of this nation or that, both to its militant exercise and blasting impact.

As the one rises, so the other falls into peril, and the more so as the oppressive, bombastic leaders, susceptible to their own works backfiring, yet make radical moves; and in turn, augment their stakes, as their own delusions failing, they are left completely ridiculous, squirming, burning, implacable (as shown in Romans 1 in its last verses of the analysis, and presentation of the anti-God syndrome).

In playing chess, you have the board and the men and the moves and the rules. In playing god, you have mere delusions, and the rules are as good as broken already. There is no steadying influence when it comes to lies, and as to the rejection of Jesus Christ, and the substitution either of humanity or this or that sector or segment of it, or philosophy of it, for the truth, this is something which God characterises. It is deemed by deity to be THE LIE (II Thessalonians 2:10, Romans 1:25).

Indeed, I John poses a question of vast impact. Who, says I John 2:22, is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.

Just as God IS the truth, so the denial of His long-announced, millenially predicted Messiah, the Christ, the only begotten Son of the everlasting deity, IS the lie, the very criterion and basis for all lies, the test incomparable for it, and of it. It may be denial through distortion (as explicitly shown in II Corinthians 11, the practititioners of this being deemed 'false apostles'), or more direct rejection.

ALL that sort of work is in vain, whether specifically that of Islam, in complete conjunction with the Christian sects, of which Islam, in remodelling Christ, 6 centuries after His time on earth, forms a part, or of other denials. In the Koran case, there was a plagiarism not of a book but of a person. Another Jesus was constructed with the eyes of 600 years since His time on earth, and made subject, this puppet, to the mind of his maker. This has become most fashionable in many other religious sects.

Yet it is not only specific sects, with their various false prophets, Smith, Muhammad, White, Marx (his god was the system which he endued with existence by the highly original method of making chance the source of law, and variability the basis for historical movements which did not bother to happen cf. SMR pp. 925ff., News 37, 97, 98, 99), which invent this or that settled system or being in which they put their trust. It is the HUMANISM as such which puts its trust in its own self, whether as an individual, or a sect, or a world body, or as humanity, or as the leading edge of humanity, or as bombast production-units or whatever else comes as novelty to the divinely endued inventive mind of man, and the infernally disturbed misuse of that inventiveness.

THAT will be in vain, and it is always a little tragic when one's best efforts utterly fall; but when it is the very LIFE that one has which gambols about in gambling concerning God and man, life and death, the way and the errors, then it is entirely, traumatically and emphatically tragic to find that it is all wasted. Why is this so, why is it waste ?

Christ put it: What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul!

The gain: Nothing. Where do you put what you are there to put!

Indeed, as to this world's vaunted 'solutions', they will not because they cannot work, since they are maladjusted to its Creator and their own. Then, when this unholy alliance of pride and increasing power in God's creation comes to a head in the antichrist, in the man of sin, speaking his pompous words, swollen with vanity, the boil being most painful and coming to a head, it is ejected, torn from its body. Painful ? It is however pleasant to those so delivered, to have it no more in proximity! Boils do not help.

Delivered ? It is deliverance through ejection (as in II Thessalonians 1).

That is the sad part; BUT it is NOT IN VAIN, that the Christian works, for HIS AUTHOR is God, by creation firstly, and then by regeneration, secondly; and HIS FATHER is God, who can indeed, and often does chasten him as is fitting (Hebrews 12), and HIS WORK is as supplied by God. This is so, of whatever type, moral, spiritual, civic, professional, or religious directly, the calling may be. ALL things work together for good for those who love God, those called according to HIS purpose (Romans 8:29ff.). It is not, as some pretend, a matter of HAVING a purpose, but being entrusted with the DIVINE and SPECIFIC PURPOSE which God has for YOU! be you nation, or man or woman or child, or institution.

People are responsible repositories of trust; breach it and it is in vain. Be faithful therefore Christian, for your work is NOT in vain in the Lord. Such is the apostle Paul's declaration in the last verse of I Corinthians 15.

Abide in Him, and let His word abide in you, and there is His promise (John 15:7). When you DO so abide, your whole nature is no moved that you become as a branch in a vine, the sap coming to you, symbolising the Holy Spirit, the growth occurring through you, and all as divinely arranged; and in our own cases, being human, we have the additional delight of being improved, and moulded freely, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (II Corinthians 3:17). Therefore, as HIS, we His people move in delight to follow His word and to increase in understanding, perception, sensitivity of reception and capacity to respond with His power.

Your work, then is NOT in vain in the Lord, you who are His; so keep at it with vigour, apply yourself to it with rigour, but relax and rest in the Lord (Matthew 11:25-30); for He knows who are His (II Timothy 2:19), and for all our concentration, expectation and application, it is all of Him, on whom to rely is like relying on the sun for warmth, except in this much better, that it may fail, but the Sun of Righteousness NEVER fails. All work done in Him therefore never fails; He has no seasons of incompetence; always the same, His failure score is zero. Such things you find in Malachi 4:2 in contrast to 4:1, the combustion and the healing! as also in Habakkuk 3:6, Zephaniah 3:5, James 1:17, Lamentations 3:33: the beautiful immutability, reliability, faithfulness.

NOTES

*1 EXTENSION ON HUMAN MODEL PRODUCTIONS

AND THE DIVINE DECLARATION

First, see SMR.

See for example, in this immediate area, the case of Islam, Lord of Life Ch. 3, Divine Agenda Ch. 6. The Secular, the Sacred and the Sublime Ch. 7.

This is in the mystic domain.

There are however also psychological, physiological, as well as biological and political premises that shrink man by a truth which the models exclude even as a possibility, and hence these outrageous ideas fail in advance. Such is the approach of Freud and all with a man-centred model, like him.

On this, see:

SMR pp. 611ff.,which relates not only to Marx, but to Freudianism and Darwinianism in Biblical perspective.

On the models of Freud and Jung, see also Spiritual Refreshings ... 9, incl. End-note 1
(esp. programmatic psychology and its ilk), Marvels of Predestination and the Ways of Will 7, including *1; News 80; 44, SMR 4).

See also Barbs ... 6 -7 and Repent or Perish Chs. 2 and 7, It Bubbles ... Ch. 9.

In addition to the determinist antinomies, there are also religio-psychic models which offer advice as if concerning God, but without logical evidence, verificatory support or validity contribution to assist. These are in the mystic vein, such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. These are religious formats for man's constructions, unable to move outside themselves for their constructions, to appeal to the ultra-psychic for their support, mingling the evident with the imaginary, with no criterion for the differentiation. Buddhism moreover is a type of atheism whilst Hinduism is polytheism abstracting the ultimate into an inexpressible domain, as if stripped of all and trying in vain to escape nothingness. On these things, see SMR Ch. 10 and Religion, Religiosity and Reality in Christ Jesus .

Here they are noted simply because they figure with other exhibits of man's originality and thought, where the presentations lack verification, and make faith a substitute for reason, instead of its consummation over-arching it, but not contrary to it. In all such untestable domains, as in all models self-contradictory, there is an absconding from the mental powers given to man, and the testing facilities available to him. It is no more productive in religion to ignore the assessability criteria, than anywhere else. This is not at all to make reason god, but to use this and everything else available in seeking God, rather than pre-empting the result by imagination, call it what you will (cf. What is the Chaff to the Wheat ? Ch. 4).

When through His provisions and searching, by His grace you find Him, and His word, then the testability criterion being verified, and the vital reality being found in conformity to this, without limit but without divergence, for God speaks His mind, then and then only is there peace, not of oblivion or feeling, but in heart for life as God made it. It is rightly called peace which passes all understanding, being elemental, as is a waterfall when you see it, as distinct from finding it indicated by the situation.

Imagination is a great thing; but not as a mode of inventing reality. It may be used, but then must be tested. As the Bible so beautifully says: TEST ALL THINGS (I Thessalonians 5). It can afford to do so. When you come to the living God, testing is a pleasure, for truth loves it, being beyond any comparison or default. Such is the divine challenge repeated in Isaiah 41,43, 45.

On liberty, see

Barbs ... 6 -7 and Repent or Perish Chs. 2 and 7,

It Bubbles ... Ch. 9. together with:

The Secular, the Sacred and the Sublime Ch. 7

Tender Times ... Ch. 11, Little Things Ch. 5;
Deliverance from Disorientation Chs. 7, 8, Lord of Life Ch. 5,
Sparkling Life ... Ch. 7, News 153, 166;

Bon Voyage Chs.    2, 3;
The Pride of Life ... Ch. 3,    *1.
Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable Ch. 1, 2, 3,

The Track of Truth, Meadows of Mercy and Peace of Pardon ... Epilogue.

In the last, especially note the following (*1), which starts with its own listing:

*1

EXCURSION ON FREEDOM.

On freedom, see for example, the following.

It Bubbles ... Ch. 9,

Little Things Ch. 5,

Let God be God Ch.    4;

Licence for Liberty;

Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 9, incl. End-note 1
(esp. programmatic psychology and its ilk),

The Marvels of Predestination ... 7, including *1;

Overflight in Christ 1,

Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Chs.    6 , 7,

Repent or Perish Ch. 7,

NEWS 52 (the spread of man's flights of fancy and society, and the reason for it),
Divine Agenda Ch.    6 (freedom in contrast to force),

Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 8 (individuality and personality, their ground, source and meaning), CASCADE 10 (the fixity of lust and the liberty of truth),

Beauty of Holiness Ch.    4 (liberty, Tiananmen, worship and its direction in time, its terms and code of truth), Ch. 5 (Statism, Absolutism Political and Religious Universalism, Humanism - the threadbare coat, the departure of glory and its return, where it belongs cf. News 82).

In essence, it is not because of climate or culture that man does or does not believe in his own spirit, his choice capacity (which he constantly uses, especially when declaring that someone else is wrong, has misused his thought, has a bad spirit, has wilfully been dishonest, has erred in philosophy and so forth, or that he does or does not have a choice capacity), or his God (whatever substitutes he may ELECT to make or follow). He chooses to believe in his own choice capacity even when he does not bother with it, or to disbelieve in it, even when he uses it about the most ultimate of matters. He is a specialist in denying his powers to do things, in the very arena where he needs those powers to make even meaningful statements. In this sense, it could be said that hypocrisy or holiness or two dominant foci in the things available to man.

He is not only free to choose, but free to will to choose. He can cast his own will about like a spluttering engine, or a soaring jet, and to some extent, decide on which is preferable. He can indulge in satanic discourses about his obviously limited powers, as if they were not so, and in seraphic self-pleasing blandishments about his pitiability, even while addressing his robust character with self-induced admiration. Physical pathology is not the only type!

He can become depressed or believe it wrong, he can become deterministic and believe others who disagree are freely wrong, being misled, or incapable of being changed, but WRONG, morally and culpably WRONG: not that something whirred the wrong way, but the spirit made a wrong choice, perhaps for invisible reasons of an invisible kind - such as being kind or cruel - and this ought not to have been (in a deterministic world where everything has to be and there is thus neither responsibility nor meaning in being wrong).

You could perhaps talk of a mis-perception (your physical eyes were bad), but not of a mistake, for the thing HAD to happen, and if it HAD NOT done so, that would have been an IMPOSSIBILITY! and the thought that this is so, a mistaken impossibility. It gets tough when you are wrong, and persist in it.

Morals are not only ludicrous in determinism (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Christ Incomparable ... Ch. 2) , but meaningless; and to be right or wrong is ludicrous except in physical perception, because of equipment. You COULD NOT make an error, since it is required; you could only do what you do, and that is that. A WRONG theory could not exist: it would be a normal working of that mind. If most other minds worked differently, that would be a statistical matter; but have nothing to do with right or wrong. A political theory could not be wrong. It is merely the working of that set of perceptions, receptions, desires. There is no truth to begin, no error to end. On any such model, it is even true that there is no truth; and so the moral quagmire and the metaphysical ruin appear in concert. Yet people following this model, often believe contrary to logic, what they insist upon, with some feeble efforts at logic.

Why ? Since determinism cannot be true, therefore it is for a personal-response reason. They are not determined. They so desire: it may be for any of a number of reasons all invisible, and of the domain and cosmos that is invisible. It may be for guilt, hiding of guilt, pride, empty-headed obstinacy and so forth. These are personal perquisites, and matters of choice with spiritual liberty which is personal and individual, for which the person is responsible.

There is of course a limit - indeed there are two limits - to human liberty (apart from being rendered unconscious, and not in possession of the normal and normative faculties). One is this: man does not decide on the nature of his brain, world or spirit, and hence is limited by this. Since however truth is a pre-condition of being able to present it, and the revealed God of the Bible is a necessity of reason (cf. SMR esp. Ch. 1 and TMR, Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny ... and   Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ ... Reason, Revelation and the Redeemer), the need for real liberty is real access to truth. On any basis, without truth, you are only stabbing in the dark, and hence limited in any significant or systematic liberty. But then, on any such basis, it COULD not be true that you were doing this, or not doing it, since that would be TRUTH, which is alien to your chosen position.

If you decline the truth concerning yourself, and your meaning and origin, for obstinacy, fear, apprehension and so on, any of these or others of that invisible realm relating to human personality and persons, then you now lack freedom specifically because you misused it. You cannot now get where its pre-condition is, because you freely preferred not to do so: you are in a prison of your own making. This is a personal and not a racial matter.

The other limit is this. Your will may be caught in the cultural, personal, individual tangles that have been fed into you by yourself, or others with your (inward) permission. If you do not leave this, you are responsible for that, and it is a personal matter. Many have gloried in refusing the cultural or even initial individual proclivities and constraints, seeking truth beyond these, and wisdom past this. There is no actual binding, but being bound is an actual option.

Nevertheless, there is the danger that the spirit of man is tarnished racially, having failed as a race and is now APT to decline for truth for ANY reason that may come to appeal. This is actually true, as the Bible, on this site, demonstrated to be the word of God, itself declares. Obviously, you MUST be able to have friendly access to the God in whom alone is it possible for absolute truth to be, if you are to even have it as an ultimate option, Without that, you show much responsible conduct, but there is this considerable limit. You do not KNOW what is what, however many irresponsible actions you make towards such a result in your own bosom.

Thus while there are vast areas of freedom and responsibility in the invisible domain of choice for man, and in that of thought, and these are even tasted as decisions are made of the relative values of laziness and attainment and so on, and these are in principle differentially assessable, and thus for these, one is answerable: yet the finale for truth becomes the ultimate for liberty. If you do not KNOW what you are doing (though you have rather a good idea of it, for all that), then it is hard to have the liberty and luxury of an ardent and wholly personal choice. It is not excluded in measure; but to the ultimate degree, it is tarnished.

You are responsible at all sorts of subordinate levels, but not in this. However, should you decide, as above, to ignore this truth when it is available, for this you are ultimately responsible and assessable. Even if your will - being damaged by the sinfulness with which you were born (Psalm 51), a not difficult to discern fact for those who know children and bring them up - puts in a claim for consideration in the ultimate level, if for example you have never heard of the Gospel of peace with and access to God, yet you are still responsible for what you have done with what of it you have had!

Beyond this, however, there is the final responsibility of action towards truth as discerned, in principle or in reality. If because of sin you reject it, you may claim that you did not understand and so on; but even if you do this, it is useless to leave out of the equation the God without whom there could be neither truth nor liberty (for the self would always be a given ultimate, of no particular meaning from the first, conscience a useless baggage and understanding, such as believing determinism, on this model, a mere nonsense for import or export). In fact, God is very zealous about freedom, and insists that He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and the knowledge of the truth (cf. To Know God ... Ch. 1).

Liberty, pre-condition of love, does not cease to be however; and refusal of this knowledge and the love back of it is ASSESSABLE BY GOD, in the ultimate level, past all the baggage of human errors, of whatever kind, condition or degree or time.

He CAN and often does deliver people, and granting them a new birth into His kingdom of truth, liberty and sight, enables their preference to justly exhibit itself past the problematics of pathology. He WOULD have all, but He will NOT take all, because He INSISTS that the ULTIMATE and assessable (foreknown) rejection of Him whose desire is for all, MUST be honoured, even if its outcome be dishonour, contemptibility and shame (cf. Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:42ff., Daniel 12).

Liberty is often extended to infinity ludicrously by the autonomous in thought; and it is often declined ludicrously, but the self-defining, self-contradictionists. It is neither of these things. It is limited in kind, by our being created; it is elevatable to ultimate meaning, by our being under the oversight of the God who would like to deliver all from the obfuscations of limited or denied light, to the light and the truth; and its results are both partially visible and operable now, and finally known from before time by the One who invented man in the first place. You see this last in Ephesians 1:4 for example.

Thus SINCE the Almighty WOULD HAVE all to be saved, but not by force, therefore anyone who would like to come to Him is not under ultimate power to prevent this.

It is not the ultimate impossibility, but the ultimate opportunity.

HE would like it. If therefore there be ANYTHING in you, or concerning you, it will be taken in tow and realised. If there COULD be any such thing, it will be known and realised.

Liberty in the end is total in kind, limited by the scope of our natures, but unlimited in quality and meaning by the power of God. To Him, who knows all, all are answerable. To fail to take His option of truth by redemption is merely wilful avoidance of truth: it settles the issue (John 3:19). To feel unable to find Him is simple: ASK Him to locate you in His map, and seek His intervention with repentance. You are not in a headwind, for God is greater than you are. His wishes are known. You CANNOT be frustrated in this, that with all your heart you want Him. Then act as you would in any other domain. Be practical, be realistic, take the path provided. If you are double-minded, reject such vacillation; if you don't want to, accept this as a form of rejection in itself.

What then ? Repent, cast yourself into the continuum of spiritual reality provided, follow the word of God, accept Christ's redemption, free as it is (Romans 3:23ff., Isaiah 55), gloriously free, and wait upon God continually. Thank Him for what He has done and adopt His gift. Knowing Him is the end of vacuity, autonomy, antilogy and antimony. It needs to be operational, not theoretical, as if one went to Venus, in the imagination. Venus is not a good place to be, but God is. Leave imagination to Venus, but do not abide in it, towards God!

It is obvious that to be free you must know God personally (since you ARE a person and that is your ultimate invisible action post); and to fail to do so is in the end, when it is before you, dishonest. If you want this more you want God, that option is ... there.

More broadly, one may consult:

ERRORS,

Secular Myth and Sacred Truth,

On doubly dead Darwinism, see Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Chs. 3. 4 and 6, together with SMR pp. 140ff.. On further developments, see Wake up World! … Chs. 4 -6, and Deity and Design …

On Islam see More Marvels … Ch. 4.

On Communism see:

Aviary of Idolatry, Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 5,

News 37. 44, 69, 97 (the exploiters, the fanciful,
the Communists, the de-godders and the realities), 98,
News 150 - Taiwan,

The Grating Grandeur and Aggrandisement of Man,
and the Meekness of the Majestic Messiah Ch. 2,

Beauty for Ashes Ch. 6 (and Hong Kong, and the movement of nations in the last century a concern),

Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8;
SMR pp. 925ff., 971-972;

Beauty of Holiness Ch. 3
(war and force, rising downwards, Tiananmen and truth),
Ch. 4 (liberty, Tiananmen, worship and its direction in time, its terms and code of truth); History, Review and Overview Ch. 1,
Impossible to Men, Open to God Ch. 5