THE HEAVENS ARE TELLING ...

Predestination in the Bible

Has a Very Beautiful Face

 

 

THE HEAVENS ARE TELLING

Predestination in the Bible

Has a Very Beautiful Face

 

 

 

Volume 3 of the

Predestination, Liberty, Responsibility and Will

TRIOLOGY

 

  

 

Published by

World Wide Web Witness Inc.

 

 ISBN 0-0-9750778-1-3

 ©

 

PREFACE

It is many years (now about 39) since this author first wrote the Master’s thesis on Predestination and Freewill. In March, a second Volume was composed, largely of works on this topic, and applications and developments, since the first work.

Now, a little later in 2003,  it seems necessary to present a third volume, to make a trilogy on predestination and the ways of will in the whole field of man, liberty, law, licence and responsibility. In this Preface and in the Introduction to Ch. 7 there is some new material, which may be of special interest for those familiar from times past, with these uncollected items. .

In this volume, there is emphasis on the nature of love, and further exposition on error which has deceived many in the church, for with excellent features from some, there has yet not seldom been conflict for many. Instead, as always, of such things,  the only solution, and from the point of view of Christian Apologetics, the DELIGHTFUL solution is to return to the Bible and  see the MINE from which sometimes the mimes have been taken, see the realities too often ground  down from their original setting to banal substitutes.

It is ONLY THEN that the wonderful exposure of the force of the divine word on this topic can be appreciated. So far from being some strange or exotic kind of concept, predestination with its intimate and ultimate companion, divine foreknowledge (biblically defined) is utterly necessary, wholly harmonious:  and this ALONE has these features in the whole field of discussion about freedom and power, force and liberty, determinism and voluntarism. What would one expect ? that philosophy would open its mouth and infect the biblical doctrine with some SARS ? Alas, it has nothing to say to the point, and its morass in this field is one of its historic vulnerabilities. On the contrary, the Bible presents a definitive mass of truth which is coherent, and sound, rational and internally consistent,  as well as ample to cover the empirical world.

Not merely so: alone has it the ingredients to make POSSIBLE such a harmony. We have seen much of this in Volume Two of this predestinative trilogy, that is, Marvels of Predestination and the Ways of Will.

However in this volume, there is emphasis on the particular wonder of the divine love, which is the paradigm, the power and the precept, the personal reality without which man does not and cannot live. He constantly WARPS his ‘love’ into nepotism, or family limitations, or political or personal rampancies or passions of this sort or that, not allied to that kinship and kindred compassion and relationship which in absence, creates such a draught as to create a kind of terrestrial pneumonia, with high temperature, hot breath and pallid face. Such is the affliction of this earth, at war with God, in its basic premisses and many of its most illustrious premises.

Nowhere is this more simply illustrated than in the al Qaida monstrosities, which have basically with some soundness in their ‘interpretation’ of the Koran, which records the militancy of physical force in the outset of this religion of false prophecy. How is this so ? It is clear that the HATRED, the intense LOATHING which infests and infects so many of these murder-suicide ‘martyrs’ is that they want Islam to rule, to DOMINATE what they NOMINATE, including first of all women in a fashion too horrible to contemplate without a repugnance amounting to shame that the human  race could spawn such demeaning and denudation in terms of dominant masculinity (as distinct from one with God-led leadership and love combined cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 10-11). In this, the man is to be ready to SACRIFICE HIMSELF for his wife, in love! Not so is the Islamic submission.

 It is sin in conjunction with the devil which manages to infect and infest the earth with such clamour of hatred based on no reason, but mere false prophecy, such as Christ predicted would become rampant, with its licence for violence, such as the Bible predicted would become rampant also (Revelation 6), indeed, the prediction was for a species of violence virtually in love with death! This was to be and it is, as is always the case with the word of God.

The devil then ?  since he is the author of lies as CHRIST DECLARED – John 8:44, and this Islamic religion puts itself where He in fact IS, thus the Lie (of I John 2) becomes a rebuke to man who has for too long been too tepid with Christianity, many of the Western nations all but playing with Biblical Christianity (cf. News 121). So does judgment come from the most contemptible of sources, estranged from God and boasting itself, like Sennacherib (cf. Isaiah 36ff., and especially Ch. 37). Look again, at Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 32:21). Israel alone is not susceptible to rebuke, but those also who like her, fail to follow the word they seem to endorse (cf. Romans 11:20).

What does Paul say on this ? DO NOT BE HAUGHTY, they were broken off from their tree BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF. It is not applicable to them alone!

Thus it is just like that in the case of Israel of old.  There is however this difference. In the case of Islam, there is a leaven, a  yeast, a stirring, not dissimilar to the original actions and words so often seen in the Koran, to DOMINATE all; and this is true most specifically and virulently of al Qaeda. Indeed, we read what appears to be a bin Laden wanting the PART of the EARTH Islam once held! (cf. Red Alert Ch. 8 and Lord of Life Ch. 8, *1). Then they wish to make all nations submit to their wares, and to achieve this (just like the Nazis), they use power to intimidate in whatever way appeals.

Current flavour of the month, or decade ? is murdering the innocent, and slaying the non-combatants, including children, and providing a history of agony for thousands to read over the coming years. One has seen greater ambitions than these. 

Such a religion is not in danger of achieving any world dominion, since much subtler means are needed now, as the devil probably  realises, and will show when he helps construct a world BODY which doubtless - endued with power not least to FIGHT and subdue such mindless terrorism - induces people to surrender ever more liberty, while it takes ever more authority. This continues until it parodies God, becoming one more exhibit of false prophecy, with this distinction, that this will be the LAST! It is a matter of subtlety amidst concerns and disquietude in the nations as Christ predicted of them (Luke 21:26 cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 2).

However we need to realise that the WAY in which the al Qaeda shows the weakness of man without God, is this: it has no idea of the ULTIMATES, the nature of God, the nature of life which He made, the rules, the principles, the purposes;  and thus,  at the TOP LEVEL, it is inundated with scoria, debris and ruin. It thrusts its passion where passion does not belong, its hatred towards what is not only evil as often, but good,  as also often; it plays God without the power or the perception,  and will perish as the rest of the tyrants and thugs, be they deluded by religions of violence where the requirement is faith, or simple ambition for control!

ON THE WAY, this false religion shows to secular, dreaming man that there is no neutrality; there is no way man can just BE and be content in humanistic squalor. FALSE religion is doing what the true one does not do: SEEKING TO TERRORISE into submission, thus defacing, defiling and mocking the very nature of man, as if to instill what must come voluntarily or not at all, that is, faith. In the process, it inverts the love of God and His goodness, making passion play on what is good, not least, and hate it; avoid what is real, and ignore it; while it has love for what is evil, mere submission by force and terror.

Not thus is man made;  but THUS IS SHOWN in simple modes, the ludicrously simplistic, the superficially depraved follies of humanism; for man HAS TO HAVE purpose, and it has to be what meets his case, and therefore his case has to be understood  … RIGHTLY, or is image-of-God bearing nature will never be satisfied. It CANNOT settle down as if truth did not exist; since it does. Thus  religious imperialism of this violent sort gains its way as a flea in a soft bed, to wake man up. Can man descend to THIS! Of course, he has often done so, and that recently in Communism, Nazism, and not so long ago, Romanism. His desire for and need for the ultimate will lead him to a false example, since he as a race, rejects the true. That is the way it is has been in trend, and is going to be in fact (Revelation 13, 17).

There is however in the biblical presentation, not only an absence of force where faith belongs, but of truth where confusion often reigns, in its rebellious removal.

Predestination provides the certain, settled character of the love of God, not in episodes of infatuation or attraction, but in eternal wisdom, which also knows WHO are His people and HOW they MUST be saved (for there is no other way than the truth); and so in this, without muddle or atrocities, except what HE suffered on the Cross IN that love, He draws His own.  In so doing, He has shown and shows His life in His people and in His word, as first in importance,  definitively in Himself, on this earth, where He has always been with nothing either equal to Him or within horizon distance. First in history was his word in writing, and his actions through the prophets where NOTHING ever failed (cf. SMR Chs.  8-9), in the most marked and scientifically clear contrast to the Islamic case.

It is testimony to the sovereign competency of God, as is His word, which says what He is going to do, often when He is going to do it, and then … watches WHILE HE DOES IT.

In no generation since Christ has so much of it been fulfilled so categorically and quickly. It is like the end of a fever. The patient’s condition (in the bad case, which is current, alas for this world) changes … quickly.

Right down to the last martyr from the successor of Islam, and Communism, of Nazism and Romanism, will the number of God’s people go (as in Revelation 6:9-12). The Gospel meanwhile does not change as required (Galatians 1:1-12,  Ephesians 1:10), and the world does, as it must, until the predestinated ends of things, fulfil their beginnings, and what God began to do, in finishing the creation, is consummated in the completion of salvation, first of all His own people, amidst the whole earth charged and invited, even that of the body in the resurrection at His return, and then even that of the new heavens and the new earth, in which righteousness lives.

For this, not some process, but as in salvation, so here, CHRIST is the one who DOES IT, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14), BEFORE ITS FINAL DEMISE. Before that day, He who was crucified by hatred, will overcome in love, bringing with Him those who in love, find in Him their resting place, as predestinated. He even so values liberty that following His rule back on this earth, yet again does the finale of evil arise to seek to overthrow (Revelation 20 following Revelation 19!). It is a veritable wonder of exposition by exposure, and exposure in the history of man, in that laboratory of life. Reality is seen, and appears as it is, both in inoperable pathologies of the heart as currently afflict the peoples (cf. Psalm 2), and in His own direct appearance.

What occurred in the incarnation was just, both to show and let people know; and what is to occur in His return deals with the situation in truth, not to force faith, which is a contradiction in terms, but to fashion the world until its finale of malice malodorously manufactures its clear deserts. It goes.

It is still quite free; and it is still as it was and always will be, till all being won or lost, the drama is over (cf. News 87). The present is still potent with opportunity. The Gospel still throbs through the air, meets minds on the Web, fashions books for the eye, is seen through (sometimes murdered) missionaries in their activities. The thirsty may still drink of the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17). God does not change, has not changed, does not change His word: it is all according to plan, predestinated plan, and foreknowledge. He is very wise who executes His word, and wise is the one who finds in this wisdom the very beauty of His holiness, and the best of the quest for life; for it is in this wisdom that the love of God is fully appreciated. If so now, what then!

The beautiful face of Biblical predestination shows, in its setting in the jewellery of His word, a beaming loveliness which never fades, never shades, is perennially bright.

 
 

CONTENTS

Chapters

 

1. FIRST CHAPTER                         

SOVEREIGN SUITABILITY or DIVINE GRACE

from The Christian Pilgrimage Ch. 1 (TCP 1),

with adaptation and considerable extension, for the present purpose

 

2.  SECOND CHAPTER                    

TRUTH  and LOVE are Natural and  Necessary Partners:

In truth God loves, and in loving, God shows His truth

from TCP 2

It is necessary to bid farewell to packaged theologies from this and that pedant, and return to what the Bible actually says. The “Geneva Convention” is not from the divinity of scripture. It is by no means alone in this!

 

3. THIRD CHAPTER                      

NOT PYROTECHNICS but PURITY

From LIGHT OF DAWN

Chapter One