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 Chapter 5

PASTORAL SYMPHONY

FAR FROM THE CACOPHONY OF THE CAPTIVE CLOISTER

AND THE SUPERFICIAL SUBSTITUTE FOR SALVATION

An   Allegory

WHY and WHY NOT ?

THE WINE OF SPIRITUAL BLESSING IS NON-INTOXICATING and we need not

Dutch courage but

DIVINE DIRECTION

The Device has been used of insetting somewhat longer speeches by given birds,
so that there is greater ease in following the sweep of things.

More than Cantakerous Obstructiveness:
  Spiritual Occlusion

Sometimes the veil is pulled away, and the propagandists of science falsely so-called leave the stark evidence facing the unmellow minds of indoctrinated man.

Take these below from Denton and Gould, in that order.

• "The concept of the continuity of nature has existed in the mind of man, never in  the facts of nature. In a very real sense, therefore, advocacy of the doctrine of continuity has always necessitated a retreat from pure empiricism, and contrary to what is widely assumed by evolutionary biologist today, it has always been the anti-evolutionists, not the evolutionists in the scientific community who have stuck rigidly to the facts and adhered to a more strictly empirical approach" - Evolution : A Theory in Crisis, pp. 353-4.

• Jay Gould notes in Paleobiology, vol.6(1), January 1980, p. 127: "The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."

The lyre bird  always has fascinated me, because of that look of profound but sharp genius, as if he is far away in imaginative duress, you might almost say, so lofty is the look in his eye as his heart bubbles forth with songs to surpass symphony. It was he who said these things, and you would have thought it in vain. After all, the willy-wagtail, Willy, is so evanescent seeming, flitting here and there that the temptation to regard him as a twit, especially seeing he is a bird, may mislead one.

Not so with this Willy. He replied.

It is just as you say, he declared, flitting after some sub-sight object with that delicious air of expectancy which makes him so attractive. Gould in fact became very emphatic in this area,  he snapped, when he was confronted by the Burgess Disparity in anatomical design of life in these Cambrian rocks (allegedly around the earliest deposits), noting that the 'disparity in anatomical design' of life in these rocks EXCEEDS what is in our contemporary oceans. I noted that in his Wonderful Life, p. 208,260. He adds the consideration that "gradualistic concepts" in the face of this vital profusion of hi-tech abounding life, have a special place in his mind.

What was that place ? asked the beautiful lyre-bird.

It was a place of amazement. Indeed, Gould found the idea, 'literally incomprehensible'. His philosophies stepped in later, but these were the facts and he was overcome by them. How could they speak of gradual transitions, when he saw this! The blindfold at that time simply snapped, and fell off.

Gliding in to us with the darting streak of sheer decisiveness, so different from the gawky dependence it shows when young, the magpie added its own declaration. Surprisingly, his words were these.

I have been teaching my youngsters about this silly so-called science, their naturalistic ideas strewn like faded Autumn leaves on the ground, and a source I found in webwitness was Stepping out for Christ Ch. 10 with Wake Up World! ...  Ch. 6. It is amusing to find that here, even Gould began to see. In fact, he spoke so derisively of the step by step idea, that he declared here that he could not even IMAGINE how it could pass basic barriers!

Maggy   has always had this scholarly aspect, and could put his beak into lots of things. It wasn't, thank goodness, a true sticky beak, but a grabbing one. He could amass so many facts in a minute that you could almost call him the minute bird; but since this can be pronounced differently, and Willie is so small, and might think we were indirectly mocking him, we did not: and in any case, it is not the sort of thing to fling about in print.

But Maggie, he is so sharp! He became this now.

WHY, WHY, WHY do they dissemble ? he asked, flapping his wings in a way evidently parallel to thumping the fist. It gave him that slightly aerial look which belonged somehow to the force of his exasperation.

He proceeded, flashing to a tree nearby like a retroactive ray of dissident light. From there he declaimed his point.

It seems beyond doubt that it is not ALL just cantankerous obstructiveness, the pervasive preaching of this organic myth. Certainly it is obsessive in its compulsive-seeming monotony. There is a worse feature which seems to lie behind it.

 

In fact, there is evidently a delusion as the Bible foretold (II Thessalonians 2). They CANNOT see because they have closed their eyes; and when that is done, what comes up from the depths of the mind can be delusion, devilry or plain evanescent abstractions. All this is happening, and that is why I am home-schooling my young birds. Who wants kids taught nostrums of nothingness and casuistries without causation by people who know enough about it to use them wherever God is not concerned, right down to the slightest aspect of their salaries, income tax and inventions.

 

It is simply a disease, said the lyre-bird, who after all had started the theme, and his lustrous eyes seemed almost prophetic as he completed a lyre-aria which he had evidently had in mind for some time, and finding it better than ever before, his eye contained a gleam of satisfaction. He is always an artist, and it is wonderful the way the Creator has always provided things like that, far beyond any 'need', but in creative majesty, inventing whole dimensions from creative efflux.

The lyre-bird must have discerned my thought, mind-reading, and after a flush of fervour in another little lyrical invention of his, which echoed in the woods, said this. I would be careful, you know, he spoke (a soft sort of voice, really), because the term 'efflux' can be misconstrued by the mighty, and polluted by the fallen. Don't you really think that 'radiance' or 'energy' or 'soaring creativity' ?

THE  FORBIDDEN WORD: CREATION,
and the DECLARATIVE FACT, CREATION

Willy hopped in here. Oh I don't know about the last, he said, since this too might be taken in a sense implying that God grew in thought. Why not 'surging creativity' ?

That might be interpreted to mean that there were resources which did things of themselves and not as a result of the divine thought, however! cried Maggie, soaring and surging away in darts of dexterity and deeds of dynamic. What about majestic creativity ? or creative exultation ?

Anyway, said the lyre bird, who was of a most peaceable disposition, and obliging with that sort of air of happy conviviality which some conductors manage to impart, it is wonderful, and one of the things I love best of all is to rejoice in my apportionment of what for me, anyway, is creative thrust and to make up things past the containment of this earth, which soar into the heavens and rebound with angelic joy attached.

Why do they obstruct the sight of certainty with their callow naturalistic myths ? I will answer my own original question. They ignore the realities and ponder the superficialities because this is their atmosphere. Shutting out the light with the dark clouds of pre-conception and ignoring the teachings of logic, they make a special case of everything they touch where God is concerned, excluding it from the norms of their trade, thus becoming disorderly philosophers, though many of them are in professional life, scientists. So they create a dichotomy. There are the things which are so mysterious that you break all known laws even to assert them, and the things which are operative, which you keep all known laws to interpret. In this way, they teach by negation and act in division.

Is it then a sort of professional schizophrenia ? asked Willy.

A spiritual one anyway, resumed LL, which is the name of the luminious lyre-bird.

It is a logical solecism, added Maggy, diving into the conversation from a nearby tree. If you cannot have one logical system then your principles are merely subjective, and what you assert has no more force than yourself. Indeed, if you delete causation, you delete the very meaning scope of words, for if you characterise anything by giving it a name, such as silicon or oxygen, then you are implicitly asserting that there is a basis which has characteristics and that they operate on a causal ground, so that if this is the product, that is its performance and its nature in the scope of the entire system, so acts. If you reject the meaning of words, to avoid causation, then you cannot systematically even speak. Causes is good on that sort of thing, as is Barbs... 6   -7 !

Things 'arising' is like having lotteries for your support. THEY do not 'arise', but are carefully conceived and propagandised systems of re-distribution. There is never no reason for anything; and even if you tried to say there was, you would have to use reason to show it, and hence to invalidate on your own grounds what you are saying.

Who said anything against reason ? asked Willy, doing a little artful dance so few inches above the others that they turned slightly apprehensively in case of collision; but they need not have been concerned. Willy is wily in the air.

But WHY, WHY, WHY! said Maggie, picking up from LL, where he had begun, and this being more in his nature to pursue with proper vehemence.

Why what ? asked the Peacock, but he used so harsh a cry that it seemed intrusive, so that Maggie had to control an assertive flush and rush of thought in order to reply politely, for as they all knew, grace of lips increases learning.

WHY do they so often ignore reality and invent things when it comes to God, as if their very lives depended on confusion ?

ESCAPING INTO THE INFERNO  or its GASES

Oh that is easy, said Willy. They do it to escape. You find the same sort of things for example when they are getting divorced, very often. The LAST thing either party wants is an array of straight facts. There are misconstructions and misapprehensions and dissensions about anything and about nothing because they are OFFENDED and cannot get enough offence off their chests. It is even a way of expressing dissatisfaction with each other, not to be reasonable, and they can spend large amounts of money asking lawyers to settle things, which makes all suffer, because they are averse to reality.  They feel ditched by each other, or guilty, or hitched to someone else, and facts are only a last resort, and in some cases, a fastness not to be penetrated.

You are right! said LL, picking a grub or two with that elegant lyre-like sense of harmony which is so marked.

 

However, he continued,  it is not all in one special field. It is found in churches. Why does Romanism^*1 have to turn God into bread, and move Him about! Why do they have to make the slipping Peter - at once showing himself anything but rock-like (Matthew 16:21-23), when he was called (by translation) merely a 'stone', a play on his name -  into the foundation of the church! What else is the 'rock', that massive living rock, and who else was identified by a faith which Christ declared came from the work of the Father (the real One), in answer to question of His identity, but Himself! WHO AM I ? YOU ARE THE CHRIST ... YOU are Petros (stone) and on this petra (rock), I will build My Church.

 

Certainly the two are related, by pun; but the word for the one is NOT the word for the other. It is as simple as that. And yet they do it, all of it. WHY! Maggie's wings beat as he stared penetratingly into the distance.

 

Such a body is not founded at all, he affirmed, but confounded; for that ROCK for that body is, the Rock on which the church is founded, is, as I Corinthians 3:10 says, Jesus Christ! Did a pope, a Peter, die for us, set us up and put paid to are sins with the pardon which His unswerving magnificence provided as He fought the battle and won it!

 

The word of God also asseverates that NO OTHER FOUNDATION is possible for the Church. How long will opposites be acclaimed, declarations be discarded and words twisted into contortion. That Rock which followed the children of Israel was, as I Corinthians 10 tells us, Christ. It is, as I Cor. 3, asserts, Christ; and it is NONE TRANSFERABLE!

 

It is, as Isaiah 28:16 prophetically affirms in anticipation, HE who is the foundation stone. It is HE in whom one must believe, and on whom it all turns. WHO, asks Isaiah 53:1 has believed our report ? But of whom IS it a report ? It is of Him who bore our transgressions, He who by His knowledge justifies many! It is He who made intercession for the transgressors and by whose stripes we are healed. It is this, it is none other: is it then so very hard to understand that it is therefore Himself alone!

 

It is God Himself who ALONE is the rock, as Psalm 62 announces; He only is the Rock, acclaims King David after a life to show it (II Samuel 22:32).  ONLY GOD is the rock! It says so, it is only a matter of believing God.

 

Once however assume this confusion, and then there is fun as well as tragedy; for if ever there was irony,  it was in playing on Peter's name, stone, and contrasting it with the Greek for living rock, saying YOU are stone (one word) and on this ROCK (another word)  I will build my Church, in view of what was to happen. It was a lesson in a minute on pomp. Thus within minutes Peter was showing how NON rock indeed he was, by suggesting that Christ dispense with the Cross! There is stone, talking to Rock, but the word that Rock Jesus had for him then was this: GET BEHIND ME SATAN, YOU ARE AN OFFENCE TO ME, FOR YOU DO NOT SAVOUR THE THINGS OF GOD BUT THE THINGS OF MEN!

 

Peter was put right, but the popes who rebelliously used the term 'father' ever since (Matthew 23:8-10 to the contrary) have been wrong ever since. In fact, it is or would be rather like calling Einstein a war-monger when he campaigned for peace! It is to misuse his name.

 

And another thing! Why do people have to make up amillenial rubbish, even if others make up dispensational rubbish, the one excluding what one Professor even at Westminster reputedly believed (in private)!

 

What did he believe in private, then, asked Willy !

LL continued. It was this:  that Revelation 20 leaves no room to excise the millenium; and why do the dispensationalists have to have their various and variable insistences on breach of the integrity of what is manifest in endless scriptures !(cf. Barbs ... 17 ^*2)! ONE GOSPEL is the only one and the Jews are rejected with contempt when they turn from it (Isaiah 65:13-15), only becoming once more His people spiritually, when they return to HIM as crucified for them (Zech. 12:10).

 

Why are these extremes of avoidance so often found, whether to avoid God, or His plans ? Sometimes it is less significant in tone and tenor, but it is a strange wearisome foolishness which tends to grow in man. Repetitively, he is always wanting to argue with the facts, instead of moving with them and from them to action in accord with them; or slightly towards them, and getting lost in the way! He may want to systematise things this way and that with some integrity, but then a party forms and it may come to spiritual blows, and then partisan follies persist, and in the end it is an -ism not the Bible, and the Church more than the wisdom of God in His book. It then becomes as in Mark 7:7ff. - vain traditions, voiding the word of God, as Christ severely charged groups of the religionists of His own day, in their high places and low deeds.

 

WHY ? The answer is not far to seek. It is because sin is either sovereign in man, or seeking by any available gate, small or large, an entry; and its product is confusion. Then warfare and high-and-mightiness come in and those who hold this or that are not really ... well, you know... and so it goes, partisan follies.

 

Peacock then evidently had something to say.

There is something about Peacock, for although his head seems small by comparison with his body, it is perhaps the harshness of his cry which tends to offend.  Yet then note the irony in the creation of this bird; for while it can fly even with its massive and spectacular tail, it does so without anything like the darting dynamic of Maggie, or the witty spryness of Willie. Its cry seems to say: Oh creation, consider what the Lord has given you, and do not be hypnotised by any gift; for of what singular beauty is the tail of the peacock, and how he loves to extend its sheer magnificence of multi-coloured and glimmering light; and yet how harsh his cry, why, it is an offence to the ear!

In life, such is the collation not seldom, of a beauty and a bane, and so one learns from the birds.

PERCEIVING THE DIVINE DECLARATIONS IN ORDER

However, Peacock, small though his head may be, had on this occasion something in it. He was determined to proceed, and having mastered the negative reaction to his manner of 'speech', he continued. 

There is however a line, from Elijah to Christ, and there you see the prior and the subsequent, the inception and the conclusion, the introduction and the consummation. There is in this, first Elijah with mighty acts and daring deeds, done in the name and power of the Lord, and this is startling and epochal, a vast divine drive in the midst of national decline. They suffered what, in effect,  they asked for at length. Israel to the North, received the judgment permanently, and Judah to the South, took it temporarily. Then the progression came to its peak, culmination in Christ.

Thus we pass as our general era, to which Christ has given His coming as the base for our dating system, and in so doing, we move from the empowered prophet to the Lord Himself as flesh. That was the consummation in Christ.

What then will we call the present time ? asked Willie.

Maggie darted in with his dynamic little ways, and delivered his concept. Now, since Christ in Person departed from this earth, it  is the Era of the Spiritual Culmination, when by the Holy Spirit whom He promised to send (Luke 24), and sent (Acts 2),  Christ binds to Himself and to each other, the people who are His, he declared, while speculating on the advisability and possibility indeed, of absorbing a particularly succulent looking worm.

That is now, and the word of God is its authority, and the work of God its testimony. This was Peacock's conclusion.

LL in his bright and lustrous way, eyes appealing and almost wearing the professorial gown, in a ruminative sort of manner, took up the task.

THE ACTUAL NATURE OF GROWTH WHERE IT COUNTS

It seems to me, he cried, the case is this. We move always upward, not as if evolving, for our construction is integral, mutually supportive and reciprocal, and complete^*3; but WITHIN our kind, to a new kind of relationship to God. This is spiritual growth. It is no longer with the consummation of Christ as man to suffer and die, in view, as for a millenium it was in some detail, when the Old Testament prophets were showing this in a host of prescriptions, all of them fulfilled.

That was a vast period of accumulating presentation for the day of His arrival, when as God He had to show who He was, and what He wanted, the basis for redemption and how to live^*4. That is done, it is finished. Yet with the coming of Christ as King, in view, as it has been shown in some detail in the word of God, a thing which will shortly come to pass^*5, there is a new and equally exciting dénouement.

Willy was always flitting. His remarks may at times have seemed like little episodes, but you can be sure he was not inactive when otherwise engaged, for his mind was playing about with thoughts, just as in bodily movements he flitted. Yet he got there, and his dancing ways add art to business.

I find something else even more exciting, you know, he interpolated. To be sure, He comes as King to show this earth the way of righteousness before its polluted palaces and demoted grandeurs go, but there is something far more enthralling - and there he paused to snap at an insect of telling appeal, and this with some success, followed by a short expression of rumination on his quickly moving face - at least I find it so, he said with relish and evident satisfaction.

What is that ? asked Peacock, who was spreading forth his tail, as some do a tale of woe, but in his case, it was done more becomingly.

He does not come to rule as King until He has called His own redeemed people, whose sins He covered, and who already live in His presence by His Spirit.

Called them where ? asked Peacock, who seemed not well instructed on this point, but who was for all that possibly seeking to find the mind of Willie, which would in any case be quite an achievement.

Why, you know it in Matthew 24, in I Thessalonians 4, He comes to TAKE what is committed to Him, before the judgment comes in two ways.

THERE IS ONE 'OUT!' WHICH IS TO BE DESIRED,
BUT NOT BEFORE ITS TIME,

AND IT LEADS IN ... AND ON!

I know, I know, cried Maggie, dashing in with that spectacular flight and arrest, with two point landing, which he so relished. First, there is the CALL OUT OF THIS WORLD, just as already it is a call out of false spiritual bodies and false culture in spirit. This is easy to follow since to be removed from the world where you are in any case a pilgrim and a stranger is merely the completion of the task. It is back to base! It is going home!

Then in heaven, we find in Revelation 19, there is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. This means  the coming to a glorious realisation in concert with others of what His power and presence means when it is no longer veiled by our flesh, but open and face to face. You see something of it in Revelation 7, but in Ch. 19, there is the climax, the ceremony, the open and public exhibition of His own in His presence, and they are all clothed in fine linen, white because washed as in Revelation 7:14.

Washed in what ? asked Peacock, perhaps to gain emphasis in the reply from Maggie.

In His blood, that is by the death He suffered, which means that the guilt is transferred, the penalty paid and the life given so that THIS might stand unimpugnable, where sinners failed, and this meet judgment where the divine love and mercy would like to shield it from those who receive pardon through His death and life through His resurrection.

So they are clothed in linen, white and clean, and as such designated the 'bride' or final accomplishment of God through pain and suffering, forbearance and planning, grace and mercy, pardon and crucifixion, resurrection and power. Now is their restoration evidenced, visibly and openly in His presence. Marriage without a carriage it is indeed, but not without love and light and finality.

Even now, mused LL, life in Christ is blessed with an intimacy and a personal wonder, such as I Peter 1:5-8 shows; but then there will be plain, straight SIGHT and we will know as we are known.

You get that in I Corinthians 13, added Maggie with a flourish, carolling, winging, swinging and then depositing himself on the grass in the now maturing pastoral symphony, complete with avine choir.

Peacock tactfully remained silent, being not musically inept just because he was so strangely gifted; and in this, he showed an example which many might follow, when inclined to quarrel.

It is all in one aspect, growth, isn't it, said Maggie. I don't mean the conversion, but its expression in salvation. In Christ's kingdom, and what a glorious name for it - the kingdom of heaven^*6, things are different in authority and rule indeed! NOT as in the Gentiles' kingdoms, Christ gently chided them when they were monstrously pre-occupied with placing and rating in the kingdom of heaven. Not so: if you would be first here, He said, be first in service. It is NOT a matter of exercising dominion AT ALL, but of loving service.

Yes, concurred LL, for in the Kingdom of Heaven, growth is not self-aggrandisement, as Christ made clear to His disciples as He went to self-abnegation on the Cross (Matthew 17), but development of skills, knowledge, acquaintance with the Lord and strength of character within His service, in love and in goodness, in virtue and forbearance, in understanding and in wisdom: such it is as we await His return. People may even talk about the subordination of the Son and so forth, but these terms do scant justice to the loving willingness and joint action of what is after all, ONE BEING, God Himself.

 

It is a voluntary submission which He specifically took (Philippians 2, Psalm 40), delighting to do it because of love. Certainly, as the eternal Word of God, He has proceeded from the Father and come forth (John 8:42) and 'declared' Him (John 1:10), and is metaphorically 'spoken'; but this is not so much 'generation' as if on analogy He were being made up, but PROCEEDING FORTH, as He says, and this is a constant expression of His Father. Before time, He was with His Father, and so it is timeless in notation (John 1: 17:3, 8:58, 1:3, Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:39).

 

This occurs,  just as the Spirit's coming now also is indeed one of being SENT as in John 14-16, and HELPING, while Christ as the decisive WORD of God does the sending; yet this is not subordination, but co-operation as each works in His own special way within the beauty of holiness.

 

The way God acts is the way He is, and as He does not change, His ways are everlasting:  in Him there is no shadow of variation or turning (Psalm 102, Hebrews 1, Malachi 3:6, James 1).

 

His eternal nature is always as He has shown it to be, whether in taking on the form of a man, or in His own form, whether in the sending of the Spirit by the Son from the Father (John 15:26), by the Word from the Eternal Father, or in His love of deep communing with redeemed man (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

 

He is no more reconstructable in terms of man’s ideas of time than is He in terms of man’s ideas of space! It is the autonomy of God to be the same; it is the spurious and contemptible pretence of autonomy in man, who would change even his Creator to match his debased concepts and misused mind, that so varies. Inventive indeed is man, but to invent God is not merely idolatry, but a sheer intoxicated waste of time. Some do it for money (II Peter 2), some for exaltation (II Thess. 2), but all do it with deception, whether of themselves or of others (II Thess. 2:10). It is necessary to return to what He has shown of His unchanging Being, His nature and His ways, to the revelation which is in Christ Jesus and in the word of God which He both taught and used as determinative.

 

Imagination of oil does not make it spurt; imagination concerning God is mere invention, and when man 'invents' God, his is a world of illusion so oppressive that it is like a novel, so horrible in dénouement that one drops it, so compelling in development that one can see it ending, just in that way! Returning from reckless imagination, then, we proceed to the word of God from the Bible and His Christ, to who He is, and how He has revealed Himself to be.

 

 

The Spirit's work of applying, aiding, inclining, helping, being present about one, convicting, convincing, constraining (as in Acts 13-16), opening eyes (Zechariah 12:10), strengthening (Ephesians 3:16), sealing (Ephesians 1), being guarantor, declaring His children to be so (Romans 8:16), giving liberty, providing moulding to His likeness once again (II Corinthians 3:17-18): it is distinctive in kind, not the same as the command or its issuance. There is a beauty in the holiness of all and the infinite intimacy^*7 of each that makes some kinds of human language for the very form of God, simply intrusive however; and we need to keep closely to the written word of God.

 

Certainly the Father directs and Christ absorbs His commands, while the Spirit moves in concurrence and application; but outside the humbling of Messiahship (as declared in Philippians 2 in detail as to form), it is the beauty of holy grace, not coldly named subordination.

MUTUAL MEEKNESS,
AUTHORITY AND OPERATIONAL FELICITY

Thus there is mutual meekness and submission, and mutual love, there is self-humbling and there is exaltation, each delightful in grace, and though authority is of course present from the Father, as speaking, yet there is no dominion concept at all, in this, that there is ONE GOD who being one, though diverse in persons, is not at all in some separate manner, discernible in differentiation apart, since infinite is the intimacy of love (John 14:6-11 shows this very thing, as does Isaiah 9:6-7).

 

This should be realised by Christians, His redeemed, in our own sort of unity on earth. Although we are indeed many, there is in all of this the message of meekness, specialisation without mere subordination, authority without the darting dominion of personality, but with the awe-filled wonder of truth.  Its distortion or severance is an option for self-will,  a stimulus to that spiritual acne which exacerbates and a major scenario for wars. It is the pattern for all men, though rebels do not realise it. Some rage in divisiveness, some compromise in spiritual flatulence, but meekness in person and boldness in faith, with fidelity to His word remains the requirement of holiness.

Certainly, responded Maggie: It is not a good time for needless division; let the devil deal with his own in that. It is time for people of whatever church or denomination, to take what is written, the very word of God, the Bible,  as more important than creeds (which are very useful), just as it is final in a way which is more than drawing near with the mouth, while remaining schismatic in spirit.

It is time to act in concert, and together to raise a standard as the forces of wickedness seek to conquer all (Isaiah 59:19); for although these have their little day, it is necessary, remembering Elijah, to ensure that the challenge is occasion for the exhibition of the power and wonder of the true and living God[; for people should not cease to look for the salvation and deliverance, even of those who persecute us. It is time moreover to leave the churches which organise a profusion of faiths, and do not require the Bible^*8 .

or refuse to honour it by application to action.

Here Peacock thought it good to cry in his harsh but effective way.

Decline, degradation and demoralisation is a mark of our Age: it is a challenge that  does tend to prevent any mere idle lounging! It is a good time, now, he said, to ACT. Remember Eli's procrastination ? It cost him the life of his sons and then his own on this earth in the end!

 

What is there so precious that the work of God must be a sort of add-on to the work of man ?

 

Why this schism, which leads to revisionism, for if you rebel in one command, how can you stand in the others! Staying put where the word of God does not rule is like joining with a rag-tag rebellion group, and defying the Commander. You read of evolution and marriage for the Christian, as if this had any conceivable relevance, like saying radioactivity and a wholesome diet. You hear of pulpit and perverts, like asking a surgeon what is the thickness of dirt on the operating theatre floor. If it is discernible, doubtless it is too much! You hear of properity Christianity, as if taking up your cross were a good lurk for high interest rates! You hear of coming to God through this and that, even from 'church' pulpits, as if the very name of Christ were a tag, and what mattered was the unredeemed heart of imaginative man.

That's what I was thinking at the first, said Maggie.

WHY, WHY, and WHY do they dissemble in their philosophies, as if all coherence had left them, even have the effrontery to call this action 'science' when some scientists expose their religious sentiments while still in white coats! Why do some bodies still calling themselves 'churches' follow the cultural death and the logical riot, and clash likewise with the truth empirical, scriptural and logical, all in concert! WHY!

 

Why do the intolerable heresies whether ancient or modern, peddle their deplorable wares, and why again do so many follow with zest, the quest they have, when it is founded on imagination, wrought in rebellion and contradicts mightily and systematically the very book, the Bible, to which they ostensibly look for accreditation!

It is merely a symptom of the disease, cried Peacock.

You cannot have influenza without the syndrome, and the 'flu head' is part of it, as many find, something so singular that it is as unique as lightning. So is it with this spiritual disease. It is all part of the rebellion of Psalm 2, when they try to sever the Christ, resist the Lord and rule in His place; but He just laughs, first in the resurrection (Psalm 2:4ff.), and finally in His rule on this earth (2:8ff., Micah 4, Isaiah 11, Revelation 1:7-8, 19:8ff., 20:1-8, 5:10, Daniel 7:25, Revelation 20, Mark 12:1-10, Matthew 19:28ff., 26:29). It is marvellous how briefly all of this is put in one little Psalm, isn't it!

It will also, said Maggie, be put in one little phase of history when He comes for us who believe.

It is that for which I am waiting, with an expectation more lovely than any worm's wriggling offering!

But now let us look at the preliminary in Elijah-Elisha and the Consummation in Christ, that we might the more realise in Christ our responsibilities.

Who had spoken ? Was it not LL, the lyre-bird, taking up his avine lyre and telling the tale with clarity and kindness. First, Maggie, he said companionably, you tell us the comparison of the deeds and place of Elijah-Elisha and Christ.

Swooping down, as if to devour, the Maggie instead showed his devouring curiosity and interest, by sketching for LL the comparison requested.

It is like this, he carolled, for he did tend to burst into song every now and again, even when on the ground at times.

{We shall inset this, as it was a special feature from Maggie, and we must not lose the sight of the light at the end of the wood.}

ELIJAH to CHRIST

Elijah was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire (II Kings I),

 

but Christ ascended direct, shielded by cloud, removed from their sight, His return specified, since He is the ultimate, in the SAME MANNER as had been His departure (Acts 1:7ff.).

 

Elijah was seen with Moses, talking with Christ at the transfiguration (Matthew 17),

 

but Christ was the topic of the discussion, that death which He should shortly accomplish, for not His own escape from death, but ours was the redemption passion (Luke 9:31).

 

Elijah called down fire from heaven (II Kings I), in order to continue until he had completed his mission on earth,

 

but Christ simply moved from the throng of those seeking to destroy Him at Nazareth, as if to force Him over a cliff, and passed through them (Luke 4), so spiritually clad and moved that He was beyond their grasp and passion.

 

Again, when He was asked to call down fire on an unreceptive Samaritan village, as He was nearing the time of His own death, and passions might have been high, He told them not to seek such a thing, and that they did not know from what kind of spirit they came (Luke 9:54ff.). His purpose was not to destroy but to save (as in John 3:16-17). Thus He both avoided a premature death and what there was needless destruction.

 

Elijah raised from death the son of a benefactor in a great national contest with evil, one who had materially aided the entire conflict.

 

Christ raised from the dead the son of the widow of Nain (I Kings 17 and Luke 7:11ff.).

 

Elisha likewise raised the child (II Kings 4:18ff.),

 

but Christ even raised Lazarus, not after hours, but after days, so ensuring in the fear of His transcendence on the part of the priests (John 11), that their death plots gained considerable momentum. His own resurrection after three days was the masterpiece of which this was in a parallel, a preliminary sketch.

 

Elijah confronted a wicked ruler, Ahab, guilty of blood, and outfaced him, a miracle of rain and direction delivering him from death (I Kings 17).

 

Christ confronted a weak and wicked ruler, and King, and priestly rulers, outfaced them all and overthrew their schemings by unanswerable speech and service in combination, and above all, by the profound and unique miracle of being raised Himself from the dead, without human intervention of any kind. (Cf. Romans 1:4, Mark 14:62, John 18-20, Luke 23:12).

 

Elijah committed his ongoing work to Elisha in dramatic circumstances (II Kings 1),

 

but Christ committed His to the disciples who became apostles (Acts 1, John 20), and the power of the Spirit was on both the one and the other; yet for Christ, it was made vast at Pentecost (cf. Ephesians 1:19), including in its general scope, all believers (Romans 8:9,16), and testifying to them of their part in His kingdom. 

 

Elijah confronted false priests and they were killed as the law provided (I Kings 17), but Christ confronting the same (Matthew 23, Luke 11), was killed by them, according to plan, so that many even of them became His in view of His resurrection (Acts 6:7).

 

Elijah healed people (I Kings 17:17), and Elisha from meal brought healthiness to poisonous food (II Kings 4:38ff.),

 

but Christ healed multitudes (Mark 2, Matthew 4:23ff.) including those possessed by devils (Matthew 12:22ff.), and made a regular practice of it (Matthew 14:34-36, Luke 5:12ff.); moreover,  He healed the spiritually sick (Matthew 5:27ff.), as also those sick in more ways than one (Luke 8:26ff.), and He healed even when those surging about Him delayed His progress,  in pressing sequences of events (Luke 8:40ff.).

 

Elisha sent out his servant to help the Shunammite woman, and that servant failed;

 

but Christ sent out His disciples and they prevailed mightily (Luke 10:1-20), even the seventy as well as the twelve (Matthew 10).

 

Elijah was to give a 'double portion of his spirit' to Elisha (II Kings 1), but Christ has sent forth the Holy Spirit to all believers.

 

Elijah was fed by ravens when in national contest with the alien, murderous and unfaithful king, as he misled the people (I Kings 17), but Christ found His meat in doing the will of God continually (John 4).

 

Elijah had the very LORD speak to Him audibly in a vast portrayal within natural events of vehemence, with a still small voice (I Kings 19:11ff.); but Christ's direct and open address from His Father was heard by many on more than one occasion (cf. John 12:27ff., Matthew 17:5, Matthew 3:17).

 

Elijah sent word in writing to a later generation (II Chronicles 21:12 cf. II Kings 1:17),

 

but Christ commissioned His apostolic band (John 14:26) from whom the scriptures came.

 

Why was Elijah protected when the king sent troops ? It was because his work not being done, and violence of this kind being used, it was returned on its own head till the work was done.

 

Why did Christ escape when murder was being planned at Nazareth ? It was for the same reason; but this was near the beginning of His ministry, and His end was planned to be far worse than that, as far as this world is concerned in that its day. Thus, since He did not come to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17), He acted avoiding the initial murder plans, and devotedly allowing the final and foretold ones (Matthew 26:52-56).

 

Judgment DID follow in a generation's time for the nation which slew Him, and the city in which it was done (in AD 70 when ROME DID IT!); but it was not fitting that any blood be shed for Him, whose blood was to be shed for us.

 

 

 

I find that fascinating: cried Maggie, and his threefold carollings rang out; and these,  say what you will, have a certain heavenly exuberance and charm about them, a sense of innate inventiveness wedded to zest and a created command of enablement for his kind.

WHERE DO YOU FIT IN ?

But let us now move to the present development, said LL, with some choral music of his own, imitating varied natural things with a lyricism which made of them a kind of musical poetry with invention and fidelity to other sounds, competing for prominence, and neither quite securing dominance.

We move from Elijah in confrontation with the king, controlling in the Lord's name the fall of rain, producing drought to arrest their attention, and calling triumphantly for rain on their repentance and purification, as from Elisha performing amazing works of supernatural stewardship, in the midst of a fast declining race. In a little while, they go, the North with its Samaria and idolatrous calves, blasphemously betraying the old passion for Egypt's diseases of the soul, altogether in their final judgment. In Judah of the South, there is temporary judgment, a prelude to a far longer one to come, when Jerusalem rejected their King (John 18:19ff.,36ff.).

 

That judgment ended in gross terms in 1948, to the extent Jerusalem was returned to the Jews in 1967, but it continues in their unrest and surging turmoils, despite all their great labours, since they have not yet said, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, of Jesus Christ. Until the headstone of the corner is in place, the One who died at the appointed time as Daniel foretold (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), there is no peace. What has to happen in repentance will surely happen (Zechariah 12:10, Isaiah 66), but in the meantime, the nation of Israel, site of the murder of Christ, has no rest. We must pray for it and for them.

 

Now the times are coming to their peak and summit, LL soughed, as if the wind were blowing through the trees, but then, he is a wonderful mimic. But his words were worthy of mimicry!

 

In Christ, he said, we have a far more complete, less episodic supernatural work, done not as a prelude to the Messiah but as He, and its culmination is breach-birth from death, overcoming that curse visibly, after delivering others from it beforehand, so that in redemption He is also life-guarantor.

 

We look to His return to complete the conquest, destroying the world-system to come, and now nearly here, but first removing the members of His own body, just as He Himself was removed, while the Gospel pulsed its way into the world, until the world should pour out filth on it, as predicted and now done, both in bodies naming His name in many cases, and those affronting it (I Peter 2:1ff., II Timothy 3:1ff., Matthew 24:24, Revelation 16, II Thess. 2).

 

A sadder look permeated the thoughtful brow of the bird, as he contemplated the realities which this would produce, the suffering and the insufferable confusion (Revelation 13, 16, 17-18); but he gladdened as he recounted to himself, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. After all, he thought, it is this, and not WW I or WW II which is the final war for the saints before their Master returns with illimitable and direct power as in Psalm 2. He continued therefore with a quietness which was arresting.

 

The consummative point in this culmination, it is His coming for us. Meanwhile as athletes, like Paul we so run that we may obtain (I Corinthians 9:24), and by faith, we trust, as he also declared it, that we shall fight a good fight, for it is God who works in us both to will and to do, as one of the beauties of the Holy Way in Christ, leading to the pinnacle of His coming (Philippians 2, II Timothy 4, 1:9ff.).

 

In a way, it is the ultimate "I shall return" as declared by General MacArthur of the Philippines in Word War II. It is a planned return. But this, it is a regal return and a divine one literally! It is done first for the deliverance of those still in this world, who are His, and then with them, to overrun the globe and be witnesses of His rule.

 

While this present negative growth is the final episode before the resurrection,  in this world's glamour, impurity and polluted power drill, yet it is positive growth is in the heart of His people, who stripped of Protestant power in the British Empire, and exposed on all sides now as at the first in the Roman Empire's day, to every brand of confusion and spiritual contusion, as people bruised in heart show their pains as life, yet proceed by faith. They become in this approaching crisis,  as one in a storm with a fix on the airport, as a pilot who does not deviate from the landing pattern, to set down the plane at last.

 

It is only the end of a long trail. If arduous, it is upward; if searching, it is clean; if challenging, it is met by a power nothing can countervail (I Peter 1).

 

Thus this positive growth in the demands on His church, which has been made in Russia for many decades, and in China, during the flagrant works of their respective preliminary antichrists, is moving now to its culmination, when even to open the mouth will become, world-wise, as hard as to feed it, when the financial pressure is added to all the rest, in order to relativise religion, calumniate Christ, and absolutise the political-social-financial-religious innovation called the Beast. Yet the words of Christ remain more powerful than any tyrant or tyranny:

 

"I will give you a mouth and wisdom your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist" (Luke 21:15).

 

These are the words which reach, like those of Matthew 28:19ff., to the very end of the Age!

 

It is rather like the old song in reverse order. Just as the man in that met one with tender eyes, and another of another appeal, but at last, when he thought he was past love, met one whom he loved as he had never loved before, so here, it is in the negative growth phase for this world. They will abandon all to follow the feint of the foolish (Revelation 13:8,13-14, II Thess. 2:9).

Here LL paused, with that bright intelligent look of his, slightly misted by a sense of the superb majesty of the Lord and the love for Him of His saints.

The world, he uttered quietly, it has had the persecuting powers of ancient Rome, using men as lights with tar as fuel, in their stadiums; it has had Roman Catholic follow-on, with exquisite devices of torture, a profound confusion of having Christ bear the curse, with being a curse to others in His name; it has had the Communist and Islamic destructiveness, which creates so little and mixes in China with its opposite, that it might survive; but coming is the international version. This will not be in Rome or in Beijing or in Moscow only, but in London and Washington, in Canada and Japan.

Maggie could contain himself no longer. Tell about the myths, he besought LL: you know all their strange inventions in religion and naturalism, which fulfil the prediction of Paul in I Timothy 4:2-4, that they will be turned aside to myths.

There Maggie gave such a series of paeans of praise in his own all but indescribable chortling glories, that when he directly quoted these verses, it came almost like a preacher after the choral offering.

It goes like this, he asserted:

^"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

^"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,
but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears,
they will heap up for themselves teachers;
and they will turn their ears away from the truth,
and be turned aside to fables.

^"But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

^"For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing."

But Maggie,  you have gone on to verse 8, said the ever-sharp Willie.

True, rejoined Maggie, but then our topic is the contrast of the culmination in Christ and that in this world's defamatory illusions, so that in adding, I am only completing the point.

Very good, quietly resumed LL, and taking out his avine harp, which he seemed to have invisibly within, he produced such innovative praise and such instructive reflections, that all paused to admire. Then he continued to complete what he had in mind, for the lyre bird loves to practise and practise his songs, until he has them mature and complete.

THE HIDEOUS IN BOLD PRINT

AND THE BLESSEDNESS IN OPEN FACE

The hideous coming strength, he mused, it  will be the result of many compromises, many false christs, many naturalistic myths, many sojourns with religious innovations, until the whole is made to appear one vast subjective preference for survival, living or anything other than truth. Then, it will become inflated with its own success and seek to control all, and to force worship, not this time of the Japanese Emperor as in Korea before World War II, not in effect of Mao or Stalin, or their principles, but of their international system, their financial power, their military preponderance and their wisdom and wit, until their leader declares himself to be god, one made, and admiring himself in the temple (II Thessalonians 2).

 

It is like an incoming tide. We have seen this wave and that cover the coast, this surge run up nearly to the top of the sandy beach; but in due time, the whole ocean comes forward, the tide is high, the high-water-mark is met, and all is present. So comes the tide following the international perfidies of Communism, Islam and Romanism (in both its forms, ancient and modern), which have given due warning that yes, MAN IS CAPABLE of such mad folly, such insane seeming grasping of power, such self-exaltation and such personal vanity with it. (SMR pp. 913ff.   has some of it).

 

The popes have claimed to be above man, to be masters of doctrine, and the communists have claimed control by State over all things, with neither election or correction available, by history, facts or law, in an inane vacuity. Evolutionism has without restraint, invaded the schools and a power in politics has pushed it, till its anti-scientific nonsense is now so kept from public view that here in SA, the government repeatedly declines debate, having neither answer nor ground.

 

Ceaselessly, as in Nazi Germany, the youth are being moulded and modelled in mythical mysticisms, bereft of relevant facts, with anti-scientific method unchecked (as you can see if you read Earth Spasm ... Chs.    1,   7, Deliverance from Disorientation Ch.   7, SMR pp. 149ff., or Secular Myths ... Ch. 7 with   CASCADE ... Ch.   3   for example).

.

 

All of this, religious directly, indirectly and tilted at the subjection of religion, it proceeds until all being in place, the various religious unity movements (cf. News 121, 122, 132, 44, 82) with the political aggregations growing, moves until the vacuity meets its new occupant. Who is this ? It is the prince of devilry, the man of sin noted in II Thess. 2, and the climax, like the centre of a bush-fire, rages till it is burnt up by the coming of the Lord (2:4).

 

How unpleasant that negative growth is, said Willie, rather like a large cancer burrowing into the life of the body, to claim it if it can. He pondered and then proceeded.

How unwise is the preoccupation with more data, when not only drive, but dynamic and perspective are so lost that man is like a 'teenager with a large gun and no wits! As you can see, he shoots continually, even millions, and number if you can those murdered with it since 1914, forgetting neither WW I nor WW 2, nor Spain in Ethiopia, nor its civil war, nor Russia's, nor the piling millions of Stalin's victims, to which add those millions of Mao, and then the millions in Cambodia slain rather selectively as were Polish officers by Hitler's troops, and those in Korea, Vietnam, in China, in Africa ... to which plague now adds its comment on liberty in the form of appalling AIDS statistics.

 

It is not that all war is wrong, but much of it is either pride or reaction to it, grasping for gain or response to it, appetite for territory or refusal of it, passion for place of race, face or mace, some kind of superiority and so forth. The size of the sickness of man is proportionate to the size of his false gods, false sects, false religions of violence, whether dressed in the garments of secularity, ignoring their religious basis, or not.

 

As the Encyclopedia Britannica points out, even Fascism had some of its roots in religion. How warped is this world, and to talk of progress is like someone noting the special equipment of support while he is nearing death, in hospital bed. Gripped by riddling cancer, he spends time, to which little more is granted him, noting how much advance there is, and though rattling with lung cancer, smokes nonetheless.

 

Knowledge, as Daniel foretold ? yes it has increased. Wisdom, wit and understanding, relationship to reality in spirit and in heart, in perspective that brings peace, however, what of this ? It is a rather savage decline that we see. What moreover is the GOOD of a new sports car if the driver is near to insane!

 

It is grossly unpleasant, he continued, like a whirlwind when you are trying to fly!

LL's eyes took on that luminous look of genius, as he contemplated the current of the conversation.

Unpleasant  ? Of course, responded LL; and didn't the Bible predict grisly and horrible sights in Luke 21, just as it did vast lawlessness making the love of many grow cold in Matthew 24! Nevertheless,  just as Christ is the final culmination and indeed the direct deposition in flesh of deity, coming to the performance peak in deity itself, from the foothills of Elijah and Elisha, so His is the final rebuke, from Him is the final appeal, the final offer and the final display. In artificially and malignant parallel,  so is the antichrist coming, to whom is given the final answer, the final challenge severed, the final base of conflict broken. Lies will appear as spiders in spotlight, pretence and pretension like rags before the broom of truth.

 

Meanwhile, the cleavage is complete, and the distances between are like a chasm, into which the bold pretenders of passion without patience, push without wisdom and tedium without truth will inevitably fall, and be exposed and light exposes all things.

 

As to that chasm, reason is not to be found there, but only darkness,  the flung revelation of power without glory, government without grace, the anguish for the acme of force, and the finality of violence. There is the everlasting contempt of which Daniel spoke in Ch. 12.

 

So growth to God on the one hand, the stretching of spirit of each of the saints, in the Spirit of God to the form of the beauty of the Lord, when the challenges reach their final thrust, and on the other, growth to the devil, the debasement of the human spirit to mere manipulable resources for directive power, the negative: these continue to their appointed places.

It is, said Maggie, rather like Daniel Chapter 12, at the start:

                           Like the stars forever and ever."

How deft is Daniel, ruminated LL, for just as many are covered by the blood of the New Covenant (Matthew 26:28), so many who sleep in the dust shall arise, these to everlasting life, as in Matthew 24, and in Isaiah 26:19, where His dead body they arise, even those who slept in the dust!

As to the rest, the two categories (together with those alive at His coming) making all, they are left to shame and everlasting contempt. The main theme of the redeemed continues - They who are wise shall shine. And HOW does the moon shine with the reflected light of the sun, and the bride shine with the light reflected from the Lamb! Thus does the graphic depiction, almost portraiture proceed.

Maggie completed the thought.

Those sleeping in the dust (passed on already) are surveyed as one whole, and many of these being redeemed, arise to everlasting life; but of that whole package of those who have left the vital scene, and passed on, asleep in the dust, these, all that remains, are for shame.

It is a shame to be held for the shameless when there is a name which delivers.

It is more than misfortune to inhabit the lists of the lost when there is One who came expressly to seek and to save the lost.

It is a nameless shame to keep shame because shame is the name of your game, and impervious, to retain it. This, it is double shame.

NOTES

*1

See SMR pp.1032-1088H.

*2  See for example:

Biblical Blessings Ch.  3; Appendix II,  Appendix-News;

Barbs ... 13,17, T

he Biblical Workman Ch.  3,esp. End-note 1, TBW 1,esp. End-note 3,

Things Old and New Ch.   8,

With Heart ... Ch.   6,

It Bubbles ... Ch.  9, esp. Section  3, 

Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Ch.   2,

Galloping Events Ch.  8, esp. *2

*3

On Peacock's own place in this, see   Earth Spasm ... Ch. 7.

More generally on the point in view, see for example Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 9.

See also, The gods of naturalism have no go!

*4

See Christ, the Wisdom and the Power of God Ch. 8, Repent or Perish Ch. 2 and Index on the magnificence of Jesus.

*5

See SMR Ch. 8, Answers to Questions Ch. 5.

 *6

See The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 2.

*7                                THE GLORY OF THE TRINITY

For more on the Trinity, see SMR pp. 532-560, and the Indexes.

 

See also Calibrating Myths, Machining Dreams and Keeping Faith Ch.    6, 

 

News  122,  132,  

 

Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch.    8 (the last with emphasis on remedy);

 

Barbs, Arrows and Balms     6 - 7

It is amazing how stultified some can become as unbelief masters reason. Imagine trying to make a 'problem' in that Christ is the total and infinite expression of His Father, as the eternal Word of God, whose self-expression is wrought by a Person, whose will can be applied with direct implementation, or through influence, such as the Holy Spirit in help, constraint, conviction, assurance, leading, comfort and strengthening may provide. As to BEING, God is one. As to Persons, He is three. Since these are not the same, this is merely information.

The infinite intimacy of the three persons of the trinity is one of constant companionship and co-operation, all having one nature. If there were just three, as in creaturely terms, it would not be one Being. If they were not three persons, there would be no companionship. If they were merely  phases of the one Being, now this one, now that, time would be inherent instead of a creation (Romans 8:38), and the ludicrous situation would arise of the author of all limits, limited by none, HAVING to wait for this and that, obviously a mere anthropomorphism, which is to say, the effort to make the Creator into a creature, a mere contradiction in terms.

If they were merely simultaneous phases of the one Being, then time would still be crucial in this, that their conception and operation depends on its nature. Each is more than this. From eternity to eternity, everlasting to everlasting, and before all time (cf. Ephesians 1:4), God is ONE, and the persons are thus ONE in nature, constitute ONE being, and evidence themselves without division or alternation (mere time and space concepts imported from creation below) through this threefold personal nature. God is not beyond any of them, for they ARE God. God is not less than any of them, for each IS God. God exists (not subsists, the difference is crucial) in three persons in literally infinite intimacy, indivisible in reality, harmony and nature, but special in person. It is a functional mode of being in this, that without each, God is not there, but as each, God may act.

As to Being, then, God is one. In the mode of that Being, not time confined, not spatially imagined, mere contrivances of confusion, He is three whose natures being identical, operate distinctly, in person differentiable in voluntary and desired specialty. That has no problem, but needs to be realised. Man in father, mother and son, is wholly divisible, though they MAY be close in heart, mind and spirit. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit (not more than a comparison to elicit understanding), wholly indivisible who IS in harmony.

Someone will ask, How can God be one as to nature and being, yet three as to persons ? Why even in nature, you can have a continent which is one as to being a continent, yet three as to aspects, say air and ground and sea. In this case, each part is not the whole, but at least there is a sense of co-extensiveness or correlation of concept. With God however, the inseparable, indivisible, illimitable SPIRITUAL being, not to be conceived therefore spatially, temporally or episodically, exists AS three persons the same in nature, diverse in operation. CAN a Being be in three persons ?

The idea that one BEING must numerically be the SAME as the persons operating as Himself is a strange one indeed. Why persons should be limited to one, and specifications be set up on earth for what is in heaven, is almost beyond comprehension. In fact, persons who are infinite in closeness, identical in nature, pursuing this or that special operation, consisting as One entity and without outside constraint are a trilogy of a special kind. That is, there is an ordering and a closenss which shows them as one, exactly as in any trilogy; but there is more.

It is a trinity, a tri-unity, autonomous, diversified in specialty, operatively one, ontologically one Being, so that of the persons, you could not have one without the other. Inseparable, not only in operation, they are so in formal unity. While any attempt to put this into terms of physical corporicity is at the outset a contradiction in terms, yet it is readily expressible in spiritual terms.

If you realise that there are three of the same nature, three persons,  from eternity and without change, and of such a nature that separation does not and could not occur, and that these three persons undivided in heart, in spirit, in desire, in all things whatsoever, constitute the Being, so that the Being is not greater or other than they, but is how they consist, then you are beginning to see how spiritual things are what they are.

If you further realise that when any works, it is with the authority of all, when expression is made it is expression of truth, then you perceive further. You are looking towards the reality of the triune God. You are also being stirred to see the nature of love which, since we are in His image, is of vast and even crucial import for your life (cf. I Corinthians 13, Titus 2:11-13, 3:4ff.).

What is the nature of the connection, then, one may ask, granted that it is indissoluble, indivisible, immutable, since God does not change. First of all, you need to stop the all but inveterate human desire, the fleshly confusion, of trying to use what applies to material things, to spiritual things. That would be rather like trying to talk in monetary terms of love, or motivational terms of the inert. It is necessary to cease denying the conditions of your own discourse by speaking of what is spiritual as if it were material, what is the Creator as if He were created, what is unlimited as if it were delimited and what exists in spiritual unison as if there were particles!

What does Paul say ? You are yet carnal.  The application is different there, but the problem is the same: failure to move where your issues rest, and intrusion of an alien field into the domain of your interest. Indeed, the subjection of what you deem God, to created concepts, materials and imaginations is the very essence of all idolatry. The knowledge of God does not come from idolatry, whether inadvertent or intentional.

The nature of the connection then is not a matter of material form or force, but of the nature of spirit, since GOD IS SPIRIT, as Christ affirmed to the Samaritan woman (John 4). How can ONE SPIRIT BE in terms of three persons ? There is no question of linkage, a spatial concept, alternation, a chronological term, of movements of change to produce this or that, that is otherwise: a creation concept. The answer is simply that is the nature of the Being, that uni-person is not the case, but tri-personal unity obtains.

If one Being operates in three persons, then it is as to Being, one, as to persons, three, a joint and mutual existence, that is neither joined nor disjoinable. I am what I am! God says;  God is, and that is how He is, His sublime nature, source of all grace, goodness and unity of heart.

He further in ultimate mutuality sees fit to display His word and will through the Word, and His movements and constraints, for example, through His Spirit in an intensity of loving inter-relationship which is not merely, as with man and wife, a FEELING of oneness, but since He IS spirit, actual unity.

It is hard, perhaps, for some to realise that there is no mere authoritarian directiveness, nor yet free play in autonomous separation as the three persons act: these are more spatial or political concepts. The kingdom of heaven is not like that, as Christ so clearly depicted in Matthew 13. In their inter-relationship, the persons who are God have infinite intimacy, correlation, unity, each moving and acting in concert, yet in love and desire so much one that the very idea of being separable is like, at the spatial level, imagining that the head could go on by itself. The very thought is ludicrous. It is MADE to be ONE with many.

God is not made at all, but IS ONE with three who in operational, ontological and functional reality suffer neither disjunction, correlation nor composition: before time or space, this is how that Being is, the three persons comprising but not composing Himself.

If you speak to one Person, you are speaking to all; but not by all may you speak to One, for there is no other name given among men under heaven by which they may be saved than that of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:11-12, Isaiah 11, John 10:9, 14:6). There is the door. For man, God is not all door. There is a door of functional entry.

It involves a SPIRITUAL change in the spirit of man (Luke 13:1-3, Titus 3:4-7). Undoubtedly, it is the fact that man is inclined in this generation, as in some others, to FORGET that he himself  HAS a spirit (cf. It Bubbles... Ch. 9, Little Things Ch. 5, SMR pp. 348ff. and index), that makes it seem hard to some to speak in spiritual terms! You have the same folly when in one religion you have as a reward in some after-state, women subordinated to some pleasurable male victor, and male-female concepts.

In fact, the spirit of man has no dimensions, no connections, no material gear; and although it has a locale for its operation, it is still not delimited by that, but has it as a tool and action site. Its limits are the God who made it, with whom it has to do, a creation before the face of its Creator.

When you conceive of spirit as God is, without the limiting realities which He has made, then at once the concept of one Being (not someone else, not a part of space, since He made ALL of it - cf. John 1:1-3, Isaiah 44-46, Colossians 1) who spiritually is an existence in three inseparable, indivisible persons not divided by space or time, since this is a creation of God, ontologically a matter of this three in unity, then it has no more anything but awe to provide to those who seek their Creator.

WE in spirit may talk to ourselves, as in soliloquy, very meaningfully as Shakespeare so well shows; and yet we are not two in such a case, but one. This is a spiritual phenomenon. In such a case as this of soliloquy, perhaps what  is acting more discursively is operating in functional unity with what is more established, a communion, correlation and discursive unity proceeding. We do not conclude there are two spirits, an infantile mistake. ONE spirit is the very nature, even for man, of the case; but there are two mutually active workings, each understanding the other, each operational with the other, neither divided.

You may say, In man this is not always so! That is true, for man is very variable and can be at odds with himself;  but the illustration is not to use man to show God (the wrong direction, although he is in His image), but to use spirit to show what it can be like.

As to nature, God is SPIRIT. As to Being, that Spirit is one. As to the character of that Spirit, He is merciful and gracious, sees fit to exist with Word and Father and Holy Spirit, in unjoined mutual consisting, an eternal being unchanged, indissoluble and irreducible. He is also just and will by no means acquit the wicked: for man to be acquitted. The action must come by the Word who is the Redeemer, and it is only in HIS terms, not man's own, that this pardon can be obtained. Then may is justified and acquitted, His sin laid on Christ, Christ's merits clothing him (II Corinthians 5:17ff., Isaiah 61:10).

Many hate this; pride suffuses their consciousness and attainment of the self clothes them. In this case, as in that of the parable of the self-clothed man in Matthew 22:1-14, you are cast out. You do not understand and will not receive. In reality, God is not told; He tells you. When you are His, indeed, His discourse is most fruitful; but as an enemy, you come in terms of His peace, or not at all! (Luke 14:27ff., Romans 5:1-11). You surrender or rest ruthless in your revolt.

If you want God to be other than He is, then you simply in the end, cannot know Him, or find His pardon. It does not come as YOU wish, whether you be some sect of modern time, or Islamic, for example: it comes only as HE wishes.

Thus as Christ put it, as He showed Himself in flesh as Messiah,

"All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labour ... and I will give you rest."

Thus as Christ put it, as He showed Himself in flesh as Messiah,

"All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labour ... and I will give you rest."

It is no use selecting from the scriptures of truth and adding your own condiments, salad side-plate and so on. You take it as God said it, as Christ performed it, the answer from all time for all time for the perpetual sin-problem of man, or you make your own delusions, whether in Islam (cf. SMR pp. 1079ff., More Marvels ... Ch. 4), or in any other sect that 'handles' Christ, as they did at the first, only to find Him both Lord and Christ, disposer of destiny and immutable, inexpungeable, triumphant in the face of any and all power, Lord not only of the Sabbath,  but of life, of physical and spiritual creations alike. It is this Prince of Life who murdered, breached physical death, and left it desolate, Himself the wearer of the woes of man, his sins, but not universally, merely for those who so receive Him (Romans 5:1-11, 8:32, Isaiah 53:1-6).

You receive Him as He is ?

It is then that you are growing tired of the flesh, of carnality of enterprise, philosophy and mental contrivance, it is then that you draw near to the truth of the passion of love that was unleashed in the willingness even of God, to become shaped in physical format into one of His creation's modes, into that of man. It is then that you are drawn to repent and in realisation of the glory of God, the summit of the glory of God manifest to man, of Christ as Lord and Saviour (Hebrews 1:1 -  2:3), God Himself on earth, just as Peter was drawn (Matthew 16); 16-17).

 

Then,  with opened eyes, now you see the Son, the Rock who alone is God (Psalm 62:1-3,  II Samuel 22:31-32, I Peter 5:1-4), and all who do shall be saved (John 6:40). These see His salvation and grasp it, focus Christ as their foundation and none other (I Cor. 3:10-11); and then they grow (II Peter 3:18), HOW they grow in grace and in knowledge of that same Lord, who having come from the infinite in form to the finite, from God to man, is the focus of their cherishing and the desire of their hearts (Haggai 2:7, Isaiah 11:10).

If someone rejects this gracious, sovereign, decisive, immutable offer, so be it Galatians 1:6-9, John 3:17-19), there is no other. Only a destitute destiny remains (John 3:36).  Do not blame God. His action from the heart of the Father through the mediation and murder of the Son is still thrust into the world of mankind by the Holy Spirit, and the word of it is still as inscribed by that same Holy Spirit (John 14, 16), available and clear.

You prefer to worship your own constructions ? You are gifted with power to resist the offer, and indeed as Stephen said to some,

"You do always resist the Holy Spirit!" (Acts 7:51). 

Yet as for God,  HE is not constructed; for who is there beyond Him to do it, and if one were, then quite simply that is the God of whom we speak, or if some system of gods, then the Creator of that is the One of whom we speak, though there is no system of gods, but one God only who speaks, and those with pretensions (Psalm 82, Ezekiel 28:9). It is He alone who is verified and validated,  and challenging all to check the facts that this is so, acts and meets every query, question and retort with overwhelming power and wisdom (Isaiah 41,43, 48).

He is as He shows Himself to be in His verified, validated and personally confirmed word, issuing as Son to the world, offering as Son through the Cross, the way home for adopted children of God, redeemed sinners who have received Him.

What then ? Ignore the door, and you merely bump, and moreover, windows made by man, or imagined, they are excluded specifically (John 10). God IS AS three persons, a spiritual trinity, where conduct of an alien individual nature does not intrude into infinite intimacy, nor does He grant to man power either to split Him (like the splitting of the atom), nor to ignore this distinguishing feature of His being. You enter through the Redeemer, His Son incarnated, crucified and risen, or not at all. It is, after all, not normal to expect to demolish part of a house in order to gain entry. That, it is what a door is for... It is not a matter of trying in vain material illusion to construct God, for you succeed only in idolatry; it is instead a matter of receiving Him as He is. Even friends sometimes see this! Here, however, the grandeur and the majesty, the glory is infinite. Perhaps then it is time for some humbling before God ? It assuredly is if you would know Him!

God, then, is and must be found AS He is, a brilliant trinity. He is not below these persons, He is not above them: He exists as them, specified by Himself in terms of Father, Word and Spirit. The Son (Luke 1:35, John 1:18, Hebrews 1:3) unveils the Father, the Father reveals the son (Matthew 16:17), and the Spirit is send in our midst to work, influence and move, unveil (John 14:16, 16:13-14). It is a conclave of illimitable unison, not spatial or temporal in kind, and outside all comparable kind since God is ONE; and it is one which the individuals comprise, with no being outside each in stature, relationship and in action.

It is not the unison which is God, but the persons who are in unison. What is to separate them ? space ? irrelevant; time, anomaly of confusion; difference of view, depth or power ? contrary to reality. They are one, of one, in unction, function and unity. If this seems foreign in its blessed purity and love, majesty and wonder, it is because this world is foreign to Him, to the point that James tells us NOT to love the world, for friendship with this world is enmity with God. He neither sees Him nor understands Him, since it refuses to run by His word, or to find Him by it, that it might understand and be at peace; but the peace is  for His people, whose Prince is their peace.

What then is the problem in this ? It is simple and it also is a threesome of its own kind: it is SIN. It WILL not have God, and whether it be His triune Being, His merciful nature, His pardoning disposition, His love, His humility or grace, His purity, His changelessness, or His insistence on the way of reception into His presence. This ?  it is not going to be ANY or ALL your works, viewed as one or as many, which will bring you into concord and harmony with Himself. Yet just as surely you were made in creation, so surely you must be re-made in regeneration.

Whether is be this or that aspect that people REJECT, His nature, His Gospel, His sovereignty, His authority, His love, His grace, His mercy, His perfection or His purity and righteousness: they are then their own doom. The rejection slip is set on rebellion, written in sin and here as often,  coloured by cultural confusion, the obvious obfuscated by the desires of darkness (John 3:19, Ephesians 4:17-19).

Whatever the 'stumbling block', slavery to sin, sullen resentment, active rebellion, shutting of the eyes to light, their presumption becomes their own doom. In our present area of focus: HOW does He exist ? as three beings. HOW do they work together ? in infinite intimacy. ARE they connected in a construction ? No, He is the Creator of all that is made, and He is eternal and changeless. HOW then are they connected ?

It is not physical, but spiritual unison which is in view, and a Being existing as three persons, is

ONE as to Being,

 

THREE as to persons,

 

INVARIABLE as to mode of being,

 

INDISSOLUBLE as to disestablishment of this mode of being,

 

ILLIMITABLE as to the affinity of each,

 

INFINITE in power and mutual concord and unity,

 

AUTONOMOUS in threefold harmony,

 

SOVEREIGN in unitary plan, purpose, action and activation,

 

	JUDGE of all, judged by none,
	UNIVERSAL in truth,

 

IMMOVABLE in goodness,

 

NEEDING nothing from any,

 

PATIENT in instruction,

 

UNALTERABLE in Gospel of deliverance for man,

 

SINGULAR in the provision of a name for man's salvation, Christ Jesus,

 

ETERNAL in triune being.

"THIS," said Christ, "is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." That is the word of Christ, and judge it if you will, it will yet judge all.

Where intimacy, cohesion and principle, where co-operation, mutual penetration and love is with no bounds, where the Being acts as one with such diversities of operation as He sees fit, then you have what creation does not contain, for the very simple reason that it is always limited, this being one of its special criteria, a part of its entire nature, for God has delimited it.

As for God, however, it is He who delimits all and eternally is, delimited by none. As He is, so He may be found, and not by spatially mathematical formulations which fit only creation, or snippings which fit only delimitation.

It is time to realise who is the Being who is God, Sender, Sent, Incliner (Isaiah 48:16, II Corinthians 13:14, Matthew 28:19, John 5:19-23, II Corinthians 5:17ff.); and to come to the person whom He has given to man as Redeemer, Jesus Christ, through whom He has displayed His power, truth, love and grace, and in whom His control of history both leading to Him and from Him.

He came according to specifications given by the Spirit       - I Peter 1:11-12, II Peter 1:21),

died according to the sacrificial deeds delivered beforehand in detail       -  (Isaiah 49-55, Psalm 2, 16, 40 for example),

	at the time specified       -  (Daniel 9:24-27, cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4).
	proclaimed Himself alive from the dead as prophetically shown in advance by a millenium        -  (Psalm 22, 16).

His people lost Jerusalem just as He prescribed (Matthew 24:1-2, 23:37-39),

and are now back as equally prescribed (Luke 21:24, Ezekiel 36ff., cf. SMR Appendix A, and see Romans 11);

and meanwhile,  the world has received His Gospel as He required before His return (Matthew 24:14):

 

while now the criteria indicative of His return as King are fulfilled,

 

with the same remorseless and assured accuracy which is a characteristic of the pronouncements of the Triune God,

 

who does as He pleases in the heaven and the earth,

 

and shows it by the way His word is always done, whether in a few years, or millenia.

WHAT He pleases to do is to provide salvation through love by grace; but not to force it.

It is time to stop pretending in this or any other thing, there is excuse for rejection. Rejection also, this does not change;  there is God and there is you, and if you want to make up gods, then there is nothing in it, when you come to them, but rebellion, to be rendered visible enough when you come to God.

*8

See Sects and Errors.

On separation, see Separation 1997.

On Church declines and deviations: see also: News 121, 122, 132, 44, 82.

Concerning the faithfulness of His word
and the need of the faithful to show it, see also:

GBG  6 (its testability and versatility to the uttermost),

CALM  6, esp.  *2;
BEAUTY  3;

TOAN 10,  TBW Appendix 3, LIGHT
 2; LORD  3 ;

Ch. 4 above

DIZZY  DASHES,  HEADY CLASHES
AND THE BRILLIANT HARMONY
OF INEVITABLE TRUTH Ch. 6