HIS WOUNDS OPENED ETERNITY

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HIS WOUNDS OPENED ETERNITY

Robert E. Donaldson

PREFACE

The wounds of Jesus Christ are very special and entirely significant.

If you are wounded in sport, or a motor accident, or in a murder attempt, this has its own place and kind of significance. Your wounds however were not predicted 700 years in advance, were not revealed in a volume of 66 writers providing from God a coherent and intensely cohesive work, arising in different cultures but cultivated on one only grant from the God who can and does predict not only this or that, but thousands of details and the overall plan and perspective for all history. It would be impossible to do this without all knowledge, since any ONE event would institute endless streams of other events, if any one error were made; and to prevent this, you need to know literally everything.

For nearly 3500 years, history has conformed to His biblically recorded statements. The wounds of the Messiah are simply ONE of those conformities.

They are, however, special for another reason, that they are the means to death, and the expression of scoffing scorn, delirious joy at His passing and a sense of relief that now the people were no longer in danger because of Him! In danger ? why yes, if a 'king' - by whatever tortuous twisting of truth, were to 'arise', would not Caesar be concerned ?

But did Christ have any troops ? Why, He even rebuked Peter for taking his sword

(as the papacy would be rebuked for the same reason in its many exploits with that weapon throughout history - Matthew 26:52ff., cf. John 18:36, that other 'peter' who did not listen for millenia),

and endured the Cross without in the least trying to deliver Himself, telling the truth to the point that they got their chance, through gratuitous unbelief, of killing Him.

That too, it is what was predicted centuries before He came and did it, for it was in Isaiah that "they made His grave with the rich and with the wicked at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth" (53:9). Had He renounced His deity, they would not have had any case; if He had used His power, they would not have held any opportunity. Since He gave up the force of both to the point of enabling this process of making Him a sacrifice BY sin and FOR sin, THROUGH sin, they did what they did, and for the REASON stated, they could and did do it! It was BECAUSE He had done no violence, nor was deceit in His mouth, that they had both opportunity and power to act in the killing field of Golgotha.

In this volume, this focus on Jesus Christ will be on what it cost, what it gave and what was the divine plan; and it may from time to time consider other plans which the planning committee of pagan humanism, irrational religions and pragmatic desire may propound, so that they who open the eyes can avoid the pit and find the place of eternity.

For my own part, I intensely love eternity, and without it, would not much value life at all: it would be like being a seed that did not germinate (John 12:1ff.). A life ? could you call it that ? It would be a preliminary without its inheritance. HAVING an inheritance in eternity is far more precious than anything this phase of life can contribute, and the beauty of it is this, that it is not by violence and terrorism, of any kind or capacity, that it is found; but it is by the gift of God that it is made available. As for our part, those of us who as Christians receive Him and all His words, we delight to bring this gift to others by that same word, and in the power of His Spirit which He has given to all His own people (Romans 8:9). It was good of God to give, it is delightful to pass it on.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 His Wounds Opened Eternity

Chapter 2 I do not like green eggs and ham

Chapter 3

WANDERING EUROPEAN NATIONS

BECOME THE PARALLEL TO ISRAEL

FOLLOWING THE WRONG EXAMPLE

or at least, the WRONG PART OF IT

News 322

Chapter 4

WOUNDS OR WOES.

IT IS NOT AS SOME SUPPOSE