What did HE say? (continued)
Bread of Life (Part 9)
Listening to one of my favorite pastors and teachers online this morning, I heard his pre-offering sermon and then the offering itself. While they do not usually record and offer this part, this was not the first time that I heard it either; I have listened to many of his messages. What I saw is what I am afraid is typical of the ideas of much of the Christian world and community today and that is a focus on money and on things. In some churches, like this one, it is not hidden and it is part of their teaching theology; in others it is a little more below the surface. They believe and they teach that they must give in order to get and they pray for the things that they may get for their giving; mostly things of the flesh. For us however this is not what the Master taught.
I bring this up as a lead in to today’s discussion to help us to understand how ideas and theology find their place in the church. Let me finish the story. They thank God as the Source, and so He is, and then go into prayer asking that their bills be reduced and eliminated and that their buildings and lands and houses be paid off. They ask for and acknowledge that the Lord is blessing them and their families with wealth in abundance and that the more they get, the more they can give. Then, while the collection is taking place, they burst out in song singing: ‘He’s bringing me out to my wealthy place; He’s bringing me out by His saving grace; no more fear, no more lack and I’m never going back; He’s bringing out to my wealthy place‘. Now they have their scriptures that they rely on for these things and a favorite mention is “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24) which, in its proper context, is much deeper and more meaningful than getting worldly things; it speaks of the full power of God.
Now these pastors and teachers all mean well; they teach the word and they give their time to it. With some it appears more as a business venture and with others as the family business but even in this there appears to be a sincere belief in what they preach. They teach what they have learned and what they found has affected their hearts, their personalities, and they then bring it forth to others who are taught in the same way and whose hearts are ripe for their message. This is much the same as we do in this post. However, our hearts are not ripe for their type of message and we have resisted this type of teaching. We know that some of the scripture that they rely on are used out of context and some is ambiguous or misinterpreted. There is much in the words of Jesus that is contrary to praying for and asking for the things of this world. All are guilty of selectively using scripture; us included.
Much the same as above can be said about the idea of resurrection. People are taught and they believe and they find scripture that they can interpret according to their objective. Whether we are talking of resurrection or of prosperity teachings or the finer points of Christian Science, they are all taught by people that believe in them and they are accepted by people whose hearts are ripe for that type of teaching. And, though we may not agree with what they say and teach, they do, by their teaching, bring people to some idea of God and this is better than not.
We did say in the last post that we would let the theme of resurrection wait for another time but it is so intertwined with the subject text of “raise him up at the last day” that we do need to have some better scriptural foundation for our understanding of this saying. In the last post we laid out some of the ideas that are believed to be true regarding resurrection and eternal life. We need to remember the real meaning of eternal as it relates to everything; there is no partially eternal as there is no partially infinite. Eternal means always was, is now and always will be and in the context of eternal exists the real true man which is Spirit; he is not this body or the personality that appears through it.
The body on the other hand is born and it dies and in between are a host of possibilities; the death of the body as the final objective even from its birth. It is this body and the personality that goes with it (otherwise we would be speaking of zombies) that is to rise in the idea of resurrection and, they say, in the form in which it died. So we have infant bodies and children’s bodies, feeble bodies and deformed bodies along with the elderly and the senile and some mix of regular bodies as one would think of them all “raised incorruptible” (1 Corinthians 15:52) meaning not subject to decay. This saying, “raised incorruptible” is generally used out of its context and in context can be seen as evidence of what we are explaining in our subject verse “raise him up at the last day“; we will get back to this in the next post. Continuing, there is also the issue of the remains; some being centuries old and disintegrated others burned with fire and others destroyed in death. It is all this that will presumably reconstitute in its last appearing form.
In all of the resurrections, raising the dead, that Jesus performed there was a recently deceased body and He caused the life to come back into that body; perhaps this is where believers get some of their ideas regarding the final resurrection. We know also that in Jesus time there were Jews that believed in a resurrection (Pharisees) and others that did not (Sadducee). While Jesus openly talked with them regarding resurrection, He never took sides in their dispute but gave them two answers to their questioning that are keys to the proper understanding of this question of resurrection of the dead. There is also the resurrection of Christ Jesus, which we did discuss in previous posts (In the Words of Jesus part 59), and which we will consider again here for there is much insight in this event.
The notion of a final resurrection has been combined with the few verses in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians to create an idea that has persisted and is called the rapture. Resurrection is a word that means what the common bible understanding is and that is raising of the dead but there is no biblical reference to the type of resurrection that is believed upon today; that in that final day (whatever that may mean) all these dead bodies shall rise. It is more likely founded on the human hope of immortality and not on scripture.
Two scripture references may help here with our understanding of the misconceptions involved in the dogma of the resurrection. The first we covered in a recent post regarding the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. We find differences in His appearance; many of those who saw Him did not recognize Him or know Him and this should tell us that His body was changeable and He was able appear as He wished. This is unlike those that He resurrected as mentioned above. He appeared as a stranger to some, as the gardener to another and was able to just appear and vanish at will. This in not at all like the picture that the church has painted of the impending resurrection. The second is in His discourse with the Pharisees and Sadducees; the Master says two things to them:
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“For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). (This narrative occurs in each of the synoptic gospels but in slightly different forms, this being the most direct for our subject. We will discuss them all when we do take on the resurrection and the much misunderstood subject of angels.) Jesus intent here regarding marriage is unclear but it is an answer to the question of whose wife is the woman who had seven husbands. In the context of the question it appears that the Master is telling us that these type of relationships are dissolved at death and no longer exist. More important than this however is the idea that the dead, all of them, are as the angels of God which are spiritual beings and we must remember that we too are Spirit. There is much food for thought in His statement.
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“But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32). Here is the dividing line between the body and the Spirit. The bodies of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are dead and they are buried and, even at that time, probably disintegrated into dust. The Master is telling the people that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are alive; not in body but as Spirit and that God is the God of the living Spirits that they and their forefathers are.
So then as angels or as the Spirits of our fathers all are alive and in some form of what we can call heaven. Of what use then is this body.
What then is the reality? First, we are Spirit as is our God, and we do not die. This body that we use for this time on earth dies and from that point we have no further use for it. We are Spirit and we have that eternal life and, as we have discussed in earlier posts, we get the realization of this eternal life when we are in the Presence of God; this is important to understand. As men focused on the world we are not eternal; all that we are and that we think ends with the death of the body that keeps us here. Yes, our Spirit continues, but from the human perspective and because we do not know our God, the body dies and the consciousness continues in that same disbelief. We find ourselves in that same state of mind but without a body to perform any longer.
When we believe and our consciousness is in tune with the Master, when we are focused on the Kingdom and we know our reality as a spiritual being and that we are not of this world, it is this consciousness that continues after the death of the body; we find then that we need the body no longer. This is a very difficult subject to discuss properly as it introduces to us a whole array of esoteric ideas that the church refuses to see because they are so steeped in their doctrines and dogmas.
Let us try it this way. The man is a combination of a physical body, an emotional nature and a mental nature; we think, we feel and we act through these. These three are separate but in life on earth they are acting, as far as we can see, as one in most sane and normal people. Upon death of the physical body the life that is in it, our Spirit, leaves. As part of this life there is the emotional and the mental nature through which the Spirit still lives in form. This surviving personality is now without a physical body and animal nature but is still imbued with and carries the Spirit and Life that we are. It is still a physical manifestation but not in the sense of the physical world that we know.
If we never knew God in any way here on Earth then this remainder of ourselves, our personalities, still do not know Him. If we knew Him slightly or if we saw Him in this way or that based on religion or teaching, we will still see Him in the same way. Conversely, if we are true disciples of the Lord and we follow in His word and we focus on the things of the Spirit then when this body dies the continuing consciousness still has that focus. In this endless possibility of states of consciousness the personality continues for some time in what we can call heaven, where the true disciples of the Lord find themselves, to a sort of hell where the basest of people, still in their base personality consciousness, find themselves but with no ability to perform without their bodies. In between there are infinite levels of existence all of which constitute the bible’s heaven and the heaven as cited above for the angels.
Under the doctrine of reincarnation we exist in this state, or some improvement there upon based on acclimating to our environment and perhaps loosing some of the emotions and mental habits and ideas that we had developed, until it is time for a new Earth experience in a new body that can accommodate the pitch and vibration of what we had become in our last experience. The church in their rejection of the doctrine of reincarnation would believe that we will remain in some personality state of conscious based on what we believe more so than based on what we have become and that this state lasts until some end time where we will be resurrected into the same body that we died with. This is by no means a full explanation of either view.
We have yet to get to the original idea and that is to interpret the subject words which are “raise him up at the last day“. The building blocks to a proper understanding are slower than I thought but it is important to have them in place.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
I leave the same Quote of the Day.
Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment (John 7:24 NAS)
This applies to what we hear as well as what we see and do. Righteous judgement reveals for us the truth but how do we define this. One way is to look at righteous judgment as wisdom and apply the ideas put forth by James in his epistle; namely, “….where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy” (James 3:16-17).
