Category: Ramblings

Matt 23:8-12 NLT.

8 “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.9 And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. 10 And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you must be a servant. 12 But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Westminster Catechism 1647
“The self-same bodies of the dead which were laid in the grave, being then again united to their souls forever, shall be raised up by the power of Christ.”

It is so important that all believers must believe in the self-same bodies in Heaven. Without this belief of self-same body that we will have in Heaven, then what Hope is there in the realization of ideals by man as a truly and fully human being in the original image of God and resurrect with Christ again ?

Otherwise, the Word of God will be wrong to say, “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain” and we are the most to be pitied for we have turned our back in enmity with the world.
Let’s trust God wholeheartedly for this Hope that Christ had been resurrected and we will do the same one day and that He had already gone ahead to prepare the mansions for us.

Following are the quotes from eminent theologians and pastors expressing the same belief :

J C Ryle
“The man who is about to sail for Australia or New Zealand as a settler, is naturally anxious to know something about his future home, its climate, its employments, its inhabitants, its ways, its customs. All these are subjects of deep interest to him. You are leaving the land of your nativity,you are going to spend the rest of your life in a new hemisphere. It would be strange indeed if you did not desire information about your new abode. Now surely, if we hope to dwell forever in that “better country, even a heavenly one” we ought to seek all the knowledge we can get about it. Before we go to our eternal home we should try to become acquainted with it.”

Randy Alcorn
“The empty tomb is the ultimate proof that Christ’s Resurrection body was the same body that died on the cross. If Resurrection meant the creation of a new body, Christ’s original body would have remained in the tomb….This, then, is the most basic truth about our resurrected bodies. They are the same bodies God created for us, but they will be raised to greater perfection than we’ve ever known…It is like the new upgrade of my word processing software. When I heard there was an upgrade available, I didn’t say, “I have no idea what it will be like.” I knew that for the most part it would be like the old program, only better. Sure, it has some new features that I didn’t expect, and I’m glad for them. But I certainly recognise it as the same program I’ve used for a decade.”

Hank Hanegraff
“There is a one-to-one correspondence between the body of Christ that died and the body that rose.”

John Piper
“Christianity is not a platonic religion that regards material things as mere shadow of reality, which will be sloughed off as soon as possible. Not the mere immortality of the soul, but rather the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all creation is the hope of the Christian faith.”

Bruce Milne
“The Jesus who says, “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have,”… this is the Jesus who draws back the curtain on the heavenly life and shows us what it will be like: embodied !”

John Updike
“Make no mistake: if he rose at all it was as His body, if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fail. Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping transcendence, making of the event as a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages; let us walk through the door.”

R A Torrey
“We will not be disembodied spirits in the world to come, but redeemed spirits, in redeemed bodies, in a redeemed universe. If we don’t get it right on the resurrection of the body, we’ll get nothing else right. It’s therefore critical that we not merely affirm the resurrection of the dead as a point of doctrine but that we understand the meaning of the resurrection we affirm.”

Martyn Lloyd Jones
“Everything will be glorified, even nature itself. And that seems to me to be the biblical teaching about the eternal state that what we call heaven is life in this perfect world as God intended humanity to live it. When he put Adam in Paradise at the beginning, Adam fell, and all fell with him, but men and women are meant to live in the body, and will live in a glorified body in a glorified world, and God will be with them.”

A A Hodge
“Heaven, as the eternal home of the divine Man and of all the redeemed members of the human race, must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions, and activities. Its joys and activities must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary and active. There must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all talent capacities, the realization of all ideals. The reason, the intellectual curiosity, the imagination, the aesthetic instincts, the holy affections, the social affinities, the inexhaustible resources of strength and power native to the human sould must all find in heaven exercise and satisfaction. Then there must always be a goal of endeavour before us, ever future….Heaven will prove the consummate flower and fruit of the whole creation and of all the history of the universe.”

Albert Wolters
“God hangs on to his fallen original creation and salvages it. He refuses to abandon the work of His hands – in fact, he sacrifices His own Son to save His original project. Humankind, which has botched its original mandate and the whole creation along with it, is given another chance in Christ; we are reinstated as God’s managers on earth. The original good creation is to be restored.”

Paul Marshall
“This world is our home: we are made to live here. It has been devastated by sin, but God plans to put it right. hence, we look forward with joy to newly restored bodies and to living in a newly restored heaven and earth. We can love this world becasue it is God’s, and it will be healed, becoming at last what God intended from the beginning….Our destiny is an earthly one: a new earth, an earth redeemed and transfigured. An earth reunited with heaven, but an earth, nevertheless.”

David Lloyd George
“When I was a boy, the thought of Heaven used to frighten me more than the thought of Hell. I pictured Heaven as a place where time would be perpetual Sundays, with perpetual services from which there would be no escape.”

C S Lewis
“The hills and valleys of Heaven will be to those you now experience not as a copy is to the original, nor as a substitute is to the genuine article, but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal.”

T S Eliot
“I had far rather walk, as I do, in daily terror of eternity, than feel that this was only a children’s game in which all the contestants would get equally worthless prizes in the end.”

Matt 22:1-14 NLT.
Jesus also told them other parables. He said, 2 “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come! 4 “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them. 7 “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. 9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. 13 Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

The characters in this parable are easily identifiable. Israel was the invited guests and they turned down God’s invitation flatly. God in turn opened the invitation to the Gentiles. God was already displeased with the insolence of Israel and had ordered judgment. So God took issue with the further insolence of one who did not come to the wedding feast in proper attire showing how disrespectful he or she could be towards the invitation.

The parable is a serious reminder that though we accept the invitation to receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we cannot come in an insolent or indifferent attitude without repentance. We need to come with a repentant heart and a total commitment to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. God had gone through the ultimate sacrifice of giving His Son for our sins to appease His justice and wrath, it will be so insolent of us to come to Him without true contrition and repentance. That is a fool’s presumptuous false peace to think he is justified by coming to Jesus with selfish motives of seeking food, wealth, health and escape from hell fire.

In John 2:23-25, we learned that many began to believe in Jesus when they saw the miraculous signs He did. But Jesus did not trust them because He knew all about people. No one needed to tell him about human nature for He knew what was in each person’s heart. We can profess faith in Jesus but can He trust us if we come to Him only for selfish motives ?

Presently there is teaching that Jesus set aside His divinity while He was on earth. Such teaching is followed by the “peccability” belief that Jesus could have the possibility of sinning when tempted by the devil but did not.

http://www.gotquestions.org/hypostatic-union.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/could-Jesus-have-sinned.html

The onus or burden of proof was placed entirely on the verses Phil 2:6-8 in which the proponents argued that Jesus “emptied” Himself – which according to the Greek word for “emptied” should be correctly translated as setting aside His divinity.

One Bible translation translated the Greek word as “of no reputation”. Even if the meaning concerns His divinity, setting aside His divinity for a moment is a world of difference from not exercising His divine privileges.

We read of the omniscience and omnipotence of Jesus in knowing the destruction of Jerusalem, the life of the Samaritan woman, calming the storm, rebuking the fever and feeding the 5000.  Still, we cannot be certain that He gave up His omnipresence as well even though He was fully man while being on earth.

Like the Holy Trinity, it was hard to comprehend 3 distinct Persons in the essential one God-head. It will be foolhardy to really believe we as His creatures can fully comprehend and describe God who create us using human reason which is also given by Him.  To accept this fact by faith is not really blind faith. God has chosen to reveal Himself to us in many ways suitable for our understanding as in nature. We can see the tri-une nature of God in nature – 3 states; 3 dimensions, 3 elements of the universe as in matter, space and time.

As I began to ponder over this subject, I realized that I could not understand back in the secondary school days how light could behave as particle and wave at the same time which is like a mutually exclusive impossibility.   Scientists have argued over the centuries and could not come to an amicable conclusion.

I believe it is no coincidence that Jesus is the LIGHT of the world with this duality as fully God and fully man. John 1:1-5,9.

It is important to have this right doctrine of Jesus Christ our Lord as fully God and fully man otherwise we may fall into the spirit of the Antichrist. 1 John 4: 1-6.

Matt 7:1-6
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you wil…l see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces…”

Many use Matt 7:1 as a blanket prohibition of all judgment completely ignoring the whole counsel of the Word of God concerning this very important issue. Judging and discernment is so important for without, the church suffers much in many ways and the most dreadful is having agents of the enemy as her leaders and false teaching prevails.

What the Word of God warned here is about unrighteous judgment such as fault finding. In Matt 7:6, Jesus even told us to judge those who are violent towards the gospel so surely Matt 7:1 cannot be a blanket prohibition. Our Lord clearly stated in John 7:24 that we do not judge by appearances but judge with righteous judgment.
Take a look at the whole counsel of the Word of God and decide whether we want to be fully obedient to the Word of God or choose what we are comfortable with.

We do not judge :
1. Appearances or motives. Jn 7:24; Jas 2:1-4
2. Matters of conscience. Rom 14:1-5.
3. Service of another brother. 1 Cor 4:1-5.
4. In speaking evil of another brother. Jas 4:11-12.

But we should judge :
1. False teaching and error in teaching. Matt 7:15-20; 1 Cor 14:29; 1 Jn 4:1.
2. Serious sins in the church. Matt 18:17; 1 Cor 5:9-13.
3. Disputes in the church. 1 Cor 6:1-8.
4. Qualification of elders and deacons. 1 Tim 3:1-13.
5. In admonishing the idle and slothful; and discern and help the faint-hearted and the weak. 1 Thess 5:14.
6. In not being unequally yoked with unbelievers. 2 Cor 6:14.

Any one walking in the will of God need not be bothered by judging because he or she knows his conscience is clear. Only those who are in error or sin usually are the ones who cry foul of judging, and it is so comical that they also commit the very same act of judging which they denounce by judging the motive of those who judged.

We are called to be witnesses for Christ. When we follow His Manifesto to share the gospel, give sight to the blind, visit the imprisoned and relieve the oppressed (Luke 4:18), it is possible that we may perform all these works without really representing Christ. God wants obedience and mercy out of our hearts and not outward sacrifice. It involves more than what we do and say – it requires inner transformation by His Spirit to be more like Him. In that way, we will truly represent Him if we become more like Him.

From the gospels, we know that Christ our Lord had humility, compassion and self control showing He is Love; and confidence, objectivity and assertiveness showing He is Just.

Many of us fail to represent Him completely in love and justice. Love and Justice are both God’s attributes which God desires we know Him well. (Jer 9:23-24).

He came lowly to demonstrate that God gives grace to the humble. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Any teaching that exalts the human spirit is definitely wrong which is at the core of the cheap grace theology. And it is no wonder that the false teachers are often touted as excellent motivational speakers. The proud, the greedy and the idolaters simply love this cheap grace message that they can receive grace without repentance. That they can be born again without being born again. The story of Zaachaeus showed us how we can truly receive grace and being born again. Zaachaeus was a hated tax collector. Money was his idol and he was willing to be hated just to worship this idol. He could very well be a pious Jew having good relations with the religious authorities. But when he came to Jesus, he came not with pride but with humility though he was the chief tax collector. The chief of them all. And when Jesus accepted him, he knew he had to get rid of his idolatry. Though he was financially rich, he was spiritually bankrupt. He went from an oppressor of the poor to be a champion of justice when he decided to make restitution of what he had done before and more. He went from hoarding wealth unscrupulously at the expense of everyone including the poor to the opposite of helping them with his wealth unselfishly. That is repentance before the throne of Grace.

He had full Self-control whenever He was confronted on hard questions by those who intended to trap Him into saying something wrong.

He was also very Confident and Objective as to His purpose in life. He resolved to glorify and obey God to the last detail of going to the Cross, even if it meant something He did not wish to go through.

When He saw the Temple of God being a house of prayer being turned into a den of robbers, He was upset and drove away the merchants because He was Assertive that the sanctity of God’s Temple, God’s Word, God’s Gospel or anything of God must not be brought down to such a shallow level of fulfilling human desire.

Again, any teaching that bring the sanctity of the Cross and Gospel to such shallowness as things pandering to human desires is so absurd and nonsensical. Our intellect can surely discern it but sadly our inner desires completely blind us. That is why so often we read of highly intelligent people doing foolish acts in the news.

Trevor Wax in Christianity Today explained, “…He (God) is angry because he is love. He looks at the world and sees the trafficking of innocent children, the destructive use of drugs, the genocidal atrocities in Africa, the terrorist attacks that keep people in perpetual fear, and he—out of love for the creation that reflects him as Creator—is rightfully and gloriously angry. The god who is truly scary is not the wrathful God of the Bible, but the god who closes his eyes to the evil of this world, shrugs his shoulders, and ignores it in the name of “love.” What kind of love is this? A god who is never angered at sin and who lets evil go by unpunished is not worthy of worship. The problem isn’t that the judgment-less god is too loving; it’s that he is not loving enough…”

Let’s be imitators of Christ all the way and not half the way. May His Spirit regenerates us and gives us wisdom to truly represent Him. Amen.

So, therefore, without violating the nature of created realities, or reducing man’s activity to robot level, God still “works all things according to the counsel of His will”…But surely in that case what we think of as our free will is illusory and unreal ? That depends on what you mean. It is certainly illusory to think that our wills are only free if they operate apart from God. But free will in the sense of “free agency” as theologians have defined it – that is, the power of spontaneous, self determining choice referred to above – is real…How God sustains it and overrules it without overriding it is His secret, but that He does so is certain. – JI Packer, Affirming the Apostles’ Creed.

The old church is a house of prayer.
The new church is a concert house.

The old gospel is a call to self hate. **
The new gospel is a call to self love.