Keep Your Mind Clear

Keep Your Mind Clear 

Echad 

I must point out as a language teacher and ordinary speaker of English that it is dishonesty to say that echad (Hebrew for “one”) can mean more than one! That is false, very false. Echad, like “one” in English, can modify any noun in the universe. Any noun whatever — one nose, one zebra, one loaf of sliced bread. The word means one and not more than one. Of course it can modify a collective noun, like “one family.” But it is utterly false to say that “one” means more than one. It is a slippery argument! Very slippery. “One zebra” does not mean that one means black and white, and “one tripod” does not mean that one means three!

Alpha and Omega 

Jesus as the “alpha and omega” in Revelation means that he is the ultimate in the category under discussion. Jesus is the alpha and omega, the first and the last, who died in Revelation 1:17-18
and 2:8.
God cannot die!
Jesus is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Please note that Jesus said that the Father is the only one who is true God (John 17:3). Romans 3:29 says that the God of the Jews is the same as the God of the Gentiles, showing that the Trinity is foreign to the whole Bible.
See John 17:3; Neh. 9:6; 2 Kings 19:15; Isa. 37:20.
Show this to all your friends: Cars do not fly; God cannot die! The Son of God, Jesus, died (Rom. 5:10).

Then show them a quote from a standard theological dictionary: “God is not just any Deity, but a distinct divine Person. The LORD is His name” (Theological Dictionary of the NT, single volume, p. 489). It is an obvious contradiction of this easy evidence to say that God is three Persons. He is one Person.

Then show them the crime scene: Basil of Caesarea (330-379 AD), one of the architects of the detail of Trinitarianism, said, “We confess one God not in number but in nature.” Jesus said nothing of the sort!

One is a number! Is that so hard? Remember too that Augustine, desperate to support the Trinity, forged the text in John 17:3, claiming that it should read: “That they may know You [Father] and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent, as the only true God” (Homilies on the Gospel of John). Scripture was thus violated and the unitary monotheism of Jesus and of Israel was obscured.

The above was taken from
Focus On The Kingdom Vol. 18. No. 4

Don’t Be Tricked by the Word “Worship”

Don’t Be Tricked by the Word “Worship” 

To “worship” in the Bible does not mean what we hear in English — that the object of worship must be God. That is false. Here are two of many examples. Human beings can be worshiped too! This does not mean that they are God.

• 1 Chronicles 29:20: “And David said to all the people, ‘Now give praise to the Lord (YAHWEH) your God.’ And all the people gave praise to the Lord (YAHWEH), the God of their fathers, with bent heads worshipping the LORD (YAHWEH) and the king” (BBE). 
• Revelation 3:9: “Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie — indeed I will make them come and worship before your [the saints’] feet, and to know that I have loved you” (NKJ). 

The use of the word “worship” in no way proves that the recipient is God.

The above was taken from
Focus On The Kingdom Vol. 18. No. 4 

For more information on how the word worship is used in Scripture see also

• Can we “worship” Jesus Christ?

• The Worship of Christ

Is the Kingdom within You? (Luke 17.21) by Sean Finnegan

Is the Kingdom within You? (Luke 17.21)

Luke 17.20-24
20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” 22 And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 And they will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

Some interpreters think this text shows that the kingdom has nothing to do with the future renewal of the earth, but rather that it is merely recognizing God’s reign in your heart. The following remarks from Albert Nolan help explain this misunderstanding:

Many Christians have been misled for centuries about the nature of God’s kingdom by the well-known mistranslation of Lk 17:21: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Today all serious scholars and translators agree that the text should be read: “The kingdom of God is among you or in your midst.” The Greek word entos can mean “within” or “among” but in the present context to translate it “within” would mean that in answer to the Pharisees’ question about when the kingdom of God would come (17:20) Jesus told them that the kingdom of God was within them! This would contradict everything else Jesus ever said about the kingdom or about the Pharisees. Moreover, since every other reference to the kingdom presupposes that it is yet to come and since the verb in every other clause in this passage (17:20-37) is in the future tense, this verse must be understood to mean that one day they will find that the kingdom of God is suddenly and unexpectedly in their midst.

The kingdom of God, like any other kingdom, cannot be within a person; it is something in which a person can live. Somewhere in the background behind Jesus’ use of the term “kingdom of God” there is a pictorial image. He speaks of people entering into the kingdom (Mk 9:47; 10:15, 23, 24, 25, parr; Mt 5:20; 7:21; 18:3; 21:31; 23:13; Jn 3:5). They can sit down in it and eat and drink in it (Mk 14:25; Mt 8:11-12 par; Lk 22:30). The kingdom has a door or a gate (Mt 7:13, 14; Lk 13:24) on which one can knock (Mt 7:7-8 par; 25:10-12 par). It also has keys (Mt 16:19; Lk 11:52) and can be locked (Mt 23:13; Lk 13:25). The pictorial image behind this is obviously that of a house or a walled city.

…The fact that his way of speaking about the kingdom is based upon a pictorial image of a house, a city or a community leaves no doubt about what he had in mind: a politically structured society of people here on earth. A kingdom is a thoroughly political notion. It is a society in which the political structure is monarchical, that is to say, it is ruled and governed by a king. Nothing that Jesus ever said would lead one to think that he might have used this term in a non-political sense.

(Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992) pp. 58-59.)

Another idea is that as the Messiah, Jesus represented the kingdom wherever he went. We might even imagine a kingdom bubble around Jesus. When he was present the kingdom was present. Thus, the kingdom was looking the Pharisees right in the face and they did not perceive it.

The above was taken from:Is the Kingdom within You?

City in the Sky? (Hebrews 11.16) by Sarah Giles

City in the Sky? (Hebrews 11.16)

Church hymnals are filled with songs envisioning the day we fly away to a city in the sky and walk celestial streets of gold. Cherished as these hymns may be, a closer look at the Hall of Faith chapter in Hebrews reveals a very different picture of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Hebrews 11:13-16 (NKJV)
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

Many Christians assume this passage teaches that our planet is little more than a pit stop on the road to heaven. The traditional interpretation is summed up well by the opening stanza of the famous gospel song
“This World is Not My Home”:

“This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.” ^[1]

But how well does this tradition hold up under scriptural scrutiny? In the verses leading up to the passage in question, the author zeroes in on the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah. The Hebrew audience of this letter was well acquainted with the promise given to Israel’s patriarchs in response to their acts of faith. God specifically told Abraham that he and his progeny would one day be the permanent owners of Canaan:

Genesis 17:8 (NKJV)
Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

At the time God made this promise, the land of Canaan was owned and inhabited by other people. Abraham and his family left a comfortable life in Ur only to become tent-dwelling transients in a foreign land.  Far from owning Canaan, Abraham had to ask the native Hittites for property to use as a burial ground (Gen. 23:4). This is why the author of Hebrews tells us in Heb. 11:9 that Abraham “dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country.”

The Greek word rendered “land” in 11:9 is ge, which has a range of meanings in scripture depending upon the context.
It appears over 200 times in the New Testament and is variously translated earth, land, ground, country, and world. The word as it is used in Heb. 11:9 clearly refers to the land of Canaan. But when ge appears again just four verses later in Heb. 11:13, most translations render it differently. Here we read that the patriarchs confessed they were “strangers and pilgrims on the earth (ge).”

This gives the impression that the saints were not at home on our planet and yearned instead for an extra-terrestrial dwelling. Yet such a notion clashes with the context established in 11:9, which is about Abraham and his family living like strangers on a particular tract of land that God had promised to give them for an eternal home. Heb. 11:13 commends the patriarchs not because they died believing they would leave planet earth for heaven, but because they died believing God would one day fulfill his promise to give them Canaan. Thus a more consistent reading of 11:13 would be “strangers and pilgrims on the land (ge).”

Ultimately Abraham did not own so much as a foot of the land that was promised to him (Acts 7:5). However, according to Heb. 11:10, he died anticipating “the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This city is described as “heavenly” in 11:16,^[2] and identified as the “heavenly Jerusalem” in 12:10. Paul called it the “Jerusalem above” in
Gal. 4:26,^[3] while Jesus said that it “comes down from my God out of heaven” in Rev. 3:12.

More than a few Christians have taken this language to mean that the New Jerusalem is an invisible city floating in heaven. But it turns out that similar expressions are often used in scripture to denote things accomplished by the hand of heaven. For example, James wrote that every good gift is “from above” and “comes down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17). Jesus once asked the Pharisees whether or not the baptism of John was “from heaven” (Mk. 11:30). And the author of Hebrews referred to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the “heavenly gift” (Heb. 6:4).

These things are of course experienced on earth, with the point being that they were brought about by the God of heaven as opposed to some other source. Likewise, the “heavenly Jerusalem” is not describing a metropolis floating somewhere in the stratosphere, but rather a city on earth that will be established and inhabited by God himself.

The Old Testament overwhelmingly confirms this fact. Numerous prophecies declare that the very same Jerusalem stained by sin and struck with tribulation will one day be cleansed and wondrously restored by God. Below is just a small sampling of these prophecies about the Holy City on Mount Zion:

Psalm 102:13-16
You will arise and have pity on Zion; it is the time to favor her; the appointed time has come. 14 For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. 15 Nations will fear the name of YAHWEH, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. 16 For YAHWEH builds up Zion; he appears in his glory;

Isaiah 52:1-2
Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean. 2 Shake yourself from the dust and arise; be seated, O Jerusalem; loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

Isaiah 54:11-12
O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. 12 I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones.

Isaiah 60:14-15
The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of YAHWEH, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. 15 Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, with no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age.

Zechariah 8:3
Thus says YAHWEH: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of YAHWEH of hosts, the holy mountain.

Zechariah 14:9-10
And YAHWEH will be king over all the earth. On that day YAHWEH will be one and his name one. 10 The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain aloft on its site from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses.

Zephaniah 3:14-17
Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! 15 YAHWEH has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, YAHWEH, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. 16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. 17 YAHWEH your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

Micah 4:6-8
In that day, declares YAHWEH, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted; 7 and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and YAHWEH will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore. 8 And you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, the former dominion shall come, kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.

Scripture makes it abundantly clear that the New Jerusalem is in fact Jerusalem Renewed. Abraham didn’t have the benefit of all these prophecies, but Hebrews 7:1-10 points out that he received an allegorical glimpse of the Messianic Kingdom when he met the mysterious priest Melchizedek (Gen. 14:14-20). This priest also happened to be the king of a city in Canaan called Salem, the ancient name for Jerusalem
(Ps. 76:2). The name Melchizedek means “King of Righteousness” and the title King of Salem means “King of Peace.”

Melchizedek was a type of the resurrected Christ, foreshadowing Abraham’s future Messianic descendant who would one day reign from Jerusalem in righteousness and peace (Ps. 110, Isa. 9:7). Abraham acknowledged the superiority of Melchizedek by tithing ten percent of his war spoils to the priest-king. In so doing, Israel’s patriarch showed that he was looking forward to the day when the supreme High Priest and King takes his rightful place as ruler of Jerusalem and all the ends of the earth
(Ps. 2:6-8).

How did Abraham and the rest of the saints expect to arrive at the New Jerusalem? Hebrews 11 answers this question by weaving the theme of resurrection throughout the chapter (11:19, 22, 35). The 11:22 reference to the faith of Joseph on his deathbed beautifully illustrates the true hope of the saints. In that scene Joseph made his relatives swear to take his bones along when Israel made the exodus from Egypt to Canaan
(Gen. 50:24-25). The Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown commentary explains:

“In faith he looked to God’s promise of Canaan being fulfilled and desired that his bones should rest there: testifying thus: (1) that he had no doubt of his posterity obtaining the promised land: and (2) that he believed in the resurrection of the body, and the enjoyment in it of the heavenly Canaan.” ^[4]

This world is indeed our home, but this present age and all of its sorrows are only temporary, thanks be to God. An age is coming when “the righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever” (Ps. 37:29 ). In that day we will behold the heavenly Jerusalem – not a city in the sky, but a city right here on our planet, restored and transformed into the very capital of heaven’s kingdom on earth.

---

[1] Brumley, Albert E. “This World is Not My Home.” 1965.

[2] The word “country” that appears in most translations of Heb. 11:16 is not in the original Greek and has been supplied by the translators.

[3] At the return of Christ, the mountainous regions surrounding Jerusalem will be leveled while Jerusalem will remain aloft in her place on Mount Zion, resulting in the literal elevation of the city above all her neighbors (Zech. 14:10, Mic. 4:1). Perhaps Paul had this in mind when he mentioned the “Jerusalem above.”

[4] Jamieson, R. (1871). Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. http://biblehub.com/commentaries/jfb/hebrews/11.htm.

The above was taken from:
City in the Sky?

Some editing was performed.

The God of Jesus by Peter Barfoot

The God of Jesus by Peter Barfoot 

Is the phrase “the God of Jesus” scriptural? In Ephesians 1:17, the apostle Paul writes of “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.” It was clear to Paul that the God of Jesus is the Father of glory. Beginning his letter to the Ephesians, Paul blesses “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In closing, he blesses them with “peace…and love with faith, from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:3; 6:23).

In John 20:17 Jesus tells Mary, “I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”
In John 17:3 Jesus refers to his Father as “the only true God.” Jesus was a unitarian believer in the One God.

Those who believe in the doctrine of the Trinity say that a denial of an eternally preexistent “God the Son” diminishes Jesus by stripping him of divinity. But one can reject the doctrine of the Trinity and yet still affirm Christ’s “divine nature” by pointing to his unique origin as Son of God. When the “power of the Highest” overshadowed Mary, the “Son of the Highest” was begotten (Luke 1:32, 35). God declared His fatherhood of Jesus when He called him, “My beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17). Christians too are to be filled with the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19).

Some believe that Jesus Christ was a “mere man” — no different from any other — except that he was sinless. They diminish Christ. In standing against the error of the Trinity they sometimes reduce the status of Jesus. There is no need to overreact. The inspired writers of the New Testament speak of Jesus in superlatives. The exiled John’s graphic figures of speech describe an otherwise indescribable risen Lord! (Rev. 1:14-16).

Jesus is “the image [icon] of the invisible God” (in whom we see the Father clearly); “the brightness of His glory” (mirrored on our faces); and “the exact image of His person” (stamped on us, leaving a lasting impression)! How can we not rejoice in our wonderful Lord?

We should not think that God is more exalted when His Son is diminished. What son’s accomplishments do not reflect well on the person of his earthly father? How much more, then, is the Father of Jesus glorified when we praise the spotless life, excellent works and selfless sacrifice of his Son? And his revelation of the secret of immortality in his Gospel of the Kingdom (II Tim. 1:10).

“And whatsoever you shall ask in my name I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:13).

The spirit of God opens up truth concerning God and his Son, but only to the genuine seeker after Truth. It certainly is a matter of perception, something like buying a new car and then seeing so many of the same make and model on the road. We find the One God of Jesus where we had never seen Him before. We are encouraged and inspired by the Bible, but only when the Lord “opens our eyes” to how little we know, do we realize how much we’ve missed.

An example of this lack of perception is how we either see or don’t see the significance of 1 Corinthians 8:6, which clearly informs us that “there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” How is it possible for the “one Lord” to be seen as co-equal with the “one God”?

Tradition answers that the One God is comprised of three Persons: a co-equal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We should never underestimate the ability of tradition to accommodate Bible truth before veiling it in mysticism.

How many hours in how many months over how many years did the theologians of the Church debate the question about Jesus’ part in sending the spirit? The eastern and western church actually excommunicated one another over this question! A quick look at Acts 2:33 would have resolved the issue immediately: “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he [Jesus] has shed forth this, which you now see and hear.” The words of Jesus in John 16:7 confirm that the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.

We find it difficult to believe that the same Martin Luther who defied the Church of Rome in stating “the just shall live by faith” actually referred to the book of James as “an epistle of straw” and was openly and actively anti-Semitic.

We are horrified to learn that the great Calvin could order Servetus, a brother in Christ, to be burned to death at the stake (slowly, on green wood). What terrible heresies did Servetus profess? He taught that the rite of infant baptism and the Church’s belief in the Trinity were unscriptural.

My belief is that Christians in years to come will see the doctrine of the Trinity for what it is: the product of a gathering of bishops convened by Constantine the Great to unify the teaching of the Christian Church in the disputed matter of the Godhead. Under pressure, some bishops capitulated against their better judgment and the matter was settled. It was set in stone and used to “club” others into conformity.

Only when the Church accepts 1 Corinthians 8:6 as the true definition of the Godhead will it be able to proclaim to the Jews: “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is also the God of Jesus — your Messiah and ours!”

Around the globe two strong forces are locked in conflict: the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of antichrist.
When Jesus returns, one body comprised of both Jew and Gentile — but inseparable in faith and in confession of the One True God and His Son, Jesus Christ — will rise to meet the Lord in the air, and then descend with him to rule the nations.

“And so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

The above was taken from
Focus On The Kingdom Vol. 9. No. 7