CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM

Cherubim and Seraphim

Image from web

Is it just me or does this happen to everyone? I was “triggered” as the preacher was preaching. Sometimes I’m sent soaring in the heavens. This time my mind was sent back to stand at the gate to the garden of Eden. In his sermon, the pastor had mentioned “the God who dwells between the cherubim.” This, of course, has to do with the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies; first in the tabernacle then in the temple. It also got me thinking about Nadab and Abihu. “Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev. 10:1). We can see something of why it says in Hebrews, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb, 12:29).

If we were to add together what we’ve seen so far, and to state the obvious, we might say that the God who dwells between the cherubim is a consuming fire.

Image from Web

Meanwhile back at the garden gates. “So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). Unlike Aaron’s son’s, Nabab and Abihu, God did not consume Adam and Eve. Instead, He put in place cherubim and a flaming sword, which, like the wheels Ezekiel saw in his vision of God (Ezek. 1:15-217), "turned every way”.

So, now we have a flaming sword between cherubim.  

Who doesn’t love singing the old hymns? The following are a couple of verses that will help us work our way to the heart of what I would like us to see. Reginal Heber wrote the brilliant Holy! Holy! Holy! hymn. The Triune God is thrice holy. Here’s verse two:

2 Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee,

casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;

cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Thee,

which wert and art and evermore shalt be.

Then there’s that great old hymn, O Worship the King by Robert Grant. In verse two he writes:

2 O tell of His might and sing of His grace,

whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.

His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,

and dark is His path on the wings of the storm.

So, we’ve got cherubim and seraphim falling down before God and we see, as it were, God riding on the wings of the storm. Poetic pictures lifted from Isaiah and the Psalms illustrating the holiness and the mightiness of the Triune God.

Now, and here’s the rub: If we keep in mind that we know about God analogously, such as Him riding on the dark thunderclouds of the storm as it moves across the earth. We never see God as He is, but always through a Mediator, a go-between. “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). And if we will agree that Christ has always been the Mediator, yes, even “the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8), then we will see that He is the One “Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters, Who makes the clouds His chariot, Who walks on the wings of the wind” (Psa. 104:3b).

So, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). He is the God who dwells between the cherubim, Who walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, Who is a consuming fire, and consumed Nabab and Abihu when they tried to fob Him off with profane fire. Yes, God is Triune, and is holy, holy, holy. Just like the flaming sword, He is the One everyone needs to go through to get to God. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). He is the eternal Word who came from heaven to earth and became flesh to dwell among us (John 1:14). 

Now, we know that when God “came down” to give His Law to Moses on Mount Sinai “that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain … Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly … And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the Lord, and many of them perish” (Exo. 19:16,18,21). “And He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand came a fiery law for them” (Deut. 33:2b). Instead of “fiery law" the ESV has “flaming fire”. However, Strong’s Concordance agrees with “fiery-law” (See Hebrew 799). One is reminded here of what Abraham saw when God cut a covenant with him, “It was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces” (Gen. 15:17 ESV).

So, after all that, in the words of that old Matthews Southern Comfort song, “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

It’s the word “flaming” as in “flaming sword” and “fiery” as in “fiery law or “flaming fire” that we need to focus on. The words fiery and flaming as used here are the same in the Old Testament Hebrew language.

Now, the preacher I mentioned above, also mentioned the “snake on the stake”, i.e., the one that King Hezekiah destroyed. “He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan) (2 Kings 18:4b NIV). (Nehushtan means copper. Depending on percentages, copper mixed with tin gives you bronze and brass.) What does this have to do with the cherubim and the flaming sword at the gate to the garden of Eden? It’ll become clearer in a moment.

Image from Web

The reason Moses had made the bronze snake was because “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live” (Num. 21:6-8). The NIV changes the word “fiery” to “venomous snakes”, we can’t have the reader thinking that these are anything other than regular poisonous snakes! The OT Hebrew word here is saraph, which, yes, means “burning” as perhaps happens when bitten by a poisonous snake. However, that word saraph as in fiery, is the exact some word for seraph, as in the seraphim that Reginal Heber in his Holy! Holy! Holy! hymn has us mention as we are singing.

We’ll use the NIV for the following vision of Isaiah, “I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:1-7).

Whether Israel in the wilderness or Isaiah in the temple, seraphim are messengers, angels, of God for judgment and for healing. Now, one more verse before we look at the cherubim and the seraph (a.k.a. the flaming sword) at the gate to the garden. The NIV misses the boat with its “adders and darting snakes” instead of the NKJV’s and ESV’s more accurately descriptive “the viper and fiery flying serpent”, “the adder and the flying fiery serpent” in Isaiah 30:6; (cf. 14:29). Keep in mind the idea of the Lord riding on the wings of the wind surrounded by His cherubim (clouds) and His seraphim (lightning bolts, yes, fiery flying serpents).

“He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). John Calvin offers the following,

Moses … speaks of punishment, when he relates that man was expelled and that cherubim were opposed with the blade of a turning sword, which should prevent his entrance into the garden … Moses uses a word derived from whiteness or heat … God had commanded two cherubim to be placed at the ark of the covenant, which should overshadow its covering, with their wings; therefore he is often said to sit between the cherubim … In this place angels are called cherubim … that it is referred to angels is more than sufficiently known. Whence also Ezekiel (Ezekiel 28:14) signalizes the proud king of Tyre with this title, comparing him to a chief angel.

Now, Calvin has mentioned Ezekiel 28, in which chapter we read about the king of Tyre being compared with the Devil, Satan. “You were in Eden, the garden of God … You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones … And you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones” (Ezek. 28:13a,14,16b). So, we see Satan being referred to as “the anointed cherub who covers … the covering cherub.” The word “covering” means to fence in, cover over, protect, defend, hedge in etc. (Strong's Concordance, Hebrew 5526). So, like the cherubim on the seat of atonement “covering” the ark of the covenant, Satan (like Adam who was to tend and keep it) (Gen. 2:15), the “anointed cherub” was to guard things in the garden. But, as we know, Adam broke covenant with God (Hos. 6:7), instead entering into a covenant with the rebellious chief angel.

How did the Devil deceive Eve and slither his way into convincing Adam to join him in his rebellion? “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made” (Gen. 3:1). Yes, we’re back to cherubim and seraphim, serpents. Because of the serpent, shouldn’t we have expected Satan to be a seraph rather than a cherub? If we keep in mind that he was a chief angel with respect to the garden, we can see how he had command over all the angels that were under him, whether cherubim or seraphim, even those angels (now become demons) that had joined him in his great rebellion. Satan spoke through the serpent, (or perhaps even transformed himself into a serpent), and by so doing, he became "that serpent of old."

Salvador Dali, Christ of St. John of the Cross

The snake on the stake that God commanded Moses to make, was a dead snake - prefiguring God's gospel promise of the Seed of the Woman crushing the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15) and healing, yes, saving His people from His fiery judgment. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:14-16).

Keep in mind that the “anointed cherub” was thrown out God’s holy mountain, the garden of Eden (Ezek. 28:14) as seen in the following, “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down” (Rev. 12:7-10). “And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

So, the One who excommunicated Adam and Eve from His garden and posted angels on piquet duty at its gate, even, cherubim and seraphim, is the One who dwells between the cherubim, is the One rides upon the thunderclouds, “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen” (Rev. 1:7); “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works” (Matt. 16:27).

Yes, "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29) - as we've seen with the "flaming sword" and the "fiery flying serpents", "cherubim and seraphim" etc., but He gives grace to all who "Repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15).

Let us end with a couple of verse from the old Horatius Bonar hymn, Glory be to God the Father:

3 Glory to the King of angels, glory to the Church’s King,

glory to the King of nations; heav’n and earth your praises bring!

Glory, glory, to the King of glory sing!

4 Glory, blessing, praise eternal! thus the choir of angels sings;

Honour, riches, pow’r, dominion! thus its praise creation brings.

Glory, glory to the King of kings!

SOCIALISM: My Part in its Downfall

SOCIALISM: My Part in its Downfall is an attempt to alert the discerning reader that Socialism is a thief that robs us of more than our money and our property, but the very freedoms that Western civilization is built upon.

In the aftermath of the recent “the day the universe changed” American election, I’m really enjoying rereading my own wee contribution to it all, published 41/2 years ago.

It’s great to see so many eyes being opened and so many becoming ex-Socialists (as did I, when converted back in the late 80s).

Available at: SOCIALISM: My Part in its Downfall : McKinlay, Neil Cullan: Amazon.com.au: Books

BRAX AND THE SOMEWHAT OLD TREEHOUSE (Book review)

This Granddad loves the Brax book. I got one copy for my grandson and another for my wee granddaughter. I hope I’m even as half as good an example to my grandies as Brax’s gramps was! This is an excellent wee book. Its pages of rhymes are beautifully illustrated. It even includes a “How to Draw Brax” in five easy steps.

Brax (a tenacious young pup) is an Australian production written and illustrated by Ben Davis. (Non-Australians will be surprised to hear that “saw” and “floor” do actually rhyme, at least as spoken in the Land Down Under!)

It is suitable for ages baby to ten.

After reading Brax a couple of times, the book’s rhymes have now got me thinking in rhyme!

The essence of the book is:

                                                                            Christ the Lord is the rock-solid foundation, 

                                                                            upon which to build for the next generation.

(Available at Amazon and Reformers Bookshop.)

GATEWAYS

 

Gateways

I grew up on the southern end of Loch Lomond, the gateway to the Highlands. I then lived in Winnipeg, the gateway to the West. I now live in Brisbane, which has the Gateway Arterial, though I’m not too sure what it is a gateway to. None of these gateways has an actual gate at its centre.

Image from Web

Was there a gate at the entrance to the Garden of Eden? Or were cherubim and the flaming sword its gate? Then there are the ‘pearly gates’ in the walls of the new Jerusalem, the Lamb’s wife. These also have angels posted at each of them. Though the tree of life is there, no angels appear to have ‘a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life’ (Gen. 3:24). ‘Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates … three gates on the east, north, south, west… The twelve gates were twelve pearls: each individual gate was of one pearl … Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there’ (Rev. 21:12-13, 21a, 25). So, we go from one closed gate at the beginning of the Bible, to twelve open gates at the end of it. What happened in between? What happened to the flaming sword? Well, it burnt itself out on another gate!

‘Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved”’ (John 10:9). ‘He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God’ (Rev. 2:7). So, Jesus is the gateway to Paradise. Instead of having our access to the Garden blocked by angels and a flaming sword, we enter through Jesus. How so?

Who likes a bottleneck in traffic or leaving a stadium? Jesus is the world’s bottleneck. He says, ‘Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it’ (Matt. 7:13-14). Why is the gate so narrow? ‘Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”’ (John 14:6). So, it’s narrowed down to Jesus. We cannot get to God unless we go through Him. Otherwise, it’s through the flaming sword which turns every way on the broad gateway to hellfire.

Jesus extinguishes the flames for those who go through Him. He fireproofs all who are repenting and believing in the Gospel. What’s the Gospel about? It’s about Jesus saving His people from God’s everlasting fiery wrath by living a perfect life as their representative and taking their punishment for them. Their punishment has to do with Him undergoing the fiery wrath of God poured out on Him on the cross. This was the baptism of fire God’s only begotten Son underwent on their behalf, as the angels of death, as it were, turned God’s flamethrowers on Him, holocausting Him like the Passover Lamb He was.

By being resurrected, Jesus is the gateway to everlasting life. He says, ‘Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation’ (John 5:28-29). He is the gateway to the new earth, the world, the meek shall inherit (Matt. 5:5; Rom. 4:13). ‘For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved’ (John 3:17). May Jesus cause a huge bottleneck as the gateway!     

CHRISTMAS

 

Christmas

Image from Web

Christmas is about the incarnation. We sing about it every year in the old Wesley hymn, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! ‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see/ Hail, the incarnate Deity/ Pleased as Man with man to dwell/ Jesus, our Immanuel.’ Yet, I fear that, along with the Trinity, the two natures of Christ is perhaps one of the most misunderstood teachings of the Bible. It wasn’t the Father or the Spirit who became flesh, but God the Son. Christmas celebrates this fact. Therefore, those who deny that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit also deny that Jesus is the incarnate Deity. However, those in whose hearts the Spirit has effectively worked savingly with His Word, those whom God by His grace alone has regenerated and declared righteous on Christ’s account, see clearly according to Scripture alone that Jesus is the second Person in the Godhead who was born as a human baby in Bethlehem. God and Man in one Divine Person with two distinct natures forever.

The Incarnation of God did not begin on the very first Christmas Day, but rather some nine months prior in the womb of a woman who was virgin at the time. Mary, the virgin, was having the same problem we would be having when she heard that she was going to conceive without a man. However, God had it explained to her: ‘And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God”’ (Luke 1:35). And Mary had the benefit of knowing and also applying the Old Testament Scriptures: ‘Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel’ (Isa. 7:14). Immanuel, of course, means ‘God with us’ (Matt. 1:23). So, the third Person of the Godhead, in Mary’s womb united her human substance with the Divine substance of God as she conceived the Son that she gave birth to on that first Christmas Day.

Now, this is where it begins to go wrong for some people. They think that if Jesus is God, then as God He didn’t need to be born in the usual way, opening the womb (Luke 2:22-24). Couldn’t He just ooze through the walls of Mary’s womb? You see the same happening with His resurrection. They think that He oozed out of His graveclothes and oozed through the tomb walls even before the stone was rolled away, that He oozed through the locked door into the room where His disciples were meeting after His resurrection. But this is to confuse His two natures, the human with the Divine! It is a popular belief today. Jesus is fully God! And we don’t like your use of the word ‘ooze’! Yes, but He’s also fully Man and I don’t like the way you’ve got Him passing through solid objects as if His body were not like yours and mine!

Isn’t Christmas more exciting when as adults we can talk about adult stuff, such as ‘What did Jesus get you?’ instead of childish things, e.g., ‘What did Santa get you?’ By His Incarnation Jesus has ensured, in the words of the old song, ‘Man will live forevermore/ Because of Christmas day.’ (Belafonte) How so? ‘For this reason He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people’ (Heb. 2:17). The Son saved humans by becoming fully human and remaining fully human forever. He’ll live on the new Earth with those humans He has saved (Matt. 5:5) by His incarnation (John 1:14), life, death, resurrection (Matt. 1:21), ascension (Dan. 7:14) and bodily return (Acts 1:11). 

Click the link for Celtic Worship playing their version of Hark! The Herlad Angels Sing! https://youtu.be/LN0FRBdNC1E?si=Bhv0sJkZ6-hOlzf6

PRAYING FOR A MIRACLE

 

Little Johnny raised his hand and said to his teacher, “Miss, can I go to the toilet?”  Ever true to her vocation, Johnny’s teacher took every opportunity to teach. “You mean, may I go to the bathroom.” Little Johnny replied with a question, “Well, can I?” Discerning the urgency of the present situation, the teacher granted Johnny’s request, “Yes, you may.”

Hezekiah's Prayer for Healing
(Image from the Net)

Whereas the word can speaks of ability, may speaks of an optional possibility or probability. God can do miraculous things. When it comes to God and our diseases it’s not can I be healed, but rather, heavenly Father, may I be healed? God can heal us, but He may or He may not. For those of us who are still alive, we have perhaps seen or experienced the two ways God heals us: a) the rare miraculous, and b) the common use of secondary means – such as medical technology, surgical precision, and modern medicine as administered by doctors etc. As Christians we certainly give God the glory for those rare miraculous healings, however, when it comes to the latter, perhaps we’re not always so enthusiastic about glorifying God when He instead chooses to use instruments. Thus, we glorify God for apparent ‘supernatural’ healing, but not so much for ‘natural’ healing, yet both are from Him. He can use the extraordinary or He may use the ordinary or He may not use either.      

James Montgomery Boice had liver cancer. His congregation and friends told him they were praying to God for his healing. As a teacher and preacher true to his calling, he responded by saying to his congregation,

“A relevant question, I guess, is when you pray, pray for what? Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you’re free to do that, of course. My general impression is that the God who is able to do miracles, and He certainly can, is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place. So, although miracles do happen, they’re rare. A miracle, by definition, has to be an unusual thing. I think it’s far more profitable to pray for wisdom for the doctors. Doctors have a great deal of experience, of course, in their expertise, but they are not omniscient. They do make mistakes. And then also, for the effectiveness of the treatment. Sometimes it does very well, and sometimes not so well, and that is certainly a legitimate thing to pray for. Above all, I would say, pray for the glory of God. If you think of God glorifying Himself in history, and you say, where in all of history has God most glorified Himself? He did it at the cross of Jesus Christ. And it wasn’t by delivering Jesus from the cross, though He could have. Jesus said, “Don’t you think I could call down from My Father ten legions of angels for My defence?” But He didn’t do that. And yet that’s where God is most glorified.”[1]

James Montgomery Boice died on the 15th of June 2000 at the age of 61 from liver cancer. He was a man of prayer, a most humble man of prayer. I saw him at a conference on Mount Tamborine, Queensland in the 90s. His voice reminded me of the famous actor, Richard Widmark, who played Jim Bowie in the 1960 movie The Alamo, along with John Wayne as Davy Crocket. (We can make idols out of great actors, and we sometimes do. As Christians, we sometimes may be guilty of doing something similar with great preachers and teachers of the faith!) Dr Boice had just finished delivering a great talk, after which we were having a break. I wanted to do some backslapping and tell him how brilliant his lecture was. The place was abuzz, and I couldn’t find him anywhere in the crowd. I noticed that a side door was slightly ajar. I squinted through the opening. There was the solitary figure of Dr Boice, standing with head bowed and eyes closed, with his back against the wall as if trying to hide. He was deep in prayer with his Lord. I returned to the crowd with that image of that saint burnt forever into my retina, yes, my heart. Even when no one could see him, he was teaching us about Jesus! Jesus often retreated from the great crowd to pray (Luke 5:16) and taught His disciples to do likewise (Mark 3:7; Luke 9:10).

As the cross began to cast its shadow of death upon Jesus, our great Teacher and Preacher, we observe the following, “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (Matt. 26:36-42 NIV).

There’s the old story about the guy on the roof of his house in a flood with the water rising, refusing help from a boat and then a chopper saying he was praying that God would save him. He was praying for a miracle, but God had already sent him the means for him to be saved from the deluge. He couldn’t see it because he was waiting for the miraculous.

God wants us to pray to Him. He can do the miraculous, but more often than not heals us by ordinary means. Remember that Paul recommended to Timothy that he use a little wine to heal his stomach ailment and frequent illnesses (1 Tim. 5:23). We are given a little peak behind the scenes where Hezekiah humbly prays to God with tears because he is going to die. Then the Lord told Isaiah to tell Hezekiah, “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life” (Isa. 38:5). However, though God can, He didn’t use the extraordinary to heal Hezekiah, but the ordinary, “Isaiah had said, “Prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover” (Isa. 38:21; 2 Kings 20:1-7).

Therefore, when we are praying for a miracle, we must not forget that God, though He can do the miraculous, He may and is more likely to use the ordinary. His is the glory! And we must also be prepared for the worst, as was James Montgomery Boice, yes, as was Jesus. In the words of Job “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15a).  

---

[1] Remembering James Montgomery Boice, (See at 2.10 in https://youtu.be/AOiio8N4WrA

NOT HOME YET (Review)

"Not Home Yet: How the Renewal of the Earth Fits into God's Plan for the World" - An easy to read, sane, sensible, and terse distillation of a much-neglected teaching of the Bible of which far too many Christians are ignorant - heaven and earth.

This is Biblical Theology at its best, beginning "In the beginning" with Genesis 1 and in the Garden with God's covenant with Adam and the Cultural Mandate, and ending in Revelation 21-22 with God's covenant with the last Adam in the Garden-City with the Great Commission/Cultural Mandate fulfilled in Christ.

Creation and recreation are solidly grounded in the basic Christian belief of "the resurrection of the body" (see Apostles' Creed). Our bodies don't burn up, but our same bodies are renewed, likewise, neither does creation burn up but this same creation is renewed.

Quite a brilliant book that speaks volumes in an economy of words!

AN OPTIMISTIC ESCHATLOGY

 Excerpted from pgs. 413-17. If not in Australia, check Amazon for copy in your own country  

The Kingdom: Every Square Inch : McKinlay, Neil Cullan, Schwartz, D. Rudi: Amazon.com.au: Books

An optimistic eschatology

Neither the negativity of Two Kingdom Theology nor Dispensationalism nor anything else will stop Christ’s Kingdom from coming. Why? Because His Kingdom, (yes, yet another little trinity!), has come (past tense), is coming (present tense), and will come (future tense). Imperceptible to the naked eye, it progressively expands like the tiny mustard seed that grows into a great tree, and in influence like the yeast in the batch of dough. We cannot stop it because it is not we, but the Spirit of Christ, that is building His Kingdom. Our hastening or our hindering its coming is simply another way of saying that God blesses covenant obedience and curses covenant disobedience. Therefore, it is important that we properly understand the Great Commission as we pray the Lord’s Prayer lest we disobey and disappoint the King.

It is presumed that the reader has a basic understanding of the three main views of ‘end times’, viz., Premillennialism, Amillennialism, and Postmillennialism. There are books aplenty discussing each member of this trinity. Now, when discussing each of these views, it can be difficult for the reviewer to give an assessment unbiased by his own particular perspective. That being said, in terms of Scottish weather, in order of sequence (i.e.., Pre-, A-, Post-) one might describe a) as overcast and raining, b) clouds with intermittent showers, and c) clear skies and sunny. For the first two, one needs to take an umbrella. For the last, sunscreen and sunglasses will do.

While referring to themselves as Optimillennials, those of the Postmillennial view refer to those holding the other two views as Pessimillennials. Should Christians be optimistic or pessimistic about God’s Kingdom promise to Jesus (and to us in Christ)? “But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:23-26). So, we see that it is God who is progressively subduing all of Christ's enemies (and ours). Just as Jesus defeated death by being resurrected from the dead, so will all those that belong to Him at the Last Day, a.k.a. Resurrection Day or Judgment Day.

Though there are trinities within this trinity of views, e.g., Premillennialism’s Pre, Mid, and Post-tribulation, all three views are agreed that Christ’s Kingdom is coming. The Pre- and A- views believe that things will not get better on earth till after Christ’s bodily return. The Premillennialist believes that things will progressively get worse, the Amillennialist believes that things will pretty much continue as they are. The former studies the news for signs of what it believes are supposed to take place before Christ’s return, with a particular fixation on today’s Israel and Jews in general. Some of the latter style themselves as optimistic Amillennialists, which, to all intents and purposes makes them Postmillennial, though they may not like to admit it. Postmillennialism is viewed by the other two as being triumphalist. However, as we have already noted, it is not we by our feeble human efforts, but God by His Spirit who progressively brings in Christ’s Kingdom. As it was for Zerubbabel, so it is for us, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit’” (Zech. 4:6).

Albert Wolters puts paid to an old canard, the false notion that having an optimist eschatology means anything other than a forward march fraught with falling into, but then draining and filling in swamps, ditches, and potholes. It is no smooth triumphalism. Says Wolters,

[T]he coming of Christ introduced an overlap of the ages in which the powers of evil continue to co-exist with the healing and renewing power of the age to come (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). A battle between these two “powers” characterizes this time period. In fact we live in a time when the antithesis between the two kingdoms has been heightened.

The history of this “time between the times,” then, will not be one of smooth progress or an incremental linear development of the kingdom towards its consummation. Neither will our mission be one that resembles a steady victorious march toward the end. Rather this redemptive era is one of fierce conflict with many casualties. Our mission will be one that is costly and will involve suffering. Paul states that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12, NIV; cf. Acts 14:22). How close our understanding of mission is to the New Testament’s may perhaps be in part judged by the place which we accord to suffering in our understanding of the calling of the church.

Now, Two Kingdom Theology belongs in the Amillennial camp, and, like Premillennialism, it does not hold to the progressive Christianisation of nations (and all the sovereign spheres therein) as Christ’s Kingdom continues to grow larger and spread in influence till Christ comes again, i.e., till His Kingdom comes. And so, if the Postmillennial view is triumphalist, then surely the Premillennial and Amillennial views are defeatist.

Like the man who “drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness”, so Premills and Amills think they have found the chink in the Postmill’s armour. It is found among those verses of Revelation from whence those endless disputes about Millennialism come. One is where it speaks of Satan being bound for a thousand years (a millennium). “And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Rev. 20:3 KJV). It is upon that little word “till” (ἄχρι) in the verse just quoted that the doctrine of “final apostasy” or “Satan’s little season” has been built. How can the Postmill position of the progressively increasing Kingdom – even to such a point where the nations will have beat their war weapons into gardening and agricultural implements and study war no more – be true if, in the end, Satan is going to be released to deceive the nations? According to the Postmill view, aren’t all the nations supposed to be Christian nations by then? Nigel Lee responds,

The KJV misunderstands the meaning of the word achri [ἄχρι] and renders Rev. 20:2-3: “The Devil…should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled” etc., missuggesting that after the ‘Millennium’ the Devil will again deceive the Nations afresh. This is not so. For, after the visible return of Christ for His saved Nations at the end of the ‘Millennium’ – all the then-unchained Devil will be enabled to do – is keep on deceiving the resurrected dead nations he had previously been deceiving until the start of the ‘Millennium’ some thousand years earlier. Accordingly, we have better rendered Rev. 20:2-3; “The Devil…should deceive the Nations not even when the thousand years were completed” etc.[1]      

In an article titled Reconstructing Postmillennialism, Martin Selbrede referred to Postmills who struggled with texts of the supposed ‘final apostasy’ as ‘pessimistic Postmillennialists’. Says Selbrede,

Modern postmils took Boettner’s 1958 ideas and ran with them, while Boettner’s continued scriptural examination of the issue led him to revise his book in 1984, readopting Warfield’s view and rejecting the final apostasy. Somebody surely missed the boat. But who? Today’s optimillennialists? Or Dr. Boettner?[2]

In Nigel Lee’s John’s Revelation Unveiled, (from which we have just quoted above), we find a Commendation by Professor Dr. Loraine Boettner, (which he wrote to Dr Lee in 1978), in which we read,

…I think that you have given a good explanation of that very difficult passage, Rev. 20:7-10. That is a section of Scripture that has been puzzling to me, as on the surface it seems to indicate a future final apostasy of the Church; and yet that seemed so contrary to what I believed would actually take place – no apostasy but rather a smooth transfer or merger into the heavenly kingdom…

Dr. Warfield did not believe that there would be a final apostasy. You have given a good explanation – that there is no actual apostasy, no real danger ever faces the saints, and that the Devil and his followers, are merely exposed before the righteous shortly before their final expulsion into hell. Thank you for it.

Directly after quoting Dr Warfield, says Dr Boettner in his revised 1984 version of The Millennium,

We agree that Revelation 20:1-10 affords no real basis for believing that there is to be a final apostasy in the sense that a large proportion of earth’s inhabitants turn against God, or that the safety of the saints is seriously threatened.[3]

Nigel Lee again,

There is no question of Satan deceiving the Christian majority of all the World’s many inhabitants – in that day! Nor is there then any apostasy from the World-dominating latter-day Church. Thus: Hippolytus, Jonathan Edwards, John Gill, Moses Stuart, Warfield, Stonehouse, Kik, Boettner, Vonk, Rissi, and Rushdoony. Nor is there even a short period of successful renewed Satanic activity to deceive even a portion of any Nation then extant. No! At that time, powerless Satan will need to be enabled, however feebly, to crawl out of his prison. Only Almighty God can and will unlock the door – and then turf out the Devil, unto his Final Judgment.

Still, the Devil will then indeed make a feeble and desperate attempt “to deceive” his previous dupes once more. Yet in doing this, he thus deceives not God’s elect – but only Satan’s own servants.[4]

And so whatever the real or imagined chink in the Postmill’s armour was, it has now been expertly repaired and our optimistic eschatology is fully intact.

Christ has already defeated death, and even though we are still in the ‘not yet’ aspect, we have confidence because of His resurrection as firstfruits. And because Christ has already ascended to receive His Kingdom, though we are still in the ‘not yet’, it is as good as having arrived! And though we have only received tokens of the ‘not yet’ (such as the Holy Spirit, regeneration, salvation, new hearts, new natures, new records et al), we are as good as having been resurrected as we await the redemption of our bodies.

So, after that brief but necessary digression in which we have stated, using the broadest of terms, some of the stumbling blocks and aversions some Christians have towards cultural engagement. It has to do with your view in eschatology, your view of last things from the perspective of your own day. Premillennialism says, why bother engaging culture when Christ is coming back at any moment? And Two Kingdom Theology Amillennialism says, engaging culture it is not the Church’s remit. But here’s what Henry Van Til says,

Through sin man fell away from God and his religion became apostate, but through Christ man is restored to true religion. It is therefore more correct to ask what the role of culture is in religion than to put the question the other way around … Man, in the deepest reaches of his being, is religious; he is determined by his relationship to God ... Hutchison … says, “For religion is not one aspect or department of life besides the others, as modern secular thought likes to believe; it consists rather in the orientation of all human life to the absolute.” Tillich has captured the idea in a trenchant line, “Religion is the substance of culture and culture is the form of religion.”[5]

---

[1] Francis Nigel Lee, John’s Revelation Unveiled, (Lygstryders, Lynnwoodrif, South Africa, 1999), 273, fn. 911.

[2] Martin G. Selbrede, 160 Journal of Christian Reconstruction / vol. 15.01, in an article titled Reconstructing Postmillennialism, 159-60.

[3] Loraine Boettner, The Millennium, (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1957, Revised edition 1984), 74.

[4] Francis Nigel Lee, Ibid, 278.

[5] Henry Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, (Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, 1959, Re[5]print 2001), 37.

HORSES

                                                                            Horses

Image from Net

Horses play large in our vocabulary: Horseplay, horsepower, horse sense, flogging a dead horse, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, wild horses wouldn’t drag me away, get off your high horse, hold your horses, etc. It seems that we are always talking about horses. One of my hobby horses is the Bible and talking about the King of kings, which for me means that politics and religion go together like a horse and carriage. Yet, today’s society tries hard to unhitch the horse (Christianity) from its carriage (politics). It teaches that talking about these things is verboten. Thankfully, I don’t live in that world. For me it’s horses for courses. 

Politics has to do with governance, whole nations and every aspect thereof. Government is God’s minister to promote good and discourage evil (Rom. 13:1-5). Therefore, they are accountable to Christ, the King of kings for implementing His instruction (Matt. 25:32; Acts 17:31; Phil. 2:9-11). ‘Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people’ (Prov. 14:34). Speaking of horses…

Everyone has heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rev. 6:2-8). Each rides a differently coloured horse – white, fiery red, black, and pale, each horse and rider symbolising something. Though the Book of Revelation is seen by sensationalists as the motherload to mine for material for their bestselling books, they invariable are putting the cart before the horse. They interpret Revelation from the daily news rather than the rest of Scripture (See, e.g., Zech. 1:8-17; 6:1-8).

Revelation is all about the construction of Christ’s Kingdom while at the same time Satan’s kingdom is gradually being destroyed. In other words, it’s all about Jesus, the King of kings, progressively conquering the nations by His Spirit and His Word, i.e., with His Law and Gospel working in the hearts of men, women, and children. ‘And I looked, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer’ (Rev. 6:2). This rider has been identified as everything from Christ to His opposite, viz., antichrist. Scary videos are legion promoting their aberrations. We’ll let the sane and sober Bible commentator Matthew Henry give us a brief description of this verse: ‘The Lord Jesus appears riding on a white horse … The successful progress of the gospel of Christ in the world is a glorious sight, worth beholding. Christ’s work is not done all at once.’ Christians know how difficult it can be at times sharing the gospel with friends. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. However, lest we be discouraged we must remember that the Spirit must work with the Word, the sword of the Spirit, otherwise they will not drink the water of life. The Rider of the white horse must slay them before they will live.    

'Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS’ (Rev. 19:11-16).

A NEW CHAPTER

From Mason to Minister - Nordskog Publishing

A New Chapter (pgs. 70-73)

After completing the three degrees of the Blue Lodge, I came to a fork in the road. Should I now seek admission into Scottish Rite or York Rite Freemasonry? I had read enough of the book The Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871) by the American Albert Pike (1809-1892) to put me off taking the Scottish Rite route! Albert Pike is very much maligned by - and apparently very much misunderstood by – anti-Masons. I personally found the contents and language of his Morals and Dogma book to be very esoteric. I believe this in itself is an unchristian approach to writing, for Christianity is all about truth done in the light - nothing is purposely hidden. Thus the word “occultish” sums up Pike’s book for me.

It was through reading Morals and Dogma that I was led to believe that there had to be an elite and occultist group - a wheel within the wheels of Masonry if you will - in which and among which the hidden secrets of God and His universe resided. For Pike unabashedly alleges that the Master Mason, after having gone through the first three degrees, has been duped. Wrote Pike:

The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them, but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them.”

(Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, prepared for the Supreme Council of the Thirty-Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the U.S., Charleston, 1871, 819).

In other words, Pike was urging the Master Mason to proceed through the Scottish Rite degrees in order to learn and discern the true nature of Masonry.

At the time, what Pike had written seemed very ominous to me, especially in light of what Scripture has to say about occult practices! Indeed on Pike’s instigation I started reading writings on the Jewish cabala. Thankfully, however, instead of going through the Scottish Rite, I sought and gained entrance into the “more Christian,” as I was told, York Rite.

This being said about Albert Pike and his Morals and Dogma, and whatever terrible things his enemies may have said about him, Pike is reported to have been a staunch Trinitarian Christian till his dying day. I’ll let the reader make up his or her own mind on this! There is much information about him to be found on the Internet that has been written by Freemasons themselves. The Scottish Rite, from what I could see, had very little if anything to do with Scotland-hence, for me, the obvious “Scottish” attraction was assuaged. The Holy Royal Arch, or York Rite Freemasonry, is a branch of what is sometimes referred to as Red Lodge. The Holy Royal Arch is more commonly known as “Chapter.” Royal Arch, or Chapter, is a continuation (even the completion) of the three Blue Lodge degrees, as has been well said: “Pure Ancient Freemasonry consists of but three degrees, that of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.”[1] A cursory search of the Internet revealed the following handy, concise, and verifiable information regarding Chapter:

The Chapter of Royal Arch Masonry itself consists of four degrees: Mark Master; Past Master; Most Excellent Master, and Royal Arch Mason. The Royal Arch Degree being said to be the climax of Ancient Craft Masonry and Masonic Symbolism. It is described as “the root and marrow of Freemasonry.” It is the complete story of Jewish History during some of its darkest hours. Jerusalem and the Holy Temple are destroyed, the people are being held captive as slaves in Babylon. Here you will join with some slaves as they are set free to return home and engage in the noble and glorious work of rebuilding the city and the Temple of God. It is during this rebuilding that they make a discovery that brings to light the greatest treasure of a Mason - the long lost Master’s Word. Many historians have traced the earliest origins of the Royal Arch Degree to Ireland, late in the 17th century and in England in 1738. In 1752, ambulatory or military warrants for Lodges were introduced. This was instrumental in placing the Royal Arch Degree on a par with the Master Mason Degree. Military lodges were greatly responsible for planting Freemasonry in the Colonies and also gave birth to the use of the Marl and Royal Arch degrees in the “New World.” Lodge records show that the Royal Arch Degree was conferred at Fredericksburg No. 4 on December 12, 1753. George Washington was raised [i.e., symbolically resurrected to become a Master Mason] in this lodge a few months prior to this date. The value of Royal Arch Masonry will be appreciated by all who are exalted to that most sublime degree, particularly by those who are seeking to complete their Masonic education. It reveals the full light of Ancient Craft Masonry, presents it as a complete system in accordance with the original plan and justly entitles you to claim the noble name of Master Mason.”[2]

I don’t suppose either the United States of America’s first president and Church of England Episcopalian George Washington (1732-1799) or Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald (1819-1891), entered Freemasonry for the same reason I did. I was seeking God. I thought that Christians were like sheep - and I didn’t want to be a sheep! That’s why I didn’t attend church to look for God! The truth is that I had been put off of Christianity by the Pentecostal televangelist “preachers” who inundated Canadian television at the time. I was afraid of their Christianity. There were numerous televangelist scandals in the late 1980s, so, understandably, I thought “the church” was only after people’s minds and money. But a new chapter began in my life when I joined the Chapter of Royal Arch Masonry. It was there that I was confronted by “the stone the builders rejected.”

---

[1] Articles of Union, Mother Grand Lodge (England), 1831.

[2] (www.themasonict rowel.com/Articles/apendent_bodies/york/further_light_masonry_royal_arch_ mason.htm)