A-G’S
ESSAY ON REPLACEMENTARIANISM
When something grates in the Spirit I am compelled to react. But how I react depends on the type of grating. To varying degrees the above quotes and a lot of other material on this forum grates in those three categories as follows.
1. Top Spiritual Priority: When a testimony denies a Name of God, i.e. Who He IS.
It happens all the time on LDS threads because the LDS doctrine is that God the Father had a father who had a father, etc. Which is to say it denies the Names of God: I AM, YHwH, The Lord, El Shaddai, Alpha and Omega. And my reaction is to point the heresy out, but not more than twice:
A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself. – Titus 3:10-11
If I were to research it, I would look for the context of the description of God the Father, Son and Spirit each and separately having a body, soul and spirit. On the surface it looks like this category – but I’d have to see the rest of the story, e.g. is he saying that each Person in the Trinity partakes in the other or what?
2. When a person who says he is Christian obviously does not take God seriously.
The kind of behavior that has resulted in newsworthy scandals in all faiths would never have happened if the perps took God seriously. Nor would there have been lawsuits to collect damages (I Cor 6.)
And the above excerpt which is a clutched fist raised to God demanding He submit or be rejected is a case in point. Who knowing God and taking Him seriously could possibly say such words?
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. – 2 Timothy 3:5
From such people I turn away. I have nothing to do with them.
3. Hyperbole – Christians on every side often get carried away and overstate what they mean.
When a mother says “For the millionth time, Johnny, put the bike in the garage.” that is hyperbole.
Technically it is a lie because surely she must know that it isn’t possible for her to have said that phrase a million times. What she meant might have been “Johnny, I’m exhausted from having to tell you to put your bike in the garage.”
Now, the hearer might be outraged and correctly so that she lied to her son. And she might correctly feel justified in that God knows the thoughts and intents of her heart.
But it cuts both ways. On a more serious matter, if her heart is not so clean then His knowing does not help her. Indeed, it might condemn her.
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: [and] he that shutteth his lips [is esteemed] a man of understanding. – Proverbs 17:28
But the tongue can no man tame; [it is] an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. – James 3:8
All that I can do when my brothers and sisters in Christ seem to get carried away overstating things is to point to the words of God. I cannot or will not judge them.
As a final note, I received something in the Spirit last night which I need to convey. There is actually a curse attached to a person who returns evil for good. Evil will come back upon him and his house – and it will not leave.
Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house. – Proverbs 17:13
That of course underscores the importance of being good stewards of our hearts, minds and souls.
God’s Name is I AM.
ALAMO-GIRL’S
DISPENSATIONAL ESSAY
bronx2; one Lord one faith one baptism; Quix; Zionist Conspirator; right way right; …
In the early church the prevailing thought was that the second coming was imminent and coupled with the roman persecution of Christians, some of the early church fathers wrote in reference to the persecution and to the expected imminent coming.
Some of the early Christians understood Creation week to be prophecy. I very strongly agree as follows:
Adam, by Jewish and early Christian beliefs, was appointed a week (corresponding to Creation week) – or seven thousand years, the last of which is Christ’s thousand year reign on earth, the Lord’s Sabbath (Revelation.) The Sabbath is also prophecy:
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ. – Colossians 2:16-17
To illustrate that it was an early Christian belief, I offer the first excerpt below from the Epistle of Barnabas 15:3-5 which is not part of the canon and is not to be confused with the late sixteenth century Islamic fraud, “The Gospel of Barnabas.”
The Epistle of Barnabas dates back to the first few centuries after Christ’s resurrection. It is quoted by Clement of Alexandria and also mentioned by Origen. It was part of the Codex Sinaiticus but is not part of the Catholic canon today. Nevertheless, it reveals the discernment of these early Christians.
He speaks of the Sabbath at the beginning of the Creation, “And God made in six days the works of His hands and on the seventh day He made an end, and He rested on the seventh day, and He sanctified it. Consider, my children what this signifies: That He made an end in six days. The meaning of it is this: that in six thousand years the Creator will bring all things to an end, for with Him one day is a thousand years. He Himself testifies, saying, Behold the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, all things shall be accomplished. And He rested on the seventh day: He means this, that when His Son shall come He will destroy the season of the wicked one, and will judge the godless, and will change the sun and the moon and the stars, and then He will truly rest on the seventh day.
It is also recorded in the first verse, chapter 33 of 2 Enoch which is the Slavic version of that book (also not part of the canon) but nevertheless showing the beliefs of early Christians:
And I appointed the eighth day also, that the eighth day should be the first-created after my work, and that (the first seven) revolve in the form of the seventh thousand, and that at the beginning of the eighth thousand there should be a time of not-counting, endless, with neither years nor months nor weeks nor days nor hours.
In sum, the Jewish mystics and these early Christians (and I) perceive that Adamic man, upon being banished to mortality, was appointed a total of 7 days or 7,000 years. The last day of the week, the Sabbath, in the Christian view is Christ’s millennial reign on earth.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This [is] the first resurrection. Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. – Revelation 20:4-6
And again,
Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
But I say unto you, That in this place is [one] greater than the temple. But if ye had known what [this] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. – Matt 12:5-8
The heart of this understanding of prophecy is that a day to God is a thousand years to man.
At the top of Genesis 4, after Adam is banished to mortality, the perspective changes to Adamic man, to our space/time coordinates. Adam’s clock starts ticking. The first indication of the change in observer perspective is in the curse itself (emphasis mine)
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die – Genesis 2:17
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. – Genesis 5:5
That is not some vague reference but is explicitly revealed here:
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:8
That is also the Jewish interpretation (Sanhedrin 97a; Avodah Zarah Sa) of Psalms 90:4:
For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.
God’s Name is I AM.
posted on Friday, June 17, 2011 9:28:44 AM
by Alamo-Girl
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