Kingdom Come

Key precept: “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” Douglas Adams

“In the beginning God [Elohim] created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)

Good writing starts with a thesis on which everything else in the account rests. The Bible’s thesis is that spirit God created the material universe and everything in it. Every single element in the rest of the story, which builds systematically from The Beginning in Genesis through The End in Revelation, rests on this fundamental premise.

This premise is famously opposed by scientists.

In the scientific universe matter came before mind. Mind is an accident of matter…

We have almost no evidence to go on when we decide what we believe happened at the beginning of time, but the choice we make has massive implications for our understanding of the way the world works.

Pay close attention to the opinion of Stephen Hawking, reputed to be a genius physicist and “one of the most important scientists and public intellectuals of our time, if not all time.” Did you notice that this genius scientist bases his conviction, not on scientific evidence, but on belief? His choice of what to believe is made to resolve his emotional response to the concept of an afterlife.

As he states, he is grateful, i.e. relieved to conclude that there is no afterlife. This is understandable, since he spent his entire adult life struggling with a severely debilitating physical disease, experiencing, in essence, the misery of a disembodied soul as postulated to be the condition of the afterlife.

But is someone’s emotionally disturbed coping mechanism a viable basis on which to base belief directing our life’s choices, and faith in our soul’s fate after death?

Continue reading “1) In The Beginning God”

Precept: God put mankind in charge of creation.

“And God said, Let us make man…and let them have dominion” (Genesis 1:26)

To have “dominion” by definition means to dominate those that oppose you. And here’s the inevitable conflict that makes for a story.

• “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
  • And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
• And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good:
  • and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:2-5)

1. The first sentence in the Bible creates conflict between believers and unbelievers over the report of creation of form and function vs evolution by spontaneous generation.
2. The second sentence creates conflict between believers over how it happened.
3. The last sentence creates conflict between how long it took.

One interpretation is that God created a formless, void, and dark earth, like a black hole, then exploded it, fitting the biblical report into the Big Bang Theory, materialist astronomers’ explanation of the way the universe began. This is called The Gap Theory.

One of the main arguments against the Gap Theory is that all the unaccounted time happening in the gap can be used to reconcile the biblical account of creation with the immense years of time required for evolution, and that this is a slippery slope inevitably leading to a full embrace of evolution and discarding of faith. Biblical opponents of the Gap Theory generally fiercely defend creationism by insisting that everything in Genesis 1 occurred in seven 24-hour days.

Let’s not get caught up in rationalizations and arguments, and simply let the record speak for itself.

Continue reading “2) King’s Dominion”

Key precept: A son of God is a being who is created, like God, with the  immortality and power only possible through righteousness.

The designation of “son of God” as any being who is “a chip off the old block”, made in the likeness of God, having his attributes, is easily understood when we compare this with the designation “son of man” or “wo-man” which signifies being made in the likeness of man. Note, this is not the same as image, which is  appearance. This concept will be developed in greater detail below.

“In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him…And Adam…begat a son in his own likeness [unlike Cain]…and called his name Seth.” (Genesis 5:1-3)

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect…After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven..” (Matthew 5:48, 6:9-13) 

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”, so blandly recited in the Lord’s Prayer, is essential to understanding the underlying conflict between heaven and earth throughout all of earth’s history.

In hermetic magic this concept is phrased “as above, so below“ and is the essence of acknowledging the source of power – with a twist.

The practitioners of hermetic magic reject God’s will being done and replace it with the magician’s will being done through secret knowledge of rituals and incantations.  Such an individual is clearly not “a son of God” but, as we shall see, “son of a god”.

Immortality is a major likeness of God, achieved and maintained by doing things right which, logically, prevents destruction. This is not a religious requirement or mere morality, it is a natural imperative, one we teach our children as in not running into the street where they might be hit by a car, not playing with fire, not running with scissors or sticks in their hands, etc. 

Continue reading “3) In Earth As It Is In Heaven”

Key precept: Humanity has an implacable enemy.

There was one son of God who was made so closely in God’s likeness that he was named after God’s key attribute. Compare the Adversary’s description to the description of God himself, God’s High Priest Melchizedek in whom the Spirit of God resides (more on him later), and the new Jerusalem / human bride in which God resides forever.

• “O Lucifer / Bringer of light, son of the morning!” (Isaiah 14:12)
  • “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (I John 1:5) 
  • “In the beginning was the Word…the Word was God…And the light shineth in darkness…That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”” (John 1:1-9)
  • “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed…a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” (II Peter 1:19-20)
  • “unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings;” (Malachi 4:2)

• “Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold…thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.” (Ezekiel 28:12-14)

• • “…behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.” (Revelation 4:2-3)
  • “as the LORD commanded Moses. And he made the breastplate of cunning work, like the work of the ephod; of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen. It was foursquare…And they set in it four rows of stones: the first row was a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this was the first row. And the second row, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. And the third row, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. And the fourth row, a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper: they were inclosed in ouches of gold in their inclosings.” (Exodus 39:7-14)
  • “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband…the bride, the Lamb’s wife…Having the glory of God…garnished with all manner of precious stones…jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolyte, beryl, topaz, chrysoprasus, jacinth, amethyst, pearls.” (Revelation 21:2-24)

Lucifer was flying high.  Then he heard about God’s plan to promote the powerless mortal people made with bodies of clay, i.e. “mud people“, above the mighty immortal angels, to make us God’s family and heirs, give us dominion and power and glory while keeping the likes of him mere servants.

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?  For

• thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and [then, yet] hast crowned him with glory and honour.  
• Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
• thou hast put all things under his feet:” (Psalm 8:4-6)+

Lucifer’s rivalry with Adam is laid out for us in Sumerian documents, where he is called Enki, a brother to Adam who is called Enlil, who with their father are the three most powerful gods.

Continue reading “4) Light and Life”

Key precept: Love conquers all, even death.

Satan can’t actually win the competition that he set in motion, but he doesn’t have to.  As has been so well demonstrated in politics, he only has to destroy the opposition.  And God placed the weapon in Satan’s hands when he placed forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying…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 2:16-17)

All Satan had to do to was convince two guileless human beings to eat the fruit.  And for that, all he had to do was tell a lie.

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44)

The fundamental lie, perpetrated by religion and science since time began, is that humans don’t need Almighty Creator and Sustainer God – godhood is intrinsic to the self. Humans only need to learn how to access their godhood to transcend human limitations and gain access to hyper dimensional power and immortality.

“Now the serpent…said unto the woman…Ye shall not surely die…ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil [able to judge what is beneficial or destructive to you.]” (Gen 3:1-6)

“Love not the world [material environment], neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh [tree was good for food], and the lust of the eyes [pleasant to the eyes], and the pride of life [desire to be independent of authority], is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (I John 2:15-17)

Continue reading “5) Lust Kills. Love Dies.”

Key precept: Paradoxically, death is humanity’s greatest strength against immortals.

We can envision the plot of the entire Bible as God and Satan playing a cosmic chess match where winner literally takes all. On one side we have the white king – no, not God but his human son, to whom he gave the kingdom, the power, and the glory. On the other side we have the black king, the angel son of God, who was deeply offended by God’s choice of heir.

It appeared that Satan won the very first match when he lured humanity into a death trap.

But he was mistaken. As the plot of this mystery story develops, we will find that every move that the Adversary makes, God successfully counters. That’s because God has a long range strategy and sees the end from the beginning, and Satan is constantly playing catchup.

“I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure…yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.” (Isaiah 46:9-11)

This most specifically and especially includes the decision to

“make (hu)man(ity) in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over…all the earth.” (Genesis 1:26) 

Although we currently interchange the words image and likeness as defining the reproduction of someone’s appearance in a work of art, we need to ensure the meanings in this fundamental revelation.

Continue reading “6) The King is Dead. Long Live the King!”

Key precept: Humans are not action figures  –  the results of our actions reverberate through our world.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time The Chosen One / Messiah / Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, The Chosen One / Messiah / Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” (Romans 5:6-9)

To understand how Messiah’s death saves us from sin, we need to understand what sin is, and what it had to do with death being imposed on humanity just because they ate the fruit.

Continue reading “7) Forgiveness and Atonement”