Again with the Game Of Thrones analogy:
Davos, a sailor knowledgeable of all the ways and means around the island kingdom fiefdom of Land’s End, saved his Lord Stannis Baratheon’s realm from surrender to the enemy’s naval blockade with his smuggled foods.
Nonetheless, because the word had gone out of his mouth and Stannis never went back on his word, he cut off Davos’ fingers as punishment for the crime of smuggling.
BUT! Transferred the punishment to only the first digits of his left hand, leaving him fully functional.
For his exceptional loyalty, Stannis transformed him from a lowly commoner to a knight.
When Stannis became embroiled in a war to claim the kingdom, Davos single-handedly overcame resistance to Stannis’ request for an essential alliance with a potential supporter when he testified of the trustworthiness of Lord Stannis by showing his finger stumps, transcending from one of many knights to “the Hand of the King.”
We can apply this course of human events to the Adams.
What came to be known as Newton’s Third Law Of Motion – “For every action, there is an equal and opposite to reaction” should have blown back on Adam when he ate the poisoned fruit.
#1: Instead, God transferred the immutable consequences of this when he said,
- Because thou hast…
- which I which commanded thee…Thou shalt not
Cursed is the ground for thy sake.”
I have heard this explained as punishment on Adam, but the opposite is true.
The dilemma, as with Davos, is that Adam broke the law (of nature in his case), but even for the best reason of (obeying the law to never leave his wife), the word once spoken would be fulfilled.
So God transferred the immediate effects of the immutable law of motion / force maintaining the material universe from humans to nature.
And not for the only time. We see this happening over and over in the history of God’s dealings with his people.
- “if ye…break my covenant: I also will do this unto you… I will bring the land into desolation.” (Leviticus 26:14-32)
“Bringing the land into desolation” is a phrase that encapsulates the immutable consequences of breaking natural laws built into universal stability, not only during a natural disaster, or loss of social order during a catastrophe, but also in the spiritual dimension.
#2 – “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21). Obviously removing the skin of an animal involves the death of the animal.
Ultimately God transferred the immutable effects of entropy – AKA sin – onto one human champion, and transferred energy – AKA life – in the reverse direction.
This champion is the only one who can transfer his life into other humans – without ending his own – because he is perfectly in union with the Infinite Singularity.
- I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep…
- My sheep hear my voice…and they follow me [my instructions!!]: And I give unto them eternal life…
- [because] I and my Father [the infinite Singularity] are one.” (John 10)
Our mistake is in thinking of God’s gift of eternal life as a greater quantity that we experience in the resurrection of the body, but that is not what it is.
Eternal existence, i.e. immortality, is a different quality. It is a hyper dimensional energy / spiritual state of being conferred immediately upon merging one’s identity with the One Who Always Was.
The fact that this new identity also continues beyond the quantity of time the believer lives out his or her physical life is a secondary, much less significant, condition.
That spiritual quality is the transformation of a human’s power capacity from material to spiritual.
AKA birthed into the spiritual domain.
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a human be born of water / material substance AND of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.“ (John 3:3-6)
“Because the carnal / fleshly / material mind / driver is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they [essential personhood, the soul] that are in [driven by] the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.“ (Romans 8:7-9)
“For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for
- the end of those things is death [not only to ourselves, but, most horribly, to whose we love more than ourselves].
- But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit [what is produced, your actions and their consequences] unto holiness, and the end [with resurrected body] everlasting life.
For the wages of sin is death [think separation from society with HIV and finally end of life with AIDS]; but the gift of God is eternal life [a quality of life in the here and now as well as after physical death] through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:20-23)
Biblical salvation from sin’s rule and authority and power and enmity begins in this life, manifested in freedom from bondage to sin, AKA addictions not just to drugs but all uncontrollable personally destructive attitudes and behaviors. Resurrection to new life begins now in the reconnection of the Spirit of God to the soul and body and victory over sin’s effects of
- destruction of the body through uncontrollable behaviors like gluttony and addictions
- destruction of essential relationships most apparent in effects like broken families, homelessness, unjust societies and war.
And once again as the corollary to death, this life-restoring energizing growth and development is also a process that occurs throughout one’s lifespan.
Throughout life, every mortal being, like the Adams, is faced with circumstances demanding choices to respond either
- in faith according to God’s instructions despite apparent immediate loss,
- or in false hope according to the Adversary’s lie of personal gratification.
Throughout our lifetime on earth, our responses to circumstances – good and bad – transforms who we are becoming throughout our lifetime, until the point of death in which we are locked into our eternal destiny as having transcended to whatever degree we have cooperated with into God’s likeness – his character, mindset, personality, and way of relating to others – or into the Adversary’s likeness by self-indulgence and self-exaltation.
“…put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof…For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink [think the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist or any religious practice or prohibition]; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Romans 14:17-18)
Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970) was an American psychologist best known for creating a theory of psychological health known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s secular psychology of the interconnectedness of the body with the soul mirrors the Hebrew concept of the “soul,” nephesh / self / the whole person…body and soul together.
This is just common sense. The person we become is developed by
- what the body experiences through interpersonal interactions, education, traumas, culture,
- choices made emotionally and cognitively to act through the body for good or evil,
- and stored permanently in the brain as memories, values, reflexes, responses, morals.
Maslow amended his model near the end of his life…he argued that there is a higher level of development [than self-actualization], what he called self-transcendence. We achieve this level by focusing on things beyond the self like altruism, spiritual awakening, liberation from egocentricity, and the unity of being.
Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos. (The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
Notice that placing self-transcendence above self-actualization results in a radically different model from fulfilling your own potential to achieving awareness of ultimate truth and the unity of all things.
That secular conclusion matches the spiritual.
However moral or immoral, good or evil we have become at the end of this mortal life, is what we are when we face God’s judgment.
“Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.” (II Corinthians 5:9-11)
This is not at all teaching that we earn salvation through our works.
This is teaching that the behaviors of the body, as in any court of law, prove our soul’s unseeable morality and motivations.
Davos’ smuggling proved to be out of loyalty to his lord instead of hope of reward when he identified with his lord’s righteousness by accepting the loss of his fingers.
Contemporary Christianity seems only to have lost the understanding that the key to eternal transcendence is identifying with our Lord’s righteousness.
“I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know / be merged into him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death…
this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus…
Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.“ (Philippians 3:8-17)
Kingdom Come 