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Requiescat in Pace

06 Monday Mar 2023

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

This post is the conclusion to my study of Isaiah 45:7 which I began in January of last year!  I don’t know that I’ve ever devoted so much time to one single passage of scripture but, every time I began to look at a single word, vistas opened up before me so vast I still have not fully comprehended them.  I could continue in this single passage of scripture for the rest of my life, I think.  I have merely taken a peek beneath the surface with this study and do look forward to exploring the depths in later studies.  For this post, let us take one more look at Isaiah 45:7:

“I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.”  That’s from the New King James Version.  The Amplified renders it: “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace [national well-being.  Moral evil proceeds from the will of men, but physical evil proceeds from the will of God], and I create [physical] evil-calamity; I am the Lord Who does all these things.”

I mentioned in one of those early posts how the Amplified translation bothered me.  It seemed to me that stressing God created physical evil rather than moral evil was not only splitting hairs but a heavy-handed attempt to let God off of a hook He seemed to put Himself squarely on.  No such distinction was made in how the Hebrew word for evil was used in other passages so either God created darkness and evil or there was a terrible misunderstanding of this particular passage.  Coming back to the Amplified version of this passage after the last year of study, I find it still bothers me but for different reasons. 

Whether physical rather than moral evil is meant, we are still left with a problem with God creating any sort of evil at all.  Even translating the word as “calamity” rather than evil has caused a twisted view of God to permeate the church.  Malcolm Smith addresses this in his booklet No Longer A Victim.  In the chapter entitled “Confronting God”, Bishop Smith talks about the evils and sufferings people have endured and the question that arises: “how can a loving God allow this?”  He relates what one woman he was counseling said, “…I am the victim of the Almighty God Himself.”  Bishop Smith then goes on to say:

“Historically, the Church has not helped us here, for we have been taught that this is indeed the way things are.  We have been told that every cruel and vicious evil to rake across our lives is God’s strange strategy of love.  The Church has taught the world to label every tragedy caused by nature on a rampage as ‘an act of God’, while telling those inside the Church that the terrible tragedy is ‘the will of God’.” (Smith, 30)

I can see why the translators of the Amplified Bible chose to make the distinction between moral evil and physical evil.  The Bible does make clear there are those evils that flow out of the darkened hearts of mankind.  I was recently reading a study and came across Jeremiah 19:5: “’(they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to all, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind)’”.  I have shared scriptures in previous studies about the heart of humankind and Paul has his list of “works of the flesh” in Galatians 19:21 so both the Old and New Testament do make it clear there are many “evils” that cannot be blamed on God but that human beings are responsible for.

While I do understand the distinction, I’m not convinced it would have been necessary if the translators had taken a close look at the meaning of “create”.  If the translators define create as “to make something out of nothing” then this passage is definitely a problem and caveats do need to be made to attempt to clarify the difference between the evil that originates in the heart of humankind and that which would come from God.

I found no basis for defining “create” as “to make something out of nothing” in the original Hebrew nor the English definition found in the dictionary.  When I look up “create” in the New World Dictionary, I find the base of our English word is kre and means “to grow” or “to cause to grow” like cereal.  The entire definition of “create” is as follows: 1) to cause to come into existence; bring into being; make; originate; esp., to make or design (something requiring art, skill, invention, etc.) 2) to bring about; give rise to; cause [new industries create new jobs] 3) to invest with a new rank, function, etc., 4) to be the first to portray (a particular role in a play). 

A simpler definition I hold in mind whenever I read the word “create” after conducting this study is “to cause something new to come into being and grow towards a specific purpose”.  It is a definition that fits every occurrence of the word in the Old Testament from Elohim creating in Genesis 1, to the Sons of Eli creating in 1 Samuel 2:29, and to the Israelites creating in Joshua 17:17-18.  Applying it to Isaiah 45:7 I find there is no basis for thinking this passage is saying God “creates calamity” in that He is the origin of it.  I find no scriptural basis for calling physical evils like tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes “acts of God” and claiming they arise from His will.  In this, I am in agreement with Bishop Smith who writes: 

“Instead of slandering God by placing the cries of this world’s anguish at His door, we must take the sin of man seriously…mankind fell, that man sinned, and he is now set against the love plans of the God who created him.  By default, man is now fighting the blueprint of his architect-and he is pursuing a pathway of self-destruction.  The truth is that outside of the salvation that comes to us from God in Jesus Christ, we will all destroy ourselves and our neighbors.  The tornados, hurricanes, volcanos, floods, and earthquakes are merely a physical expression of the spiritual state of man, who is the lord of the planet.” (Smith, Page 33)

I am aware of the Bible recording an instance where God did cause a flood and volcanoes and upheaval to deal with the evil of humankind.  This is a vast and complex subject I would like to devote a future study to and I am also aware I cannot possibly discuss it in any detail here.  I would like to point out the story of the flood was an instance of God having to drastically intervene in the history of mankind.  Amos 3:7 says, “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” and I find the story of the flood is no exception.  Noah was the human instrument in that situation.  It took a great deal of time to build the ark and, while the Bible is not explicit in Genesis, I imagine doing so caused some curiosity.  2 Peter 2:5 describes Noah as a “preacher of righteousness” so I find there is enough evidence to suggest the Biblical flood was not something that happened without warning.  His covenant also still stands that He will never allow a flood to destroy the earth (See Genesis 9:9-17). I do not see that this story of the flood provides us with a Biblical basis for assigning all floods as well as volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. to God. Especially as they tend to happen without warning and the Bible is clear: God never does anything unless He first reveals His secret.

We do not need to go looking for a prophet in this day and age. The Book of Hebrews opens with, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (verses 1-2).  This speaking to us through His Son is what I find prophesied in Isaiah 45:7. Instead of a picture of God claiming calamity as His own creation, I see a glorious picture of the heart of our God and how He has chosen to deal with humankind.

Let us look at this passage again and see it as a prophecy of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the one in whom “was life and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5).  He is the light of the world appearing in the very midst of darkness.  He is also the peace made.  At His birth all of creation echoed with the cry, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men! (Luke 2:14).  The Hebrew word translated “peace” in Isaiah 45:7 is shalom and doesn’t just mean “peace”.  It means “completeness, soundness, welfare, peace” and we are, each one of us, made complete in Him (Colossians 2:10).

I see no reason to interpret this passage as God stating He is the one who creates the calamities that befall us.  I definitely see no reason for the Amplified to have said the “peace” Isaiah 45:7 speaks of is “national peace.”  That is an unnecessary addition in my opinion.  What I do see in Isaiah 45:7 is a foreshadowing of the truth expressed in Galatians 1:3-4: “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father”. 

Humankind is still so darkened in its understanding.  As those around us continue to live as beings independent from God determining for themselves what is good and evil, we will live in the midst of great evils.  We do not live here alone.  The Holy Spirit is the presence of God in the world today and He brings Jesus and the Father right into our hearts and therefore in the midst of whatever circumstance we find ourselves.  We walk in darkness.  Jesus is the light in our darkness and, as the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see Him more and more every moment, He causes something new to come into being and grow until there is no more darkness.  The same is true for whatever evil that might befall us.  He is our peace, our completeness, our welfare, our very life in the midst of the greatest of evils and He causes something new to come into being and grow until death itself is swallowed up in His life.

Jesus Christ is the One who spoke to the tempest and calmed the raging storm.  Since John 1:18 says, “No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him,” then Jesus Christ is the will of God.  The will of our Father as revealed in Jesus is love-union with Him, light instead of darkness, perfect peace, deliverance from all sorts of evils, and a calming of the storms.  To say devastation is His will for us is a terrible slander.

Let us rest in the Peace that Jesus Christ is: the Peace that only the Lord can give.  May that peace flow out of us to the world around us.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

The Comprehensive Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody Massachusetts, 2018

Smith, Malcolm, No Longer A Victim, Pillar Books and Publishing Company, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1992

Strong, James, LL,D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

His Fire In My Heart

27 Monday Feb 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Image by Gloria Williams from Pixabay

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing to look at the final sentence of Isaiah 45:7: “I, The Lord, do all these things.”

In my last post I mentioned the book Gleanings from Gussie by Patricia Nolan Savas.  The quote I shared in that post made me curious what more Mrs. Savas might have to say and so I purchased the book.  I began reading it almost as soon as it arrived and, within the first few pages, read; “It’s all God.  There is no dualism in the universe (Isaiah 45:5-7).”1 This idea of dualism is one I came across during my study of “evil”.  Under the entry for “evil”, the Dictionary of New Testament Theology states, “Plato reached a synthesis of these two basic concepts by developing a metaphysical dualism of spirit and matter, with its ethical expression in a dualism of soul and body…In Zoroastrianism the question of the origin of evil found an answer in a consistent dualism.”2 

The two concepts Plato was synthesizing was his belief that Man’s ignorance was the source of all evil and that enlightenment lead to knowledge that not only freed man from evil but caused him to do good whereas Zoroastrianism held that two opposed principles have been in conflict from the first.  In Zoroastrianism, Mankind belongs to one or the other powers based on their moral behavior and will inherit after death either eternal bliss or eternal darkness.  The Dictionary of New Testament Theology points out that, “Zoroastrian dualism found its way into Qumran and there are strong reminiscences of it in the Dead Sea Scrolls.”3

I found that last quote especially interesting because, as I’ve conducted this study, I have seen how the beliefs held by other religions have bled into Christianity over the centuries and are still being preached as the truth today in many pulpits.  One such is the idea that Satan’s dominion is Hell and that he’ll both hold and torment a vast majority of humanity in Hell for all eternity.  When I look at the different world religions, I find this belief of an underworld ruled by a god or goddess.  In the Sumerian religion the underworld was ruled by sinister powers named Ereshkigal and Nergal.  The Canaanite religion had Mot-Death or Sterility-who reigned in the underworld.  It’s difficult to separate the Greek and Roman pantheon but in these religions the underworld was ruled by Hades/Pluto and Dis/Orcus, respectively.  Egypt’s underworld was ultimately ruled by Osiris though it was Anubis and Maat who weighed the hearts of the dead.

The underworld wasn’t always a place of torment in all of these religions.  The Greek and Roman religions spoke of the underworld having different levels and thus different experiences in the after-life depending on the level to which one attained.  In Greek religion the underworld was comprised of Tartarus, the Asphodel Meadows, and Elysium.4 The Roman underworld was similar to the Greek in that it was comprised of the Fields of Mourning, Tartarus, and the Land of Joy.5  The Egyptians saw their afterlife as a continuation of their existence on earth in every respect, preserving social status, possessions, etc.6  What all of these belief systems have in common is that just where and how one ended up experiencing the afterlife depended on whether one had lived a good or bad life.  Your place in the underworld was earned by how you lived and in some belief systems, how you died.

While our current idea of Hell does contain snippets of each of these religions, it is also drawn from Hel, the underworld in the Norse religion.  Even our words are the same.  The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology points this out saying, “it was Hel and her ghastly home which were adopted by the Christians as the name for their realm of eternal damnation.”7 Hel the place was ruled by Hel the goddess and was a place reserved for those not fortunate enough to have died in battle and thus earned a spot in Valhalla with Odin.  Again, one’s place in the afterlife was earned.

Dualism.  Opposing powers.  Earning one’s place in the after-life.  There are few Christian denominations who will say they believe these things and yet the belief is made clear in their words and in their actions.  I heard it said that there is nothing more to do-Jesus did it all-but you must believe.  You must prove your faith is alive by your works.  You must learn to fight the devil and kick him out of your life.  You are the one who keep God’s commands because you love Jesus.  The onus is on you and if you don’t choose/believe/have enough faith…Satan and his minions are waiting to parcel out your just deserts once you die and end up in Hell.

This is not Biblical.  Satan does not rule anything now and, even before Jesus stripped him of all power and authority, Satan never ruled the underworld.  The closest the Bible comes to expressing an idea of a power ruling the realm of the dead is Hebrews 2:14 which says, “…that through death He (Jesus) might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil.”  Attributing an idea of the underworld as the realm of the dead to this scripture does feel like going too far.  What is mentioned here is death, not an afterlife.  Even so, Jesus Christ is the victor and whatever is meant by the “him who had the power of death” is no longer a valid concern because Jesus Himself is victorious over death. 

That Satan did have a form of rulership on earth is clear in the Bible.  He says as much to Jesus in the wilderness when he takes Jesus to a high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and says they are within his power to give if Jesus will merely fall down and worship him (See Matthew 4:8-9, Luke 4:5-6).  Again though, with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, all authority has been given to Him and the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ (Matthew 28:18, Revelation 11:15).  The Bible speaks of “the ruler of this world” (John 14:30) but is equally clear the ruler of this world is judged and will be cast out (John 12:31:33, 16:11).  The Bible also refers to “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:1-3) and “rulers of the darkness of this present age…spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12-13). I find it interesting to note the spiritual hosts are said to be in “heavenly places” rather than Hell.

Satan, whatever his origins and regardless of what power he used to wield on the earth and among mankind was never equal nor opposite to God.  There are two verses that are close to my study passage which make this clear.  The first is Isaiah 40:25: “To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One.  Isaiah 45:5 says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.”  I will agree the Bible speaks of Satan as a deceiver and certainly an enemy but he is utterly defeated.  The word hell as it was originally brought into the English language is hele and carries the meaning of, “To hide, keep secret; to cover, cover in; to keep silent.”8 The unseen realm as described by the Bible has only one Lord and that is Jesus Christ.  He declares it Himself to John the Beloved when He says, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.  I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.  Amen.  And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Revelation 1:17b-18).

I find that, within the mainstream Christian messages I listen to, there is too much focus on the responsibility of us believers and way too much time given to the powers of Satan.  There is a great deal of talk of “the finished work of the Cross” but very little faith put into just what Jesus accomplished there.  Hebrews 9:26 says, “…but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” The New English Bible has it as, “But as it is, he has appeared once and for all at the climax of history to abolish sin by the sacrifice of himself.”  The New American Standard has the word “consummation.”  I often have to sit and marvel at this.  The coming of Jesus wasn’t a blip in history where He came and died and rose and ascended but His real work will happen at the Second Coming.  His coming was a climax of history, a consummation of the ages, the introduction of the New Creation.  The stone has rolled into the Image and smashed it to smithereens.  It is now growing until it will become a mountain that fills the entire earth.  His Kingdom has come and continues to come in the hearts of humankind.

This Kingdom, the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  You do not have to wait until you die to get there.  You have, in fact, already died because we each one have been crucified with Christ and the truth is it is no longer us who live but He lives in us.  But how can He do that, since He’s returned to the Father?  Through His Spirit.  Everything Jesus has and did is ours via the Holy Spirit living in us.  He is the One who opens our eyes.  He is the One who gives us the faith of the Son of God.  He is the One who strengthens us.  We love Jesus because He first loved us and that love is lavished on us and in us via the Holy Spirit.  This entire Christian life is not one where we do our best to live well enough to attain a place in the afterlife but is one lived from the finished work of Christ made our living reality right this moment by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.

There is so much more to say on this subject and, if I don’t close now, I’ll just keep typing.  I’ll close with this: has your denomination terrorized you with all that awaits you in Hell if you don’t get your act together?  Come to the living Jesus Christ!  His perfect love casts out all fear.  You don’t have to try and clean yourself up before the Spirit will consent to live in you.  He does so and the cleaning up-for lack of a better phrase at this moment-is His job.  Patricia Nolan Savas writes, “This is My Day, and I would have you rejoice and be glad in it.  Remember-Do not let anyone or anything rob you of the joy I have given you; it is part of your crown, which says to the crumbling world systems and those in distress: “Behold!  Here is our God and He is Faithful and True!” I AM turning their hearts to Me through the purifying Fire of My Divine Love.  I shall make all things new.”9

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1. Savas, Patricia Nolan, Gleanings from Gussie, CSN Books, San Diego, California, 2009, Page 24
  2. Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967, 1971, Pages 562-563
  3. Ibid., Page 563
  4. The Underworld in Greek Mythology – Greek Legends and Myths
  5. The Underworld – Religion in Ancient Rome (google.com)
  6. Cotterell, Arthur & Rachel Storm, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology Encyclopedia, Anness Publishing Limited, London, England, 2005, Page 304
  7. Ibid., Page 200
  8. Shipley, Joseph T., Dictionary of Early English, Littlefield, Adams, and CO., Paterson, New Jersey, 1963, Page 327
  9. Savas, Patricia Nolan, Gleanings from Gussie, CSN Books, San Diego, California, 2009, Page 77

Other References

The Comprehensive Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today, Inc., Washington D.C., 1965

Gray, John, Near Eastern Mythology, The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited, Middlesex, England, 1969

Parrinder, Geoffrey, World Religions From Ancient History to the Present, Facts on File Publications, New York, New York, 1971, 1983

There Is No Substitute

20 Monday Feb 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing my study of Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things” (NKJV).

I have not fully plumbed the depths of the meaning of “calamity” in this passage which other translations have as “evil”.  I have no doubt I’ll be looking at the Hebrew ra and the Greek kakos and poneros again in other studies.  I am moving on in the study because I have answered one of my questions to my own satisfaction: when God says, “I create darkness…I create calamity” does that mean neither existed until He created it and thus He is the source of both? 

My study has shown me that answer is no.  The Hebrew word bara translated as “create” does not mean “to make something out of nothing” and, in some passages where the word is used, it cannot possibly mean that as those “creating” are doing so out of something that already exists.  There is no reason to apply the “make something out of nothing” meaning to this passage in Isaiah and I have found it borne out by many other passages in the Bible: God is not the source of darkness nor evil.  However, He is found inside the darkness that is mankind’s resulting state after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I also find calamity, badness, and circumstances “injurious to happiness” (which are all better definitions of ra then “evil”) are used by God to instruct and correct His people and to bring about His will.

Which does, I think, raise another question: is our God a trustworthy God?  Of course every Believer cries a resounding “yes!” but let’s pretend we don’t know God.  Our eyes have not been opened by the Holy Spirit to see Him as He really is.  Let’s pretend we do not know the Father in the face of Jesus.  Is the same Lord who says, “I, the Lord, do all these things,” One who can be trusted?  The second part of Isaiah 45:6 says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.”

I think that, to a one, every Christian would agree there is only one God.  And yet, I do not see that belief upheld by what I hear Christians saying and what I read in the books they are writing.  Christians really do believe in two Gods.  There’s the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but then there’s His opposite.  Perhaps that god only warrants a little ‘g’ but he is as omnipotent as God, and is in many ways more powerful than God.  God had a plan you see, and the little ‘g’ god came and messed it up in the Garden of Eden so badly big ‘G’ God is salvaging what He can.  Little ‘g’ rules the underworld and will have untold numbers of the people of God enslaved in his domain where he will torment them for all eternity.  Sound familiar?

This is not a post on the existence of hell or even the meanings of the words translated “hell” on the Old and New Testaments.  I am going to take a moment to point out a few matters of interest.  The word for “hell” in the Hebrew is sheol (H7585) and is translated as “hell” in various passages in the KJV.  It is translated an almost equal number of times as “grave” and then three times as “pit”.  There are three words in the Greek translated as “hell”: geenna (G1067) though most of us are more familiar with the words Gehenna or Hinnom or Ge-Hinnom, hades (G86), and tartaroo (G5020).  Hades is also translated once as “grave” in 1 Corinthians 15:55 (though two different Greek words are used for “grave” in other passages) and tartaroo only appears in 2 Peter 2:4. 

“Doesn’t matter”, I hear my Christian brethren say: the words all mean the same thing.  I put it to you they cannot possibly mean the same thing.  Open your concordance to the entry for “Hell” and look which Greek words are associated with “burning” or “fire”.  To a one, that Greek word is geenna.  Even James 3:6 has geenna rather than hades.  Then, take a look at Revelation 20:14: “Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.  This is the second death.”  It does not make sense that hell, which is a place already on fire according to the words of Jesus Himself, would be cast into the Lake of Fire.  Those same believers will insist hell is a place of separation from God forever with no hope of escape but then one has to consider these passages (quoted from the KVJ):

“For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell” Psalm 16:10

“…Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell” Psalm 86:13

“…if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou are there” Psalm 139:8

“The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath” Proverbs 15:24

Again, this is not a post arguing for or against the existence of hell.  What I am saying is how extremely important to heed the words of Paul: “Test everything.  Hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).  When I began questioning what I was being taught from the pulpit, looking up the passages that described the hell I was so afraid I’d go to if I ended up backsliding, I found much of what I was told was NOT AT ALL backed up by the Bible.  I recently read an article where the author quoted Gleanings from Gussie by Patricia “Gus” Nolan Savas where she writes, “whereas many Roman Catholics worship their religion, many Protestants worship the Bible” (Savas, xiii). I also recently heard the term “Bible Preach”.  As I am always looking for Christians to say something along the lines of “Holy Spirit lead, teach, comfort, interpret, and guide”, this did not set well with me.  And yet, since the majority of Christian denominations have sidelined the Holy Spirit and pay Him little more than lip service, “Bible Preach” is the best they’ve got.  Very well then, let your Bible Preach.

Ask questions.  Look these passages up for yourself.  See if what you are being taught is the truth.  Does the Bible really teach this destination theology, i.e. you’ll either go to heaven or hell when you die?  Or, does it teach us of the fruit-filled and fruit-bearing, overcoming, peace in the midst of tribulation life we have in Jesus Christ right this moment through His Spirit dwelling within us?  When you’ve done that, look up the passages that mention the Holy Spirit and see if what you’ve been told about His vanishing from the world the moment the Biblical canon was finalized can possibly be the truth.  When you’ve done that, ask Him to open your eyes to the truth that only He can tell you.  Ask Him to guide you into all Truth, the truth that is Jesus Christ alone. 

Test everything.  Hold fast what is good.  The Greek word for “good” in this passage is kalos (G2570).  The Strong’s concordance defines it as “beautiful, good, valuable, virtuous, worthy”.  The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament goes a bit deeper.  While its definition for kalos does contain “beautiful-being attractive in outer appearance” it also defines kalos as “pertaining to being in accordance at a high level with the purpose of something or someone” and “morally good, pleasing to God, contributing to salvation.” I also hear the accusation made that those who are questioning and refuting are choosing only those scriptures that they like or make them feel good.  I don’t doubt some are but I do not allow accusations and mockery to stop me from working out my own salvation with fear and trembling (which is not describing terror of God!).   

Knowing our God, living in vital union relationship with Him is a matter of life and death and that not reserved until after our body dies but life and death right this moment.  Just because someone tells you who God is or writes a book or has a vision, does not mean what they are saying, speaking, or seeing is the truth.  Test everything.  Hold fast what is good. If the underworld we’ve been taught to believe in is not upheld by the Bible, there needs to be a thorough look at the idea of a little ‘g’ god of evil.  Which I intend to do next week.

References

Danker, Frederick William, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinios, 1957,2000, Page 504-505

Savas, Patricia Nolan, Gleanings from Gussie, CSN Books, San Diego, California, 2009

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Walker, G. Allen, Koine Greek Textbook, Volume IV-V, 2014-2017

Saved to the Uttermost

06 Monday Feb 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Image by Holger Grybsch from Pixabay

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

As I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7, and specifically my study of the word “evil”, I wonder about the role of Satan in the existence of evil.  There are a couple of scripture passages I’ve shared before that are worth taking another look at.  The first is in Galatians 5 verses 19-21 where the Apostle Paul writes, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like…”  The second is Jeremiah 17:9 which says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?”  My study has made it clear to me that it is mankind and not God who is the source for those things I think of when I hear the word “evil”.

And, I say again, that “evil” isn’t the best translation for the Hebrew word ra.  Bad and calamity are better choices although my personal favorite drawn from the Strong’s concordance is “injurious to happiness”.  It is also important to remember that the Hebrew word bara, often translated as “create”, does not necessarily mean “to make something from nothing.”  My study of both the word and its usage throughout the Old Testament has caused me to settle on a definition of “to cause something new to come into being and grow towards an intended purpose”.  I can see God doing exactly this throughout the Old Testament as He deals with Israel. 

It is interesting to note that when God does bring calamity upon His people, He isn’t the source of it as in He brings something entirely new into being in order to bring about said calamity.  Two examples are when He uses nations already in existence: the Northern Kingdom being taken captive by Assyria (See 2 Kings 17) and Judah being conquered by Babylon (See 2 Kings 254 & 25).  This is fascinating to me because there is no record of Assyria being aware they were a tool used by God.  No doubt they were certain their god had triumphed over the God of Israel.  The Book of Daniel does record the fact that the Kings of Babylon were aware the God of Israel was a living God but they never did come to serve only Him.  Something else interesting to note is that fact that, while God did use these nations to bring about calamity on Israel, He also kept the promise He made to destroy them.  There is nothing but ruins to bear testament to the fact the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon ever existed.  Truly, “the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations” (Psalm 22:28) and that the God of Israel “makes the nations great and destroys them; He enlarges nations, and guides them” (Job 12:23).

It is clear to me those things we call “evil” are sourced in the flesh.  Our God is certainly a God who knows good and evil (See Genesis 3:22), is a present God (at hand!) and will use whatever or whoever is at hand to bring about His purpose in the microcosm of our lives and the macrocosm of the world around us.  What about Satan?  Isn’t “the devil made me do it” a viable excuse for some of the things we human beings do?  I cannot see that it is.  There are too many scriptures to list here but I encourage all of you to look up how many times the words “repay according to your deeds”, “reward according to works” or some variation of the same appears in scripture.  We human beings reap what we sow.

And yet-the Book of Revelation calls that serpent of old a great dragon “who deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  Ephesians 6:12 speaks of principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. 1 Peter 5:8 says we have an adversary who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”  The Bible makes it clear we have an enemy whose wiles ought to be respected-because he’s been deceiving a long time-but I can see nothing in scripture that tells me this enemy ought to be feared in any way. 

Consider Luke 10:19 where Jesus says, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”  Consider also Romans 16:20: “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”  Jesus has defeated every foe, including and I should say especially Satan, and His living in me means His victory is mine.  Be afraid of a roaring lion?  What for?  Our savior is the Good Shepherd and He is the one who is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him (Hebrews 7:25).

There’s a brief passage in Amos 3:12 which never ceases to fascinate me when read in the light of Hebrews 7:25.  This passage is “…as a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear…”  There’s a footnote in the Archeological Study Bible which states, “a piece of the sheep was saved to prove to the owner that it had been eaten by a wild animal, not stolen by the shepherd” (Page 1450). 

Who is our God?  Is He the one who has come to seek and to save what is lost but will settle for two legs and a piece of an ear?  Is that the story of the One who is risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father?  Would all authority in heaven and earth have been given unto Him if He’d presented pieces of His sheep and said, “I’m sorry, Father, I tried”?  Of course not!  David describes himself as a shepherd who, when a lion or bear took a lamb from the flock, he went after it and struck it, delivering the lamb from its mouth (1 Samuel 17:34-35).  We have an even greater Shepherd who returns with His lamb and says “rejoice with me for I have found my sheep which was lost!” (Luke 15:6)  He need not settle for pieces of his sheep because He is able to save to the uttermost.

I was going to call this post “Ain’t No Bite Marks on Me” because that is the truth.  I have been rescued and my wounds have been treated with oil.  My Rescuer is, was, and shall be speaking to me and I have learned to know and love the sound of His voice and another I will not follow.  My Shepherd has told me I am more than a sheep.  I am a Called-Out One.  I no longer walk in darkness but in His marvelous light.  I am a member of His body.  I am a member of His church, cleansed and sanctified by the washing of water by the word.  He presents me to Himself glorious, without spot or wrinkle.  Or bite marks.

This is my identity.  This is your identity.  We do not need to fear anything: not any evil human beings might do and not any stratagem of an already defeated enemy.  We live within the beating heart of the God who is Love.  There is no fear in His love because His love is perfect and casts out all fear.  We may find ourselves walking through the valley of the shadow of death but we need fear no evil for our God is not only with us but IN us.  We are in Christ therefore we are new creations.  The old things have passed away and Behold!, all things have become new.  We have been saved to the uttermost!

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

NIV Archaeological Study Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2005, Page 1450

Safety in Numbers

30 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

I almost didn’t post this week.  Last week was fraught with difficulty and I wasn’t able to complete the studying I had laid out as thoroughly as I would have liked.  Perhaps I will have done by next week.  I was going to skip a week but then I came across a quote in a book by Don Keathley and, since it did relate to my current study of Isaiah 45:7, I am going to both share it and expand on it.

The quote is: “You are relieved of judging anything and anybody at any time as good or evil.  Be still and simply respond to the voice within.  Be as Jesus is only say what you hear the Father say and only do what He shows you He is doing.”1

There is such an incredible freedom in no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but eating from the Tree of Life that is Jesus Himself.  What liberty I have in the Spirit!  I no longer do what seems good in my own eyes nor do I determine what others do to me as good or evil.  I am learning to think in terms of “life and not-life”.  This doesn’t mean I live in some sort of imagined Holy Spirit ivory tower where, whenever evil things happen to me, I pretend they are NOT happening because “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.”2  All due respect to Robert Browning but I don’t know of anyone who can look around right now and say a statement like that has any truth to it.  Neither was this statement true closer to home.  All is NOT right in my world.  Last week was difficult both emotionally and spiritually.  I had to deal with difficult people and I am fairly certain those same people thought it difficult to deal with me.

Why?

One answer is, while I am no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, many others still are.  They are both determining for themselves what is good and evil and then judging my behavior according to those standards: I am not doing what they say is “good” therefore I am evil.  Perhaps you have experienced this yourself.  And, perhaps you are like me: a people pleaser.  I don’t want people to be mad at me and neither do I want people to dislike me.  But, when I began eating from the Tree of Life and fixing my eyes solely on Jesus, this new lifestyle meant that I truly did only those things I saw the Father doing.  There is a quote I’ve seen floating around and I do not know who to attribute it to.  The quote is “It might look like I’m doing nothing but on a cellular level I’m really quite busy.”  In order to only do those things I saw the Father doing, I had to know what the Father was doing.  In order to know what the Father was doing, I had to live as a sheep that knew only my Shepherd’s voice and, in order to do that, I needed the Holy Spirit to teach me how to know that Voice in the midst of countless others.

There is an interesting piece of scripture.  It’s one tiny sentence but there is limitless treasure to be mined from it.  It’s Exodus 33:11: “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.  And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.”  Isn’t that amazing?!  Here are two entirely different relationships two men had to the Lord.  The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend and that is wonderful.  Joshua however, did not depart from the tabernacle so he stayed immersed in the Lord’s presence.

I wonder how many times members of the camp grumbled against Joshua.  No doubt there was plenty to do and Moses was just one man.  And, there was no denying he was getting old and that lazy servant of his was young and able bodied but was he out helping Moses?  Noooo.  Joshua was not departing from the tabernacle and what could he possibly be doing in there that was more important than meeting the immediate needs of the camp?

It did not look like Joshua was doing very much from those outside, but on a spiritual level, both he and the Lord were very busy.  Joshua was being prepared for a unique position within the people of God and so are you and I my fellow believer.  It might not look like we’re doing very much, but on a Spiritual level, both we and the Lord are very busy.  I’ve written about it before but the Hebrew word for wait as in “wait on the Lord” (Ps. 27:14) or “they that wait upon the Lord” (Is. 40:31) is qavah (H6960) and means “to bind together”.  It might look like we are doing nothing, but this waiting on the Lord is anything but passive.

And yet, we have an adversary who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).  That Serpent of old is revealed as a dragon who “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  How can we be certain we are not being deceived?  I encourage you to take some time and check out how many times the words “in Christ” are used in the New Testament.  We can trust that our God WANTS us to know Him and isn’t looking to pull a fast one on us.  The apostle Peter quoting Isaiah writes, “’Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame’(Is. 28:16)” (1 Peter 2:6).  We have the absolute trustworthiness of our God revealed in Jesus.  Trust in Him and we will not be put to shame.  By no means!

But still, “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14) so how can we be really really sure the voice we are hearing is truly the voice of our Great Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ?  I am not going to share the process through which I have come to know the guidance of the Holy Spirit and discern the voice of Jesus Christ and the will of the Father.  Take any ten believers and you’ll find ten different workings of the Spirit.  There are a few things I think are universal experiences though and the first is follow your peace.  The peace of Jesus Christ rules in our hearts and we can’t go wrong following our peace.  That doesn’t mean the things we are given to do are easy or even always that pleasant but 100% of the time I’ve had a deep calm peace about doing them.

This is in contrast to the uncomfortable stressed out feeling that comes directly on the heels of being shown what to do by the Spirit.  I can tell you my experience has been that the tactics of the enemy have not changed since that first “Hath God said” the Serpent uttered to Eve.  Again, 100% of the time, the call to disobedience has boiled down to “Hath God said…?” Not always in those exact words but that I have found that same hiss of the Serpent under every argument against doing what I know I see the Father doing.  There are also the guilt words, as my mother calls them, of “should”, “ought”, and “must”.  Whenever someone comes at me using those three words, I cling ever tighter to the cornerstone that is Jesus and listen for His voice.

One last thing: strong emotion does not necessarily equate to a moving of the Holy Spirit.  I was privileged to have an experience with my family in the last few weeks.  We participated in a supposedly ‘spirit-filled’ situation and there was no denying we laughed and cried.  There was overwhelming emotion and, when the experience was over, we wanted to have it all over again.  However, in the following days, I began to realize that strong emotion was all it was.  There was no answering from the Holy Spirit deep within my spirit.  I kept that realization to myself until my mother mentioned she too thought the experience was all emotion.  Does that mean it’s bad and no one should have participated?  Of course not!  I believe Romans 8:28 is true and God works in all things for the good to those who love Him.  What I am saying is test everything and just because a group of people are insisting something is Spirit-filled doesn’t mean it is.

This might mean you feel like the only person seeing something different from the rest of the group.  There is a perceived safety in numbers: if they are seeing/saying/doing it, then it must mean I am safe if I also see/say/do it.  No.  There is such freedom in Jesus Christ and the fruit of the Spirit is a very real way of life.  The joy of the Lord is alive in us through the Holy Spirit and, while it is our strength, it should not be confused with happiness.  Hebrews 13:12-13 states, “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”

When the Spirit opens our eyes to the hope of our calling in Christ Jesus and the richness of His inheritance in us, there is no unseeing it.  We have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light and, once we taste the reality, there is no falling for the counterfeit.  It is painful to see what someone else does not see and to be written off as deceived or worse, evil.  It is sometimes lonely outside the camp because we don’t always see the others also outside the camp.

It is not possible to be alone here.  I have another quibble with the great Robert Browning.  Our God is only in His heaven in the sense that “He is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).  I came across an exhilarating passage while conducting my study on “evil” and it’s found in Jeremiah 23:23-24: “’Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

Our safety is not in what a great number of people believe is true, our safety is Jesus Himself.  He is at hand.  He is not up or over or afar off.  It is true that he is before us and around us and behind us and with us.  Best of all, He is IN us.  Do not be deceived away from this great truth: the being of God cannot be separated and so, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, so does the Lord Jesus Christ.  Because He is in the Father and the Father in Him, the Father is also in us.  We can know and do only what the Father is doing.  Oftentimes, what the Father is doing is not at all what others would have us do. Don’t worry if your holding fast to the cornerstone does require you coming outside the camp.  I’ll see you here.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1.  Keathley, Don, Hell’s Illusion: Exposing the Myth of Hell, 2022
  2. 718. Pippa’s Song. Robert Browning. The Oxford Book of English Verse (bartleby.com)