Category Archives: Studies

Together in the Field

17 Monday Apr 2023

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing to look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.

I do apologize to anyone who has come across this post as your first on Renaissance Woman.  I do try to make each post stand on its own while at the same time building on everything that has come before.  This post does not stand on its own.  I would recommend reading last week’s post, The Seed Sown, before this one or there are going to be references that will make little sense. 

There are two main schools of interpretation when it comes to this parable.  The first says the wheat and the tares are two different kinds of people within the church.  They sit side by side in the pews and are indistinguishable one from the other until Jesus returns and His angels send the tares to the fire and gather the wheat into the barn.  The second disagrees with the first only in the location of the wheat and the tares.  The field is not the church, they say, but the world.  The wheat and tares represent believers and unbelievers which occupy the same world until Jesus returns and His angels send the tares to the fire and gather the wheat into the barn.

I can look at both interpretations and see where they are coming from.  If the wheat and tares are indistinguishable one from the other then it would make sense that Jesus is describing the church.  After all, can’t the argument be made that the difference between believers and unbelievers is obvious?  And yet, Jesus Himself interprets this parable in Matthew 13:36-43 and clearly says “the field is the world” and “the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom but the tares are the sons of the wicked one” so that ought to prove the second interpretation is the correct one.

I have come across a third interpretation put forward by a woman named Dora Van Assen which suggests the parable is a description of what happened in the Garden of Eden.  God created all things, including Adam, and saw it was all very good.  As God fellowshipped with Adam in the garden, He was planting His good thoughts and spiritual understanding in Adam’s mind.  But then, the Serpent came slithering and whispering into the garden and planted evil thoughts and understanding.  Both types of thoughts occupied the same field i.e. the mind of Adam.

This interpretation is very different from anything I have ever heard preached within the confines of Churchdom and it does not appear to be supported by Jesus’ interpretation.  But then, did Jesus truly make this interpretation or was it inserted into the manuscripts at a later date?  I found this assertion made when I looked up the parable in the Abingdon Commentary.  The copy I have was published in 1929 and states that “all scholars reject the genuineness of the explanation in vv. 36-43…”  I mentioned last week my skepticism antennae quivered at “all scholars” because I cannot think of one subject where all scholars are in agreement. 

I went searching for this assertion of “all scholars rejecting” the interpretation given in those passages and could not find a reference.  That doesn’t mean that there are not scholars rejecting said passages just that it has been difficult for me to find them over the last week.  I am thus left with a single resource stating the interpretation given for this parable in verses 36-43 is not genuine and, since our Bible warns against accepting the testimony of a single witness, I am shelving this.  I’ll keep my eyes and ears open and may circle back to it but, for now, will proceed in the acceptance of Jesus’ interpretation.

If Dora Van Assen’s interpretation relied on Matthew 13:36-43 not being genuine, I would dismiss it out of hand.  It does not.  Her interpretation is shared in an article by J. Preston Eby (linked below) and neither make mention of these passages not being genuine.  Both, in fact, treat them as being absolutely genuine.

Dora Van Assen writes, “Some may object to this interpretation of the tares, because Jesus in His explanation of the parable used the words, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one’ (Mat. 13:38). That does sound as if they are two different kinds of people.  And indeed they are!  If we will just stop for a moment and think this through, we must admit that God is an invisible spirit, and Satan is likewise invisible spirit.  Neither of these produce flesh and blood children of their own!  The new creation is formed in a people who are ‘renewed in the spirit of their mind.’ So the term ‘children’ must be taken as a metaphor.  The Holy Spirit deals with men in their minds and thoughts, and Satan can only attack man in his mind, giving false ideas and imaginations.  These thought-pictures are often called ‘brain children.’ And these determine what manner of man a man is!”

I am (so far) inclined to accept Dora Van Assen’s interpretation.  She points out that the tares never become wheat and the wheat never become tares.  If the wheat and the tares do indeed represent two different kinds of people, there is no hope for the tares.  They are similar in appearance to wheat but cannot ever convert into wheat.  If the interpretations stating the wheat and the tares are the converted and the unconverted or believers and unbelievers, then does it not follow that evangelism is the greatest exercise in futility?  You can share the gospel with another person until you are blue in the face but, if they are indeed a tare, all your sharing is for nothing because they cannot and therefore will not ever respond. 

If though, Dora Van Assen’s interpretation is correct and the wheat and tares are symbolic of thoughts occupying the same field of a person’s heart and mind, then the good seed is there and you can share the gospel in the hope that your words are water falling on that good seed.  I find her interpretation to be far more hopeful than any other I have come across.  But then, it wouldn’t matter how much I liked and preferred it if she was the only source of such an interpretation.

She is not.  I found her same thoughts echoed in the Commentary on this parable found in Barclay’s Daily Study Bible where I read: “It may well be said that in its lessons this is one of the most practical parables Jesus ever told.  It teaches us that there is always a hostile power in the world, seeking and waiting to destroy the good seed.  Our experience is that both kinds of influence act on our lives, the influence which helps the seed of the word to flourish and to grow, and the influence which seeks to destroy the good seed before it can produce fruit at all.  The lesson is that we must be forever on our guard.”

Earlier in this post, I asked if the argument couldn’t be made that the difference between believers and unbelievers was obvious.  I want to include one more quote from the Barclay’s Daily Study Bible: “it (the parable) teaches us how hard it is to distinguish between those who are in the Kingdom and those who are not.  A man may appear to be good and may in fact be bad; and a man may appear to be bad and may yet be good.  We are much too quick to classify people and label them good or bad without knowing all the facts.”  This is something valuable to keep in mind.

I will continue looking at this parable next week but do want to add this as my closing thought: I find interpreting the parable of the wheat and the tares as thoughts resulting from spiritual influences has a direct correlation to the passage in Ephesians describing the armor of God.  We believers are to take the helmet of salvation.  A helmet’s purpose is to protect one’s head and I see a clear picture of the necessity to guard our minds from attack.  But then, that is a subject worth many more weeks’ focus and so I will sign off with this prayer:

May the peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that belongs entirely to Jesus which He has freely given to us, guard each of our hearts and minds every moment of every day.

Amen.

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

References

Matthew 13 – Barclay’s Daily Study Bible – Bible Commentaries – StudyLight.org

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

Tares (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

What Does Tares Mean? Bible Definition and References (biblestudytools.com)

Tares – WebBible Encyclopedia – ChristianAnswers.Net

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, The Abingdon Bible Commentary, Abingdon Press, Nashville •New York, 1929, Page 977

The Seed Sown

10 Monday Apr 2023

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Image by Petra from Pixabay

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am taking a look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares found in Matthew 13:24-30:

“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went on his way.  But when the grain had spouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.  So the servants of the owner came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?  How then does it have tares?”  He said to them, “An enemy has done this.”  The servants said to him, “Do you want us then to go and gather them up?”  But he said, “No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ‘ “

There are two major interpretations of this parable but, before I get to them, a brief lesson on tares.  The consensus is that this passage of scripture is referring to the darnel or Lolium temulentum.  It is a weed that grows among grain, especially wheat.  The grains resemble those of wheat and, since they are difficult to separate by sifting, are often sown with wheat and grow with it in the same field.  Since the darnel is poisonous, no one deliberately sows tares in a field but tares are difficult to distinguish from wheat as the two look similar until they come to full fruition.  Then it becomes easy to separate wheat from tares, to discard what isn’t fit for consumption, and to preserve the desired harvest. 

The sower in this parable made no such mistake.  The parable states he sowed “good seed”.  The poisonous seed was sown by an enemy but presence of the tares wasn’t discovered until the grain had sprouted and produced a crop.  I read that tares will often share the same root system as wheat and they are impossible to remove from a field without damaging the wheat.  It is best to let them both continue to grow together until the time of harvest so none of the wheat is lost. 

What does this parable mean?  There is an explanation given later on in the same chapter of Matthew.  In verse 36, Jesus’s disciples come to him and ask him to explain the parable of the tares of the field and he answers, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.  The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.  Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.”

Now onto the two interpretations of this parable.  The first says this parable speaks of believers and unbelievers within the church, sitting side by side in the seats with each other, indistinguishable from each other until Jesus returns and His angels separate the tares from the wheat.  The second interpretation disagrees with the first and says no, the field is clearly the world as stated by Jesus Himself in Matthew 13:38, therefore; this parable is speaking of the righteous and unrighteous living together in the world until the end of the age when Jesus returns and His angels separate the tares from the wheat.

There is a third interpretation of this parable which was new to me when I first read it so I feel safe in assuming none of you have heard it either.  It is found in J. Preston Eby’s Candlestick to the Throne study series # 173 entitled The Firstfruits, The Harvest, and the Vintage.  In this study, Mr. Eby quotes a woman named Dora Van Assen who wrote not only on the tares and the wheat but the wheat and the chaff.  I couldn’t remember exactly what was said so I got the teaching out and refreshed my memory.

One of the first lines that caught my eye was, “The wheat and the tares did not convert one another!  Wheat was wheat, the tares were tares, both growing up together just like the wheat and the chaff, until the time of harvest.”  This caught my attention because, in an article on Tares, which I found on the Jewish Virtual Library site and is also linked below, I had read the same thing.  Despite the similarities in the grains and immature stalks, wheat does not ever become a tare and a tare does not ever become wheat.  I read on.

“…I saw this was not a parable on soul-saving, nor was it an exhortation to scare the heathen or sinning Christians in the church into a conversion, but it was a parable dealing with the inner thought life of the believer himself.  In the context around the parable we find that Jesus was uttering, ‘things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world’ (Mat. 13:35).  In other words, by this parable, He was explaining in parabolic form something which had taken place from the beginning! I believe He was referring to what had happened in the Garden of Eden when sin entered into the plan of God.  There we find God fellowshipping with Adam in the cool of the day.  Certainly God was not standing there in bodily form any more than He comes in bodily form when we commune with Him and hear His voice.  By the Spirit God was planting His good thoughts and spiritual understanding in the mind of Adam.  But, while Adam was not aware of it, the adversary also came into the garden and whispered and planted evil thoughts and carnal understanding, causing a duality within, which led him to fall into a carnal mind.  This dual mind of both good and evil was a split personality within man, each capable of bringing forth a harvest of a certain kind of man (Romans 8:6).  The battlefield is in the mind!”

I found this interpretation absolutely fascinating and, the more I looked at the other parables, it isn’t as farfetched as it might at first seem.  There’s another Parable of Sowing at the beginning of Matthew Chapter 13 where the seed fell by the wayside and were devoured by birds, some fell on stony places and had no root so withered away, some fell among thorns and were choked, and some fell on good ground.  I don’t know of any interpretation that doesn’t acknowledge the “ground” mentioned here is a picture of the human heart.  I can thus consider the idea that the “field” mentioned in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares is the human mind (and heart-the Hebrew people did not separate the two “as a man thinks in his heart” [Proverbs 23:7]).

But, doesn’t Matthew 13:38 clearly say the field is the world and both the good and bad seeds are children?  Yes, it does but I just read something interesting about this passage.  The Abingdon Bible Commentary states, “All scholars reject the genuineness of the explanation in vv. 36-43 on the ground of its stilted style, and because the interpretations of successive details are mechanical; moreover, the presence of popular and conventional apocalyptic expressions, and the title Son of man, used of the earthly life of Jesus in v. 37 and then of his Messianic glory in v. 41 stamp it as secondary in character” (Abingdon, p. 977).

The moment I read “all scholars” I was skeptical.  There wasn’t one scholar publishing around 1929 who attested to the validity of this passage?  ALL scholars reject their genuineness?  Even so, I couldn’t help rereading the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares thinking, “what if the explanation isn’t correct?”  As I did so, I realized Dora Van Assen’s interpretation made sense.  Still, I cannot accept any interpretation that relies on other parts of scripture being declared invalid.  Does Dora Van Assen’s interpretation of this parable rely in discarding Matthew 13 verses 36-43?  It does not!  Which I will demonstrate in next week’s post.

Until next week, I pray for each of us-including myself-that the Holy Spirit continues to open the eyes of our hearts and grant us the gift of discernment as we face each new day.

Amen.

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

References

Tares (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

What Does Tares Mean? Bible Definition and References (biblestudytools.com)

Tares – WebBible Encyclopedia – ChristianAnswers.Net

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, The Abingdon Bible Commentary, Abingdon Press, Nashville •New York, 1929

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

Requiescat in Pace

06 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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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