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Adding Knowledge, Increasing Understanding

21 Monday Nov 2022

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Hello!  Welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where this week I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7 and specifically look at evil.

If you have read last week’s post, you might be wondering why write anything more on evil if I believe what I wrote is true: that we who belong to Jesus live from His life rather than live our lives determining for ourselves what is good or evil.  I do believe it but I also believe in Jesus’ warning: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.  Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).

It is important to me to understand exactly what the Holy Spirit meant to convey as He inspired the prophets to speak and the scribes to record.  The world system uses words as it sees fit and rarely do these meanings line up with what was intended in the scriptures.  I hear the word “evil” used to describe a person who simply disagrees with the mindset of another.  I don’t think that’s what is meant by “evil” in the Bible but I don’t know for certain.  Any dissent I may attempt will quickly fail as I have no foundational understanding to strengthen me.  And so, I continue my study.

One thing I noticed while studying “create” and bara was, bara is the only Hebrew word translated “create”.  While bara is translated with other words in other passages (to fatten, to cut down), any time you read the word “create” in the King James Version of the Bible, the corresponding Hebrew word is bara.  There will be prefixes and suffixes attached but the root is always bara.  I don’t know that I’ve gleaned any significant meaning from that but I do mention it as a matter of interest because this is rarely the case.  When I look up a word in the Strong’s concordance, I find that one English word has been used to translate several Hebrew (and Greek) words and thus variations in meaning are missing from our translations.  One such word I’ve already looked at is “darkness” and you can take a look at those previous studies if you like.

Going back to previous studies is not necessary though because “evil” in English has been used to translate several Hebrew and Greek words.  In Hebrew they are: ra, ra’a, ra’ah, roa, dibbah, beliya’al, and aven.  In Greek they are: poneros, kakos (spelled with an omicron), kakopoieo, kakia, kakologeo, kakoo, kakos (spelled with an omega), kakourgos, katalalia, katalaleo, phaulos, adikema, blasphemeo, blasphemia, and dusphemia. 

It is obvious that some of these occurrences are variations of a word rather than a different meaning: both the verb and the noun, for example.  Some of these words have only been translated “evil” in one passage so, as I continue in this study, I won’t focus on them.  These words in the Hebrew are dibbah, ra’ah, beliya’al, and aven.  Dibbah appears in Numbers 13:32 and is translated “evil report”.  The word dibbah means “slander, defaming.”  Beliya’al appears in Psalms 41:8 where it is translated “evil disease.”  The word itself means “without profit, worthlessness, destruction, wickedness.”  Aven appears in Proverbs 12:21 where it is translated “evil” as in misfortune.  The word aven means “trouble, vanity, wickedness, to come to naught”.  Ra’ah appears in Job 24:21 but, since it belongs to the same family as the word in my study passage, which is ra, I may be looking at ra’ah as well.

The Greek word adikema is translated “evil” as in “evil doing” in Acts 24:20 and that is the only time the King James Version used it so.  It might be interesting to see how its meaning contrasts with kakopoieo which means “to be a bad-doer” but I probably won’t be considering it in too much depth.  The same with dusphemia which occurs in 2 Corinthians 6:8 where it is translated “evil” as in “evil report”. 

My point of this study is not for you or me to memorize a bunch of Hebrew and Greek words so we can insert ourselves into situations and point out how much we know.  Neither is it for us to arm ourselves with an extensive vocabulary we then use to bludgeon others into silence.  My point is the importance of words.  Those who wrote both the Old and New Testaments certainly were specific in the words they chose to convey what they wanted to say.  Our English translations were less so.  Two different words are translated as “speak evil” in the New Testament: kakalogeo and katalaleo.  They don’t mean exactly the same things. Kakalogeo means “to revile, curse, speak ill of” and katalaleo means “to be a traducer, slander”.  Traduce means to “speak badly of or tell lies about someone so as to damage their reputation.” 

James speaks of the tongue as being “an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” in Chapter 3 verse 8 of his epistle.  The word for “evil” here is kakos spelled with an omicron.  Proverbs 18:21 says, “death and life are in the power of the tongue” but if I were to try and make the point that we speak out of the fullness of our hearts and attempted to use Luke 6:45 to do so, the Greek words translated evil in this passage are not kakos nor are they in any way part of the same family as kakos.  The words here in the Greek are poneros.  So, my point might be valid and I might be able to substantiate it using the English translation, but the Greek words mean different things and my point would not end up being accurate.

I think accuracy is important but it is not more important than our relationship to the Holy Spirit.  Through His indwelling us, we have the very person of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit guides us into the truth that Jesus Himself is our all: our life, our wisdom, our peace, our words, our salvation.  And yet, Paul gave this admonition to Timothy: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).  Peter writes in his epistle, we have been given exceedingly great and precious promises and that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature.  He then writes, “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Peter’s list isn’t possible without the Holy Spirit and that includes knowledge.  We can study all we like but, without the Holy Spirit revealing the truth of what we study to us, our study gives us head knowledge only and there is no life to it.  And yet, study is important.  At the beginning of this post I quoted, “be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”  Some translations have “innocent” and others have “gentle” in place of harmless.  The Greek word is akeraios (G185) and the first meaning given in the Strong’s is “unmixed”.  I like that: I want an unmixed mind.  I want to know what these words meant by the ones who wrote them.  I do not want the world system giving me definitions because then, it will begin to interpret scripture for me and that path ends in death.  And so, in the upcoming weeks, I will look at the different words translated “evil” and their meanings.  I will look at the passages in which these words occur and see if my understanding of them changes.  My ultimate desire is that, through this study, the Holy Spirit will open my eyes and I will know the Truth.  Jesus Christ is the ultimate Truth and my prayer to the Holy Spirit is “increase my understanding that I might know Jesus in a deeper and more intimate way.”

May the Holy Spirit open our eyes that we may know Him!

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

References

The Comparative Study Bible,  Zondervan Bible Publishers, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

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

No Longer Wretched

14 Monday Nov 2022

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Image by Daniel Reche from Pixabay

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7 by looking at “evil”.

There is no denying that usage ends up defining a word.  There are words that mean the opposite today of what they meant decades ago.  One example is “let”.  Let was once used to mean lacking or obstruction or hindrance.  Nowadays it is used to mean to allow, to give an opportunity, to free from confinement.  Understanding literature from bygone eras can be difficult unless the reader understands the words used to carry much different connotations than they do today.

If I go to the world for a definition of evil, which is something quite easy to do in this day and age thanks to social media, I find two definitions.  “Evil” is used to describe acts that most would consider are obviously evil-war crimes, humanitarian atrocities, etc.  The second way the word is used is extremely superficial.  Person A is labeled “evil” by Person B because Person A disagrees with Person B.  Or Person A is labeled “evil” because Person A looks and/or sounds different from Person B.  This is not anything new, though it may seem to be more pervasive due to the immediacy of social media, but I have found this to be so in the histories of every era I have read.  This labelling another “evil” because he or she disagrees with what another says is good goes back to our first parents in the Garden of Eden. 

It is important to remember that the tree Adam and Eve ate from was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I have come across several arguments that speak of it as the “Tree of Knowledge” full stop.  The argument is then made FOR the Serpent because God didn’t want us to use our intellects and the good serpent brought us knowledge.  This argument has no legs to stand on because the Tree was not the Tree of Knowledge (full stop) but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I am going to take a small foray into the Book of Genesis and consider Adam.  The argument that God is a selfish God who wanted to keep us stupid does-in my opinion-utterly collapse when I consider Adam as described in the second chapter of Genesis.  God plants the garden and then puts Adam in it to tend and keep it.  The Hebrew word translated “tend” in the NKJV is one that means “take hold of, bear up, sustain”1 and the word translated “keep” is one that means “to guard, protect, take heed, preserve.”2 Then, God brings every beast of the field and bird of the air to Adam to see what he would call them.  In this single chapter, I see Agriculture, Government, The Art of Defense, Biology, and Zoology.  I can see nothing that would lead me to believe God had no expectation of Adam using his intellect.

 I am also not one who subscribes to the belief that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a magic tree with the power to bestow said knowledge.  I have read many studies which refer to the story of the Garden of Eden as an allegory and these studies have made solid and valid points.  And then, I read in one of my science books that: “In 2016…scientists identified a mutation in a stretch of snake DNA called ZRS.  This one small change was enough to rid the animals of their limbs and confine them to a future of slithering on their bellies” (Pilcher, 117).  Whether you are one who believes Moses wrote Genesis or one who believes the Old Testament was finally written down during the Babylonian Captivity, I think it interesting that the one who wrote “On your belly you shall go” knew something thousands of years ago scientists only recently proved in DNA.  So, perhaps Genesis is a bit more than allegorical…

Allegory or fact, I find something interesting and worthwhile in both points of view and neither agree nor disagree with either.  The point of view I do agree with is that all the Trees in the garden are best looked at as sacraments.  God places decrees on the Trees thus bestowing upon them a sacred character and significance.  He has caused all manner of them to grow and be both pleasant to look at and good for food.  Of these, the Man and (later) Woman can freely eat.  It appears both could have freely eaten of the Tree of Life as well.  It is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil alone which God decrees “you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).  I have a two volume Exposition of Genesis where I read:

“As in the sacraments by virtue of the divine Word the visible means become vehicles of divine grace, so here by virtue of the divine word, which designates the one tree as “the tree of life,” “life” can in reality be imparted by its use when and under whatever circumstances God decrees.  In like manner, the second tree, as its name implies, becomes an agency through which under certain circumstances, divinely appointed, man may come to an experimental knowledge of good and evil.  He may through the presence of the tree be confronted with a choice, he may exercise his freedom to do God’s will in the choice, or he may refuse to make use of his freedom. Had man persisted in his freedom, the experience as such would have wrought in him a knowledge of good and evil analogous to that of God, in this sense that, without having consented to evil, an awareness of its existence and its implications would have been aroused in him.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil would have effectively done its work…So the trees are rightly regarded as sacramental in a sense” (Leupold, 121)

What could have been?  What would our world look like now if a different choice had been made then?  I can’t help asking the question but it is a waste of time to dwell on it.  A different choice was not made and the entire human race now has a day to day experience of good and evil.  What is good and what is evil really doesn’t have a clear definition because something is described as good or evil depending on how it is perceived by the five senses.  What is determined good by one person is evil to another and so it goes moment by moment, day by day, as the world turns round and round.

What can we do?  Even we believers have a problem because we intend to do good and by good we mean do what God declares good but our good is either called evil by someone else or we find we don’t have the wherewithal to do good.  Like the Apostle Paul, we “find then a law, that evil is present with me the one who wills to do good.  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from the body of death?” (Romans 7:21-24)

This is not a question without an answer.  Paul goes on to say “I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We can all give thanks for the day that we live in because Jesus Christ came to earth, lived as one of us, died our death, rose from the dead, ascended to the Father, and carried us with Him!  We are raised up with Him and, because we are in Him, we are seated in heavenly places! (Ephesians 2:5-6).  We who know who we are in Jesus Christ are no longer trapped in the cycle of misery, deciding for ourselves what is good or evil, and seeing our intended good fail.  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil no longer has any power over us for we are the Bride of Christ.  We have come to that Holy City, the New Jerusalem and there we find once more the Tree of Life (Revelation 21 & 22). 

In Jesus Christ, we are restored to what human beings were always meant to be.  This truth is being formed in us bit by bit, day by day, but the fact that we are still in process doesn’t change what IS.  We have the down payment of our inheritance in the Holy Spirit living within us.  Because His Spirit lives in us, we have the very mind of Jesus Christ.  It is this mind within us that renews and thus transforms our minds. (See Ephesians 1:14-16, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18). We no longer live deciding what is good and evil but we live by His LIFE.

His promise is certain.  The day will come when all things are restored and our very bodies will be made like His.  We do not know exactly what we will be but we know we will be like Him!  How I pray for the hastening of that day!

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

  1. Strong’s, H5564
  2. Strong’s, H8104

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The Moses Controversy

References

Let Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Sacrament Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

Leupold, H.C., D.D., Exposition of Genesis, Volume I, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1942

Pilcher, Dr. Helen, Mind Maps: Biology How to Navigate the Living World, Unipress, Ltd, 2020

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

Our Increasing Inheritance

31 Monday Oct 2022

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

This week I continue looking at the Hebrew word bara and, as I have conducted this study on Isaiah 45:7, I found I haven’t been able to look at bara without also looking at bereshiyt.  I’ve felt I could spend the rest of my life just looking at Bereshiyt bara, the first two words of the book of Genesis or the Torah.  The deeper I look the more I find I am in fathomless depths.  There is so much more to be seen and learned and I may never find a bottom.

Which is fine by me.  Being taught of the Holy Spirit is a never ending adventure of discovery.  As my God is infinite and I am finite, I can delight in knowing there will always be something new to discover about Him.  I will grow into Him, come to know Him more and more, and our relationship will continue to grow and evolve.  I find it interesting that the English word “create”, which is almost always used to translate bara in scripture, comes from the base kre which means “to grow”.  We Believers speak of “growing in the Lord” but I don’t think I’ve ever thought of that in terms of create/creating.  This is a truth I do not hear spoken of in Christian circles near enough: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you”.  That’s Romans 8:11 and I do think it’s worth some time to ponder that: the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead lives IN us.  The Spirit we see hovering over the face of the waters in Genesis 1:1, the Spirit who is sent forth creating (Psalm 104:30) dwells inside of us. 

It doesn’t seem possible, does it?  It seems too good to be true and yet this is what scripture tells me is true so all I can do is ask that same Spirit to open my eyes to see it, believe it, and then strengthen me to live it.  The same Word who brought all things into being lives in me-and each one of you-through His Spirit.  How can we help but grow!

I do have to admit I always believed that, while there couldn’t help but be growth as long as I lived here on earth in this body, one day I’d go to heaven and then I’d know everything.  There’d be no more growth: just singing and dancing on golden streets in the presence of Jesus for all eternity.  I used to sing those very words during worship services and yet there’s a passage in Isaiah that always use to frighten me because it seems to say something different.  It’s found in Isaiah 9:7 and echoed in Luke 1:33: “Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end.  Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice, from that time forward, even forever.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” 

No end?  The very idea used to terrify me.  If there was no end to the increase of His government and peace, what about me?  My early-church days had instilled in me the certainty that once I got to heaven that was it.  I would have-both literally and metaphorically-arrived.  This passage appeared to be telling me that wasn’t true.  If there was really no end to His increase, that meant I had no idea what “going to heaven” meant nor what to expect when I got there.  This passage deserves a dedicated study but, as I sought out a definition for bara, found there were some who thought it ought to be translated as “to fatten” or “to fill”, and then learned “create” contained the idea of growth, I couldn’t get this passage out of my mind.  What correlation could there be between bara-as it is translated “create”-and never ending increase?

When it comes to the dictionary definition of “create”, at first glance there doesn’t seem to be any.  The Webster’s dictionary goes on to define “create” as: “to cause to come into existence, bring into being, make, originate, to make or design (something requiring art, skill, invention, etc.), to bring about, give rise to.”  However, there is a further definition of “create” in the Webster’s dictionary that caught my attention.  It is, “to invest with a new rank, function, etc.”  This fascinates me because the Hebrew word for “increase” in Isaiah 9:7 is marbiyth (H4768) and it means “multitude, offspring”.  

I quoted Romans 8:11 before.  It is crucial that each one of us know the Holy Spirit lives within us because it is the Holy Spirit Himself who bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16).  Because the Holy Spirit lives within us, we know we are born from above (or born again).  John 3:3 says, “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’”.  What is the kingdom of God?  It is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). 

The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come and He answered them: “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For, indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).  Some translations say “in your midst” but the Greek word used is entos (G1787) and it means “inside, within”. 

If we don’t believe what these scriptures are saying is true, if-as some denominations say-the action of the Holy Spirit stopped with the death of the last apostle; what is a Christian life?  Being a moral person?  Adhering to a list of do’s and don’t’s?  There certainly is no life.  Without the Spirit of God within us, there is no heart of flesh given us in place of the heart of stone, His law is not written in our hearts, and there is no enablement to walk in His statutes and do them (Ezekiel 36:26-27). If the kingdom of God is not righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and we do not know we have that kingdom inside of us now through the witness of the Spirit within us, if everything is indeed reserved until after we die and go to heaven; why do we pray the Lord’s Prayer?  Why say “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth…” if we have zero expectation of His kingdom actually coming and His will actually being done on earth?  I cannot believe when we pray that we pray for a future kingdom because the rest of the prayer is for now.  We ask for our daily bread and we pray to forgive others as we too are forgiven.  If that portion of the prayer is not reserved for some far off future, I cannot think praying for His kingdom to come and His will to be done would be.

While I do believe we have the kingdom within us, I also believe what the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians: “In Him (Jesus Christ) you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory.”  While I believe what the Bible says is true, that the kingdom of God IS righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, I also believe what we experience is merely a down payment on our inheritance, as this passage is rendered in the Common English Bible.  There is coming a time of greater things, what this passage calls the redemption of the purchased possession.  But, we do have the down payment and what a down payment it is!

Every time the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of someone’s heart to see who they are in Christ, who Christ is in them, and the peace of Christ rules in their hearts, they begin to see the kingdom.  I also think it’s fascinating that the admonition is to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15) because it is peace that is juxtaposed to evil in Isaiah 45:7:  “I make peace and create calamity (or evil)”. His government and peace increases.

We are the dwelling place of God.  His peace which is part of the fruit of His Spirit rules in our hearts even in the midst of calamitous or evil circumstances.  Moment by moment, day by day, “from glory to glory”, His life is formed in us.  His Spirit is sent forth and we are created.  I am no longer frightened but rather I delight that “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.”

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!

Amen.

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

References

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volume 4, Authors for Christ Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1976, 1984

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, Williams Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1970, 1976

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

His Attributes Are Clearly Seen

10 Monday Oct 2022

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Photo by Walter Strong

Hello and welcome to another post on Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue to look at the Hebrew letters comprising the word bara which is most often translated “create” in the Old Testament.

I admit I didn’t get far in the study process.  As Aleph is the first Hebrew letter and Bet is the second, it was easier to turn the pages of Mr. Haralick’s back and look at Aleph then to flip through to Resh which is the twentieth letter.  Thus I am not looking at the letters of bara in the order in which they appear.  As I was reading through Mr. Haralick’s entry on Aleph, I was struck by something he said regarding Elohim, the first name of God revealed in scripture.  Elohim is spelled Aleph Lamed Hey Yod Mem אלהים and, looking at the letters in reverse order gives us another name of God Yah יה and the root word male מלא (pronounced mall-ay) which means “to fill” or “to be full.  Male also means multitude, fullness or filling matter so Elohim can be understood as that aspect of Yah, God, that fills matter. (Haralick, 23)

I have already shared how energy fascinates me and I follow the studies on energy being conducted in Physics and Quantum Physics.  Studies are showing that it is energy that was converted to the smallest particles which are the building blocks of atoms and thus of all that exists.  I found this quote in Mr. Haralick’s introduction: “…’In the beginning, God created heaven and earth,’ should be rendered; ‘When God began to create heaven and earth’.  For the world is continually being created-every day, every hour, even this very instant the world is being sustained by the same primordial creative force with which it came into existence, the force of berishit (בְּרֵאשִׁית), ‘In the beginning.’  If this creative force would depart for even a split second, the world would return to nothingness.” (Haralick, xiii)  This quote made me think of Hebrews 1:3 which states Jesus Christ “upholds all things by the word of His power”. 

During this study of bara, I have been meditating not only on the Word creating in Genesis 1 but how that Word was energized by the Holy Spirit to bring into being all that exists.  I was curious how energy was associated with the Holy Spirit in scripture and so looked it up in my Strong’s Concordance. I didn’t find it.  I was so flabbergasted I thought for a moment I’d forgotten how to spell energy and was looking in the wrong place.  I had not and was not and had to accept neither Greek nor Hebrew had been translated as “energy”.  This both did and did not make sense.  I’m sure that energy wasn’t a widely studied concept in 1611 (Publication of the King James Bible) and yet I am surprised more modern translations haven’t used the word energy as it’s there in the Greek.

The Greek word is energia (G1753) and means “energy”.  Consider Ephesians 1:19: “and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working (energia) of His mighty power” or Ephesians 3:7 “of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working (energia) of His power”.  Energia also appears in Ephesians 4:16, Philippians 3:21, Colossians 1:29, Colossians 2:12, 2 Thessalonians 2:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:11. 

Why not translate energia by the closest related English word, energy?  It might be because energy is a touchy subject among Christians.  I conducted an internet search and found articles addressing whether or not God is energy.  The consensus among the ones I looked at was a resounding “no!” and I wholeheartedly agree but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand something of how God works by exploring how scripture speaks of energy.  However, I see a de-personalization of God going on to the point where He is spoken of as a “presence” or “energy” or, the one that really makes me cringe: “the universe”.  I can see why the word “energy” would be avoided as this de-personalization becomes more widespread.  I picked up a book called Coffee Shop Conversations by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher and was astonished when Jonalyn shared she’d overhead another woman express her astonishment than anyone still believed in a personal God. It is a tragedy that God is rendered to a mere force or worse yet an aspect of His creation.

I find a similar tragedy in the consideration of creation.  I consider scriptures like Hebrews 1:19 and Colossians 1:17 and am not surprised that science is saying it is energy that is converted to matter.  It’s a strange thing:  I don’t disagree with anyone who says God called all that exists out of nothing because He is before all things.  Neither do I quibble with those who say God created all things out of Himself because of the manner in which I create.  When I write a poem I first have the thought to do so.  I decide on what form I want to use then choose rhyme and meter.  Then I sit down and write it and a new thing is brought into the world.  This analogy does break down of course because I create out of forms and words that already exist.  I am not the source of all poetry whereas God Himself is before all things and is the source of all things.  I create a poem because God Himself is a poet and I am made in His image.

I do quibble with those who say the creation is God.  He certainly thought it, called it into being, and upholds it by the dunamis of His word but He is no more His creation than I am a poem I write.  I am certainly connected to a poem I write and anyone who reads a poem can certainly learn something about me but reading one of my poems doesn’t mean the reader knows me.  It’s the same with God.  Romans 1:20 says it perfectly: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”  God is certainly connected to His creation because it’s His.  Creation can show us what He is like but we cannot know Him via creation.

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote something I think pertains to what I am attempting to say.  It comes from his story “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty” and is spoken by Sherlock Holmes: “There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters.  “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner.  Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers.  All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance.  But this rose is an extra.  Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it.  It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.” (Doyle, 300)

I agree with Sir Conan Doyle that the goodness of God can be seen in His creation.  However, as Andrew Murray says; “Nature speaks of God and His work; but of Himself, His heart, and His thoughts of love toward us as sinners, nature cannot tell.  In his deepest misery, man seeks for God-but how often, to all appearance, in vain.  But, God be praised, this seeking in vain is not for always.  The silence has been broken.  God calls man back to fellowship with Himself.  God has spoken!” (Murray, 42)

We are not left in ignorance as to how God has spoken.  He has spoken to us in His Son (Hebrews 1:1).  He has spoken to us in a person and, since seeing Jesus means we have seen the Father (John 14:9) we know that God is Person.  We can know Him.  We can fellowship with Him.  We can have relationship with Him.  We can look at what He has made and even attempt to understand how He has made it but all of this is useless unless we look beyond created things and energy and power to the One before it all.  That One is love.  He loves us so much He gave us this beautiful world to live in and take care of.  In the midst of our failure and darkness, He sent His son Jesus Christ to rescue and restore us.  Now, He freely pours His Spirit onto and in us so that we live in union with Him. 

The Holy Spirit is difficult to understand.  Whenever I see Him in scripture He is moving, hovering, vibrating, covering, energizing, and so many other action verbs.  He is difficult to describe without using words like “energy” or “power” and, as He is the reticent Person of the Godhead, it can be easy to think of Him in impersonal terms.  And yet, in John’s gospel, the Holy Spirit is described in the most personal of terms.  He is Helper, Comforter, Teacher, and Guide.  Only a Person can be these things. 

I believe in a Personal God.  I can call Him by name: Jesus.  I can know Him as my Father.  His Spirit living in me is my very best friend.  I live in Union, Fellowship, and Relationship with Him and this is only possible because He is Infinite Person.  What He is to me, He is to everyone else.  Do not allow this precious life that is yours in Christ Jesus be stolen from you by one who has not seen.  This life is the free gift of God.  It is difficult to believe that we don’t have to earn it or clean ourselves up first so we are acceptable.  The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to this truth, strengthens us, and energizes us so we can receive it. 

Who is like our God?  Who gives gifts like our God?  Our God is an awesome God!

Hallelujah!

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

References

Doyle, Arthur Conan, The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury, Crown Publishers Inc., 1976

Fincher, Dale & Jonalyn, Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2010

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995

Murray, Andrew, Holiest of All: A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Whitaker House, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 1996, 2004

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

Walker, Allen G. The New Koine Greek Textbook, Volumes 1-4, 2014-2017

House of the Lord

03 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Image by Joseph Redfield Nino from Pixabay

Enough with the Latin!

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue my study of the Hebrew word bara which is most often translated “create” in the Old Testament.  The root bara is spelled Bet (ב) Resh (ר) Aleph (א).  I have briefly examined Resh earlier in my study of Isaiah 45:7 but did find it interesting that, according to Mr. Haralick’s book, Bet means “container”, Resh means “cosmic container”, and Aleph means “the pulsating unbridled force.”  Container and Cosmic Container seem a bit redundant and I was curious what I might learn as I studied each letter.  I began with Bet.

Bet is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the word itself-spelled Bet Yod Tav (בית )-means “house, dwelling place, or home.”  In his entry for Bet, Mr. Haralick quotes Exodus 25:8: “And let them make a sanctuary that I may dwell within them.”  I looked up this verse in the New King James version and found the word used is among rather than within.  I checked the scripture in the Comparative Study Bible and each of the four translations contained therein also have the word among.  I looked up among in the Strong’s concordance and found referenced the root tavek (H8432) which means, “to sever, a bisection, in the center, among, between, in the middle, midst.”

I must take a moment and urge anyone who wishes to go deeper into Bible Study to get an Interlinear Bible.  The Strong’s is an invaluable reference but it doesn’t give prefixes or suffixes or, in some cases, tell you which word is used in the scripture.  Case in point: John 1:1 says “In the Beginning was the word…and the word was WITH God.”  If you were to look up “with” in the Strong’s you’d have to go to the Appendix where you will find listed all the words used so frequently they’d make the concordance very unwieldly if every occurrence was included: words like A, He, Her, They, and With.  The Appendix would tell you that “with” in the Greek is sun and there’s actually an interesting lesson to learn by considering the meaning of sun in the first verse of John’s gospel.  However, an Interlinear Bible would show you the word translated “with” in John 1:1 is not sun at all but pros.  There is a different mind picture painted when the meaning of pros is meditated on in the passage. 

It’s the same looking up the Hebrew letters.  When I look up “among”, the Strong’s gives me the root tavek spelled Tav Vav Caph but my Interlinear Bible shows me the root appears with Mem as a suffix and Bet as a prefix.  The addition of the prefix and suffix make the root third person masculine plural and it would be pronounced be-tow-kum.  The Bet as a prefix means ”in, at, by, among, with, by means of, through”.  Among is a perfectly fine translation but so is within or in or in the midst.  All of this is fascinating but the word Bet means house and I have the promises of Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 36:27 ringing in my ears and so I return to my study.

2 Corinthians 6:16 says, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?  For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’.”  The words the Apostle Paul quotes are found in Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 32:38, and Ezekiel 37:27.  First there was the Tabernacle and then the Temple which served as Houses of the Lord but there were also these promises from God that the day would come when there would be no external Tabernacle or Temple but God Himself would live within us. 

Then comes the Incarnation where “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  The Amplified uses the word “tabernacled” instead of dwelt which I like.  The Old Testament promises are beginning to be fulfilled but are not yet.  Jesus gives wonderful promises in the upper room of the One He would send: the Comforter, the Teacher, the Spirit of Truth who would guide us into all truth.  He would speak not on His own authority but will take everything that is of Jesus and declare it to us. (See John Chapters 13-17).  The same night He gives these promises, Jesus is arrested, tried, and crucified.  He dies but before dying declares “It is finished!”  What is finished?  There is far more to be said about what was happening on the Cross than I have room for here.  I think the Book of Hebrews has the best explanation for what is referred to as the “finished work of the cross”: 

Hebrews 7:26-27: “For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for all the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” 

Hebrews 9: 24-27: “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another-He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

Hebrews 10:12: “But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.”

I used the term “the finished word of the cross” because I’ve heard it said so often but if we stop there, there are still some of God’s promises not yet fulfilled. The Old Testament promises of God putting His Spirit within us, giving us new hearts, writing His law on those hearts, and enabling us to walk in His statutes are not fulfilled in the death of Jesus.  As the Apostle Paul writes, “If Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” (1 Corinthians 15:17) Our faith is NOT futile and we are NOT still in our sins because Jesus is risen from the dead!  He is not only risen but ascended to the right hand of the Father.  After His ascension came Pentecost where the Holy Spirit rushed upon those gathered together.  At last, with the lavish shedding abroad of the Spirit, the promises of God were fulfilled.

“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Amen, to the glory of God through us” (1 Corinthians 1:20).  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of every promise of God which means that now, today, His Spirit is within me.  He has given me a new heart, He has written His law on it, and He is causing me to walk in His statutes.  I am in Him and thus am a new creation.  How is this possible?  Because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and poured His Spirit into me.  The same Spirit that is there in Genesis 1:1 is within me.  He sends forth His Spirit and I am not only created but re-created and renewed (See Psalm 104:30). 

After his experience with the Centurion Cornelius, Peter says, “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34).  What is true for me is true for every other believer.  The Spirit of the Living God lives within each and every one of us.  Without Him, the Christian life is impossible.  There is no ability to love anyone, especially our enemies.  There are no streams of living water flowing out of us and into the world around us.  Without Him we do not know we are in Christ and Christ is in us and thus we have no hope of glory.  We can look at scripture and do our best to keep the rules so hopefully we get to go to heaven when we die but there is no LIFE.  We can read and memorize and know about Jesus, we can even try our hardest to be like Him but, without the Spirit of truth and wisdom and revelation; we won’t ever intimately KNOW HIM because the things of God are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”  That is 1 Corinthians 3:16 and the question is asked again later on in Paul’s letter: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).  If the books written by Christian authors I’ve recently read are any indication, believers do not know the Holy Spirit lives within them.  May He open all of our eyes to see what is the hope of our calling.    

Bereshit bara Elohim…In the beginning, created God the heavens and the earth.  But these were not His house. “This saith the Lord, ‘The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.  Where is the house that ye build unto Me?  And where is the place of My rest?’” (Isaiah 66:1).  “For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited…” (Isaiah 45:18). “Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made Him” (Isaiah 43:7).

Do you declare Jesus is Lord?  Do you know God is your Father and you are His child?  Do you know He has adopted you and is placing you as a Son?  Yes?  Then know the Spirit of the Lord lives within you.  You are the house of the Lord, a living stone in His temple, a member of that great city described in Revelation whose maker and builder is God!

 Hallelujah!  God has done this! Let the House of the Lord sing praise!

Amen.

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

References

Exodus 25:8 Interlinear: ‘And they have made for Me a sanctuary, and I have tabernacled in their midst; (biblehub.com)

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

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volumes 1-3, Authors For Christ Inc., Lafayette, IN, 1985

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995

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