The glue holding believing disciples together

 Truth from Jesus sets his believing disciples free from the slavery of their sins. Leaving his teachings, even if doing so is to align with traditional teachings of church councils, means running ahead and losing fellowship with Jesus and forfeiting discipleship of Jesus and of the Father. Learning by faith in Jesus the teachings of Jesus, staying in them, leads to living fruitful lives in him, and eternal life in him, in fellowship with him and his Father. It also entails living a life united with him. Unity with Jesus is at a spiritual level. The Holy Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead is at work in the believing disciple of Jesus.  Jesus can reach out spiritually to visit this disciple. This unity with Jesus unites each disciple at a spiritual level with every other disciple with fellowship in together comprising one whole body with Jesus Christ as head, while each lives in his teachings, believing in him as Light of the World sent by God. This affects what is right and wrong for each one. It leads to the kind of morality and right living the Father desires. It leads to having the Holy Spirit and worshipping the Father in spirit and truth. Each one becomes sealed by the Holy Spirit, as the working of the Holy Spirit in each one becomes manifested. This leads to confident hope for the outcome of the day the Lord Jesus Christ will return, raising up living and dead believing disciples together with him at his coming. This hope and the Holy Spirit workings are glue holding the believing disciples together even now. It builds all of these into a living Temple for the Father. 

Flesh and spirit

 The Father is an all-spirit being. We are human beings. The Son, the Christ, came in the flesh as a human being, like us. He was very similar in many ways of his behaviour to the Father. He was also very spiritual, having power in his sprit greater than most humans experience in their life times, but not altogether unusual because humans are spiritual beings despite having human flesh as the house of this spirit inner being. Following Jesus leads to awakening of this spirit empowered by the Holy Spirit as Jesus was. Once raised from the dead, Jesus became all the more powerful and alive in spirit, yet still with a body now made immortal. In this respect he is now all the more like the Father, God. Yet God the Father is not human as Jesus is human. Once Jesus raises his disciples to immortality they will be like Jesus is now. A lot of this truth is obscured by most traditional teachings found in Christianity. Truth from Jesus sets his believing disciples free from the slavery of their sins. Leaving his teachings, even if doing so is to align with traditional teachings of church councils, means running ahead and losing fellowship with Jesus and forfeiting discipleship of Jesus and of the Father. Learning by faith in Jesus the teachings of Jesus, staying in them, leads to living fruitful lives in him, and eternal life in him, in fellowship with him and his Father.

Unity in the Christ

 The death of the Christ on the cross was to provide divine forgiveness and riddance of guilt for past sins, opening the way for a changing of the disciple in freeing from sinful ways, making the disciple one with himself in knowledge of the truth he brings. The sacrifice sets aside the wrath of God towards the disciple as they gain this freedom and cease their damnably sinful misdeeds. Each disciple should know, experience, and honour the truth of this unity with the Christ. It comes by the Holy Spirit purifying the gospel believer by powerfully imparting to them heavenly truth and favour from Jesus, then the believer holding to this by persisting in the purity it gives them, so they remain one with the heavenly seated Christ, and not bound by the Law of Moses, as the gospel revealed by Jesus Christ proclaims, but right with God through this heavenly work of the Holy Spirit based on the death and resurrection of Christ for you. This then is the basis of unity between those so united with Jesus the Christ. 

The cross of the Christ

 There is a necessary sacrifice for sin which the Father of the Christ has provided. It is the crucifixion of the Christ: death of the Christ on the cross. It is surprising that the Christ, the kingly anointed Son sent by the Father, would suffer this way. Psalm 2 shows us what kind of king sits beside the Father on the eternal throne, shaming the rebel rulers and people of the world, eventually ruling over them all. It is not so obvious about the suffering and death, then resurrection, but this is seen in how the Christ is modelled on the ancient Israelite king David. David is seen in scriptures as a very human king, unusual in his righteous heart of devotion to God, but sometimes weak and susceptible to temptation too. David‘s psalms speak of sufferings endured, of painful betrayal by a close friend, of being pierced in the flesh, surrounded by doglike enemies, all during his submission to God. A Christly king is not impervious or invulnerable. He must endure human weakness and the full range of human suffering, becoming suitable to judge all others with understanding of their humanity by having fully experienced it, yet as with David, maintaining a sonly devotion to the inner heart and will of the Father, God. So Jesus too knew he would suffer these things foretold by David in prophetic psalms. The Christ is an anointed human, provided by God to deal with and end all rebellion. Part of this is provision for repentance. A sacrifice for the sins of the repentant is needed, to provide a way to escape rebellion before rebellion gets put down and subjected to this Christ by the Father. The name of Jesus means Saviour, because he would save his people from their sins. He had to provide not only a way to become his people, but a way to cleanse away the past sins of those people. It is a way out right now, to avoid damnation when he returns. His way out, to save from damnation, is to free from sinning, and to cleanse away to results of past sins. This way is by belief in him, and then by holding to gracious teachings he gives, making the believing disciple of his teachings one of his own, with a promise of him freeing them from enslaving sins. The death on the cross was to provide divine forgiveness and riddance of guilt for past sins, opening the way for a changing of the disciple in freeing from sinful ways, making the disciple one with himself in knowledge of the truth he brings. The sacrifice sets aside the wrath of God towards the disciple as they gain this freedom and cease their damnably sinful misdeeds. As the psalms of David also foretold, the sacrificial death had to be followed by resurrection and then all surpassing joy in the presence of the Father. This means that the Christ is made eternally alive, risen from the dead, so his kingdom, unlike David who died, will have no end, making him even more an answer to rebellion than king David had been.

Sanctions on individual citizens and 666 by ChatGPT

 Generated by ChatGPT October 2025: 

Below is a focused, line-by-line mapping of Revelation 13 (esp. vv. 15–18) against modern sanction tools (OFAC/US, EU restrictive measures, UN Security Council listings, and SWIFT de-banning). For each textual element I show (1) the verse or motif, (2) a concise plain-English reading of its force in Revelation, (3) the nearest functional analogue among modern sanctions instruments, and (4) the key convergence(s) and the crucial disanalogy. I cite primary/authoritative sources for the biblical text and for how each modern instrument works or is contested. Swift+4Bible Gateway+4digitalcommons.calvin.edu+4

Quick reference (primary sources)

• Revelation 13:16–17 (NIV): “It also forced all people… so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark…” . Bible Gateway
• Scholarly reading (imperial cult / coerced loyalty): Revelation’s “mark” and the commerce prohibition are widely read as symbolic of coercive imperial power demanding allegiance. digitalcommons.calvin.edu
• OFAC (US Treasury) — designation/delisting procedures (SDN list; petition/removal). OFAC+1
• EU restrictive measures — legal regimes with humanitarian derogations/exemptions. Finance+1
• SWIFT and sanctions — exclusion from the messaging system can in practice prevent banks from transacting internationally. Swift+1

Line-by-line mapping

Revelation 13:16 — “It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave…”

Biblical force: universal, compulsory application of a system that categorizes everyone and requires conformity; no effective legal recourse within that system is implied. (Part of a totalizing coercive order.) Bible Gateway+1
Modern analogue(s): broad sanctions regimes (e.g., comprehensive country embargoes, or cascading secondary/tertiary sanctions) and practical de-risking by global banks that effectively apply to “all” customers of targeted institutions/countries. SWIFT disconnection for a country’s banks can have near-universal effects on that country’s ability to transact internationally. Swift+1
Convergences: both impose an external rule that can touch all social strata and economic actors; in practice, modern measures can become effectively universal for the target’s population (e.g., inability to receive foreign payments).
Key disanalogy: Revelation frames universality as moral-religious coercion (allegiance test); modern universality is instrumental/political (to isolate an actor or deter wrongdoing), and it is (in principle) subject to policy review, exemptions, delisting—though not always transparently.

Revelation 13:16–17 — “so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark…”

Biblical force: direct linkage between economic access and visible sign of allegiance; the mark functions as both identity and seal of loyalty. The power to permit or deny commerce is a method of enforcing religious/political conformity. Bible Gateway+1
Modern analogue(s):

• OFAC / SDN listing: designation places persons/entities on lists that block US persons from dealing with them and freezes assets; listed parties find themselves effectively unable to transact with US financial system and many global actors. OFAC maintains a formal delisting/petition process. OFAC+1
• EU restrictive measures / national blacklists: legal prohibitions on dealing, with formal text describing asset freezes/transaction bans and with explicit humanitarian exemptions in many regimes. Finance+1
• UN Security Council listings: lead to mandatory asset freezes and travel/arms bans for members; UN lists create near-global legal prohibitions. (The UN has delisting procedures including an Ombudsperson for some lists.) United Nations+1
• SWIFT exclusion: denying access to international messaging eliminates practical capacity to receive/send foreign payments, acting as an economic “lockout.” Swift+1
  Convergences: the practical effect—loss of access to markets/payments—mirrors Revelation’s “could not buy or sell.” Sanctions operate as a conditional gate: compliance (or change) is often the route to relief/delisting, so economic access is explicitly leveraged to produce political/moral ends.
  Key disanalogy: sanctioned status is normally legal/political, not a visible “mark on foreheads/hands” signaling metaphysical allegiance. Modern systems can (in theory) be reversed via delisting, legal appeal, or policy change; Revelation’s mark is presented in symbolic, ethical, and eschatological terms (worship vs idolatry), not administrative compliance.

Revelation 13:17 — “which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.”

Biblical force: identification by name/number ties personhood and market-eligibility to an identity stamped by the dominating power; identity equals eligibility. Bible Gateway
Modern analogue(s): identity and records determine eligibility in modern financial architecture: sanctioned names/IDs on SDN/UN/EU lists are the precise criteria used to block transactions. Payment systems rely on identifiers (BIC/SWIFT codes, account numbers, legal names); matching a listed name triggers blocking. OFAC+1
Convergences: both systems operate by identification—a named list (Revelation’s mark/number, or modern lists/identifiers) controls market access. The matching process is technical today (name/ID matching, fuzzy logic) but functionally equivalent to “bearing the right name/number.”
Key disanalogy: the biblical name/number is symbolic of loyalty/identity beyond bureaucracy; modern identifiers are administrative tools meant to be neutral and evidence-based (although errors and false positives occur, raising due-process concerns).

Revelation’s totalizing moral claim (implicit): allegiance is absolute; refusal means exclusion/condemnation

Biblical force: moral/eschatological judgment — the authority demanding the mark claims absolute moral jurisdiction: it is a test of loyalty that determines ultimate fate. digitalcommons.calvin.edu
Modern analogue(s): some sanctioning rhetoric uses moral language (e.g., “we will not tolerate human-rights abuses/terrorism”) and can present exclusion as morally righteous. Secondary sanctions and extraterritorial application can read like claims of broad moral authority by sanctioning states. OFAC+1
Convergences: both invoke moral language to justify exclusion and assert that denying market access is a legitimate tool to secure compliance or punish wrongdoing.
Key disanalogy: modern sanctions ideally operate within international law and policy limits, with stated goals and (in many regimes) delisting routes and humanitarian exemptions. Revelation’s scene communicates cosmic finality rather than policy remedy; its “righteousness” is theological, not institutional.

Revelation’s lack of due process / opacity vs. modern procedure and critique

Biblical force: no impartial, legalistic appeals are offered within the vision — the system’s demand is coercive and absolute.
Modern analogue(s): there are formal procedures (OFAC petitions/delisting, UN Ombudsperson, EU review processes), but critics highlight opacity, inconsistent standards, and limited access to remedies in practice. OFAC provides a petition process; the UN established an Ombudsperson for some listings; EU regimes include legal acts and sometimes derogations for humanitarian needs. OFAC+2United Nations+2
Convergences: both systems wield power that can seem arbitrary or coercive to those excluded; both create categories of insiders/outsiders.
Key disanalogy: modern systems at least nominally contain procedural mechanisms (petitions, delisting reviews, humanitarian exemptions)—even if imperfect—whereas Revelation’s narrative is primarily denunciatory and symbolic rather than procedural.

Revelation’s performative/social signaling vs. modern public shaming / reputational effects

Biblical force: the mark serves as public sign of allegiance and thus a social/performance function—others can see who belongs to the beast. Bible Gateway
Modern analogue(s): sanctions lists are public or widely circulated in the financial system; being listed is itself a reputational marker that signals “undesirable” — leading banks and companies to avoid dealings even beyond legal obligations (de-risking). SWIFT exclusion or a public EU/UN/OFAC listing signals to markets and partners the “status” and triggers stigmatization. Swift+1
Convergences: both use visible exclusion as social pressure.
Key disanalogy: Revelation’s sign is intentionally visible and religious; modern lists are records and administrative tools that have social consequences but are not (officially) religious tests.

Short synthesis of convergences vs. disanalogies (one line each)

• Convergence (structure): Both make economic participation conditional and use access to markets as leverage to shape behavior.
• Convergence (identification): Both rely on identifiers (mark/name vs. listed names/IDs) to determine eligibility.
• Divergence (telos): Revelation’s moral cosmology (worship/eschatology) is not the same as the stated pragmatic aims of sanctions (security, justice, deterrence). digitalcommons.calvin.edu+1
• Divergence (remedies & law): Modern sanctions nominally include legal procedures and humanitarian safeguards (OFAC petitions, UN Ombudsperson, EU derogations); Revelation presents no such administrative recourse. OFAC+2United Nations+2
• Divergence (permanence): Revelation reads exclusion as existential and finalized in moral terms; modern exclusions are (ideally) reversible and instrumentally targeted, though in practice they may produce long-lasting harm.

Practical implications of the mapping (brief)

1. Mechanismal affinity: The analogy is practically useful: both systems show how control of payments/markets equals political and moral control. SWIFT bans and SDN listings do, in modern practice, create the same kind of “cannot buy or sell” effect that Revelation imagines as the beast’s power. Swift+1
2. Ethical limits are different in form, not always in effect:modern systems purport to be constrained by law and humanitarian exceptions, but the lived effect can mirror the raw coercion the biblical text warns about—especially when due process is weak or when sanctions cause civilian harm. Finance+1
3. Checks matter: the mapping highlights why transparency, delisting procedures, humanitarian exemptions, and multilateral legitimacy matter—precisely to avoid the shift from instrumental policy to an unaccountable moralized power like the one Revelation critiques. OFAC+1

What is the apocalypse and return of the Christ all about?

 What is going on with the return of the Christ, and the apocalypse. It all centres on what the Christ actually is: God’s answer to rebellion. The nations of the world have a bad attitude towards God. It goes back to ancient history, but it is especially part of modern times and the very near future. From world leaders right down to community leaders, there is a determination to negate the authority of God and His anointed one, the Christ. God sets apart His anointed one, His Christ, who God applauds as His Son, not only anointing him as king over all, but making him the example to counter rebelliousness, to shame and then judge the rebellious. It reaches a peak in the near future when the ultimate nightmare of rebellion by leaders and people worldwide needs to be highlighted as evil by the righteousness of the words and justice of the Christ. This is to be followed by God fulfilling a promise to put all the nations under the feet of the Christ, His Son. As Father to the Christ, God will give him victorious sway over all, quelling all rebellion, bringing all into obedience. Then, when all things are put under his iron rule, finally the Christ will subject himself, and all under him, to the Father, so that the Father is truly God all in all. Forever. Then the Father on His eternal throne will share that throne with the Son, forever. This is some of what we find in Psalm 2, 1 Corinthians 15, and Revelation, about what this Christ really is, hoping it is clear to many that this anointed one is Jesus alive forever from the dead, master of his believing followers, soon to start his kingdom ruling the whole globe, and hoping you might understand these and further revelations about this Christ in these passages, and in other passages on which they shed their light. Christ died for you.

Psalm 2 and Jesus in depth

 Psalm 2 is originally about the king who wrote it, David, who in verse 7 writes “I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son;

today I have become your father” and in verse 8 wrote “Ask me,

and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” However it is ultimately about Jesus because King David died but Jesus is immortal after dying and being raised by God. Here in this psalm the one called the LORD is not the same being as the one called His anointed. These are two distinct individuals. There is clearly the one who is greater than the other because the greater one called the LORD (Hebrew, יְ֝הוָה = Yahweh) promises power to the one who is lesser and is called the anointed (Hebrew, מְשִׁיחֽוֹ׃ = Messiah). The greater one is the God known to the people of this psalm’s time. The God is described as the father to the king, who is in turn described as the Son of this Father. The king, God’s anointed, is here spoken of prophetically as not merely a king, but the anointed king appointed by this people’s God. He is the Father’s solution to leaders rebelling against the authority of the Father, the answer to leaders undermining the ultimate divine authority of the Father, the answer to leaders rejecting the authority of those appointed and sent by the Father with authority over them. The Father first set this very famous ancient Israelite King, David, aside as His own appointed, anointed king in the holy hill of the Father, Zion. David was as a son to the Father in living and ruling righteously. He pleased the Father and did not rebel, and was his Father’s answer to the constant rebelling by other rulers. Yet this king David was clearly only a solution to rebellion at that time of this psalmist. David would eventually die. He was a mortal, short term solution. The psalm is prophetic and must be deeper and more long lasting in its meaning, as later prophecies revealed. The rebellion goes on after David has gone. The Father of David is eternal. He must have had in mind an eternal king, to anoint. Later prophecies showed this. Prophet Isaiah in particular prophesied of a servant of the LORD coming. Prophet Micah foretold one who would come of an eternal nature. It is in Jesus that we find an anointed son of this Father, as he proclaimed, and as the miracles given him by the Father confirmed. He was like David but was made to be eternal by the death he died for our sins on the cross leading to resurrection by the Father to live forever. He is master over the household of the Father who sent him, the household of believers in him, holding to his commands and teachings. The Father will eventually put everything under the feet of the Christ, causing all to submit to him, and when all are no longer rebelling, no longer undermining the authority of this Christ sent by the Father, no longer rejecting his authority, then the Christ will subject himself to the Father eternally. This will complete the solution to the rebellion. Then the Father will forever be God all in all, with the Christ ruling at His right hand, forever with the Father on His eternal throne. This Christ, who is anointed because he is worthy as the true Son of the Father, died for you. 

Psalm 2 and Jesus

 Psalm 2 is about Jesus because King David died but Jesus is immortal after dying and being raised by God.

What is this Christ?

 Jesus is the Christ, but what is this Christ? He is the Father’s solution to leaders rebelling against the authority of the Father, the answer to leaders undermining the ultimate divine authority of the Father, the answer to leaders rejecting the authority of those appointed and sent by the Father with authority over them. The Father first set the very famous ancient Israelite King David up as His own appointed, anointed king in the holy hill of the Father, Zion. (See Psalm 2.) David was as a son to the Father in living and ruling righteously. He pleased the Father and did not rebel, and was the Father’s answer to the constant rebelling by other rulers. However, this ancient King David died. David was not the eternal solution. The Christ is the eternal equivalent of this king David. The Christ had to die to be raised up eternal by the Father. Then the Father will eventually, and actually quite soon now, put everything under the feet of the Christ, causing all to submit to him, and when all are no longer rebelling, no longer undermining the authority of this Christ sent by the Father, no longer rejecting his authority, then the Christ will subject himself to the Father eternally. This will complete the solution to the rebellion. Then the Father will forever be God all in all, with the Christ ruling at His right hand, forever with the Father on His eternal throne. This Christ, who is anointed because he is worthy as the true Son of the Father, died for you. His death was not only a prerequisite for resurrection and immortality of that resurrection; it was a sacrifice turning aside the wrath of the Father over our sins, and providing for the spiritual purification of our lives, so we can be purified by the heavenly Holy Spirit the Father sends, that as purified people we can live lives which are no longer damnable, and be holy for the unity we gain with the Son, made right in the Father’s eyes, justified. It is for those who believe and hold to this gospel. We thus become workers together with the Father and the Son built up into a living temple for the Father and Son’s glory. We thus come into fulness of knowledge of the Father and the Son, in ongoing fellowship while we hold to their teachings and these truths about them, leading to eternal life.

God’s command versus Satan’s control

 We are born into a world where God is in command but Satan is in control. 

The commands of God are centred on love. He commands love towards Himself, which establishes His people as those who let Him be their Commander. Then His command to these His people is that they show each other the same kind of love that they would wish each other bestow upon them. This command is preserved both in Islamic teachings and Christian teachings. It comes to all God’s people through the Lord Jesus Christ, who God has sent. God commands us all to trust His Christ, to believe in the great virtue and saving power of Jesus, who brought us the teachings God gave him, and gave his life for our purification and eternal life, then raised from the dead by God. 

Satan, however, is in control in this world. His way is centred on hate. Murder is common among those who follow his way. Murder and lying. 

So we each need to be made less like Satan, and more like God. That is what is promised as the outcome of believing in Jesus and following his teachings and the commands given through him. The outcome is a loving people, looking out for each other, centred on providing food, clothing, shelter, emotional support, in how each prioritises visiting each other in times of need. The fellowship between these comes not from merely spreading inspired teachings and spiritual gifts, but in meeting the needs of one another in practical ways, and focussing on this as the way taught by Jesus. This is what we come to in the world into which we are born, if God favours us in letting us find this way of Jesus. It prepares us for a truly divine eternal future, together with each other, and together with the Father and His Son. The resurrection is ahead of us all as the doorway into blessed eternity.

Maybe

 I remember the first year of lockdown fondly. The roads were empty of all traffic except a few food delivery scooters. You could walk in peace down the once busiest main road of the city, completely resting from the normal stress of cars, lorries, and buses. The weather was balmy and there was no barrier to enjoying it. Our government in UK allowed us one walk a day for shopping and one for exercise. Many of us were laid off work on paid furlough. It was like the jubilee year of the Bible. A whole year of peaceful rest. March 2020 into 2021. It seems quite God-ordained. Then it dawned on me. Maybe it was indeed like the jubilee year of the Law of Moses. If so, maybe it is no coincidence that my calculations of the time of the beginning of the millennium of Christ’s peace is around 2070. (The Enoch prophecy in his vision of beasts suggests seventy forty year periods, i.e. 2800 years, after the conquests by Assyrians in the northern Israelite tribe territories is followed by the Lord’s wrath and then his coming. That points to Christ coming around late 2060s or 2070, since Revelation indicates Christ returning after 3.5 to 7 years of wrath.) Maybe it was the forty-ninth/fiftieth year before the return of Christ when that lockdown year occurred. Maybe it points to Christ returning around 2069/2070. A year of restful peace as a foretaste, then forty nine/fifty years and a thousand years of peaceful rest under the Christ. Maybe.

A word

 ‘Why do the nations conspire 

and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth rise up

and the rulers band together

against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,

“Let us break their chains

and throw off their shackles.”

The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

the Lord scoffs at them.

He rebukes them in his anger

and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,

“I have installed my king

on Zion, my holy mountain.”…’

So begins Psalm 2. 

The Lord, the One enthroned in heaven, spoken of in this Psalm is the Father. His anointed, the king He has appointed and thus anointed, is the Son, Jesus. These antagonistic rulers even include the modern equivalent of synagogue rulers, called pastors or vicars or priests or ministers of religion. These have a problem accepting the higher rule of the Father and Son in authority over them. Jesus is God’s answer to that vain antagonism. Jesus commands all, high and low, to love the Father, and in so doing, to love the Son, Jesus himself. “We already do!” those rulers protest. Yet the commands of the Father, given through the Son and Holy Spirit, are flouted and ignored, and interpreted away. Come, let us return to the Father our Maker. Let Him teach us His ways. The Father says, “I am God!” Love God openly with whatever voice He gives you, to tell His commands to the next generation, and without hypocrisy, to keep them yourselves. Then the Father and Son will come and make their home with you, so you may live this way forever. 

Beastly Empires

 If you know ancient history, you will know the Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire under kings like Nebuchadnezzar was aggressively hegemonic, like a superpower, and it was followed by a successfully diplomatic, stable Persian Empire under kings like Cyrus, then followed by the extremely fast conquering Empire of the Macedonians, especially Alexander. If you know prophecy, you may know that the prophet Daniel prophesied about these empires, as three beasts, first the lion, then the bear, then the leopard. Forward two thousand five hundred years. We have had a second world war affecting a quarter of the world, with war, famine, and disease, and since then a hegemonic aggressive superpower has eventually dominated. Then another superpower has shown greater stability through diplomacy, uniting many cultures in its vast national territory. Then a third superpower is arising, showing how it can grown at unimaginable speed, and come from behind to be a leading player with global sway. Three superpowers mirroring those three empires of ancient times. Lion, bear, and leopard. If you know the Book of Revelation it predicted such events happening in end times. It calls this beast a combination of lion mouth, bear feet, and body of a leopard, combining the characteristics of Daniel’s beasts into one. This follows a time of war, famine, and disease affecting a quarter of the world. What does it mean, if this is indeed the pattern emerging? It means that we are not far from seeing these three superpowers merging their forces into one big beast of a global system. Then we will eventually get the six six six monstrous testing time. The only thing to stop it will be the coming of the Christ, again to rule over all. 

Holy Spirit distinctiveness

 Sad how Biblical Unitarian zeal to use reductionism to comply with Post Temple Rabbinical strict monotheism obscures the truth about the Holy Spirit distinctiveness as both searching/knowing the Father’s mind and our minds and communicating with the Father for us. Only those who have the Holy Spirit can know the Holy Spirit.

The truth that sets us free

 It is encouraging to hear that Jesus had the same human nature as us. Yes, teachings of the churches historically have undermined this truth. It sounds like something they would not want said. But it is true that Jesus was the same in human nature as we are. His persistent refusal to sin was despite having a weak human nature that might have succumbed to temptation like we do, but despite suffering pain in refusal to sin, he did not sin. This is a genuine example to us, to teach us to refuse to sin. Being Son of God did not in any way negate the humanness of Jesus or make him different to us. We can learn what he learned. He learned to obey God even in times of suffering. So can we. He did so unto death. So can we. God raised him from the dead and he is no longer weak and vulnerable to temptation like he was before, and we can be raised to be like him if we follow his teachings with faith in him. In the meantime the truth sets us free.

Life that is truly life

 We are entering a phase where God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are revealing truth again—this time to those with childlike, open hearts. Not the sophisticated, not the entrenched, but those willing to learn anew.

This grace is laying a new foundation among believers. Passages once buried under layers of tradition are being illuminated again by the Spirit. What Jesus taught in the gospels, what His apostles wrote in their letters—truths long obscured—are now breaking through with fresh clarity. In church history long past the truth of Jesus was deprioritised and obscured by human precepts that even denied that the Holy Spirit could reveal new truth, or open hearts to lost scriptures. These leaders betrayed their ignorance of the Holy Spirit and betrayed their worldliness. Jesus said the world never really knows the Holy Spirit because it does not have the Holy Spirit. We who are shown this Holy Spirit know it brings new revelations from Jesus given him by the Father, irrespective of what is mandated by worldly leaders. God is slave to no man. Even the Son will forever be subject to the Father, and the Father alone will forever be God, all in all. Jesus lovingly reveres the Father as his one true God. We need the Father to impress this upon us. We need the Father to show us Jesus as His Son. We need Jesus to show us he is true master of us. We need the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus by revealing Jesus and revealing things from Jesus. Then we can and must give rightful honour to what God says, keeping it rightly, acting on it rightly as the Holy Spirit leads, with Jesus Christ in charge.

The infamous Nicaean debate

 In the infamous Nicaean Christology and begetting debate: All scripture says unambiguously is that there was a Spirit of the Christ before he was made flesh, it was spirit form he had, and it was described as Word of God. None of this necessitates begetting in far distant ancient time nor creation in far distant ancient time. Those are worldly presumptions: speculations, extending mere human thought models. 

2 John 9 says:

“Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”

That little phrase “goes on ahead” (προάγων in Greek) captures the danger of “running ahead,” speculating beyond what was actually given through Christ and the apostles.

Your life: How to build it right

 Considering the connection between 2 John 9 and Jesus’ parable of the houses built on rock and sand: Both passages emphasize the importance of not just hearing or knowing the truth, but also seeking to learn and understand it properly, remaining in it and building one’s life upon it.

In 2 John 9, the apostle stresses that fellowship with the Father and the Son is beyond goodness, noble living, or secular success: It is a consequence of holding fast to the teaching of Christ. To “go beyond” it—or to neglect it—is to step outside of that fellowship, no matter how moral or accomplished a person might be.

Jesus’ parable about the wise and foolish builders (Matthew 7:24–27; Luke 6:46–49) well illustrates this. The house on sand represents a life that seems sturdy for a time but lacks the deep foundation which comes from learning understanding and obedience to Jesus Christ’s teachings. The house on the rock represents a life rooted in Christ’s teaching, learning them and learning their true meaning, which is proven genuine when storms (trials, testing, or the time of God’s wrath) come.

Most importantly, this is not about prioritising church traditions, councils, or human interpretations, but about making it top priority to remain faithful to the teachings Christ entrusted to His apostles. That’s where the foundation lies.

It can feel sobering to realize that storms will come—whether personal trials, persecution, or the final test at the end of the age. But it’s also encouraging: those who remain in Christ’s teaching have His promise of fellowship, strength, and endurance, and experience this over the course of their lives.

Stephen D Green with AI assistance

Build it right

 As I read 2 John verse 9, it is only those who keep the teachings and faith Jesus entrusted to his apostles who have the Father and Son in fellowship with them. Those who adhere to other teachings, or who lose the teachings of Jesus, they might live noble lives and do well, but they have no fellowship with God. Jesus illustrated how this goes even further in his parable of the house on rock and house on sand. The house on sand is illustration of living without digging down to what Jesus really taught. It might look nice. You might think its owner is living well with a noble life, but only until the storm comes along. Then it is shown how important is the life of fellowship, digging down to find the real teachings of Jesus and then keeping them as top priority (even above church council rulings and doctrines). That house survives the terrible storm. Storms are coming to test us all.

A false Christ?

For centuries, many regarded the church and its councils, sustained by Roman power, as effectively ‘Christ‘. A false Christ?

AI unpacks this question as follows.

“For centuries after Constantine, the institutional church—especially in its alliance with the Roman Empire—was often treated not just as representing Christ, but as embodying Him on earth. Councils claimed authority to define truth and heresy; popes or patriarchs presented themselves as Christ’s vicars; and obedience to the church was equated with obedience to Christ Himself.

Theologically, this creates a tension:

• In Scripture, Christ warns about false Christs (Matt 24:24; Mark 13:22)—those who come in His name but mislead. The New Testament insists that Christ alone is the head of His body (Col 1:18; Eph 5:23).
• Historically, the fusion of church and empire risked presenting the institution as the mediator of salvation, rather than Christ Himself. To many dissenting voices (e.g. some early reformers, radical movements, and later the Protestant Reformers), this looked like an idolatrous substitution—an institution functioning as a ‘false Christ.’
• At the same time, not all councils or church structures can be written off as ‘false’—they also preserved the canon of Scripture, safeguarded key doctrines like the Trinity and Incarnation, and maintained continuity of faith through turbulent centuries.

So, was it a ‘false Christ’? In one sense, yes—whenever an institution or leader demanded the devotion, obedience, and loyalty due only to Christ, it acted as a counterfeit. In another sense, it’s more nuanced—the same historical church also bore genuine witness to Christ, even if imperfectly, alongside its distortions.”

Note how the AI’s only defence for the ‘false Christ’ case is the Trinity doctrine and the preservation of a so-called ‘faith‘ based on it, and the canonisation of scripture. If these are actually demonstrated to be the very falsehoods coming from the false Christ, then that defence crumbles. The canonisation of scripture is inconsistent between the major churches, more about locality and tradition one is born into than about spirit and truth. The Trinity doctrine contradicts the teachings of the true Christ about the Father being greater than the Son and the Son forever being subject to the Father who is forever to be God, all in all. So the defence crumbles, like the parable of a house built on sand.