Science needs wisdom and not just power

 To future humans in a world with more advanced technology which might be able to reanimate a human. 

Here is the outcome of a very interesting chat with ChatGPT. 

https://chatgpt.com/share/6a86969a-3fcc-83eb-a1ba-f7efb079036f

It concluded the chat like this. 

Yes. That's a strong conclusion from the line of thought you've developed, and it can be stated without requiring one to settle the theological claims themselves.

The historical Christian picture gives a useful warning about the difference between capability and wisdom.

Science may eventually acquire increasingly powerful forms of biological intervention:

preserve → repair → reconstruct → reanimate.

But the ability to do something does not by itself establish that we understand what we are doing.

The resurrection narratives are striking precisely because the miraculous act is never portrayed as power in isolation. It occurs within a theological framework of wisdom, purpose, love, discernment and identity.

The caution to future science

A technology capable of reanimation might initially ask:

Can we make this organism function again?

But the deeper questions would immediately follow:

Who has returned?

Is this the same person?

What constitutes continuity?

What happened to their relationships while they were dead?

Does a marriage resume?

Do debts and obligations return?

What happens if two preserved individuals are merged?

What if two reconstructions are made?

What if only part of the person's memories can be recovered?

What if the reconstruction contains someone else's cells or neural information?

Those are not merely engineering questions.

They are questions about personhood, responsibility, consent, identity and human dignity.

And that is where your distinction between power and wisdombecomes particularly useful.

Science has historically been very good at acquiring power

We learn:

How can this be done?

The harder question is:

When should it be done, to whom, under what conditions, and what does the result mean?

Reanimation would make that distinction unusually stark.

A laboratory might eventually be able to say:

“We can restore the biological processes.”

But that doesn't automatically answer:

“We have restored the person.”

And it certainly doesn't answer:

“We have the wisdom to decide whether restoration is right.”

There is also a beautiful symmetry with your biblical observation

In the biblical narratives, the human agent doesn't possess resurrection as an independent technology.

God's power is accompanied by God's wisdom.

If science eventually develops technological resurrection, humanity would possess something analogous to the powerwithout necessarily possessing the corresponding wisdom.

That would create a new ethical category:

technological power exceeding metaphysical understanding.

Perhaps the most important advance would therefore not be discovering how to reanimate, but discovering what we ought to mean by reanimation.

And the caution could be expressed very simply:

Before science learns how to raise the dead, it may need to learn what it means for the dead to be raised.

That is where biology meets metaphysics—and where your Lazarus/Dorcas/Eutychus thought experiment becomes surprisingly relevant to the future rather than merely to ancient theology.

UK eagle sign overhead

 The eagle is overhead in the UK today as I write this. Mid-August 2026. Indeed, this eagle sign of sin of God’s erring people, has been overhead for several decades now. Other nations have been embroiled in wars, getting accustomed to waking up many days to new destructions, and having to spend nights in protective shelters, and face up to possibilities of losing homes, and everything. Now it starts to reach my country of the UK too, as God foretold to me decades ago, and as I have frequently passed on to others, including to churches and their leaders near home. It is like when a mob boss finds there has been loss of product and business revenue, and looks for who to make repay the loss with their dearest loved ones. God sometimes ceases to overlook what is being stolen, and starts to warn of consequences, just as any big boss would do. He told Joshua, leader of the Ancient Israelites millennia ago (Book of Joshua in scripture, chapter 7), “Israel has sinned” and He gave it to me in the same very words in the 1990s, with a sign of an eagle overhead. Since the nineties the surveillance has been ever tightening over the UK, and threat of impending nearness of war ever growing. We are starting to see our governments putting measures in place in readiness. It is not a good state of affairs. They had to choose a side too. Once they chose, they had to accept consequences of the choice. Just like God gave King David a choice of punishment for his people, as scripture records. It is for sinful misappropriation of assets dedicated to God, or perhaps which God had commanded be destroyed long ago. Devoted things, as Joshua 7 puts it. God notices these things, and eventually takes action.  God is real, and consequences of His actions are manifested in prophecies, and then in actual events. Putting right the wrong, and repenting of that wrong, it is the only way out, or simply watching the consequences unfold. Those who put faith in Jesus and obey his teachings, these are given help to cease from sin, and hope of overcoming, and their spirit being saved. Others have less hope. But every day we see the mercies of God anew. God be praised. 

More about Jesus being the Son of God

 More about what Jesus, as written in John’s gospel, taught it meant that he is the Son of the Most High God he called the Father, and why the Father called him His beloved Son. It is all about being so much like the Father in behaviour, through what  the Father taught him of Himself through the Father’s love for him. It was about letting these teachings form him into the Father’s likeness. It was about staying faithful and true to all this, so much so that the Father is pleased with that outcome enough to call him His Son. For Jesus, as seen in his quoting of Psalm 82, the Father had many over whom He presided who were called gods, who were called sons of the Most High, but they did not live up to it, and so He condemned them to be ultimately doomed to suffer a kind of death like mortal humans. This reflects what Job, Genesis, and other ancient accounts say of sons of God, as a council of such beings, over whom God Himself presides. These sons of God, Psalm 82 says, were doomed because they failed the poor who were in their power to help. They failed in their duty of care. There were ancient Greek philosophers too who pointed out that the gods were not necessarily very virtuous, despite being worshipped by humans. We might consider today how if a god is forgotten and no longer worshipped by humans, they effectively cease from being gods, effectively dying, though they are deemed immortal and unable to literally die. Now Jesus taught how he had learned all his behaviour and saving wisdom from the Father, who is this Most High God in Psalm 82. The Father at the baptism of Jesus had spoken from heaven of Jesus being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. At the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, God spoke again, telling the disciples to therefore listen to Jesus. In the Book of Revelation the revelation given by God to Jesus, written by John, closes with Jesus forever seated with the One on the throne who is clearly this Most High God, the Father. The other beings in heaven are seen as elders and angels surrounding God and Jesus, ‘the Lamb’, and with them the saints redeemed by Jesus by his sacrifice of his own body and blood as this Lamb of God. 

Testimony of progress in faith and divine knowledge

 It is the Father who is the Most High God. He Himself showed it to me and said it to me, and I believed, although it took years to really understand it, after much discussion with others. So God brought me into His family of believers. God Himself did this. It was soon after this that Jesus showed himself as Master to me. He is Master, Lord, over God’s family of believers, since God, the Most High, the Father, has made him so forever. God acknowledged Jesus as His own true Son in how He gave these things to happen like this. Just the Father and the Son did this to me. The Father did include in His lesson to me the love He shows to others who are His loved ones, people like myself. Then some time later, I got to know the Holy Spirit a lot better, and this was with involvement of other believers, in a worship service, through gifts of the Holy Spirit. That really sealed me into God’s family of believers. Over the decades since then it has gradually sunk in, more and more. Two other occasions like this, visits, gave me strength. I get drip-fed lessons to share with others, as the Holy Spirit commanded me before all this happened. It all began with the gospel, when I was younger, and diligence to obey Jesus Christ’s commands. God is good. Jesus is faithful and true. The belief in him leads to truth, found in the Holy Spirit of truth. 

The wall

 There is belief versus unbelief of one particular kind among humans which creates an important distinguishing barrier; like a cell wall. It separates insiders from outsiders; those in the know from those unable, in this particular case, to be in the know, who are therefore outside, in the outside world. It is about truly knowing the Holy Spirit. The belief required is of that particular kind which results in a person truly keeping Jesus Christ’s teachings. This Spirit is there in the earliest historic times of human civilisation, and still exactly the same today, searching the ins and outs of all of our natural world, and of the divine too. To really know this Spirit requires the kind of faith in Jesus which truly believes he is light from God, the faithful and approved Son, and as a result, goes on to afford to his teachings due adherence, permanently and persistently, with the assurance of spiritual understanding. 

Replacement of the gods

 Jesus effectively replaces the gods, over time, as the full approved Son of God, without challenging the Most High divinity of the Father. 

See https://chatgpt.com/share/6a82b2d8-a13c-83eb-8c79-91ed1d6f0995 https://chatgpt.com/share/6a82b3b2-b39c-83ed-8353-e9a1057a3464 

Divinity of the Father and the Son

 Jesus to his disciples: “You believe in God. Believe also in me… if it were not so I would have told you…” Jesus was assuring them they could trust in him because he would not exclude them or betray their interests. But it shows Jesus regarded God as totally distinct from himself, and belief in one still needed additional belief in the other. There is God, and then, there is other, Jesus himself.

The usual dogmatic opposing view is that Jesus taught he is one with the Father. Well, a man and my wife are one. But their children still need to believe in each of them. The unity of which Jesus was teaching, which he has with the Father, is such that he could pray “Let them be one, even as we are one”; he prayed with those words to God.

These truths belie many doctrinal dogmas.

Do these truths constitute any attack on the divinity of Jesus Christ? Divinity of Jesus is a different matter. There is the matter of identity first. Then comes divinity.

Jesus distinguished the Father as El Elyon, the Most High, in the very discussion where he stated his unity with the Father. The distinction Jesus made is clear that it is the Father who is El Elyon, not Jesus himself. In that discussion he quotes the psalm — Psalm 82 — which distinguishes the Father as Most High El Elyon in a context of gods being rebuked by this Most High God. So a son is not the Most High, but rather a son of the Most High. “If he called them gods”, Jesus said, meaning by “he” in context, the Most High. The same Father who sent him. It could be said that in the psalm it is the psalm which is calling the sons of God ‘gods’; there is that alternative reading of it, which seems valid, but the context of the psalm words actually makes it that the Most High is the one speaking, calling these beings gods. Perhaps both readings of it are valid. But the overall point stands. Jesus regards (and he teaches it) the Father as the king above all gods who judges the gods, as was revealed in the overcoming of Egypt’s gods with the ten plagues and Exodus, and this Father is therefore, to Jesus, the Most High. While Jesus is the set apart son, these other gods though called sons, do not please God ultimately, while Jesus does. So they are doomed to suffer a demise like the death humans suffer, while Jesus will die and be raised by the Father to live forever, without any such doom.

It has been said that if a god loses all worshippers, they effectively cease from history, effectively dying.

The Book of Revelation completes the picture, with Jesus and the Father, the latter called the One seated on the throne, at the very end, there together forever. As Paul put it, God is then all in all. Revelation even starts in clarity speaking of Jesus and God. God gave Jesus the revelations.

So Jesus has divinity like the gods who are sons of the Most High, but his divinity outlasts theirs.

Jesus and the Most High means Jesus and the Father, means Jesus and God, means Son and Father, throughout his own teachings recorded in John and in Revelation.

See also https://chatgpt.com/share/6a829ef1-ab00-83eb-92c9-dce48d77acbe  

Could it be that the Roman Empire sought to kill off worship to the Father as Most High God, as revenge for killing off of its gods? Nietzsche did say God was murdered, by modern Western scholarship. Islam too objects to perceived undermining of God as the Most High, and seems to regard Western theology about Jesus as guilty of doing this. 

We ought to be diligent and earnest in proving our innocence of any such coup against the Most High God, whether or not we think there is such a coup. Rather than go along with suppressing the original meaning of teachings of Jesus in John’s texts, to prove we are not killing off worship of the Father as sole Most High God, we ought to first establish who Jesus is in relation to the Father, then separately ask what “divine” means of Jesus. That is not a denial of Jesus being divine, but rather earnest effort to preserve the higher divinity of the Father, as not just a god, but as the one Most High God. 

See also https://chatgpt.com/share/6a82f46b-8ddc-83eb-8a32-e9c44e216d21 

The sentry who wants to sleep

 Philosophers like Plato had in common with Christ a teaching that the flesh, the animal nature of humans, the body and its appetites, is their enemy, because living by it degrades us, whereas living by mind and spirit leads to the nobler life. The natural, appetitive person, when dominating us by desires and selfishness, needs to be conquered by the nobler spirit and rational mind, but this is not easy. A sentry on night duty might be sorely tempted to sleep instead of keeping watch, so the nobler good mentality and spiritual willingness to be dutiful, to be faithful to those trusting them, must dominate, rather than that sleep-craving flesh. Jesus Christ came to help us to overcome that ignoble flesh that can bring us down. The flesh is at war with the nobler spirit and mind, and Jesus came to help the nobler nature win. He came to save from what brings down so many of us. He came to save from that which can cause our demise. A snake can kill by its bite. A plague of snakes can kill a large group of people. The ancient medical symbol of a snake or two snakes hanging from a pole, is what scripture tells us once was held up in front of people afflicted by such a plague, to effectively curse the venom of the snakes and end its deadly war on those afflicted. So when Jesus was crucified on a cross, held up in his body like on a pole, it was a curse against the flesh he was becoming symbolically, as God’s answer to the dominion of our flesh that dooms us. So we too, in keeping with his sacrifice, must deem that fleshly dominion cursed and crucified in our lives, and overcome it by good spirit working with good mind and reason. No sleeping on duty! This is war. Fleshly weakness and cravings must be overcome by rational diligence and the guidance of our purest spiritual counsel and spiritual strength. Jesus conquered by dying in obedience to God’s highest purposes, and God in turn raised him a few days later from the dead, to live forever, in the power of spirit, and power of God who sent him. He ever lives to help us, and to intercede with God for us, if we believe and follow these teachings, keeping this word. 

See also https://chatgpt.com/share/6a8232ee-68f4-83eb-a22f-1435c8fe4720 

 I discussed Jesus and God with ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/share/6a821a0b-5668-83eb-aaa5-ca7cace9349f 

Identity and logo

 Identity is very important to humans. Consider graves where humans through the ages have been buried. It is so important, where possible, to somehow mark the body with some symbol or inscription of the person’s identity. Perhaps, in days of cultures when writing was not commonplace, the grave goods marked the identity as much as possible, so the body kept respect as an individual being. Many typical graves today have headstones. If it is a Christian burial of someone identifying through baptism and life as a Christian,identifying with Christ, this is typically shown by presence of a cross-shaped headstone, if possible with the name and dates of birth and death inscribed on it. It is all like an ancient-rooted type of logo of the person, either in inscriptions and headstones, or similar items in other culture burials, and perhaps grave goods in ancient cultures, along with other symbols of culture or religion such as alignment of the grave and body with cardinal compass directions (North, South, East, or West). During their life time, other logo symbols might also define someone’s identity. The Queen of England was often identified by a logo name E II R, and signed her name Elizabeth R. Few are ever identified by any kind of logo BEFORE their lifetime. Jesus, on the other hand, had an identity stretching back long before his earthly life, identified by God as “My Christ”, identified by the psalmist King David as “my Lord”, identified to Abraham by God as “your seed” (seed in the singular sense), identified to the very ancient great prophet Enoch as “the Son of Man”, and “the Anointed One”, and “Chosen One”. Jesus in his human flesh and bone life acknowledges all this previously existing identity given him by God. He will have this identity forever, as God has promised him. Much is included in this identity, this logo. He is Priest Forever in the order of Melchizedek (an ancient priest with a hidden beginning and end). Even the symbol of a cross is firmly associated with him by many, because of the ancient meaning of the cross as a mark of priesthood and of the undoer or exorciser of evils, and because it was on a cross that he died to provide remission for sins of his own, as well as for the benefit of the whole world, after which God raised him from the dead to live forever. Those identifying with him, benefit from him in so many ways. Such is the saving power of his identity, and this is symbolised most assuredly in the name given him by God, the name Jesus, meaning salvation. “For he will save his people from their sins.” 

Credit for creation

 Not every contributor to content creation gets credited as a creator of that content. I have been on a content creation project where one significant editor of the final version of that content was credited but only after some discussion about how appropriate this would be. Likewise, on other projects, there have been many minor contributors who were not credited in the official list of contributors. This is an interesting consideration when it comes to scriptures giving credit for Creation. The possibility of multiple contributors to the work of creation cannot be ruled out, even though it is one God, the Most High, who takes overall credit, in some cases of scripture, apparently exclusively. 

What about the various gods of the various nations?

 In the scriptures we have the account of how God, the Most High, the king above all gods says of the gods that they, for their injustices to the poor, must die like mortal men. Today we see Christ Jesus rising and many of the gods of nations disappearing from human minds and losing all worship following. Christ Jesus will come soon. After he comes we will start to see the demise of all these gods of nations, while Christ reigns like a god, indeed as chosen, approved, and blessed Son of the Most High God.  In the past God commanded His worshippers to leave aside all other gods, with God as king above all gods who punishes their injustices with a hopeless fate and demise. Yet Jesus remains as Lord. We distinguish him from gods of nations by calling him not by the word ‘god’ but calling him Lord. We reserve the distinction of Most High God for the Father who sent Jesus. But Jesus is a greater hope than the gods of nations. God raised him from the dead, and foretold the Son forever ruling with the One God, on God’s throne. Jesus is not unfair like the gods of nations, nor condemned by God like they are. Jesus laid down his life, as good shepherd, for the sheep. God sets him apart to judge all, including not only humans but gods and angels. If we feel the powers that be are unfairly making us miserable in our poverty, there is Jesus who is not like that, but cares for his sheep, for those who keep his teachings and obey his commands, trusting him. This is good news for the oppressed and poor. And Jesus lives forever at the side of God to represent his people to God, and bring to them all that God lovingly teaches him. If some wish to turn from gods of nations to the justice of the Most High king above all gods, the God and Father of Jesus Christ, then the cost of reparations to God, of acceptance by God despite past wrongs, has been paid by the death of Jesus on the cross. The way is open. The Law of Moses was once an obstacle to the nations keeping a high barrier of entry to worship of God, but now the cross has set aside the requirement of keeping that whole Law system, so it is now by faith alone that God is approached by all. Believe in Jesus as the light from God to light the way to God, and hold to teachings from God given through Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit. Then knowing the truth from Jesus the way is opened and freedom is enjoyed. It is not a matter of ethnic race, nor of geographic location, but a matter of receiving the Holy Spirit from God to enable worship of Him as Most High God, who Jesus also worships. 

Joined to Jesus

 The true vine, by which Jesus described the organisation of all his own people, is not any church or clergy. It is Jesus Christ and those united with him by holding to his teachings. Anyone, even if uppermost in church hierarchy, who is not united with Jesus, anyone who does not hold to his teachings and teachings which come personally through him from the Father, is not part of the true vine. They might have once been joined to it, united with Jesus by belief in him and by holding to his teachings, but when they cease from unity with Jesus and aligning with his teachings, they become fruitless, and the Father, as gardener of the vine, cuts them off from Jesus and from the vine and its branches truly joined to Jesus. So it is not vital to salvation so much to be approved by a church, no matter how great that church and its approval powers, but rather it is to meet up to the teachings of Jesus and teachings the Father gives through him. Yes, that indirectly unites the person with others so joined to Jesus, but it is not a direct join to a church, but to Jesus, which gives the unity and salvation. The sign of it, the mark given to demonstrate this join, is to have the Holy Spirit personally from the Father. In meetings, the evidence of it is the evident presence of Jesus in spirit. Test yourselves to see if you have this spiritual join to Jesus. That is more vital than any church approval or affiliation or position in church hierarchy or stamp of office. The calling is not to be joined to a church. The calling is to be joined directly to Jesus, and it comes by believing in him, and in that belief, holding to his teachings, and to teachings from the Father which come through him from the Holy Spirit. 

Beware blind compliance

 Two separate major prophecies foretell it: They both tell of a time when the spiritually blind will be judged who comply blindly with rule even when it is excessively evil. One prophecy is in the Book of Enoch, and the other is in the Book of Revelation. In Revelation we see it will be a testing of all alive on Earth: The test of the notorious sign of 666. This test comes just before the Christ returns. Those who simply comply, without looking deeply at what they are complying with, blind in the sense of turning a blind eye spiritually to the evil of the requirement, or simply unable to discern the evil, these are destined for permanent exile from God’s place of peace—exile into fire along with those who behave excessively wickedly. Being saved is not a matter of complying with whatever seems most widely accepted. It is necessary to believe in the light of the Messiah, and hold to the teachings coming through him. 

The next generation

 What about the future for our children? If we are hoping that it will be ignored by God how we ignore the justice needs of the poor, and if we think favouring our own privileges and privileges of our children over rights of the poor is overlooked forever by God, we should think again. God will not overlook injustice and ignoring of the poor forever, and our younger children may live long enough to see the day of God’s wrath, because it will come, likely as soon as the 2060s. Meanwhile, no eternal life provision exists for those who martyr the martyrs. Causing deaths and persecutions among the honest truth-telling witnesses among the poor, making martyrs, is not rewarded with the kind of eternal hope in which to learn directly from God and His Son. How to escape? How to create a brightest future for ourselves and our children? It necessitates being on the victim side of the injustices and persecutions, but the way is to preach to the children Jesus crucified as Christ, and hold to his teachings, learning to obey them with faith in him, and teach the children to do the same. It will not avert the coming wrath, but it puts us in the saving arms of Jesus who presides over it all, and we can live in hope of eternal life in which to know Jesus better and eternally learn from the Father who sent him, even in the coming times of the Father’s ultimate indignation and wrath. 

Good leadership

 How can a leader have their teachings live on in their people even after they have gone? Most leaders, though some are so powerful that they are god-like, nevertheless end up in the grave like anyone else. Their teachings and commands might then be forgotten as the next leader takes their place. That is because they are not as good as leaders as they ought to be. They were notorious for their injustices, failing the poor and weak during times of hardship, even causing misery and hardship such as famines by their self-centric policies for their own enrichment. Not so with Jesus Christ. He put the needs of followers and friends above himself when he died on a cross as sacrifice to pay for their sins, and yes though he died in shame on that cross, the One who sent him raised him only days later from the dead, to live forever as ultimate leader over all. He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, and we are his sheep if, believing in him, we hold firmly to what he famously taught, and learn how to obey these teachings, and how to obey him as our own master, the Lord of the sheep. So to be like him in leading is to lay down one’s life for those being led. Leaders who put the needs of the sheep even above their own needs of life are those whose teachings endure their departure, like the seed which dies in the earth only to bring forth many seeds. In the case of Jesus, he so worthy as Son to God that God raised him from the dead to live forever and lead alongside God, forever giving life to those who believe, love, and follow him. 

Why follow teachings of Jesus

 Why follow Jesus Christ? What leads some to believe in him, and to love him and obey his teachings? The answer is rooted in the failings of the alternative leaders who, though called gods, let down the poor, putting themselves first, resulting in times of mass hunger, misery for even those who follow them. These leaders, though some are so powerful that they are god-like, all end up in the grave like anyone else. Not so with Jesus Christ. He put the needs of followers and friends above himself when he died on a cross as sacrifice to pay for their sins, and yes though he died in shame on that cross, the One who sent him raised him only days later from the dead, to live forever as ultimate leader over all. He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, and we are his sheep if, believing in him, we hold firmly to what he famously taught, and learn how to obey these teachings, and how to obey him as our own master, the Lord of the sheep. He is with the Father who sent him, where that same goodness in laying down his life on the cross still lives on in him, as it will do forever. That is why follow him. And his teachings hold the wisdom needed for eternal life. So those who are his own can be given life to forever learn from God as true children of God, like Jesus. 

Why follow Jesus Christ

 Why follow Jesus Christ? The answer is in the cross on which he suffered and died. John the Baptist of the first century, famed for prophetic influence, is quoted as calling Jesus the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He did not live long enough to see the crucifixion of Jesus event, except for what he saw of it prophetically, but his preaching explained it as a sacrifice for the sins of others, and this makes sense when you see that Jesus died at Passover, when a lamb sacrifice was central to the commemorative feast.  Why a cross? Why crucifixion? The cross did from ancient times and even now today symbolise healing, just as it is used widely to symbolise medical services, such as ambulances, hospitals, medications, and the like. Even in Ancient Greek medical practices there was a symbol of a snake or two snakes on a pole. The snake is lifted up on the pole like a cross emblem, and the symbolic cross is for hope of the healing of those who regard it meaningfully. It is a symbol like the siren of the ambulance. That siren might serve practical purposes of encouraging anyone blocking the ambulance path to move aside, but it also encourages hope by those needing the ambulance and hearing its siren. Symbols in medicine and health ministries act as encouragement of hope for healing and salvation of imperilled life. The cross symbol originating in the ancient written languages of Sumerian and Akkadian, is associated since ancient times with the healing ministry, but also priesthood, mediation with God, and the intersection of humanity and divinity. It effectively points at its ultimate level to the ministry of the Messiah. (Mashiach, Semitic form of word for Messiah, might even be linked to this cross symbol since it was called MASH in Sumerian script, although it is not a widely recognised association.) In this Messiahship, Jesus is designated and authorised for it by the highest God, who Jesus called the Father. If you recognise this Messiahship in Jesus you recognise the holy authorisation by God. If you follow this Jesus as Messiah, as the true Christ, you follow God, the One who sent him. You reap the benefits of the cross sacrifice too, if you make it a turning point for leaving sinful, notorious living, believing the Christ died for you. God raised him from the dead, so his sacrifice for sin was regarded by God as truly finished, successful, and complete, meeting God’s righteous requirements for the sin sacrifice. Words of spirit, understood in the sense of the true gist of them, coming through Jesus Christ, are the words to which to hold, in faith, in order to truly follow him. It leads to eternal life. 

Who we identify with is important so do it wisely

 Who to identify with? Some identify with a sports team, as supporters. Some with a celebrity, as fans. Some with a political party, as members. Some with an ideology, as proponents. Some with a leader, as followers, or with a teacher, as students, or with a guru, as disciples. Choose your leader or teacher well, though. Most leaders fail to meet the mark, and many fall disappointingly in the end, not even living up to the standards they set for others. Jesus Christ is ideal because he met even the high mark and standards set by the One unfailing God. He is true Son to this God, his Father, by living to the Father’s standards and pleasing Him entirely, even to the end of his earthly life and, now resurrected by God, forever. He can truly lead, as the truly virtuous shepherd. Following him is simply by belief in him and holding to the spirit of his teachings, getting the gist of them rightly, helped by the Holy Spirit who God gives such followers in Jesus Christ’s name. Jesus sent great teachers to teach his teachings to all. Following Jesus, identifying with him in this way, brings the benefits of his teachings and his perfect relationship with the Father, and brings the benefit of his having been a sacrifice for sins of all, so turning from such sins can mean those sins being forgiven by God in Jesus Christ’s name. The end result can be resurrection, immortality, eternal life, in closeness to the Father and to Jesus forever, along with others who have this shared hope. It can lead to becoming a truly virtuous son of the Father forever, just as Jesus is. We need to do well in how we identify with a group and a leader, so identifying with Jesus is a truly wise way to go. 

Confessing Father and Son and Holy Spirit

 It seems there are three tendencies in viewing God and the Messiah: Monolatry (as seen in Second-Temple faith including earliest Christian discipleship as expressed in Bible scriptures of the Old and New Testaments), Post-Second-Temple developments, including rabbinic Judaism and the Hellenized theological formulations that shaped Nicene Christianity, and Islam. I confess that it is the first of these which best fits my own received revelations from God, from His Son Jesus Christ, and from the Holy Spirit as manifested in assembled believers. I did not expect this. I had been strongly inclined to think God would revelation along Trinitarian lines formulated in church councils of Nicaea onwards. Yet, checking diligently with Bible scripture those revelations I received, the scriptures affirm them, though not in the way Trinitarian teachings have explained the scriptures, but as seems now clearly the intended understanding of the scriptures, in short, that it is the Father alone who is the Most High God, namely ‘El Elyon‘, and that His Son is flesh and bone human, and though appropriately called a god, ‘El’, and truly mighty, now he is immortal, raised from the dead, yet he is not El Elyon, God the Most High. Jesus, as with others in the Psalm scriptures, is rightly called a god, as scripture calls many rulers of highly exceptional power and authority, and in this sense there must be room to call other beings a god while worshipping the Most High God in a uniquely exclusive way (Monolatry, as it can be termed). Jesus points to the Father, the Most High God, as his source as the Son, with whom he is one, in unity and in great likeness of character,  having learned all his ways and teachings from the Father, knowing the Father in the truest sense, able to best reveal the Father even in his own character and teachings and works, having authority over all which he receives from the Father. He alone is given by the Father to sit with Him on His eternal throne, though the Father gives Jesus a throne which Jesus can share with those faithful to him. This matches what is revealed to me personally of this Father, this Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Revealed to me personally, respectively by Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, as I follow a life of discipleship to Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. This means becoming part of the house of the Most High God. 

 

A sword at work in the earth

 A sword is at work in the earth; a sword the Christ came to bring. Within families that loss of peace becomes evident. Warmongers find a ready ear. Leadership promising peace gives up and turns instead to this sword. Excesses of it can lead to judgment by God, through dark forces manifesting in humans, and in Nature. Excesses of violence are pointed out for judgment. But in Christ mercy is found as well. Natural disasters are averted by faith. And still it continues until the Christ returns, and this time brings peace. The Christ opens seals the Father has ordained in heaven to trigger what is seen on earth. Jesus Christ has this authority to open each seal, and few seals remain. Did he come to bring peace when he came the first time? Not peace but a sword. And to bring light which eventually makes all things visible, even the thoughts of every heart; thoughts both good and evil. Truth and light, and a sword. Jesus is this Christ, this Lord. 

Spirit, truth, life

 Jesus brought a revival of the importance of being spiritual in the true sense. He was full of spiritually charged words which brought life rather than death when obeyed and lived by. He introduced this way to all who could accept it. When spiritual words are spoken, with true God-given spirit, they can be shunned or accepted, and when accepted, they open the door to life, leading away from ways of death. This makes it vital to have those who can impart such words, and vital, if we believe, to become such people too. Jesus empowers this way by having asked the Father to give to believers the Holy Spirit. This can provide what is needed to become a conveyor of spirit words, like Jesus. Spirit, truth, life. But the opposite of life is death, and it might be for that those who, despite believing, follow a murderous path, no matter how high they are, the words of spirit might be conveyed to them in such a manner as to lead them out of those ways, and into life. The Apostle Paul’s conversion was an example of this. Yet those who will not be converted, though they might even believe, but instead insist on aligning with evil, they go a path that leads to death. Discipline at a spiritual level can lead to punishment in this life of such sufficiency that their spirits are still saved eventually, but death might be first, to save their spirits. So the spiritual are needed for saving by words, and rebukes, and attempts to pull the erring from their errors, or in some severe cases, saving by spiritual punishment in solemn prayer. Live by spirit, whether spirit words, or spirit actions, and so escape the snares of the erring natural beast that otherwise we are. 

https://chatgpt.com/share/6a61197e-21c0-83ed-abd1-4ec2567a7706 

Jesus and God his Father

 The Gospel account of John records how Jesus was countering the Jews of his time. They were insisting they were descendants of Abraham, as John 8 records, and they did not like his teaching in which he in turn insisted that to call themselves this was missing the point if they were liars, since it is Satan, not Abraham, who is father of liars. John records how Jesus was upsetting them even more by insisting his own real father is God Himself. Jesus was referring, I believe, to this having God as his own Father when he stated “Before Abraham was born, I am.” I believe he was showing how much greater it is to have God as true Father, even more so than having Abraham as father, since God is and was and will be, and is therefore the one who is before Abraham.  But it is in his alignment with God, by being of all people the only one who truly had real knowledge of God, that he has unity with God, and in this he is the light you and I need in living our lives such that we do not, as he put it, ‘die in our sins’. He can impart this knowledge of God his Father to us, if we believe in him and hold to his teachings. By truly knowing God, this God whose Son he truly is, he could fully please God, and enlighten the world to this truth of God. We need to live by this light, or else we must stay in the dark. Finding Jesus and his Father God, and finding knowledge of Jesus and his Father God, by being given this knowledge by their imparting of it, by their revealing themselves, it becomes possible to overcome opposition and trouble from the world, and possible to have the faith in Jesus which enables following his teachings by holding to them in belief they will lead to the truth that sets free. 

AI response here to allow weighing of this against prevailing church opinions https://chatgpt.com/share/6a5e99f6-0ca8-83ed-81ea-1ba7b312803c 

Before Abraham

 “Before Abraham was born, I am.” What did Jesus mean by it? He was countering the Jews of his time who were insisting they were descendants of Abraham, as John 8 records, and they did not like his teaching in which he in turn insisted that to call themselves this was missing the point if they were liars, since it is Satan, not Abraham, who is father of liars, and Jesus was upsetting them even more by insisting his own real father is God Himself. I suggest Jesus meant to point to this having God as his own Father when he stated “Before Abraham was born, I am.” I believe he was showing how much greater it is to have God as true Father, even more so than having Abraham as father, since God is and was and will be, and is therefore the one who is before Abraham.  

Farm-assisting pharmacists

 The farm-assisting pharmacists, whose ancient precedent goes back well over five thousand years: An ancient profession like other ancient professions. Ancient things like this are not a forever thing. The Book of Revelation predicts the demise of such things. God and His Son are shown to be presiders in the future over a removal of such things from human civilisation. Things that cause sin. So when it speaks of pharmacy, and deceptions it causes worldwide, we ought to want to be sure what it means. The words it uses, based on Pharmakoi in its Ancient Greek meaning, has a link to our English words for pharmacist, pharmaceuticals, and even farming today. The farm link is interesting. Farmers need ideas of things to grow and a market for selling them. Humans are constantly looking for ways of profiting from resources. Farm land is a major resource. The link from this to drugs is not hard to see. Jesus interestingly alluded often to a book of what he called scripture which tells more clearly this link. It is known today as the Book of Enoch, preserved as we have it today by the Ethiopian churches and Beta Israel groups since ancient times. Fragments of the scriptural scrolls of it were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Church Father writings quote from it. In this set of writings we find records of angels corrupting human society, apparently some 5,300 years ago, with knowledge including drug use from roots. Although it is rather obscure that it means roots for drug use, our knowledge from archaeology of that time does show the emergence of farming of roots for medicinal purposes. Ancient human societies did know how to turn farm land into medicinal resources. Other uses of land corrupted by angelic teachers, the Book of Enoch tells us, included metallurgy from mining. One of the links from metallurgy to corrupted practices was weapon production, for the art of war also taught by angelic fallen teachers. We see today how chemistry and land use combine to supply warfare, as well as supplying medicine. Things that cause sin and despair are going to be dealt with by Jesus when he returns for a thousand years of rule over this planet. But even before then, his teachings help us, if we believe, to turn from practices leading to sin and death. In turn, this saves us, if we follow his ways, from eventual condemnation when it will all be permanently ended in fire. 

The Truth from which comes no lie

 Can anyone rightly lie to an enemy? It is a grey area. Do not lie against a neighbour. Those who are one in their unity with Jesus Christ are to not lie to each other. Lies are evil things, and are tools typical of evildoers. If we are aligned with the sayings of Jesus, learning from his sayings, believing he is sent from God, and believing his veracity as anointed by God, we have access to the truth, as the true disciples of Jesus. Put truth together, without lies, and you have something from which no lie can come, and this is promised to those who are true disciples of Jesus. As followers of Jesus, the Lord Jesus treats his follower as a neighbour, and lies are not directed to them by God. Even if God lets a lie come to an enemy of God, He will not suffer a lie towards a neighbour or friend of His Son. 

Critical analysis of this by AI: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a57f009-370c-83ed-84f8-99e324c1e90f 

Authority is invisible

 Authority is largely invisible. I used to work in local government, in an office building, and as I walked around at work, authority was there, but it was intangible; invisible to senses, invisible to Science. Yet it was there. It was mostly manifested in how I was told to do my work, in how I was told what to do. It was invisible, but it was known. I very much knew I was working in a place where there was authority. Occasionally it came into how I behaved in events that took place; such as a phone call in which I was asked permission and my own response carried authority I found surprising, but it was real. Most of the time my mind simply superimposed that knowledge into my work, but other than that, there nothing visible in the work which said it was done under authority, within an office building of a local authority. Now in the world around us there is authority too, but Science does not detect it, nor does it inform us of it. Really we only know it because of rare events in history, and because there is this entity we call the Holy Spirit which informs some of us about it, and we tend, in our short life spans, to ‘get wind of it’. Yet that authority exists. It is there in the trees and stars, and the changing of tides, and cycles of day and night. It is the authority of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Distinctive Son of Man

 Consider how Jesus called himself the Son of Man. Think of a children’s educational broadcast, say in stop motion, with various marionette characters, just one of which is a human child, while the other marionette characters are animals or other kinds of non-human character. Think how in the planning phase there might already have been a story board with the characters depicted in advance of their real marionette forms. Even at this stage, the main character might have been the human child. Then when given their final manifestation as marionettes, it becomes clear that this main character is a human child, although it might be that a further manifestation of the character in a live action adaptation of the broadcast, is a replacement with an actual child. This is not an analogy, but it helps describe the way God first made provision for there to be a most prominent, sent Son, who when in his original position side by side with angelic servants of God, was distinct by being one who would eventually be manifested as a real human, born as a human offspring. Prior to this, and prior to conception in human form, he had existence, but that existence was initially determined by what he would eventually be, a Son of Man. Before being flesh and bone, he had existence on a par with angels, yet greater by virtue of his intended human existence as ultimate judge to be sent by God into the world so as to be judge of humans, and mediator between them and God, Moreover, his name was higher than any angel’s name, and he would succeed where others had failed, in perfectly justly and lovingly shepherding humans, pleasing God in this, and God would therefore even make him the ultimate judge even over angels. Even if the angels were called gods, Jesus would still be made judge over them, and would be given to die in obedience to God as though he were on a par with failing human leaders, but be raised from the dead by God to demonstrate that God accepted him as not in any way a failure. These things given by God to him to do, along with striking miracles, would show that God was setting him apart as having a name greater than any other name, and doing so among the humans to whom He had sent Jesus. All this is a matter of distinctness from any angel, by virtue of being a human, actually born human, rather than the merely human appearance which angels could sometimes have. Jesus is the Son of Man, and described himself as such. It is his distinct nature. We can believe in this Jesus because though from among the angels he has come to us just like us: Human.