Jesus Christ is God's Emblem

The Christ is God's emblem. People use emblems for quality assurance and for branding. Christ Jesus is the One of whom God said publicly "This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him."

Then when Christ was killed, crucified by evil people, it was impossible that this emblem of God could stay dead so God raised Him from the dead.

Two thousand years later, He having appeared to many in special ways since He rose from the dead, He made Himself known to me too. One day, years ago, I was in a somber mood walking up Blackswarth Road in Bristol, UK, up from the river where I had been contemplating the very high water level at a time of quite severe flooding in the UK. It had been in my reading of the Bible that day from a Psalm, I think, to "go see the desolations He has wrought", the judgements on mankind wrought by God and the fact that prophets had foretold much flooding as part of God's judgements against nations. I had looked at the effect of UK floods on the river and considered the misery to people affected and the fact that this judgement is so real and vivid. Then as I walked back up the hill He made me know the other side to things. He showed me His powerful mercy which triumphs over judgment. He compelled me as I walked to put down my umbrella. The rain had been coming down as a terrible torrent. Within the time it took me to put down the umbrella it stopped so suddenly it was as if not a single drop landed on me. (Must have looked strange to drivers driving past me up the Blackswarth Road at the time.) I suddenly realised 'it is Him, Jesus Christ' and I remembered how the Gospels recorded that disciples of His said this to themselves when He appeared to them after His resurrection "it is the Lord". Later that night I specified a sign I asked Jesus to give me if indeed it was Him who had made Himself known to me like that and He did it precisely. At the moment He did so (in the middle of the night) I understood it was in fact Him who had done this.

A while later, I was waiting meditatively for something to say at a church I was attending (where they let ordinary, 'lay' folk like me speak) and a spirit I believe was God's spirit 'said' to me "Israel has sinned". He showed me a vision of a condor (eagle, vulture) of war flying over the House of Israel. I saw many generals talking war. The vulture-like bird of war would be evidenced as a sign a bit later when the Americans started sending spy planes over Iraq (back before the more recent wars - this was some years ago now) and in the first use of police helicopters in surveillance over my home town of Bristol (they even called it Operation Vulture). Then the word came "shout from the mountain top 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your...'" and as those last words came there was an overriding "all your VOICE". So now I do. This is God's command still, like it was when He gave it to Moses for the nation of Israel thousands of years back. Maybe Israel is different now; more people regard Israel as broader than just the nation and that since Christ's coming it has included all those of faith. Maybe all these now have sinned. Maybe many have become hardened against loving God this way. Yet still His command is there to all people, to you too, to Love Him. And to love Him with not just heart - all of it - but body, mind and soul and lastly with your voice too, as much as you have one. Use it in love for God - love for this God whose Son Jesus Christ is His emblem of whom He said "This is my beloved Son, Listen to Him."  

To those who love Him, He has promised through Christ to make Himself known.

The Race to Become Poor

So following my earlier reasoning, I would say we are in a moral race to become poor... and to do so quickly before the world persuades us to seek to become rich and before we die, when it becomes too late.

I reckon this follows on from my reasoning that God exists, is personal, is love (purest love) and has sent Jesus Christ as His most faithful and true representative (see earlier postings for how I came to these conclusions). It follows the last deduction in my series of deductions, that Jesus most faithfully and truly represents God's wisdom and message to humanity (especially those who believe Him): Christ Jesus, in my understanding, according to the testimony of those who heard Him firsthand, clearly taught that to have good after death, a human being must first have 'their bad things' before death.

Those already poor get a head start but need the patience of His grace to endure it and the evils that go with poverty, I reason. Those now rich need God's grace to become poor, without foolishly voiding their reward by making a fuss about what they give up in the process of getting to poverty. There is the need taught by Christ's Apostle Paul, to do all this in love. "If I give all I have to the poor... but have not love I profit nothing... The greatest [way] is love." If my blog postings end on that note, I'm happy: Let us love because love comes from God; God is love (to quote the 'other' apostle, John). The Apostle Peter made it clear when he wrote: "Let us make every effort to add to our faith goodness and to goodness knowledge and to knowledge self-control and to self-control perseverance and to perseverance godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love. If you possess these qualities in ever increasing measure they will keep you from being unproductive in your knowledge of God... You will never fall..."

Revelations of God

So I have looked into the existence of God and found that He does indeed exist, and is a particular person, 'a personal God', who has interacted with people on this planet in the past and present and has made Himself known on a more general level through well known and not so well known religious manifestations. Some of these manifestation are so well documented that almost everyone on the planet has heard of them and many revere them; to Abram, changing his name to Abraham, to Moses when He freed Israel and gave them the Law, to the prophets in Israel over hundreds of years prior to the coming of the Christ, to the Apostles when they spent several years following Jesus Christ and heard God say of Him through the voice of an angel "This is my beloved Son, listen to Him", to the Apostle Paul on the road from Palestine to Damascus when the blinding light accompanied the voice of Jesus from the heavens, to the Apostle John when He gave Him the Revelation of Jesus Christ and to Mohammad when He spoke to him through an angel. In all these occasions the hallmarks of God's identity have been apparent uniting these visitations so that many are sure the same God has been behind them all: The same God though by different Names. In between those times many other events have happened like these but less well known and probably many never known except to those who witnessed them and some which maybe even the recipients might have forgotten such as in dreams. (I've dreamt appearances of God or Jesus Christ at least once but I it might have been more and I might have forgotten before I woke up.)

Always, throughout history, the same God makes Himself known and His hallmarks are clear; the acknowledgment of His Son, Jesus Christ, come from Him with human body, the prominence of His great mercy on one hand and His awesome power on the other, the righteousness of His judgments and His responsibility for having created all things. Say we don't like what He has said or commanded; we still, to be right, have to acknowledge that it is He who has said or commanded it. Some object to His commands and things He has said on particular subjects such as special commands about women or teachings about what is right and wrong sexually or on the rightness of obeying Governments (as long as it doesn't mean disobeying God), etc. Yet it is God who has said what God has said and we are human and He is God. In Christ that divide closed somewhat in that the Christ became human too, yet the Christ, Jesus Christ, more than any body made the special point of reverencing and obeying God, even to death and even to death by crucifixion. "Therefore", it is written, "God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name, that through the Name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess to God" just as through that Name and the authority of that Name of Jesus all of Creation fulfills God's will - trees bloom and planets orbit around stars. This is the way and the power by which God will bring all things together ultimately under the dominion of His Christ, this same Lord Jesus Christ who God has raised from the dead two thousand years ago. And the meaning of that Name is this: "The Lord Saves."

Spirits and Loyalty to God

That 'God' exists is evident from people's reaction to His word - commands, teachings and promises - and His personified Word - His Christ; past and present.

This 'God' has revealed Himself. This is seen especially in His Christ whom he sent, called on Earth 'Jesus of Nazareth', but it is also seen in the giving of the Law to Moses and in miracles and prophesies given throughout the history of humankind. God has revealed Himself to be a 'spirit' and so at least one spirit exists but many believe that spirits other than God also exist and that humans have a spirit along with their mind and body, even though it might be dormant in many. Spirits are of various kinds and called various names according to their kinds and according to various local customs and beliefs too. Some spirits are loyal to God and in ancient writings God is called 'the Lord of Spirits'. Some spirits have abandoned loyalty to God.

All this is evident in the believing response of people to teachings from God (and evident most in the loving nature of the works of such people). It is especially evident in the teachings of the Christ and the believing response of so many to those teachings and to the Christ Himself.

A region surrounding the planet on which we live, Earth, demarcated by the clouds and stretching upwards above them is a region especially associated with spirits loyal and obedient to God. It is called 'Heaven' and 'the heavens' (or the equivalent in other languages). It is distinct from a region below the clouds and above the ground of this planet which is called 'the air' and which is associated with spirits disloyal and disobedient to God. Other spirits are also known which are called ghosts. (When I say 'known' I mean known to exist in 'folk' and personal knowledge, though not as yet in what is called 'scientific' knowledge which is collective and depends on physical methods of observation and deduction and academic methods of peer review and refutation.) Ghosts are believed to belong to people now deceased and these spirits are often associated with the ground region of the planet, particularly believed to wander lonely places and to haunt houses, especially otherwise uninhabited buildings. Some especially troublesome ghosts are called demons and are associated with illnesses they are believed to cause in humans and animals.

The teachings of the Christ emphasised the need to escape eternal death by becoming loyal, obedient and trusting towards God and His teachings and so to become associated so much with the region and Kingdom of Heaven that you are called a child of God and one born of God, born of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is a special spirit known from ancient times to prophets of God who has been sent be God after the departure of His Christ. This Spirit is the means by which a person is made sufficiently loyal to God that they are called a child of God and a citizen of Heaven, just as spirits loyal to God are associated with Heaven too.

Loyalty to God which comes to people from God's work in them by His Spirit means two things in particular; loyalty to God's teachings and loyalty to others loyal to God. To experience the Spirit of God is a means of progressing along this path towards eternal life. It is therefore essential to identify any spirit you experience as to whether it comes from God or whether it is a spirit disloyal to God. This is mainly by the teachings of the spirit with regard to the Christ, whether it acknowledges the Christ truthfully. Allowing the Spirit of God or spirits loyal to God to work in you helps you progress towards God's will and to be transformed mentally into the kind of person who can inherit God's rewards of eternal life. This is the only way to become such a person. Human endeavour alone is really insufficient, though it may be noble and may bring a person into a place where they are ultimately blessed by God so He gives them His teachings and His Spirit causes them to believe. So it is worth every effort to work towards the Kingdom of God but in the end it is only the work of God's Spirit that creates a true believer: A true believer is a new creation of God. Hence the term 'born of God'. "Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." The spirit of a believer can be brought to life by the force, the influence, coming from the Spirit of God when He hovers over that person. I've had some experience of it myself and of course it is awesome in the extreme and in my case resulted in a coming alive in me of a power I had never known before. That was probably actually on several occasions, as far as I can tell with different effects each time. One time in particular resulted in me being made aware of truth I had not known before which led me eventually into a sublime knowledge all kinds of other truth, some of which eventually resulted in my writing what I write. This fulfills all sorts of promises from throughout history made by God through prophets and the Christ. And all because Christ fulfilled God's will by dying and rising to new life, buying for God a people fit to do His will. So, if you haven't already then take to heart the Apostle Peter's exhortation, "Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus and you will receive the promise of the Holy Spirit." The promise is to everyone far and near, to all whom the Lord our God will call, both Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor. Take the Lord's Word to heart: "Now that you know these things you are blessed if you do them."

The Philosopher Stone

Looking back at my last few blog posts, I tried to prove first the existence of God, then the existence of Heaven.

The place called Heaven can be defined as the region around the Earth above the clouds and including the clouds, as distinct from the 'Air' which is the region between the clouds and the ground. These regions are not disputed since all know that the clouds exist. It is also historical fact that they have been described in literature as 'Heaven' or 'the Heavens' and the lower region as 'the Air' (or rather they have been described with words translated into these terms from other, ancient languages).

Now since Heaven is merely a part of what we today call the atmosphere you would think there would be no dispute as to its existence. The dispute and disbelief centers of course around the association between the region and the Creator, God, and those loyal and obedient to Him. In this sense Heaven is regarded as a domain, a Kingdom; 'the Kingdom of God', 'the Kingdom of Heaven'.

To be associated yourself with this kingdom is to be associated with being loyal to God and obedient to His commands, holding to His teachings and His promises, trusting in Him for His salvation.

The Christ described this association and this state of belonging as a state of being to be so much sought after as for the richest treasure; 'the pearl of great price', as He described it. Like being found too, since His parable descriptions of this state included stories about a father seeing a lost, prodigal son return home. A more topical, modern description might be 'the Philosopher Stone'. 

Heaven

If you think I have evidence from the cosmos that Heaven and the afterlife exist you might be disappointed to find I claim that the evidence is only really there in the mind of a believer in God.

I think believing in God leads to believing in an afterlife and a Heaven because the belief itself involves suffering in this life. I explained before how believers get pressure from society because they themselves as believers become the evidence others need in order to believe. Add to this the bad behaviour of people who don't quite believe but recognise faith in those who do and get in that faith a glimmer of what they are missing and possibly need. They might also get a feeling that the faith proves that they will be judged and this means they might be all the more inclined to take action against believers. So there is curiosity from others as soon as your belief is enough to be noticed. And noticed it must be because it is evidence of God's existence.

Now this suffering does not make sense, given that the faith is not only that God exists but that He is good and He is love. Something is missing: This logical conclusion is taken as proven by the believer because it rests on certainties about God. God rewards faith and is good and is love. Faith does not get rewarded by the world around the believer because it results mainly in suffering (even if just the suffering of extra, perhaps unwanted attention and some ill-feeling along with it, from those who don't believe). So the believer concludes that it is proven therefore that believing in God MUST result in reward in life after this world and its life are gone - after death and outside of this world. 'QED' (QED is a statement made at the end of some ancient Greek mathematical proofs). But QED to a believer. The Apostle Paul wrote to the effect "if there is no resurrection and we are rewarded in this life only then we are of all men most to be pitied". It isn't as rewarding, given that God does exist and does reward faith, sufficiently in this life alone to believe.

Once it is accepted that God is proven to exist and, by the same evidence of His existence, that He is good and loving (as testified by the Christ and seen in the Christ's coming two thousand years ago), then it follows that if there is no reward in this life there must be another life for the reward; hence Heaven, the afterlife ... and even the Resurrection. The Resurrection follows particularly from the testimony of Jesus which is believed and held to by many a believer in God. It is based on the belief that Jesus was Himself proven by God to be the Christ, God's Anointed One, by His resurrection from the dead after He was crucified around 25AD and this after He had promised to many that He would also raise from the dead all who believed in Him. This would be at some point in the future when He returned to Earth in power, "coming in the clouds of Heaven".

Heaven as a place is a bit different. It was often understood in Scripture as a region somewhere above the clouds of the Earth. The region below the clouds was called 'the Air' (of course that is just an English translation) while the region containing the clouds and above was called 'the Heavens' or 'Heaven'.

Note: Some regions within the heavenly region were described a little, for example the Book of Enoch describes a place whose appearance was like an immense hall of crystal (crystal appearance - my interpretation) through which lightnings travel back and forth. Some mention in prophesies is given to a throne of God surrounded by light like an emerald rainbow. To me the descriptions allude to something like the northern and southern lights, something near earth but cosmic in splendour. I would conjecture such descriptions might point to a special part of the outer atmosphere of Earth and some possible candidates seem to exist in the science books, mostly recent findings. I wouldn't discount these candidates adding that angel beings inhabit places above the clouds just as ghosts inhabit deserted places on Earth; if you accept the existence of spirits in general and believe the prophesies and Jesus' testimony.

So the clouds themselves are associated in Scriptures with 'Heaven', especially the space above them, immediately above them. Hebrew Psalms illustrate the use of the term translated 'the Heavens'. "Oh that You would rend the Heavens and come down... send forth your lightning and scatter my enemies." "The Heavens were opened." The Christian Gospels illustrate terms translated 'Heaven'. "A voice came from Heaven 'You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'... Some said that it thundered." "He went up into Heaven and a cloud hid Him from their sight." "'This same Jesus will so come in like manner as you have seen Him ascend into Heaven.'" The 'atmosphere' is a modern term which is probably equivalent but there was no sense in which what we call 'outer space' was necessarily excluded from the region called 'Heaven', it was merely emphasised that Heaven was from the clouds and upwards. 

The fact that terms existed for this region around the Earth (whether or not those using the terms knew the Earth was a sphere) above the clouds and a separate term existed for the region between the clouds and the ground (sometimes translated 'the Air') is not really in question, I would guess. Rather the association is made over thousands of years of religious expression between these regions and spiritual beings and their domains - their Kingdoms. This is where some believe, others doubt and others don't believe at all.

The testimony of those who have believed such as prophets and psalmists has much emphasis on associating the region of the clouds and above with the domain and territory of the Creator of all the regions.

Observations Prove God Exists

Here I was in a bus today, noticing how fast the double-decker was driven under some trees overhanging the road: It proved to me that the tree branches were not growing low enough to smash into the windows because I knew how likely it was that the bus driver knew that road and knew those trees. I was surprised at how those simple pieces of knowledge, combined with a simple observation, resolved in mind into proof of a fact with quite strong certainty.

Then it dawned on me (I'm a bit slow with understanding some things others might find so obvious) that this was similar to how I had also believed with strong certainty that God exists.

As we went on in the bus I saw the human behaviour of other road users and I saw the traffic control systems in place on the road, such as signs which showed the speed of the bus as it approached the sign (and turned either red if it was too fast or green if it had slowed down sufficiently). If I wanted proof of the existence of a government being in power, I could see it by observing the obedience of people to the law (in certain situations where the law was obvious). In general they slow down when faced with the traffic control signs, proving the existence not only of laws (laws and road signs alone would not cause them to obey) but of governments enforcing those laws (the fact the would get a fine makes them think twice about disobeying these special kinds of road sign).

The same way human behaviour regarding well-known laws proves the existence of a government, the existence of God is proven by the fact that so many believe His word and fear Him and behave accordingly.

Now it is more complex than this because social factors are at work which muddy the picture a bit, in that there are many who flout laws despite the risk of punishment. If I were to base my observations regarding peoples' behaviour towards traffic laws on how many cyclists in the UK stop at traffic lights I would not be so well convinced. There are more complex factors. There are 'grey areas'. For example, cyclists might perhaps be governed differently by traffic laws in the UK than the way motorists are: Does the Highway Code fully apply to cyclists the way it applies to motorists? There is perhaps a lack of prosecutions against cyclists in the UK for flouting traffic laws. If I cross the road at a traffic light I have to look out for cyclists and also the occasional motorist disregarding red lights. So some might say the proof of the existence of a government is less clear if you look at some behaviours than if you look at others. In general though there is ease in finding situations which do prove the theory that a government exists such that the grey areas are not a sufficient hindrance to warrant rejecting as unproven the theory that government does exist and does punish illegal behaviour. Fine.

Now with God it is perhaps equally 'grey' in some cases of what might be considered as evidence. However there are still so many who fear to go against what is well-known as being His historically given word (such as adherence to the Sabbath, avoidance of blasphemy and the turning away from idolatry) that the evidence is pretty good on the whole, enough, I would say, to consider it proven. It is made less clear by complications in society such as different interpretations of the word 'Sabbath' (for some it is Saturday and for others Sunday). It also gets complicated because for many there are so few around them adhering to God's word and commands that it is easy to not notice the evidence.

I might sit in my room each day, never go out, never watch TV or hear the radio and to stay alive I can just order take away (that's 'take out' for you Americans) and I can effectively cut myself off that way from evidence that governments exist. This way I might forget or never find out there is indeed any law or government to enforce it. That is a social factor. It doesn't mean it isn't proven or that there is no evidence for the existence of a government, just because I can be hidden from it and remain ignorant. Social factors are at work which can for some, I conjecture, make well-known facts unknown and maybe unknowable.

There is pressure on those who do know and believe regarding God because they themselves and their behaviour are the evidence by which others can find it sufficiently well proven that they too will believe. This pressure has bad side-effects. People watch you to see how you will react so that they can be sure of the same things of which you are sure. They need to know and your behaviour is the way they can know but they behave badly sometimes in the process of coming to that knowledge. That might be because they resist it so hard because it has such ramifications for them and they are afraid they might get it wrong. They may find the very notion of God's existence abhorrent to them, a reminder of the possibility they will be judged and at the same time they feel they have insufficient evidence to believe enough to obey and escape death.



So there are factors against belief, such as the suffering that ensues on believing and the implications regarding judgement making belief painful. Plus factors such as counter-evidence which is not a strong as the evidence but adds to the confusion and requires that we weigh the evidence 'for' and 'against'. The evidence 'for' does, I feel, prove the existence of God. People behave towards God's commands in a similar way to their behaviour towards their government's laws. The second of these behaviours proves the existence of a government and in this same way the other behaviour proves the existence of God.

Yet both have counter-evidence in that some do not obey and there are other complications such as lack of clarity over what the laws of a government are (as in the cyclists example above), just as it isn't always clear what are the commands of God (as with the matter of which day is actually the Sabbath - Saturday or Sunday).

Yet the belief doesn't just come from observing believers, as that would be a little weak on its own and the pressures against believing are great. It mostly comes from personally hearing the commands and promises of God for yourself and combining this with the other evidence.

I think the evidence in science is compelling even if you do not believe in evolution. The notion that mankind is on the way to having power to do greater and greater feats even in space and that mankind may be around for many millennia is almost incontrovertible. The idea that mankind alone would have such power in the vastness of the Universe is so unlikely to be true. The idea has to follow that other beings already can do what mankind might be able to do in thousands of years time. That these powers NOT include building planets and building creatures like those on earth seems unthinkable too, given what we know of human progress over just a few thousand years. To say that planets like ours would not have been purpose built anywhere is against what we know. It is simple to extrapolate and say that planets must exist somewhere which are not only like ours and inhabited like ours but purpose built by beings greater than us. Then it seems irrational to dismiss the possibility that our planet and indeed the human race has been purpose built too. It really just follows from what we know of human progress and the age of the Universe. To say that one being on 'its' own did it is just the same reasoning taken a step further in that there must be beings able to do it so why not assume that one was over all the others in building us and building Earth. Of all the beings with power there must surely be one most powerful and able to be in charge of the particular effort that seems so likely to have built this planet and us. Why not call this being God? Why wouldn't that being make himself or itself known to us in the fullness of time? Then why not accept the testimony in history that this being has made himself known in the giving of the law to Moses and the coming of the Christ? Yet all this is not enough alone to make us believe: Not until we actually hear the words of our Creator and accept this word in the testimony of Jesus Christ.

So maybe the argument I have given is enough to 'prove' on its own that science should be able to support a model of the Universe in which planets like the Earth were created by more advanced lifeforms than we are today, in view of what we should believe we could ourselves become over the coming millenia. I hope I have shown that it is more reasonable to include in our science the power of human beings now and in the future and the almost inevitable extrapolation that before humans had these powers it would be nonsense to believe that no other being had such powers already which we probably will one day have. Yet this very model exposes its own weakness in that such a being would reasonably be expected to be able to reveal itself and if it did then this would add to our knowledge new facts beyond the reach of our present science. In fact there has been revelation and that revelation is far better than the model. The model does not include the possibility of the creator of this world being 'uncreated' and being the creator of all worlds including the Universe. Revelation since the time of Christ does suggest these things are true, "through Him all things were made and without Him nothing was made that has been made" (The Gospel according to John). I rest my case.