Spirits

 There is a sense of what is called ‘spirit’ taught in the Book of Enoch which seems best to fit what we might call the set of characteristics which define something. This goes back, apparently, to the way of thinking and seeing the world in very ancient times. The sun has rays of light, and it has heat, and we could see it as two sets of characteristics. Then these might be called the two spirits of the sun. Today we would go further and apply these spirits to other stars, regarding both sun and stars as having a common nature, but common nature is more of an ancient Greek concept, particularly seen in later Christianity. God fills the universe with spirits, with many defining sets of characteristics of things He makes. People too have defining characteristics, which too could be seen as their spirits. In the thinking which can be regarded as following on from the Book of Enoch worldview, there is a sense in which the spirit defining something exists as something in its own right. Perhaps this is behind the sense in which Jesus can say he is there in existence before the birth of Abraham, who was born centuries before Jesus was born. Enoch, in the Book of Enoch, wrote of his own ascent up to the Son of Man, and apparently he meant by ‘the Son of Man’ the Christ—the anointed one, the elect one. Eventually this Son of Man became flesh, being named Jesus. Yet his defining characteristics existed as spirit, divine, long before he came in the flesh. 

Prayer and heroics

 Oh what a problem our air travel is becoming. We have international hub airports in various countries. Once a virus outbreak reaches them, it can be spread to many countries very quickly. Closure of airports seems logical, but it is considered problematic too by governments. However, as a very dangerous virus outbreak spreads exponentially, despite containment efforts, there very soon comes a stage at which you cannot prevent it being spread to other countries unless travel restrictions were imposed earlier. Woe to those who put their trust in princes, the proverb says. It is through prayer and heroics that the folly of governments is sometimes overcome. The prophecy of Joel in the Bible tells of a time when the elect should gather to plead with God for mercy. Jesus said to pray with belief that God will answer. 

Authority to grow

 When a nation makes new laws, it has to have clear authority behind this. It goes to great lengths to ensure that this authority is in each new law. The government of a nation typically ensures that the new national laws are made by the authority of the name of its head of state. But what about Nature? What authority is in each new bud on a tree, each new leaf, each branch newly forming? What authority gives each new bud the right to grow? The Holy Spirit says to ‘Consider the trees. They put forth buds and leaves. They do so by the authority of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ His name gives the authority for new buds to form, and even for planets to orbit stars. His name pervades Nature in this way. 

No student is above their master

 Maybe I am only an armchair student of the teachings of the Holy Spirit today, but it is enough to at least be a student of any kind, since no student is above their master. In being a student of the Holy Spirit, the reality behind this is discipleship to Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit brings us what Jesus has been given by the Father. The Father teaches His Son all things pertaining to our salvation. So to listen to, and learn from the Holy Spirit, both in our meetings in the name of Jesus Christ, and in our more private moments of meditational devotion and prayer, we learn the heart of Jesus Christ, the truth Jesus deeply holds within him. It is rather nonsensical to try to downgrade the authority of these revelations. This is a taste of the righteousness, truth, and authoritative discipline found in heaven itself, up to and including the very throne of the Most High God, the Father. In the authority of the name of Jesus, all Nature continually functions in accordance with the will of the Father, God. In comparison, even the churches are mere human institutions of power like human courts, as they always have been down the centuries. Take it from Jesus, that he too will forever submit to the Father. The student is no greater than their master. It is enough for the student to be like their master. For example, I found in the Holy Spirit a teaching, interpreted from an angelic message in tongues given in a service meeting, that matches words found in the Book of Enoch but not in other scriptures such as those canonised by largest church institutions. Clearly, the Holy Spirit conveys truth known to Jesus. This manifests that Jesus knowing this Book of Enoch holds it highly as scripture, holding Enoch as true prophet. He must even know Enoch from over the centuries in heaven, since Enoch ascended there five millennia ago. This is consistent with records of teachings of Jesus in the gospels. Jude, a biological brother of Jesus, wrote of Enoch in a manner consistent with this too. The absence of the Book of Enoch from what churches have endorsed as the Bible does not diminish this, but it puts their authority in perspective. We truly learn from Jesus if we go on to become more like him, believing his beliefs. Then our authority is merely an extension of his own, in line with his own, and this in turn is from God who sent him. 

An armchair-historian view of the Apocalypse

 An armchair-historian view of the apocalypse: First there came the fourth horseman. A British Empire arose and unleashed its Darwinian worldview. It is taken up by USA, the lion’s mouth of the three-superpower Beast. From this mouth there arose two powers which took up that view, along with extreme forms of fascist philosophical framework combining ideas and ideologies put forward by Britain and amplified within USA and used via two powers, Japan and Germany, to force the second and third components of the three-superpower Beast to emerge: Russia and China. I sit on an armchair between the times of the fourth and sixth seals of Revelation, watching the three superpowers continue to rise and evolve, but not yet in the time of great wrath of God which comes with the opening by Lord Jesus of the sixth seal. Once that seal gets opened, the wrath is revealed. There might be up to a decade of this truly apocalyptic wrath. Then the Beast will come to fully global domination.  But Lord Jesus will then bring their dystopian rule to an abrupt end before it goes too far and terminates saintliness completely. 

Note: For a critique of this, see https://chatgpt.com/share/69ff080a-1ef4-83eb-a875-9f858ae7f34a 

De jure sonship

 Historically people have focussed on the existence of God de facto, rather than the righteousness God exhibits. This tendency seems to go back to the Greek philosophers who did not think any god was particularly righteous. It is a tendency stemming from lack of belief. Persuasion that the God we associate with the teachings of Jesus Christ is righteous is something supposed to develop with Christian faith, but it seems to have been lacking among many people over the centuries despite their being called ‘Christian’. This lack of ascribing of righteous character to God is also seen in how people have come to think of Jesus, the Son. It is seen more as de facto, less as de jure. In other words, the Son, in this lack of faith, is regarded as simply existing as the Son as a matter of fact, rather than as a matter of the worthiness of his character in the eyes of the Father. It seems to me to go back to the Ancient Greek philosophical thinking of no god being righteous, but simply existing. In the true faith of which first followers of Jesus were persuaded, the Father is believed to be righteous, and the Son is deemed by God to be worthy to be called His Son, in a righteous sense of this worthiness. This faith can seem to be in conflict with traditional forms of Christianity that have developed over the centuries. That does not mean the faith is wrong, but rather that traditional Christian doctrines have developed over the centuries out of not just responses to Christian original preaching but also out of existing Ancient Greek philosophical thinking. As the apostle Paul put it, the philosophers knew not God. They philosophically built on concepts of the existence of gods, and in some of their thinking, an existence of an ultimate God, but adopted a strategy of thinking in which they deliberately did not assume any god to be particularly righteous. There are signs, it seems to me, that this kind of thinking influenced the growth of dogma traditions within Christianity, down to this day. It might be why Christians enthusiastic about theological frameworks such as Trinitarianism have adopted a view of the Son as simply existing as the Son forever (de facto), alongside a Father who simply exists forever (de facto), rather than emphasising his worthiness of Sonship (de jure) in the eyes of a righteous Father. It is a lack of persuasion. It then manifests in lack of understanding that to be children of this righteous Father, we must be righteous too, worthy of this righteous Father. We find in John 8, that Jesus teaches the faith that God is righteous such that to be His children we must be righteous too, and this comes from belief in Jesus the Son who is accepted by the Father as worthy of Sonship, and in following his teachings persistently in order to become worthy children of God. It is then not simply de facto sonship, but de jure sonship, and this is by faith. 

Note: For a critique of this analysis, see https://chatgpt.com/share/69feeec9-a2cc-83eb-a16a-dbfb20263b75 

The Two Paths Ahead

 While it is sad that “the whole world will follow after the Beast” (follow after the three-superpower kingdom which will emerge as a unified global system after the time of the beginning of the wrath of God appears, perhaps decades from now), there are some today who might refuse this path, preferring to follow Jesus Christ, led by the Holy Spirit into the truth Lord Jesus brings. But these too are prone to break, and need fixing, and need to be led away from the errors of the past, learning to walk in the way of spirit, not letter, not manmade efforts such as celebrating of special days and the like. To be fixed by Jesus is the whole point of following him, and from being his disciple, qualifying for this maintenance by him, the path leads to eternal life in fellowship with the Father, the one true God, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 

Our Spirit-Driven Life

 The true teachings of Jesus take some philosophy known to the Greeks of his time as a starting point. I am talking about the philosophical understanding of the way a human being works. You have your body with its animal-like workings. Then you have your spirit and higher mental workings. The spirit part of you should be able override and control that animal part of you. Of course, we know this. But it is good to think of it clearly, so that we can understand the teachings of Jesus Christ. Plato was the ancient world’s Greek philosopher who wrote about it, explaining at the time how humans need to exercise their noblest side, their spirit, to control their baser animal side, using their knowledge to help them. Jesus confirmed it. He taught how the flesh is weak while the spirit is willing. The weak human flesh needs to be conquered by the spirit and the will. That flesh is what counts for nothing compared with the potential of the spirit to give the person their noblest life. Righteousness makes this vital. Because of the need to stop oneself from lying and living a low life driven by hateful motives, of the kind that can get us condemned in court or into trouble with our moral neighbours, the life we need to live makes controlling those baser instincts and human weaknesses a real must. The spirit is the seat of our will. It must be given prominence, to work with our mind and knowledge to gain the upper hand over our baser selves. Jesus gave sayings and teachings which empower all this, if we believe in his veracity and retain his teachings, letting them stimulate and empower this spirit side of us, letting our minds be instructed by these sayings. Then Jesus provided for us to also be given spiritual help from God in this. The Holy Spirit comes alongside our human spirit to boost our potential to live this way. Jesus taught us to ask God for this. It is like daily bread, and we can ask the Father for this. It is spiritual sustenance our spirit needs. We also have knowledge that Jesus too had this human state of struggle of spirit over flesh. That knowledge is spiritual sustenance for us too. He ultimately so completely gained the spiritual upper hand over his baser humanness that he was able to endure death on a cross for each of us. This allowed God to raise him from the dead. Interestingly, the Greeks of his time, who would have probably seen in him the epitome of the philosophical teacher they highly valued, and might have stood up for him against the Jews and Romans, wanted to meet him around the time he was about to be taken by the Jews and Romans. He would not let this possibility distract him from his ultimate obedience to the will of the Father, because he knew that only in dying would he become the seed of the many, filling the earth with his light from God. So he committed to the way of the cross. It was spirit which taught him this wisdom. His flesh greatly resisted it and might have preferred a welcome by the philosophically minded Greeks of his day, elevating him as teacher, preventing a painful and terrible death. But he overcame this fleshly diversion from the noblest path of submission to his heavenly Father’s greater will. And because of this we can have not only his teachings, but his sacrifice, and the way by which our sins can be forgiven as we seek a noblest righteous life. We can have him as our eternal teacher and good shepherd, to overcome evils with us and for us, as he is forever now alive from the dead. His victory can now be our victory, and by it we can be given the Holy Spirit to help us overcome, by leading us into all truth with Jesus as our perfect master. 

Rock and Sand

 The Roman and Orthodox versions of Christianity underpinning the various forms of Christianity we have today all have a mixture of human philosophy with heavenly revelation. This is not to say that what is human and what is heavenly are always mutually exclusive. Since Jesus is both human and heavenly, we know that the humanness we all share can blend perfectly with the heavenly. But we need to be wary when there is a contradiction, and to prioritise the heavenly, in our love for God, and our choice of what to trust. Human philosophy can be very enlightening and life-enhancing, but nowhere near as much as heavenly wisdom. Jesus knows human philosophy very well, and sometimes used it as a starting point in his explanations of what is heavenly, as did his followers. But we need to progress as Jesus taught, from the human thinking, on towards the heavenly, because it is in the heavenly sayings that we find freedom from our worldly moral failings and corrupted ways. There is a saving grace in the form of a spirit coming from the heavenly realm which brings to humans the things of that blend of the humanness of Jesus himself and the wisdom and truth that God gives him. This we call the Holy Spirit. What does that blend look like when it emerges in our world? How is it manifested? What does it reveal to us? Of course we might often see its representation depicted and described religiously in forms such as the dove, and the tongues of fire, which are scripturally documented testimonies of how this spirit was first witnessed by followers of Jesus Christ. Yet there have been centuries of discipleship since then, which have involved all kinds of experiences of this Holy Spirit. However, records are sparse, and experiences quite rare. My own experiences have been various, but one which gave me a great taste of the heavenly was something I witnessed first hand in a worship service. A message in tongues spoken by a preacher became English words in my head, which I can remember very well, and the speaker went on to say the English himself, and it exactly matched what I received. Consider the trees, the Spirit said, They put forth buds and leaves. They do so by the power-authority of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That message was not a Bible quote. It was fresh. It was actually very close to what is found today in the ancient Book of Enoch, a book known well in the time of Jesus but later excluded by Jews from what went on to become the Bible. It describes what seems to me to be the root of faith I personally have had in Jesus Christ, but I had never heard it stated like this before that interpreted message in tongues. Heaven tells us of the importance the name of Jesus now has in how the very fabric of Nature persistently adheres to God’s will. The authority given to Jesus is such that his very name, his brand, his reputation, as the perfected faithful son, provides the authoritative power Nature needs to continue in its cycles of growth and order, day on day, year on year, aeon on aeon. That is a taste of the heavenly. Philosophy of humans at best has come close to this elevated wisdom, but fallen short. Christianity today must be based firmly on the rock-like heavenly, not the sand-like earthly.