Is God a human invention?

The idea that God is invented, if true, logically means everyone is an atheist since an unreal, invented god is no god at all. If you believe in no god at all then you are an atheist. If everyone is an atheist, where is atheism? There is no need to call it atheism since it includes everyone and something that includes everyone needs no name. So by using the word atheism, atheists prove that there is a god who is real. Not invented. 

Layered or Real

 For most of us Christianity is a layering of Christian principles on top of our bad behaviour and bad character. The grace of God overcomes this. The work of God in Christ goes deep within us by the message of the cross of Christ and by the Holy Spirit. It converts the innermost person of us. It teaches us a holy, heavenly form of right and wrong and makes us determined to only do the right: determined so much that we change our behaviour in response to it. We put off the wrong, the bad, and start to only do the right. We continue this way with Christ interceding for us and we influence each other and pray for each other to do the same. We so become inwardly the children of God. 

Believing in Jesus

I suppose what made me, as a young child, probably not even yet in school, believe Jesus and trust in Him, when read the things He said, was the way He championed our eternal needs by what He said. It was the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and I remember feeling deep trust in Jesus for telling what I need for escaping Hades torment. He was able to tell it clearly and He did not fail to tell us the tough truth because we need it so much. I never stopped trusting Him from then on. Over the years He lived up to that trust, meeting my eternal needs in many ways, proving He is alive and perfected in glorious power. The Father saw Jesus perfect enough to be our sacrifice and clearly has truly raised Him from the dead, since Jesus has made Himself known to me so clearly, once I had eventually learned to obey His teachings. It proved to me too that the teachings in the gospels must be true because Jesus so faithfully honours the promises in them.

The shed blood

 Having God as your leader you really don’t want to get on the wrong side of Him but because the blood of His perfected Son was shed, God was willing to make an unending undertaking with believing disciples to treat them forever as sons. To fulfil this undertaking, to provide these disciples of Jesus with an unending perfected High Priest, God raised Jesus from the dead.

“Does God throw dice?”

The Evolution theory covers changes in genetic make-up and covers adaptation of organisms to challenges in the organism’s environment. It covers some sort of dependency on chance. It doesn’t seem to cover the dependency on spiritual influences over chance. It doesn’t seem to cover the organism’s dependency on these influences for its adaptations. Religion fills this gap. It shows a cosmic scale influencer influencing the chance events. Does God throw dice? No but when the die is thrown, God influences, even determines, the outcome. The Spirit of God conveys this truth, demonstrating it to an adherent who believes. God shows how in our innermost being we have spirit and the key to this spirit is in the hands of God’s Son who lives forever, having died as the sacrifice for the High Priestly ministry of entering the innermost place in us and in Heaven and interceding, bringing the innermost places together. The result is our spiritual relationship with God the Father, the Creator, the one who determines outcomes. The Spirit of God tells a believing adherent that it is by the power of the name of this Son, the Lord Jesus the Christ, that Nature carries on in accordance with the will of God. We should do so too.

Did Jesus write a gospel?

The doctrine of how Jesus worked is the Jewish rabbi method of working. You can see it in other peoples too, such as the guru in India. The rabbi, teacher, guru, teaches by taking on disciples who follow them around watching their actions and not just hearing their words, their sayings, but seeing how the rabbi behaves in accordance with those sayings. The note takers are the disciples, not the rabbi. The disciples write what they witness the rabbi say and do. The rabbi teaches by action, works, not just words. The words are often directed at the disciples, applying to them, not theoretical, but words requiring actions or changes of behaviour. This way of rabbinical teaching required disciples with time to devote to close contact as much as possible. The ones who had this contact become primary witnesses and authorities on the way of the rabbi as well as practitioners of that way, behaving accordingly (vitally important). It makes sense that they be the ones to write the accounts. Like a student taking notes and eventually becoming a teacher too. The gospel continued this way for decades, person to person, combining words with witnessed actions,  before the emphasis turned towards written accounts and the reading of them to churches. The disciples themselves were Jesus’ document.

The Team

 Jesus did not write a gospel. He came to make others of faith who do things like He did things. He could have written a gospel but creating apostles and disciples with faith to do it was His purpose and still is His purpose. “Where is your faith?” He asked. Yes He could calm a storm telling the storm to be quiet by faith to save the day but He rebuked the disciples for not doing it themselves. He is the same today (and forever). Jesus could today do all the work of God by faith, as He sits at God’s right hand, but then the pictures in God’s album or up on God’s wall would all be of Jesus. He wants us to do things by our faith. Then our picture goes in the photo album commemorating what we do and the pictures of God’s wall are of us together with His Son Jesus. Jesus came to die and in so doing to bring forth many seeds, many disciples doing even greater things than He did. He now lives, alive from the dead, and still does what He did, and in greater glory, but He delegates acts of faith to us, to do as He did, to do as He does. He wants a team to expand His work as He the master works with us.

The new worship and temple

 In the old days a community might have to offer an innocent human son as human sacrifice in order to come with clear conscience to worship. A lamb was offered later in substitute for the human but it was not adequate. God eventually provided the lamb Himself in an absolutely adequate way, His own innocent beloved Son, the Lamb of God as John the Baptist proclaimed concerning Jesus. This is our sacrifice in coming in worship to God. He makes the coming in worship acceptable enough such that God provided the Holy Spirit for building up the worshippers and leading the worship. That was what happened at Pentecost in Jerusalem the year Jesus died and rose and ascended back to God. It happens in many churches still today. The resurrection gives us hope but does not negate the holy blood that was shed, innocent Jesus’ own blood. This is proved by the Holy Spirit manifestations to believers in their services. Now believers can assemble for worship of God without bringing human or lamb sacrifice because the sacrifice of Jesus the holy Lamb of God has been made. This opens up the possibility of assembling where God comes to meet with us too in fellowship not possible before. God makes His place among us. This is the new temple of God of which Jesus is the archetype.

Come into my heart Lord Jesus

 Because of Jesus’ blood shed, offering as sacrifice His own body in crucifixion, Jesus has authority to enter into my innermost being, my spirit, my holy of holies. That is the sense in which I find Jesus to be both Lord and Christ. 

Science and Religion

 Religion and Science have historically intertwined and coexisted. Theistic alchemists developed modern versions of Sciences such as chemistry and physics and astronomy. The Bible book of Exodus tells how Science and Religion once clashed, with Pharaoh’s priests using their magic science to try to imitate the plagues of God presented by Moses. The Ancient Egyptians had sciences such as medicine (sorcery of drugs and incantations) and astrology (precursor to astronomy). They could construct right angles for their buildings and had Mathematics to help. The Babylonians used star charts and complex mathematics. Often it was priests who knew these things and combined them with oracles. Mosaic Law was an astonishing innovation compared to law codes of the surrounding nations and it banned the magic knowledge of hidden things which the surrounding nations were mixing with their Science. Surely it is no coincidence that the widespread distribution of Mosaic Law in the 1500s and 1600s in England, Ireland, Wales and Europe preceded a crackdown on such forbidden magic knowledge of hidden spiritual things and that this was followed soon after by the development of modern Science out of the arts of medicine, alchemy and astrology.

Life in Himself

 The life Jesus has is His own to offer to others as illustrated in raising Lazarus, His own friend, from the dead. In this sense Jesus is like the Father, as the Father made Him to be. So the life that lights the world is from Jesus who receives it from the Father. Jesus, in other words, is not merely a conduit of the Father but is living life which belongs to Jesus Himself, as the Father gives to Him. The life Jesus lives in this way is a light to us, if our eyes are opened to it. Jesus is. That is real. It applies whatever time we are in. We have this light ever before us. Unless the devil blinds our eyes.

Authority

Atheism has no self-referential coherence if it states that unsubstantiated belief is to be shunned but offers no evidence to back up this statement. It is like saying “please ignore me”. If I ignore you, I will ignore your request to ignore me. If you say, please ignore me if I offer no logical proof or evidence, the same applies.

Christian religion on the other hand says, “please ignore Christ’s authority if it does not come from God, but if it does come from God then God’s kingdom is right at your doorstep and should not on any account be ignored”.

Ultimately Christianity says Christ’s authority is that by which planets move and plants put out buds and leaves. Not to be ignored. It commands constant adherence forever.

The Old Testament

 The Old Testament. Jesus says we should certainly take notice of the Old Testament for eternal life but it is not enough. We should follow Him, and that requires a trimming down of wealth in favour of the poor, and entering into a kingdom where we are all brothers, led by one Lord, Jesus Himself. 

Escape

 Are you all missing out on the righteousness of God, trapped in a downward spiralling dystopian world of your own making? Follow Jesus, know and understand the teachings of Jesus and apply them in your life, believing that Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever. Escape the downward spiral.

Less than ten thousand years in the making

 Viewing human civilisation as less than ten thousand years old fits so well with archaeology of major civilised administrative centres like Eridu, Uruk, Ur and Susa. The pyramids and famous architectural achievements of human civilisation all date to less than ten thousand years ago. Nothing major of indisputable human homo sapiens making date from older periods. Even the exceptions are so hard to pinpoint with certainty that they prove the rule. It is consistent with documented contemporary historical records that the human at the beginning of this whole timespan had no earthly parents but originated with the gods.

Science and religion

 Scientific observations are an outcome of human nature. A spider’s view of its surroundings is determined by its hairs and many eyes and needs. A fly has a different view, observing with those peculiar eyes. An ant has a two dimensional view. Each creature’s view is peculiar to its natural facilities. Bees have a view extended by social knowledge sharing. Humans have a greatly extended view extended by scientific and scholarly knowledge sharing and intellectual observational abilities. Now this is all natural, although in the case of science its history has included supernatural aspects such as sorcery, alchemy, astrology, divination, shamanic oracles. Yet religion adds more to the supernatural observations. Dreams and visions. Miracles. Spiritual insights. These have crept into science because scientists were historically religious and shamanic. If atheists want a Science devoid of supernatural observations they must start again, which is impossible.

Science has the tools but not the important answers

 Science has tricks it can use to test those who observe theistic realities but it seldom uses them. Nobody has asked to test me with truth serum, lie detector, hypnosis, even though for nearly thirty years I have been giving bold and clear testimony to things that I observed in the nineties of religious nature - existence of God, character of God, that Jesus is alive and human and the same in His ways and teachings as He was two thousand years ago, and the Holy Spirit still being manifested in tongues of angels and interpretation, and the word of God being the same today as in prophecies thousands of years ago. Instead people of scientific persuasion simply level at me their suppositions of hallucinations or madness. How scientific they are (not).

John 8

John 8

Face it. We all could be in danger of ending up murdering or perjuring without a Christ to keep those of us from it who believe and follow Him. I take Jesus’ word for it that if you do those things you are a slave to them. Whereas Jesus sets free from that slavery. Sorry to say I needed that setting free. This life is a reality you are stuck with. Unfortunately for me it started quickly down a wrong path. I tend to think I’m not the only one. He set me free from compulsive lying and exaggerating, out of youthful desires to be thought of highly. Now I hope His way is leading me to even greater freedom. You only need to start lying, hating, cheating a few years from now, if you haven’t already, and they will stick. Dying like that is not easy to avoid. Perhaps impossible to avoid except Jesus’ way. Road rage. Jealousy over a partner. Culpability in actions of associates. These things aren’t always avoidable. Having forever a helper in the highest echelons of power to intercede with the Top guy. That is what it takes to have hope.

Watch a few movies. Read some court cases. We never have total control of ourselves. Look at lockdown. Not being able to visit a dying parent. Getting cut off from loved ones. Things are out of our control. Just note scenarios as they become apparent. What if... It really is not difficult. An alluring prostitute when you are depressed coercing you into association with organised crime gangs. A clever con man or a kidnapper forcing you to kill to save a relative. A riot happening around you or brewing war. All scenarios where violence and the backlash against violence of hatred seem inevitable. Illness can exacerbate it. Horror movies like Stephen King’s portray all this quite well. Intercession is what we need to get to the end of this life intact. Many seem to get there but their truth just hasn’t yet got out.  You might think you haven’t got a weakness, vulnerability: you just haven’t come across it yet. But your enemy might have come across it first. For me it only takes the students in the flat upstairs to play music till 4am and I’m seething with hatred outside my control.

Remember too, Jesus’ plan carries on forever. This kind of insurance plan is eternal by necessity. God does not have temporary sons.

The sacrifice

 The sacrifice of Christ created the covenant in which I enjoy fellowship with God and fellowship with Jesus and His followers. A covenant which saves me. So I am grateful for it and together we followers celebrate and commemorate it in communion of bread for His body broken and wine for His blood poured out. He died for you too.

New mutation of COVID19 virus

 With this new mutation found in India and now in UK too, how long till the authorities and the airport businesses find ways to limit further travel between UK and India? Must economic and profit considerations always come above public safety and sensible governing?

Finding Jesus

 When people speak of ‘finding Jesus’ there is a ring of reality to it. We might distrust an incarcerated convicted repeat offender telling an early release board that they found Jesus and will reform, yet the fact they say it in those circumstances shows there is weight given to this phenomenon of Jesus.

Belief

 Belief is a matter of degree. Most belief is nothing to do with religion. Like belief a vaccine is actually what the injection is that they are putting into your arm (although belief in science is not my forte). I tend to believe weather forecasts too much and get in trouble for it. Insurers might believe last year was a lot worse for hurricanes than this year will be. Gamblers might believe a certain tipster is always right. A lover might believe everything you say about your love for them being unfailing. Atheists might believe that unbelief is the sanest way to handle life. Be careful what you believe but do not despise good faith. 

Guns

 GUNS: Think about it. If a man has a gun and an unarmed man tries to wrestle it from him, the man with the gun would likely shoot the unarmed man. So you suddenly get an armed man shooting an unarmed man. Sad to have to die with something like that on your conscience, unless of course you find Jesus or something. 

How does the Son of Man help the righteous to remain always righteous?

 How does the Son of Man help the righteous to remain always righteous? It is all about first believing that the Son of Man exists in all historic timeframes, including ours now and forever, and then holding to His teachings, so He frees us from sins, enabling a saintly life which is ongoing and eternal.

A denial stance

An acquaintance of mine thinks Jesus doesn’t exist. So until he changes his mind, he must think he is on his own. His only hope is that Jesus convinces him to change his mind - or someone else convinces him. That might be possible, even with his denial stance: Like a Damascus Road experience. I had a word with Jesus for him. We’ll see if he gets convinced that Jesus exists; that he’s not on his own; that there is hope for him forever. I am reminded that Jesus died for him. Maybe Jesus will convince him that He exists. Even the apostle of Christ who started Christianity in India initially thought Jesus was dead, until Jesus changed Thomas’ mind. This chap is a lot further behind than Thomas but hey, that just makes it more fun when he finds out Jesus is. There are a lot of churchgoers who are in the same position as him. In my case He showed me convincingly He exists. Plus that the gospels got it right. Then over the following years I got to piece it together that He was crucified and rose to live forever. I was rather slow on the uptake getting my head around things. It is a personal growth thing.

The power of Science

 What would divide us if there were no religion? Science. If you regard Science as not a religion. Science can do most of what a religion can do. It can persuade people that black holes exist, even though people have no accessible way to verify that. It can order people to wear masks and wash hands. It can run countries and overrule rulers. It can amaze the world with wonders. With its vaccines it can divide countries and regions.

Will you repel it?

If I tell you that Jesus warns that many of you will die a liar or a murderer, perhaps not judged as such by other liars and murderers, but still, die as one and have it on your record. That Jesus wants you to not die like that and wants you to believe He exists in all times, including yours now and future, to help you avert it. That these problems along with similar ones like ending up an adulterer with that on your name, or other such tarnishings of your name on your death bed, are the purpose of Jesus having come, to provide a way out. It is religious so will you repel it? It is vital to learn the actual teachings of Jesus and hold to those. Jesus taught that the real God is the Father and that Jesus is the Son. Don’t let Roman theological philosophy confuse you. Reading John’s gospel might help. Over time, holding to the teachings of Jesus, Jesus gives knowledge of what He and the Father are like and first hand experience of the Holy Spirit. No need to worry about the Roman Hellenistic theology philosophy. Getting to know God is possible. I’ve had a share of it so I could tell others. God is the one who is just pure spirit, rather austere, very understanding and kind, in mind-bogglingly great authority, even over Jesus. Then Jesus is human Son who is the overcomer. That is why we call Jesus, Lord. His overcoming of temptations and worldly powers and even death gives Him Lord status, given by God whose power raised Jesus. He overcomes and He wants disciples who overcome like He did. He is the same now as when those first disciples met Him after His resurrection. Then the believers have the Holy Spirit among them, in them, producing wondrous signs and teaching with a continuation of Jesus’ teachings. Scripture assures we are on the right track and gets us on to that right track in the first place. Useful to have the testimony of pioneers who went that way before and whose veracity was proven over time. Think of the villagers who heard the Samaritan woman testify that Jesus had told her everything she had done. They went and got direct experience of Jesus then said to her “We believed because of what you said about Him but now we have heard in for ourselves and believe.” 

To overcome

 Jesus, the Lord, the Christ, has overcome temptations, powers of empire and even death and He wants disciples to overcome as He overcame.

Genesis

 Genesis says Abraham (Abram) was a citizen of Ur. It says he travelled to Harran. His name style is born out by texts extant from Ebla’s ancient library. It calls the seventh from Adam, Enoch. That matches the extant name, shortened from Enmenduranki, seventh patriarchal king of Sumer, grandfather of the man who survived the Flood. It describes the Flood in a series of steps exactly matching the series of stages described in the Epic of Gilgamesh for which there are near extant copies. It describes the first patriarch as a man with no human parents, then a succession of nine or ten generation patriarchs down to the one who survived the Flood. This matches the extant Sumerian King Lists.

“Let all God’s angels worship Him”

“The sons of God must work together with the Son of Man to achieve the will of God in Creation” (and subsequently).

Called to stop sinning

 “Stop sinning” says Jesus. Treat it as a calling. You probably can’t stop but you are called to stop and Jesus can help. 

Let’s be fair

These days people are so often characterised by their sins and failures, which is so unfair. Saintly ancients in the Bible are not characterised by one-off sins. Not all are. Some such us Judas are. But there are others such as King David. He is hardly characterised by his affair with Bathsheba, except in the song by Len Cohen of course. Normally we remember King David living a holy life, though a violent one. Always true to God and obedient to God. Society could do with recalibrating how it allows celebrity culture and jealousy to drive the characterisation of people by the scandals they get into, somehow forgetting the deeds which made them celebrities. Then all of us should relearn how to be fair and how to resist those social abuses in our summing up of our associates and colleagues, family members and friends, as well as enemies too. God might then be more happy to listen to our prayers.

What, Jesus a Unitarian?!

I’m pretty sure Jesus is a unitarian of sorts: He said it so often that the Father is both His God and the disciples’ God , and that even He, the Son, must worship God and serve Him only.  I say He seems to be unitarian ‘of sorts’ because Jesus knew with certainty that in spirit He existed before Abraham was born. Because His existence is real at any time in history, He assuredly said of Himself “I am”.  The truth of His statement “I am” is true in any historical concept, which is the significance of His use of that tense. He is now. He is yesterday. Last century. A thousand years ago, He is. Five thousand years ago. Next year. A thousand years from now. Aeons from now. He is. The Spirit of Christ interacted directly with the ancient prophets and even people such as Enoch and Abraham in the most ancient Sumerian times. And with disciples such as the Apostle Paul after Jesus rose from the dead and with disciples still today and years from now.

Normal Sabbath

NORMAL SABBATH

Seventh day of week - for twenty four hours

No strenuous work or strenuous physical activity

No business

No use of money other than charitable giving

No causing others to have to work

No fasting - enjoy nice food

Light activities are alright

Social interaction is alright

Doing good with low level effort, such as entertaining is alright

Giving to the poor is alright

No accident the cross

No accident that Jesus died on a cross. First the prophets for centuries had foretold a coming, suffering One anointed by God, chosen by God, given by God to relieve the guilt of Mankind towards God and help those who seek to get right and live right. Secondly, the preaching of John the Baptist echoed this message and pointed at Jesus as this One, and that God sent Jesus, the Christ, as a Lamb to be sacrificed. Third the miracles done by Jesus speak volumes and provide God’s witness statement about His Son, this Christ. Fourth, this very emblem of a cross is the ancient cuneiform symbol + which meant a sacrifice for settling a debt, sometimes to make way for both atonement and an oracle. Fifthly, the resurrection shows the sacrifice provided by Jesus’ crucifixion is accepted by God and makes Jesus exalted as Lord in the eyes of all. The Lord, in that Jesus overcame all, Rome’s imperial power, Israel’s power, sin’s power, even overcoming death itself, by God’s power. Now ever living and there to lead those who believe it. In all this, God made way for the provision of the Holy Spirit to all who believe and seek to get right and do right by God.

@Unitarians

 @Unitarians, to those Unitarians who doubt the preexistence of the Spirit of Christ: 

“Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.” So it says in Hebrews 3:3. The writer is identifying Jesus clearly as builder and Moses as part of the house Jesus built. How could the Spirit of Christ build that house, including Moses in that building, if He did not exist in Moses’ time and exist even before the original stone of that house, Abraham, too?

Verifiable Evidence?

 What if there were verifiable evidence of the existence of God? I suppose it would be about more than mere verifiable evidence. Multiple agreeing witness statements are verification of evidence. What it needs is evidence of a miraculous kind that God doesn’t only exist but is good enough to know who believes and who doesn’t. Evidence of a miraculous kind that God is loving enough to hear the prayer of such a believer and to reach out with an answer. Evidence of a miraculous kind of the power of God over the fabric of space-time, able to control the outcome of random events of all kinds. Evidence of God being top God, not subject to the control of any other being which might be evil and override God. Evidence that Jesus is the Son of this God and is Lord and is like this God in kindness and power and wisdom yet human enough to be a mediator of this God mediating between God and us. Evidence of the veracity of the testimonies given by apostles and prophets about this God and this Son and the reliability of God’s promises and Jesus’ promises. Evidence of the Holy Spirit having been given to believers even today. All this. Please. Existence is tip of the iceberg. But God gives it all.

This life?

Does God tell us about this life? Sure, but the interventions of God in this life are understood in terms of what happens in the next. God is judge right at the top of the totality of justice. Should God let wrongdoing be allowed to happen? God could intervene. He does so proportionately. That can mean wrongdoing continues for a time. You still have to understand this, if seeing it God’s way, in light of what happens after death. See Jesus’ testimony and the Book of Enoch for reference. The Book of Enoch tells how God lets evil happen in many circumstances, but in His sovereign will may intervene if a limit of tolerability is reached and prayers of anguish reach God’s throne. Those suffering can be compensated in the appropriate place for it after death. There is of course an implicit requirement that the victims do not themselves become the wrongdoers, otherwise they would have the same end as those who did wrong to them. Jesus has in more recent history confirmed this teaching of Enoch by first the testimonies given by Jesus about the importance of knowing Enoch’s teachings regarding angels, adding more clarity about the resurrection making humans like angels, but also Jesus spoke a similar teaching in the story of ‘the rich man and Lazarus’. The poor beggar Lazarus suffered neglect and indifference from a rich neighbour but after both died, Lazarus went to a place for comfort of his soul after death, while the rich man was tormented after death. Lazarus had suffered long in poverty and pain but had not himself become a doer of wrong like the selfish, neglectful rich man. So Jesus confirmed Enoch’s teachings we find in the Book of Enoch.

Should God intervene?

 The Book of Enoch answers an important question: Should we expect God to stop wrongs being done to the innocent? We might think God should always intervene when wrongdoing is about to happen. Or would that be oppressive? You might be kept in chains from birth. So might I. We could be prevented from doing wrong which in our cases could mean being pretty much prevented from doing anything. In extremes the Book of Enoch tells us that God does do that, such as with Azazel and other fallen angels, kept bound in chains for thousands of years because they had a record of abusing their powers as angels back around 3500 BC. God uses proportionate measures in dealing with things. This intervention involved sending angels to capture the angels who were abusing the trust they were given. An angel had led others into taking human girls as wives, against God’s purposes for angels. The fallen Azazel, the leader of the fall of angels, was bound under rocks. An immortal was buried alive, it seems, and has been kept like that for thousands of years. Should God resort to this all the time? With humans it would be different. Humans die. Wait a few decades and a human serious offender will be gone from the land of the living. Then they are kept in one of four different places depending how they lived and whether they already received justice. Heaven has only to wait. Yet the innocent suffer. So God lets things happen in some circumstances, but in His sovereign will may intervene if a limit of tolerability is reached and prayers of anguish reach God’s throne. Those suffering can be compensated in the appropriate place for it after death. There is of course an implicit requirement that the victims do not themselves become the wrongdoers, otherwise they would have the same end as those who did wrong to them. 

Jesus has in more recent history confirmed this teaching of Enoch by first the testimonies given by Jesus about the importance of knowing Enoch’s teachings regarding angels, adding more clarity about the resurrection making humans like angels, but also Jesus spoke a similar teaching in the story of ‘the rich man and Lazarus’. The poor beggar Lazarus suffered neglect and indifference from a rich neighbour but after both died, Lazarus went to a place for comfort of his soul after death, while the rich man was tormented after death. Lazarus had suffered long in poverty and pain but had not himself become a doer of wrong like the selfish, neglectful rich man. So Jesus confirmed Enoch’s teachings we find in the Book of Enoch.

Science and religion

 Scientists have a purpose of trying to pick out what can be known and understood without any knowledge of anything supernatural. Priests and prophets have a purpose of trying to discern what the supernatural God wants known without resorting to shamanism. 

Scary

 God, the wisest, most powerful judge is scary, even though also very loving. He has therefore provided mankind with the ideal,  human mediator, Jesus.

Fear God

God is called the terror of Isaac. Also called “Hide yourself!”. Also a consuming fire. The real God is more frightening than any mafia godfather. Even though God is good, don’t make the mistake of thinking He isn’t all those other things too. Someone who can keep punishing even long after the body is killed by His punishments. God is love. Love casts out fear. Yet God’s love is not to be taken for granted or despised as if it were weakness. Exhausting His patience is difficult but possible. Think of the most powerful emperor monarch then take it up several notches. Yet fear God and preserve that proper respect and you will have His angelic protection. That is why God has provided a mediator. The man, Jesus, the Christ. Crucified, resurrected, now alive forever.

Denial as a coping mechanism?

Denial as a coping mechanism has some harmful side effects. Try saying “Gravity does not exist” over and over until you believe it and it will have harmful side effects. 

Many scientists and philosophers have offered differing theories about gravity. Some say it is a force. Others that it is curvature of space-time. Has any theory been proved? Any more so than theories of theology? 

This lack of agreement on what gravity actually is, could lead to confusion, tension and uncertainty as to its existence. One way to cope with this would be to try denying its existence. Form a kind of Atheist Republic to find solace in others denying it too. A bit like a Flat Earth Society. But then do you risk believing your denial and suffering harm that might result when you walk towards a cliff edge?

Like Jesus

 If you can be like Jesus then you can be dead and then alive forever. But He holds the keys.

Flesh Having the Spirit of Christ

Having the Spirit of Christ. That comes by being born again, finding hope in Christ’s resurrection, in Christ being alive forever, alive from the dead, having paid for sins. Having the Spirit of Christ. Jesus truly came in flesh like our flesh so we can be like Him but He is what He is by spirit so we must be too. Having the Spirit of Christ. 

Peace

 I am asked whether we should strive for a humanitarian kind of discipline and decency, rather than the gospel of Christ. Humanitarian discipline and learning does not get anyone pardoned. If we were perfect maybe it would be all we need for a decent life. But over time we blow it. Drugs. Sex perversion. Even illness can make us go off the rails. Discipline on its own does not put things right when it all goes wrong. Military life is one traditional way young people try to get back on the rails and get good discipline. But it is not a road to peace. The road to peace involves redemption. Why should we have a peaceful life if we did terrible things and caused misery to others. All kinds of things we do are the undoing of others. Even our wealth cannot be separated from the slave trade that bought it. Someone had to pay. If that someone was forced to pay, we deserve no peace. We need peace in which to learn to do right but we deserve no peace. But Someone, Christ, paid willingly by crucifixion to buy our peace, paying off the reproach of our peace. Trusting in that is the path to peace. Trusting and obeying His teachings and relying on His crucifixion to pay our debt to God and His resurrection to give us hope that Christ can keep our way ahead blessed by God as eternal life. Having His teachings within and the actions of His Spirit to help us and discipline us.

Spirituality in Christ

 The Spirit of Christ existed, exists, will exist. Having the Spirit of Christ working within means having the Son and having life.

“And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?” 

Salt and light

 True church participation is modelled on Solomon who was tasked with building the Temple for God precisely because he was not a violent king. God gave Solomon wisdom and protection with anointing of Holy Spirit so Solomon ruled peacefully and therefore was accepted not only as a son of God but as a builder of the Temple for God’s name. This is how it works with the true church too. It requires there to be peace in its building - in the tasks God gives which build up the lives and spiritual growth of the members. The Body of Christ. As such it influences the world around it towards less violence and more peaceful goals such as trade and justice for the poor provided by economic growth. Salt and light.

Incorruptible Spirit

I was asked: Was the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1:11) before incarnation corruptible? If you read the Book of Enoch and the Book of Daniel and 2 Esdras you find the Son of Man spirit is recognisable as like a man. Incidentally the description of Him after His resurrection and ascension in Revelation is intentionally similar to that in Daniel. This implies He was similar in sprit before incarnation to how He is now after incarnation and resurrection. So I would say He is incorruptible both before incarnation and after incarnation and resurrection. He became flesh and at that time was mortal and died and rose again. Jesus Christ. But isn’t there a sense in which spirit is always incorruptible? The Spirit of Christ being given a body by the Holy Spirit to be born of the virgin Mary meant the body itself can face temptation, suffer and die. Yet the spirit persists, and in the case of Christ preexists too such that Christ could proclaim, “Before Abraham was born, I am”

The Spirit of Christ

 The kind of spirit to which Peter referred in 1 Peter 1:11 is like the Holy Spirit referred to in other scriptures. This kind of spirit can manifest itself. In the case of the Spirit of Christ, one manifestation was the manifestation of becoming flesh. Previous manifestations had been by exerting influence in ancient times over prophets to lead them towards truth regarding this Christ. Also visions (example Isaiah 6) and other manifestations which were akin to something even more physical in the here and now (examples Daniel and Enoch).

What Jesus meant by “I am”

Compare what the apostles such as John and Peter believed about John the Baptist with what they believed about themselves and what they believed about Jesus Christ. John the Baptist was foreknown and foretold by prophets. Yet he did not say of himself “I am” nor did he imply he had existence before conception. The prophetic foretelling of his coming did not constitute preexistence of John the Baptist. Peter wrote of foreknowledge about believers in 1 Peter 1:2 yet it is not written that this foreknowledge had any behaviour or took action. Then look at how John the Baptist and the apostles spoke about and wrote about Jesus Christ. They do attribute much more than just foreknowledge to this Spirit of Christ of which Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:10-11. John reports how Jesus said “I am” in referring to His existence in ancient times and also into the eternal future. John the Baptist said that Jesus has surpassed him because Jesus was (existed) before him. Peter wrote of the Spirit of Christ existing in ancient times, inspiring the prophets. The apostles clearly believed in Jesus’ existence since very ancient times as a spirit and His ongoing existence forever as resurrected human but immortal spirit. So for them it is clear what Jesus meant by “I am”. And they firmly believed it. Jesus said if we don’t believe it, we will die in our sins (John 8 ). Christ Jesus’ spirit is aeons old and will exist forever. That is the “I am” truth about Him.

Spirit of Christ - preexistence

That the Son of Man seen by the prophet Enoch and taught about extensively in the Book of Enoch is truly the Spirit of Christ long before Christ became flesh is demonstrated by this statement by the Apostle Peter in his first epistle. 1 Peter 1:10-11 “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them.” 

Holy Spirit

 How many of us believe in Jesus but haven’t ever become aware of receiving the Holy Spirt? Maybe thinking such awareness is impossible? Ask that you may receive. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus went on to say “Which of you if your children are asking you for bread, would give the child a stone? How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.” But be sure you have a faith God the Father puts within you as Father of that faith: Persuasion which is faith which comes by God’s word persuading you and God’s power convincing you.

Is ‘living in sin’ a sin?

 Is ‘living in sin’ a sin? Is marriage the only way to have a sexual relationship? Depends on your social circles. I got excluded from a great church because of ‘living in sin’ (plus divorce was another factor), but love won the day. Marriage is a social circle phenomenon. Left to your private decision for you and your partner or potential partner you might simply make a private commitment as my partner and I did. Later I bowed to social pressure and got married formally when my partner accepted. But only after I lived together ‘in sin’ for years. Personally I don’t believe it was sin. Singleness with living in lustfulness is a sin though. The church did not chuck me out for that. So sin is a factor but not the only factor. Social acceptability is a factor too.

To quit lying

 If we are united in Christ we are part of the same body of Christ and it is utterly inappropriate to lie to each other. Putting off lying both in word and thought is a first step in obedience to Christ Jesus. Lies are of the devil. So to start to obey Christ means to quit lying. 

Lockdown churches

Too many online church services are merely begging opportunities for full-time church workers who have no other trade with which to support themselves.

The Word became flesh

 The truth and spirit of Jesus’ teachings were there with the Father before, long before, Jesus came in flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit points to the veracity of the Book of Enoch scriptures saying that this truth and spirit took form before being flesh and blood. Even in Enoch’s time millennia before the coming of Christ in flesh this form existed, the Book of Enoch strongly suggests. This explains the Book of Daniel and Book of Revelation together implying Jesus was taken into the presence of the Father, Ancient of Days, even in Daniel’s time, manifest in the form of one like a man, like a son of man. This Son of Man taught of by the Book of Enoch and with whom Jesus identified Himself. That existence of spirit and truth had humanlike form. Logically it leads to the deduction that as soon as the first cell of Jesus existed the existence moved to it from what existed before. The manifestation took human flesh. 

Dear Unitarian

 Dear unitarian. Isn’t the knowledge that Almighty God the Father before creation had of Jesus something that existed? Did that knowledge merely reside in the mind of the Father or did it form a school of knowledge among the angels? After the creation of all Creation what form did that knowledge take? How else was it manifested besides in the prophecies and hopes of prophets and followers of God? In their prophecies and hopes did it start to take shape? Did it even before Abraham’s time start to take form? Human form. Did Abraham realise it would eventually take human physical form? It surely had a very real, though hidden existence. Abraham rejoiced in the day of its human physical flesh manifestation. Did that faith in an invisible entity become within Abraham and others a manifestation of the image of the Father? Something or someone they could all look up to and follow and hang upon in their hopes? Goings forth that were of old of times of Abraham and before. A lamb slain even then.

Prophecy Today

 If I was given the privilege by God of rebooting true religion, how would I do it? I would preach. I would preach that a cross is only known so widely as a religious symbol today because a single special sacrifice was made. The cross as a medical or shamanistic symbol is long known irrespective of the religious cross. Yet both have common roots. A sacrifice making way for an oracle. A religious cross tells of the one sacrifice of the Son of Man, the Christ, making way for the oracles going globally widespread of true prophecy by the Holy Spirit so there can be true prophets lighting up the world. So we should live by this light and be saved.

The importance of the age of the Book of Enoch

 The great five thousand year age of the Book of Enoch is so vitally important because through it, with faith in the veracity of it to which Jesus and Jude and Peter testified, the picture is given us in the perspective of the millennia, of the steadfastness of Jesus Himself. He IS. The same yesterday, from ancient times, and today, and indeed forevermore. This Jesus, the Logos, the word of God, we must believe in. Or we die in our sins. 

When Jesus (John 8 ) told us of the steadfastness of the Son of Man (Himself) the immediate response of intelligent hearers was the objection because of His age of not even fifty years. How could Jesus show Himself as an example and source of the kind of enduring steadfast persistence in unsinning righteousness for living as children of God into aeons in the future if He had only Himself lived less than fifty years. He explained that “Before Abraham was born, I am”. Yet it gets misunderstood (although the Pharisees understood it well enough to try stoning Him in response). The Book of Enoch reveals the Son of Man being there with God in times when Enoch was taken up to heaven such that Enoch could be saved any resulting desolate loneliness and lack of righteous consolation by the fact he was going up to that Son of Man. This reveals just how very long Jesus has been steadfastly righteous and sinless. So long that we can hope for Him to be thousands of years from now just the same still, able to be a sure repose for those He saves.  So the Holy Spirit goes to the trouble of completing this revelation for us today, having started it in Enoch’s time and having been privy to it beginning before God made all things and put all things under His governing power. I too can witness to this having been revealed to me also, by this Holy Spirit, bringing even me into the picture too. And witnessing that Jesus indeed has not changed in His character, sinlessness and steadfast teachings. 

God’s Christianity

 God’s Christianity. God really likes His Son and always has done and puts all His teachings into Him and always has done since before Creation. This is the mystery, that God made all there is about real and true Christianity before God made Creation and all things. It is not new. Christianity was with God before the beginning of time. It has been the creation of God, the word of God, with God all through time. Go to heaven in 3000 BC, like Enoch did, and you find Christianity there. The crucifixion cross sacrifice of the Lamb of God. The resurrection of this Son of God. Even the manifestation in a spiritual sense of Christ thousands of years before this Son of Man, this Elect One came in the flesh. All there with God. Heaven has always been Christian. The Book of Enoch reveals this and the Holy Spirit presents it to us.

This is really about the Name (teachings, reputation, everything stood for, which has authority) of the Son of God which is there with God before time began, just as the Son is with God there before time began. 

Elohim

 Elohim 

A term reflecting the ancient world practice of having a kind of pantheon of gods for each nation. God merely used the existing concept and made it clear that He Himself is the only member of the Israelites’ pantheon of gods. 

So, say for Egypt (ancient), its Elohim (pantheon) would be Osiris, Horus, Amun, Isis, and others. Whereas for Israel its Elohim is (should be) Yahweh alone. 

An analogy would be if an absolute monarch said to a country “I am your political party” even though ‘party’ implied a group of people.

Fitting in

If we believe the Book of Enoch is true scripture, how does it affect how we fit in with believers? Pressure to conform?

Most Jewish, Christian or Islamic religions or denominations today are quite like the Pharisee sect of early church times. Amazes me that my local churches would all put huge pressure on me to conform to this implicit Pharisee-like sect by only accepting 66 books or a similar number. If they don’t individually apply this force, they will collectively use the collection money to hire someone to apply it. It is almost automatically a part of attending church. I deny their authority to do this. Jesus is Lord. Jesus authors our faith.

Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Foster resilience. Invest time in furthering this faith, to bolster it constantly. 

Another Counsellor

 Once as I meditated on a verse I thought might be way to explain what was being fulfilled around me I had no certainty but just a hunch. Then a voice whispered a bible reference. I looked it up and read the chapter and there at the end was a cross reference in the margin to the verse on which I was meditating. The meaning was clear. The Holy Spirit is so very great as a teacher and guide into all truth. All He said was “Daniel 3” yet it led to certainty of truth.

Notes on Tartarus and Hades (Sheol) - places or states we now call Hell

The ancient teacher Enoch (Enmendanki) taught around 3000 BC about what happens after death: Perhaps even before the earliest pyramids. Beliefs concerning the afterlife or underworld have persisted from that time till the present in many civilised cultures with remarkably little diversity. Egyptians with Anubis weighing hearts of souls before determining destinations. Greeks had same concept of underworld with Pluto governing it and of course the river Styx. Sumerians had the underworld as a geographic place with an entrance near Eridu. The Adapa legend sees Adapa entering into the regions of gods by way of a tunnel in a mountain guarded by some of his descendant chief elders. Abraham did not differ in his beliefs on such things and he and his patriarchal grandchildren are recorded as having blessed the Book of Enoch for its teachings. Moses too learned such things and did not contradict them and there is the reference to Azazel who Enoch implied ended up buried in Dudain, which might likely be the desert near where the Exodus took the Israelites so the scapegoat might literally have been sent off towards where Azazel was (is) incarcerated. It seems Enoch’s teachings to a great extent formed the basics of most civilised religions till Roman times.  A word used by Hellenistic theists for a destination of the dead was Tartarus and a geographic place (or places) is implied but think how we speak of prison. We say a particular statesman might be in charge of imprisonment or a particular person went to prison or spent some time in prison, without implying any particular place. In some cases it might imply a particular place locally to say you visited the prison. Likewise Tartarus in some contexts might mean a state of incarceration with no specific geographic place implied, as with angel Uriel’s status in charge of Tartarus. This place might not be place of the dead but a place for rogue angels. It could mean spiritual incarcerations generally, whatever the place. Or in the Book of Enoch it (or whatever was later translated as Tartarus in Greek) might imply a specific place known to the contemporaries of Enoch (perhaps because of his teachings). In the case of angels being bound in Tartarus it might again imply prison-like incarceration generally. Yet other contexts might speak of a specific Tartarus, such as Sheol where all the dead are gathered in a partitioned underground complex. So through history roughly the same teachings were persisted by most civilised cultures as exist in early Christianity and contemporary Hebrew and Hellenistic Jewish sects. These beliefs are still present in Christianity and Judaism and indeed Islam, etcetera today but the idea of “going to heaven” after death has somewhat superseded them in popular theistic cultures. 

Living charitably

 If you rely on God’s charitable love, you find it is real and knowable and known. It is renowned so much that someone famously once wrote “God is charitable love. Whoever lives in charitable love lives in God.” Living charitably and lovingly is how best to discern the reality and existence of God. 

Living waters

 We live in a time of restrictions placed on us by mere men without consultation with God. The prophet who has not sat in God’s counsel is a false prophet. We can leave this behind and hold to Jesus’ actual teachings we find in the gospels. He embraced scriptures outside human restrictions placed on believers today. The true scriptures are brought to light by the Holy Spirit clarifying what Jesus truly said. “As the scripture says, out of him will flow rivers of living water” 

Enoch wrote: “And in that place I saw the fountain of righteousness

Which was inexhaustible:

And around it were many fountains of wisdom;

And all the thirsty drank of them,

And were filled with wisdom,

And their dwellings were with the righteous and holy and elect.” 

This is true scripture in line with Lord Jesus’ teachings. The rivers of living water attest to it.

Did a historical Enoch write the Book of Enoch?

 Is the Book of Enoch written by a historic person? Enoch? In Roman times Enoch, Noah and Moses were still considered historical. By the 1700s that historicity was being questioned. By the 1800s it was so much denied that by the end of that century Nietzsche could write  “God is dead, God is murdered”. So historicity evidence and belief in it seems to take around 3500 years to disappear. In Enoch’s case, almost 3000 years after he wrote his the first of his writings he was still considered the author of the scriptures that bear his name, those parts which are attributed to him (other parts were added by his son and great grandson too). But 500 years further on and the doubts crept in. That was around 400 AD. Yet the Holy Spirit testimony through the Lord Jesus and also through Jude, brother of Jesus, and later through many others, is that Enoch did write the main parts of the Book of Enoch translated for us today. They are holy scripture and their historicity was clearly believed at the time of Christ Jesus’s ministry and those first followers and apostles and later leaders in the first few centuries of the Church. Even Wikipedia acknowledges that the Ethiopic Christians who preserve the book in their biblical canon will hold it true that Enoch is its author and historical.

Mark of 666

 If you lived in China or India and knew the Revelation Apocalypse prophecy you might think the 666 mark is already here. Social credit in China. Aadhaar in India. These are trials on a local but huge scale, as technology allows a system to eventually be developed to help track down those who refuse a mark of the future global pseudo-religious cult once it comes. In my childhood my classmates mocked my belief in the prophecies of Revelation because they said a global way to enforce something and execute those who refused it could not happen. Now it can. Does not mean it is imminent. Lots prophesied has to happen first. But the technology is possible. Already RFID and Aadhaar show how a non-adherent can technically be singled out as an enemy or non-participant. Religious objectors can be refused social benefits and food. The cancel culture shows there is a growing political will for it too. The US Democrats can sweep every country into their schemes, as can WEF. So the makings are there and no longer funny and the mockery target of scorners. It is no laughing matter now. But it is some way off, I think. 

BUT...

First the temple has to be built and half the world destroyed.

The Temple is almost ready to be started. A Sanhedrin is formed. Temple articles are made. Still several years away, it seems. Could be done quickly though. 

We are getting told by WHO and WEF about global plagues which could wipe out populations in biblical way. Add wars and global outbreaks of violence, plus continental scale food shortages. Plus Sahara growing. Then comes fires like forrest fires of Australia and California but on global scale. Third of trees destroyed worldwide, it seems. 

Plus there is the rise of the first Beast - something like the Shiite Crescent: Simultaneous with building of the so-called Third Temple. Then the two witnesses. All this plus a mega earthquake on global scale perhaps a magma wave going around the world. 

Ways the Book of Enoch helps towards salvation

Ways the Book of Enoch helps towards salvation in ways not clearly covered by other scriptures read by the Jews in Christ’s times:

1. Places of the dead are more precisely described in the Book of Enoch - not just Sheol.

2. Angels are not supposed to marry. The Book of Enoch tells us this.

3. Angels took human wives and had offspring with them. This is described (and is unambiguous compared to Genesis 6).

4. The Oath is how the angels control creation and it is now linked to the name of the Son of Man.

5. It shows the power even before creation of the Son of Man’s name.

6. The preexistence of the Christ, even before Abraham was born, is made unambiguous when it tells us that Enoch (some say Noah) was taken up to the Son of Man (the Christ) years before the Flood.

7. The planning by God of the future of the children of Israel is laid out in full, showing that it was all planned out by God even before the time of Abraham, even before the time of Noah and it is evident how this plan has worked out precisely. It even shows the timing of Jesus’ first coming. 

8. It clearly describes the Christ as being the Son of God, acknowledged as “My Son” by God since ancient times, even before the time of Abraham. (Ch 105) 

9. It foretells elect ones being given knowledge of all of Creation, possibly foretelling the Geonic Schools and the insight behind the Babylonian Talmud. 

10. It warns of even the ‘sheep’ being thrown into the lake of fire if they are still blind when the Lord comes in judgement. 

11. It tells how blindness of the ‘sheep’ is linked to forsaking of the house of God or building a polluted house.

12. It tells of those who will open the eyes of many of the blind sheep (such as the ‘great horn of one of the sheep’). 

13. It describes how the Holy Spirit will well up like a fountain of water of wisdom within those who adhere to the teachings of the Son of Man and stay with Him.

14. It foretells that the destinations of souls will be determined by the Elect One, the Son of Man.

15. It explains how even the mightiest people can fail morally by living by trust in riches and strength rather than by accepting the Holy Spirit and relying on teachings coming from God.

The evidence of the cross

The cross was always a symbol of a sacrifice by a mediator for sins or debts. This was true long before the crucifixion started being used by Romans. The cross now symbolises Christ and so it is evidence of Someone very big who can transcend time and have very long term purposes and carry out very long term plans beyond the scale of human lifetimes.

Faith and hope produced by God

 God made available a faith only He can put within us and when He raised Jesus from the dead who died for you He produced hope too.

So many church denominations

 So many different church denominations. There is no one denomination. There are mostly influences of Jewish Sadducee and Pharisee sects on the Western denominations. Seems strange yes? But looking into the history of Western Christianity, that is what you find. Jesus was neither and Pharisee nor a Sadducee. So if you encounter Jesus, do not be surprised if He leads you away from them, into truth. That is what happened with me. I also learned that churches too easily tolerate unrepentant sinners and fail to shun when they should do. I was deeply caught in sin for years but never even rebuked in church for it. They should have excluded me to some extent, but with an open door for me to return if I repented. Maybe even so today, I do not know. We have all wandered so far we no longer recognise sin as sin. When Christ judges sin it can even end in death. In extreme cases if the sinner is too entrenched. Seen that happen. So it is not all about doctrine. Many doctrines are wrong in all denominations. It is about belief in Christ being same yesterday and today, and into eternity in the future, and about holding to His teachings and practicing them and finding freedom from sin by God’s spirit power. Then loving as one family of those whose faith is formed in them by God. So I do not see denominations. I look for the faith which God forms in certain people’s hearts and the outcomes of that.

Church

 A church is just a circle in the teachings of Christ. If Christ’s teachings are central in the circle you are in, you are in a church.

The scriptures

 If you don’t read the scriptures, how will you understand when you come across the resurrection? The truth is out there.

God Reflected

 When you see a reflection you do not need to see who or what is reflected directly because the reflection shows you they are there. So too with Jesus. He shows you God is there. No He Himself is not God but He reveals God to those who perceive Jesus and therefore in Jesus perceive God. 

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

There is a little known scripture known as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. It is implicitly quoted or at least used as a sacred source by the Apostle Paul (R H Charles, translator of the Book of Enoch claimed) and so it seems to be genuinely ancient and trustworthy. It mentions the Books of Enoch (the Book of Enoch is a collection of books) existing at the time of Abraham and the sons of Jacob. It has a prophecy in it that perfectly describes the baptism of Jesus, explaining the holy signs which marked it. It seems this is a foretelling of that baptism since the use of the scripture by Paul as a source and his apparent reliance on its trustworthiness would place it before Christ came. 

Seven ways Jesus is the Son of God

 Seven ways Jesus is the Son of God

1. Firstborn over all creation: God made Him before anything else and then made everything through Him. So angels are sons but not firstborn sons. Jesus is firstborn over all creation. God gave Jesus to have life as a distinct person, alive in His own right, with life in Himself.

2. Jesus’ character has always been and always will be consistent with the character and righteous requirements of God: no lie is found in Him and He is in this way constantly like God and therefore a son of God.

3. God taught Jesus all His ways and showed Him all He does, lovingly raising Him in heaven before sending Him, keeping Him hidden as the Son of Man.

4. Virgin birth: The Only Begotten Son of God. No other being is begotten in this way by God. The Spirit of God caused Mary, a young maiden, a virgin, to bear Jesus as the only begotten Son of God.

5. Fulfilment of the prophecy of God to King David that a descendant of David would build the Temple for God and would be as a son to God in that if ever He needed chastisement God would chastise and restore Him and never let Him perish nor let His body ever see decay.

6. Twice God from the sky by the voice of an angel declared Jesus His beloved Son and declared His good pleasure in Jesus. So this too made Jesus the Son of God. The works of miraculous power God gave to Jesus also declared Him to be the Son of God.

7. Firstborn from the dead: When Jesus was crucified, God raised Him from the dead to live forever. The resurrection. The first of many others too who will rise to be fully sons of God. Raised by Jesus to be immortal.

A one being Trinity? A one-person Oneness?

 A one being Trinity? A one-person Oneness? If the Father and the Son are one person or the one being, how can they corroborate each other’s testimonies? It would be dishonest, if they are one person, for the Son to say His Father bears testimony about Him. Truth: the Father is one being in His own right. The Son is one person in His own right, given life in Himself by the Father. The Father testifies about the Son that Jesus is His Son.

What is spirit?

WHAT IS SPIRIT? There is a part of our inner being called our spirit. I could sense it today. My mind truthfully telling me my sins really ought to mean my death. My spirit taking me on sudden flash of awareness of life for eternity transcending it all. My understanding telling me that the death is of my body but the life eternal is of my spirit. It all came through my mind in an instant but there among it I sensed that spirit. A distinct entity of me there orthogonal to my mind, body, understanding, yet real and an important component of what makes up my inner and outer being. Spirit can receive truth led by the Holy Spirit so we can trust it if we carefully weigh it and find it is right. Then we can live our lives according to it.

“Your bodies are dead because of sin but your spirits are alive because of righteousness” Righteousness, whether ours or God’s or Christ’s or the Holy Spirit’s , has power to awaken the spirit. If we are opened in our hearts to the righteousness of Christ dying for us, hope kindles within, and God does not disappoint it, pouring His love into our hearts and awakening our spirits. Likewise our obedient righteous acts of faith kindle spirit within. The spirit comes alive where before it lay dormant. We can then live by it, instead of by the flesh. (See Psalm 51.)

The mystery of instrumentality in creation

 How did the early apostles of Jesus Christ come to believe that Jesus is the One through whom God made all things? It is not evident from the gospels that Jesus clearly stated it. John’s gospel tells how Jesus spoke of glory He had with God before the foundation, the making of the world, but it does not say Jesus made it clearer than that what He meant by it, only that Jesus said He had much more to say which the disciples could not at that time cope with. The Holy Spirit would continue the teaching work of Jesus when Jesus returned to God, so this must be what led to these great beliefs about Jesus being so much part of God’s work in creation. For example, on the day of Pentecost when many believers went around uttering mysteries in tongues which foreign speaking visitors to Jerusalem were all able to understand in their own languages. It does not say what the uttered mysteries were. Likewise the many occasions afterwards when tongues were spoken and interpreted. The outcome was that the apostles and disciples taught their faith that Jesus was instrumental in the creation of all things. God created through Jesus just as God also spoke and wrote through prophets. The apostles and core believers who wrote the New Testament scriptures clearly believed this.

God’s Fatherhood seen in the Book of Enoch

God’s Fatherhood seen in the Book of Enoch:

Book of Enoch ch 90:32-33

32. And those sheep were all white, and their wool was abundant and clean. 33. And all that had been destroyed and dispersed, and all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the heaven, assembled in that house, and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced with great joy because they were all good and had returned to His house.

Book of Enoch ch 105

1. In those days the Lord bade (them) to summon and testify to the children of earth concerning their wisdom: Show (it) unto them; for ye are their guides, and a recompense over the whole earth. 2. For I and My son will be united with them for ever in the paths of uprightness in their lives; and ye shall have peace: rejoice, ye children of uprightness. Amen.

At the start of the Book of Enoch we have descriptions of God’s ways, God’s will being accomplished in Nature but not in humans. Humans are rebuked for lack of constancy in obeying God. Then there is much help and nurture given throughout history to humans as God sends servants and eventually His Son, the Son of Man, the Elect One, to bring a change in the righteous humans so not all is lost and so that God still has a remnant. Then at the end, after judgement, the persistent, Fatherly efforts of God finally pay off and succeed and God has around Him both His Son and His many children who have at last learned to live in love and to stay close to the Father in fellowship with the Son. We can have a taste of this fellowship now when we learn to all look after each other and build up constantly what can eventually become this household for God.

Message from God

I’m asked what message God was giving me at the time He showed me Himself, His Son the Lord and revelation that the Book of Enoch is a work of the same Holy Spirit who speaks today. Well God did give me a clear message. After revealing by the Holy Spirit that the trees grow and planets orbit by the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ the follow-up message God gave me was clear: “Israel has sinned” is what He said. But He also said the same back in ancient Joshua’s time so it is not new that God confronts sin this way with these words. The gist of the message: Just look at how Israel has brought upon itself a spying eagle or vulture flying overhead watching the ground below with a big white eye. It is sin which has brought this about. And it is not just Israel the nation but the wider context of spiritual Israel, house of God scattered among the nations, the circumcision by the Spirit. “Israel has sinned!” Where is the love for God? The Book of Enoch starts with a similar message. The trees grow and then lose autumn leaves each year by obedience to the Lord’s authority but humans are an embarrassment and affront to angels because we are not constant like Nature, nor obedient to God’s commands through Jesus but we sin and as humans we keep sinning. Jesus’ message as Son of Man sent to save us: Stop sinning. Believe He is the same today as yesterday and will be so forever, then follow the teachings He gives by holding to them and adhering to them and He will set us free.

Gifts

When you believe Christ died for you there are things God gives you miraculously: To save you and to build His Temple.

In my case one of several such gifts was to see God in a vision and to meet with His Son, the Lord and then to hear things from heaven among believers.

The way the Holy Spirit does it is very clever/wise and absolutely persuasive, giving certainty.

The way Jesus shows Himself is very, very spiritually powerful, showing that He truly is Lord. In so doing it shows the Father confesses Jesus as His Son. It also showed me Jesus is just the same today as in the gospel records. Doing and teaching by example the same things as long ago. 

Out of all this came recognition of the Book of Enoch as true, holy scripture. 

Plus it all verified to me that the gospels of Jesus’ apostles are faithful, true testimonies to be relied on and adhered to, John’s gospel accounts of Jesus’ more lengthy discourses in particular.

But the Book of Enoch so matching what the Holy Spirit said in me, that was a complete surprise and delight, leading me to tell others persistently over the following years about the Book of Enoch and the glory of Jesus it proclaims.

So Jesus clearly wants this book of scripture known and wants us to come to Him for life because it testifies concerning Him. 

The Holy Spirit and the Book of Enoch

 The manifestations of the Holy Spirit have two major characteristics: He causes the uttering of mysteries and the knowledge and wisdom He imparts is that of Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ. In both of these key ways in His work you find truths also found in the Book of Enoch. So it helps to know the Book of Enoch or to read it having experienced the Holy Spirit. The mysteries of God are found so prevalently in the Book of Enoch because Enoch had this same Holy Spirit as gives utterances of mysteries today, so there is major overlap between what is in the book and what the Holy Spirit says. The Lord Jesus had deep knowledge of the Book of Enoch so when the Holy Spirit takes what is known by Jesus and makes it known to believers you find plenty of overlap with the truths in the Book of Enoch. Shunning the Book of Enoch is foolish because those who do this are shunning the Holy Spirit too.

First horseman of the Apocalypse

 Looking at the Rev 6 four horseman prophecy it is alarming that although economic crisis and massive global >20% lethal pandemic are coming, what comes first is widespread global violence (first horseman). I bet that is almost imminent, or maybe within the next few years.

Metamorphosis

 During the chrysalis stage of a caterpillar or other such creature, so I read, the structures of the pupae or caterpillar or larvae break down to a mush. It would be difficult to think of such a mush as being a living creature. It has no organs, just substances. So the new form that grows is like a resurrection. Yet by faith we can believe that the butterfly IS the caterpillar. Something persisted from caterpillar to butterfly. The caterpillar is not a new individual but a new form of the individual that used to be a caterpillar. Surely there is a soul. This teaches us a lot about Theology. 

The same Jesus

 “Jesus Christ yesterday and today is the same and to the ages” https://biblehub.com/text/hebrews/13-8.htm This is what the closest disciples and apostles believed just decades after Jesus Christ was born. How can you believe that except you believe there is preexistence? Did they believe it because they watched Jesus growing up and noticed He never changed? No. Obviously not. It is there in the nature of Jesus which they saw over just a few years following Him and especially after the resurrection when He was still the same Jesus. They matched what they saw with what He said about Himself. “I am”. They knew it meant He is existent over time in a mysterious yet real way and more so than other people. This gave them faith it would continue “into the ages” ahead. That is the essential belief Jesus spoke of in John 8. That is part of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of Man.

Pranksters

 Translate “φαρμάκοις” from Greek to English: you get “medicine”, but also “pranksters”. In Revelation 21:8 it is translated “sorcerers”.

Build or be blind

Enoch’s prophetic dream of the history through all time of God’s people. It all hinges on whether they are devoted to God’s house or forsake it, and the result of having spiritual discernment of God’s will or blindness to it.

If believers build each other in love as each one does the task God gives us, we will have discernment of God’s will and our eyes will remain open. If we forsake it all we will become blind and suffer the consequences. 

From the Book of Enoch (R H Charles translation) chapters 89 and 90:

89:28. But the sheep escaped from that water and went forth into a wilderness, where there was no water and no grass; and they began to open their eyes and to see; and I saw the Lord of the sheep pasturing them and giving them water and grass, and that sheep going and leading them. 

...

89:41. And sometimes their eyes were opened, and sometimes blinded, till another sheep arose and led them and brought them all back, and their eyes were opened.

...

89:50. And that house became great and broad, and it was built for those sheep: (and) a tower lofty and great was built on the house for the Lord of the sheep, and that house was low, but the tower was elevated and lofty, and the Lord of the sheep stood on that tower and they offered a full table before Him. 51. And again I saw those sheep that they again erred and went many ways, and forsook that their house, and the Lord of the sheep called some from amongst the sheep and sent them to the sheep, but the sheep began to slay them. 53. And many other sheep He sent to those sheep to testify unto them and lament over them. 54. And after that I saw that when they forsook the house of the Lord and His tower they fell away entirely, and their eyes were blinded; and I saw the Lord of the sheep how He wrought much slaughter amongst them in their herds until those sheep invited that slaughter and betrayed His place. 55. And He gave them over into the hands of the lions and tigers, and wolves and hyenas, and into the hand of the foxes, and to all the wild beasts, and those wild beasts began to tear in pieces those sheep. 56. And I saw that He forsook that their house and their tower and gave them all into the hand of the lions, to tear and devour them, into the hand of all the wild beasts. 57. And I began to cry aloud with all my power, and to appeal to the Lord of the sheep, and to represent to Him in regard to the sheep that they were devoured by all the wild beasts. 58. But He remained unmoved, ...

...

72. And forthwith I saw how the shepherds pastured for twelve hours, and behold three of those sheep turned back and came and entered and began to build up all that had fallen down of that house; but the wild boars tried to hinder them, but they were not able. 73. And they began again to build as before, and they reared up that tower, and it was named the high tower; and they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure. 74. And as touching all this the eyes of those sheep were blinded so that they saw not, and (the eyes of) their shepherds likewise;

...

90:6. But behold lambs were borne by those white sheep, and they began to open their eyes and to see, and to cry to the sheep. 7. Yea, they cried to them, but they did not hearken to what they said to them, but were exceedingly deaf, and their eyes were very exceedingly blinded.

...

90: 20. And I saw till a throne was erected in the pleasant land, and the Lord of the sheep sat Himself thereon, and the other took the sealed books and opened those books before the Lord of the sheep.

...

90:26. And I saw at that time how a like abyss was opened in the midst of the earth, full of fire, and they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found guilty and cast into this fiery abyss, and they burned; now this abyss was to the right of that house. 27. And I saw those sheep burning †and their bones burning†.

...

90: 28. And I stood up to see till they folded up that old house; and carried off all the pillars, and all the beams and ornaments of the house were at the same time folded up with it, and they carried it off and laid it in a place in the south of the land. 29. And I saw till the Lord of the sheep brought a new house greater and loftier than that first, and set it up in the place of the first which had beer folded up: all its pillars were new, and its ornaments were new and larger than those of the first, the old one which He had taken away, and all the sheep were within it. And I saw all the sheep which had been left, and all the beasts on the earth, and all the birds of the heaven, falling down and doing homage to those sheep and making petition to and obeying them in every thing. 

...

90:35. And the eyes of them all were opened, and they saw the good, and there was not one among them that did not see. 36. And I saw that that house was large and broad and very full.

Curious

I guess just like an atheist, I’m curious. Curious about myself, whether I believe. Curious about what kind of faith is necessary. Curious about God or whatever is meant by God. I was raised to preach but at one point realised I probably didn’t really believe. I had a crisis when in a foreign country whose language I could barely speak. So I sought faith, real faith. I had a personal pursuit of it. Eventually I started praying hard. Then things started happening. I had a vision and was told to build the temple. I asked for confirmation and got it indubitably. I assumed preaching was how to build the temple which is the church. But I did not have real knowledge of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit so how could I preach? I asked God over and over to show me Himself and the Son and Holy Spirit. The gospels had taught me that only those who obey Christ get blessed like that so I tried to obey every command of Christ in the gospels which I could understand well enough to obey. Then when I thought to the best of my knowledge I was doing that I asked earnestly to see God. Then one night He came to me and stood there in a dream so real. What He told me is what happened the next day so I knew it was no mere fantasy dream, it was a vision of God. Then weeks later Jesus met me three times. Then the Holy Spirit. It was what the Holy Spirit said that turned my life around and gave me a message. I’ve been following through on that same message for twenty years. I found the message in the Book of Enoch first time I came across the book perhaps a few months after all this. I saw the Book of Enoch in a Christian bookshop and opened it and there were the words, pretty much just as the Holy Spirit said them. I started writing about my subsequent research into the book, starting a ‘Geocities’ website about it not long after the internet became accessible. Later I started writing in a Google blog instead. I keep that blog going plus several Facebook groups about it. A fair few followers. It has led me to a purer form of Christianity. Similar to what is found in Ethiopia. Miaphysitism.

Not all the Jews rejected the Book of Enoch

 Beta Israel are Jews. They accept the Book of Enoch. Israel recognises them as ancient Jews. And Ethiopic Christians accepted it long before many countries had a Christianity. But I understand this is obscure for Westerners and Eastern Europeans. Even Bulgarian Orthodox Christians have ancient links to Myaphisite Ethiopic Christianity which accepted it. But modern Chalcedonian ‘normal’ denominations and orthodoxies get all the kudos. Most people’s knowledge of Christianity is limited to such denominations. They lost the Book of Enoch around 400 AD at a time when the Chalcedon Council made their orthodox opinions the law. The Holy Spirit glory seems to have departed from the leadership by that time too. Not so with the Ethiopic and Coptic Christians. There seems to be a link. Now the Holy Spirit is returning even to the West, since the revivals. And the Book of Enoch is coming to the fore. And the Christology is changing again.

More about Jesus

Thinking you are a god is OK if that is what you are, if the lives of others is very much in your hands, as with some politicians, officials, doctors, judges and generals, even humbler soldiers or secret agents. Gods with a small g. The Lord Jesus being a Lord over many followers and judge even over unbelievers and atheists admitted that His godlike status in that respect is similar to that of many other humans. See John 10. The Jews did not like a person to allow themselves to be seen as a god. They called it blasphemy. But Jesus showed that a human leader with judging powers can be called a god and a son of God, like the angels who are sons of God (as in Job 1 and Genesis 6), so this applies to Jesus too. It is not blasphemy. Likewise a resurrected human made immortal is a god, a son of God, as Jesus is now. And the Lord of David who David called “my lord” is called “my Son” by God. So Jesus was not blaspheming. And Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever and can say “before Abraham was born I am” so is a kind of human god. So not blasphemy. Yet the Jews could not believe it is true and were angered that in saying it He seemed to be blaspheming. So they tried to stone Him. Pontius Pilate recognised their attempts to have Jesus executed as jealousy. Their hatred of God spilled over into hatred of His Son, Jesus. When they killed Him, God used it to purify sin, and raised Jesus from the dead. So now Jesus is a human but an immortal god, a son of God by the resurrection, the firstborn Son of God by virgin birth, the firstborn Son of God by being first ever before any angel and before all creating which God did, through Jesus. Thrice son of God yet human sent by God to humans, the Son of Man.

Christ is one person, not two

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miaphysitism

I believe the truth the Book of Enoch teaches, neglected in Christianity since the Council of Chalcedon, is that Christ Jesus is one person, a divine person (although not the Father, the one true God) and yet a human being. The Son of Man. 

Very importantly the Book of Enoch does not say there is a Triune God, nor does it say the Son of God is two persons in hypostatic union, so it shows up the errors of Council of Chalcedon. The Son of Man about whom it prophesies and who the Book of Enoch says lived with the Lord of Spirits, His Father, even in Enoch’s time of going into Heaven, five thousand years ago, before Abraham was born, is believed by churches who preserved the Book of Enoch to be one person, not two, who is both divine and human.

The preservation of the Book of Enoch

 Holy Spirit gifts never, I heard, died out among the Coptic Church, of which the Ethiopic Church is a part. The Ethiopic Church kept the Book of Enoch in its Bible. Among the Roman Church the Holy Spirit gifts did perhaps cease, according to Crysostom and Augustine, sometime around the third century. That is the time they turned against the Book of Enoch. I suspect lacking the Holy Spirit they stopped being sure about the Book of Enoch but where the Holy Spirit was continuously manifest, the Ethiopic believers still believed the Book of Enoch because the Holy Spirit backed it up. Now churches are finding the Holy Spirit gifts given them again. As a result some, myself included, are beginning again to believe in the Book of Enoch as true prophetic scripture. For me it happened because the same things are written in the book as are said in gifts by the Holy Spirit, glorifying the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Paradox

 Why would atheists have invented theism? It makes no sense. What does make better sense is the alternative, that theism is revealed by gods.

The problem for many with the Book of Enoch

 The problem for many with the Book of Enoch is that like Jesus said of it, if you are ignorant of it, or of God’s power, you can find yourself in error. And many religious groups are ignorant of it. But the errors are manifested as Jesus brings the book to light.

Immoral to make society depend on atheism

 If society were based on paradox it would be unstable and eventually fail whenever it’s logical founding became important. Religion is not as paradoxical as atheism. It depends on a logical tenet that it is revealed by gods. Atheism depends on a logical tenet that it is invented by humans but has a paradoxical corollary that the inventors were atheists and were therefore lying in their invention and therefore atheism tends towards lies and inventions of religion. Thus to make society depend on atheism is immoral whichever way you look at it.

Which came first? Religion or Atheism?

 If you think religion was invented by humans then you have a paradox that it must have been invented by atheists. If you think religion is real then there is no paradox of how it started: God or gods revealed it.