nothing, can TO WHOM ARE WE RELATIVE?

#99.121

(Part 4)

RELATIVE TO THE SEEN

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor 4:18).

To be relative to a thing or person there must be a joining in some fashion or another. One way of being related to your brothers and sisters is by the joining of genes. Another way is by friendship and love. The first is a biological connection, while the second is emotional.

It's the same with your cousins, aunts, and uncles -- on the physical plane they are biologically called your blood relatives. Or you can have an aunt by marriage who is a relative. This is because of her being joined to your uncle, who happens to be joined to you by blood, i.e., genes.

A man is called a drunk, or alcoholic, because he is joined to alcohol. It's his closest relative. For all practical purposes, he is married to alcohol. Such a man has left his father and mother, his wife and children, and has cleaved unto his new wife -- alcohol. He is called an alcoholic because he is more relative to alcohol than anything else in the world. If he were given the choice of having to quit drinking alcohol to remain with the woman he married, or to continue drinking and live homeless on the streets -- he would likely chose the streets, depending, of course, on the closeness of his relationship to the alcohol.

The point is, to whatever one is joined -- to that he is relative, be it God, man, animal, plant, mineral, religion, ideals, habits, addictions, etc.

"What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor 6:16-17).

Which do you suppose is the best, to be one flesh with a harlot for a time, or to be one spirit with the Lord forever? You say the answer is obvious. Really? If so, why then do so many preachers, teachers, and laymen alike give themselves to other women? Could it be that although they know the law, they are more relative to the temporal flesh than with the eternal Spirit of Christ. Hmmm.... It is one thing to know legalistically what is right, and another to do by nature what is right.

We continue with Paul's thought on the temporal and eternal: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor 5:1).

Why are we so focused on our bodies, these earthly houses of this tabernacle? Could it be that we think we are the person we see looking back at us in the mirror each morning? Perhaps so, yet it is not wise to assume that image is who we are.

This verse compares our natural bodies with temporal houses made by the hands of men. They are merely shells in which we live. Houses keep us from the elements, and so do these skin houses by which we are temporarily clothed. Moreover, we become very comfortable while living in them, so comfortable, in fact, that we will do anything to keep from being evicted. We will live in racking pain, sear our insides with radiation, poison our bodies nigh to death with chemotherapy -- and all this is so one more additional breath can be taken, to live one more pain-filled day. We say that air is not our source of life -- that the Spirit of Christ is -- yet we desire desperately to inhale one more breath, and will go to any extreme to keep them coming.

People are heard saying that they can't wait to go to heaven where abides eternal bliss; yet they won't let go of their diseased bodies in order to get the good life they assume will come next. It makes one wonder if they really believe what they say, or else they are so relative to their bodies that they simply can't turn them loose when the time comes.

Our focus has been so much on our human frames, regardless of their mortal condition, that many are led to believe they will never die, assuming they will not have to return them back to dust from whence they came. They believe this is the true litmus test for the Sons of God. If they never die they will then be overcomers of death, hell, and the grave. And who knows -- we may see the life of our inward man swallowing up every vestige of death that shrouds who we are. Yet the point I make today is not so much what we do with our natural bodies as it is with the house not made by hands -- the real person who resides within the walls of this skin-house tabernacle.

We have become so riveted to our human bodies that we swallow tons of vitamins and minerals trying to bring them to perfection. Or we want to exercise faith and refuse any form of help at all -- no vitamins, no minerals, no medications, no aspirins, no anything except the bare essentials in the form of food. Brethren, it doesn't matter! Neither will taking vitamins make us one wit more spiritual, nor will avoiding them bring us any closer to God and holy perfection.

Take vitamins if you want; for it's better to feel good and be in health than to feel bad and fall prey to disease. But whatever you do, don't think either is the ticket to glory land, for they are not. By totally trusting one or the other is joining yourselves to that which is natural, to the seen, and is temporal.

You may believe that you are being relative to God, the eternal, by abstaining from food supplements and medicines, thinking you are putting your trust in Him. If He tells you to do such, you should abide by those faith-building words. Your stand would then be valid. I will not judge whether you have heard by the Spirit or not. Only you can determine that. But listen closely to the sound of the voice you hear, and if it is not coming from God's throne, you may be joining yourselves to your own religious thoughts, which, of course, are just as carnal and temporal as dust on a house-wife's coffee-table.

When we insist on placing our trust in the arm of flesh, we should also chide ourselves with: "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you....This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal 3:1-3).

If perfection could be obtained by the works of the flesh, then we could take a step farther than merely doing or not doing things. We could do like those in the past used to do, and some, I suppose, still do. We could strip off our clothing and whip ourselves with a scourge of stinging-needles; crawl with bare hands and knees over broken shards of glass to some designated "holy" place; deprive ourselves from good foods and wines we deem to be evil; or we could rid ourselves of all the creature-comforts of the body and clothe them with burlap sackcloth. We could reason that if a little bodily works is good, then a lot must be better. We could imagine all sorts of things that would please God. We could invent even more than the Pharisees. Ha! How foolish, O Galatians, we would be to be relative to such religious practices that gender nothing but death! I think it is best to divorce ourselves from such an evil wife of soulish demands and be joined to the Lord; or better yet -- never give ourselves to such an enticing woman to begin with: "For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell" (Prov 5:3-5).

Much of our religion is housed around that which is seen -- the temporal. It is estranged from the unseen -- the eternal. Yet there is a deep yearning for those called of God. There is a pain deep within that cannot be reached and soothed by the religious ointment and calloused hands of men. "For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven" (2 Cor 5:2).

It is this house, my brothers, my sisters, to which we should be relative. It is a house that abides through thick and thin, through calm and storm. This body, the one from above, will be sustained through quakes, tide, and harsh winds from on High:

"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire" (Heb 12:26-29).

Do you suppose the writer of Hebrews could have been talking about the heaven and earth of Jerusalem being shaken and removed by Titus in A.D. 70? Since the book was written in A.D. 64, according to authorities, it is likely. Even so, I will not build a fence around that thought and say this was all the Spirit was declaring. It is clear that those prophetic words were not only fulfilled six years after they were penned; but they continued on through the centuries. The voice of God has shaken and destroyed many heavens and earths. Countless kingdoms have risen and then been shaken apart by the mighty voice and fierce wind of the Spirt. Once the word of the Lord sounds and He spreads His dark clouds of justice over them -- they tremble, they quake, and they fall.

This wave of holy terror that sweeps through the heavens of men's kingdoms, and bringing them to nought, cannot be avoided or stopped. It was seen that fateful day in Jerusalem and will continue until Revelation 11:15 is in full bloom. According to God's order, it will be seen not only in the individual lives of each Son of God, but in the church and the whole world as well (1 Cor 15:21-28). It will then be said: "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever."

HASTENING THE DAY

Christians today, for the most part, are waiting to "go to heaven", yet they do not realize they are already in heaven, or at least, in a heaven. The heaven they dwell in is similar to the one wherein the citizens of Jerusalem lived before Titus swept them away in the day of the coming of the Son of man.

We have good reason to suspect there will be the blast of Godfire like the world has never known. Sodom and Gomorrah, in the natural, is a mere example of what to expect at the manifestation of the Sons of God. In such an explosion of God's Glory, the heavens of man's power shall pass away with a great noise, the elements of all their works shall melt with fervent heat, the foundation of their earth shall be burned up (2 Pet 3:10). Spiritually speaking, the fire of God's Sons shall be a plague to the people that have fought against life and His own. Their carnal ways shall consume away while they stand upon their feet. Their lusting eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their false tongues shall consume away in their mouths (Zech 14:12). In their place will come a new heaven and earth. There will be no more the unsettled sea; but there will be a sea of glass mingled with fire.

Instead of standing on the shifting sands of man, their foundation will be the Rock, the Lord their God. It will be Him in whom they trust. All their works will be of Christ. The sockets of their eyes will be filled with the single eye of righteousness. And their words will be pure words, tried in the furnace of fire seven times (Psa 12:6).

This, my friends, we can expect when the Lord comes as a thief in the night and ignites the heavens and earth with His holy fire of brimstone.

From the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, He is gathering His elect (Mt 24:31). Isaiah wrote, "I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth" (Isa 43:5-6). He also said, and Jesus quoted him in Matthew 24:29, when referring to His appearing in the saints whose habitation is the heavens, saying, "...The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken."

The sun is the ruler of the day, and the moon reigns at night, and this is whether we are speaking of the day of man or the day of the Lord. If it is the day of the first Adam, we see the spirit of man in his shining, his life source (the sun), as the ruling factor of his day. During the dark hours of the night his wife, his soul, takes her turn upon the throne of authority. During man's day, his shining radiates as the supreme head; but during the night his body, his wife, the lifeless church and all the carnal manifestations of the soul, reflects his light throughout the long hours of darkness. Her mysterious yet appealing influence is forever pulling humanity. Like the tides of the sea, people are drawn toward her influencing arms of death.

The heavens house not only the sun and the moon but the stars as well, and against the black backdrop of space they shine brightly -- some with outstanding brilliance. These luminaries, men and women of renown, seem to be so magnificent as they radiate their passing life to a desperate world -- a world looking to wandering stars for guidance -- spiritual astrology, if your please.

People who follow stars will do well, that is, until their trusted guides are shaken by God's mighty hand, and those luminaries fall from heaven, as did their shining forerunner, Adam. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the spirit of man (the sun) be darkened, and the worldly church (the moon) shall no longer give her superficial light, and the religious leaders (the stars) shall fall from heaven (from their place of glory and authority). All the powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Mat 24:29, paraphrased).

Again, "...the elements shall melt with fervent heat...." The Greek word for elements is stoicheion which means orderly in arrangement. It comes from the root word, stoicheo: to march in military fashion, keep step, i.e. to conform to virtue and piety (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance). It is from stoichos that we get the English word stoic. Webster's Seventh Collegiate Dictionary gives a striking definition of the word: "...a member of a school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium about 300 B.C. holding that the wise man should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and submissive to natural law; one apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain....Relating to, or resembling the Stoics or their doctrines <stoic logic>...not affected by passion or feeling, especially manifesting indifference to pain...."

We generally do not teach from English dictionaries; but Webster brings home the point with such clarity that we would be remiss by not using his understanding of the word. It fits very well with today's elements, the manifestation of the heavens, that which is seen in religious kingdoms. Tell me if I err in what I see. Is my vision marred, or is it true that -- the elements of organized religion are very orderly arranged? Do they not march in military fashion, keeping in step to the dogmatic drumbeat of their creed's demands? Do not the people conform by the letter to virtue and piety? Can we not see religion has become very stoic in many quarters of the world? It is not uncommon to find church leaders and laymen alike who consider themselves wise, and in so doing, they are free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief. Only when it hits home are they stirred with grief. They submit themselves to the natural law while forsaking the higher law of the Spirit of Life.

Truly, they are relative to the Stoics, and resemble them in every way. And it is this, the Stoics, religious manifestations, the elements, that we will see melting away.

Such adamic order of the world and the church is destined to melt in the presence of God's consuming fire. For that matter, we are already seeing some of it. Man's order in some of the churches is being dissolved. Many can no longer march to the cadence of the mournful fife, and they are restlessly stirring to be made free. Religion's wax houses are feeling the heat and their walls are beginning to nervously sag.

Both the heavens and the earth are taking their destined toll. Stars and starlets lose their footing and fall. One by one at first, but the increase of their demise will explode with enormity. The shining prophets and apostles of the night will come falling from the heavens like rain. Their glory will pass. The orderly elements of that system in the heavens of man shall come crashing down with great profusion. The shakings are already swift, emphatic, and very decisive, but there will be more. Shall the speed not quickly increase in the proper season?

That which causes the upheaval of seemingly unmovable mountains are varied, yet we know that anything to do with man is shaken at the mere presence of Christ. Once the heavens of humanity begin to move as the holy quake rips through its subterfuge, kingdoms take their toll. Like the stars of heaven everything that has the scent of man shall fall. Every high mountain and dark corner where Satan is the prince of that religious power (Eph 2:1-3) will end, and Revelation 11:15 will be fulfilled -- "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever." The same can be seen in the 17th and 18th chapters of Revelation where John wrote in reference to the fall of mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.

And again we quote from Peter: "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness...?" (2 Pet 3:11). Or to paraphrase: Seeing then that all these temporal things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons should you be -- relative to those dissolving kingdoms and with them pass away, or relative to all holy conversation and godliness which will never pass away? By all means, let it be the latter; for with patient hastening we wait for that glory which is set before us.

There seems to be a contradiction here; for how can one be patient while he is hastening? Simply by expecting and always pursuing that which we see by the Spirit, but not fretting when we fail to hold it in our hands.

"Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?" (2 Pet 3:12). Hastening is translated from the Greek word speudo, and means "to 'speed'...urge on (diligently or earnestly); by impl. to await eagerly" Strong's Exh. Conc.); "To desire earnestly" (Thayer's Grk-Eng Lex. of the New Testament); and "Looking for, yes and earnestly looking for, the coming of the day of God" (E.W. Bullinger's notes in The Companion Bible). Therefore, we can earnestly look for that momentous day of God with patient endurance while eagerly desiring its coming into men's heavens and their orderly arrangements. For we know that it will not only sweep away the refuge of lies, but will also establish something new in their place:

"...We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet 3:13). It is here where one of the attributes of the Kingdom of God is found, which is righteousness. The other two are peace and joy (Rom 14:17). With this it is easily seen that the heavens and earth speak of kingdoms and the visible order of those kingdoms. Although their gates may be barred, securely locked, and heavily guarded -- their gates, however, shall not prevail against our Lord's Church. They shall fall to Him and His elect, becoming forever obsolete in the presence of the absolute.

ENDLESS LIFE

"Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life" (Heb 7:16). Whosoever is relative to the law of a carnal commandment, such as touch not, taste not, drink not, or the such, are resolved to a temporal heaven and earth. They will pass away, yet be assured -- that is not their eternal end. Those who are relative to the power of an endless life, however, shall never pass away.

The word for endless in the Greek is akatalutos, and means indissoluble, permanent. It is absolute. The word is not used anywhere else in the Bible. It is distinct in that whatever is relative to it always abides -- and nothing, absolutely nothing can dissolve it, shake it, crush it, or in any way or form make it null or void. It remains permanent, and all who are joined to it are likewise permanent.

Contenders and detractors of the true and faithful words of our Lord will feebly use His own words in Matthew 25:46 in attempting to render them impotent -- but they never will. The verse reads:

"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal" (Mat 25:46). Their argument is with the word used for everlasting and eternal, which is, aionios. We will not do a lengthy word study, for it should be understood by most serious students of the Bible that the root word is aion and means an age, or an eon of time. Aionios, then would carry the meaning of age-lasting, age-abiding, or simply eonian.

The proponents of eternal damnation may at first seem to present a convincing argument; but when a small amount of light is shed on the subject -- their theological heavens are shaken and come crashing down. For you see, temporal doctrines have no worth and cannot stand in the light of eternal truth.

Until their castles fall, they say that since the same word is used for those receiving everlasting punishment and those being blessed with eternal life. With this, they reason that the punishment has to be without end. The thought behind this is obvious. If the life of those who are saved is without end, then the punishment of the lost must be equally without end.

However, their premise for salvation is wrong, that is, if the previous verses are what they base salvation on. Practically every Bible believing person agrees that it is by Jesus Christ that anyone can be saved. Peter boldly declared that: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Read carefully, however, and we can't help from noticing what leads to the punishment and reward of Matthew 25:46. Jesus said it had to do with whether they did or did not do something. Some fed Him (one of the least of His) when He was hungry; gave him drink when He was thirsty; took Him in and clothed Him; and they visited Him when He was sick and in prison. The others did none of those companionate deeds to His people. They had no works to speak of (rf. Mat 25:35-45).

You see, Jesus was dealing with something entirely different from the premise of salvation. It had nothing whatsoever to do with believing in the heart that God had raised Him from the dead. There is no hint of anyone confessing Him as Lord. No mention was made of there being no name under heaven but His whereby one must be saved. The entirety of the text has to do with works! This might be all right with those churches that believe one can only be saved by works; but for the most part, that won't wash. It is only in, by, and through Jesus Christ that anyone can ever hope to be saved. If there was another way, it is doubtful God would have sent His Son to be shamefully crucified before a scorning rabble.

The everlasting punishment is an age-lasting punishment, and so is the reward. Jesus said that the life for those who gave Him a drink would be age-lasting. For greater clarity we could say it this way, and it would still mean the same: Those who did not give Him a drink would be afflicted with a punishment that would last through the age. Those who gave Him a drink would enter into a life in Christ that would also last through the age.

Neither the punishment nor the life would cease during the age. They both would endure. The life, however, is not spoken of here as being eternal, not in the sense of context. It is referred to as a quality of life, and whether good or evil came upon it, that quality would continue throughout the age.

Therefore, those who use Matthew 25:46 as their reason for believing God will punish most of His creation throughout eternity are standing on a loosely knit premise. This verse, along with their other favorites, are nothing more than cobwebs in the back corners of their minds and will be swept cleanly away when the light of truth dawns on them.

The ones who did no good works were certainly relative to the temporal world of religious self-righteousness. They, of course, would pass away when God's presence came upon them and shook apart the kingdom of their heavens. That is what that age of punishment would do. The life of the righteous, however, would in no wise cease once the age had expired; for they would be relative to the Absolute. They would continue to abound in Christ's Life of the ages. They would be joined to the Lord. They would be one Spirit. And they, like their Lord, would have that same endless, indissoluble Life. It would not only endure the ages; but if there is ever an end to the ages, it would go beyond them. That is what it is to have an endless life. It will never cease.

When referring to punishment and judgment, however, such a word is never used. It is always aion or one of its derivatives which relates to the correcting action.

Continued.....

Elwin R. Roach