Reconciliation vs. Conciliation and Their Effects Upon the Knowledge of Sin

[Aaron56]

Pardon me if the title seems a bit technical. I spent far too much time wondering what it should be. Instead of something catchy I decided to er on the side of the specific.

The word “reconciliation” (or “reconciled”) has become so ensconced in religious circles that its simple meaning has been lost. Used by the religious, it elicits a picture of Jesus embracing the sinner after a wayward journey of sin. I’m certainly okay with Jesus embracing whomever He decides to embrace, but reconciliation and, more importantly, reconciliation to God, changes not only the relationship between God and man but the nature of man himself.

To be reconciled to God is to be brought back into the original intent of God for mankind. This reconstitutes man and woman as God’s representatives in creation, as God originally intended. This is what is meant when God pronounced “Let Us make man in our image and likeness.” Had man not sinned and had man and woman not have been banned from eating from the Tree of Life, Man and Woman would have been heirs of the estate of God: beings capable of inheriting and governing the entirety of the terrestrial and the heavenly creation.

As an aside: I can show this clearly in scripture. But, because this is not the point of my essay, I will let it set here. If you know the scriptures, no doubt you will be able to find the related passages that support the point. To continue…

What is typically practiced in religious circles is conciliation to God. This is a lower standard. This is an accepted, partial measure, but not quite the intended result. To be sure, our calling, in the Lord, is to be reconciled to God:

“Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.”

But religious circles are content to practice conciliatory measures that appeal to people trying to give their best efforts. For example: “worship” is often only associated with singing songs. Whereas true worship is about a life lived by the spirit and truth.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

After a time of singing songs, typically during Sunday meetings, people may say “I just worshipped the Lord”. That arises out of a mindset of conciliation: wherein what was accomplished was good enough, or at least something of value. Such a statement also assumes God wanted us to sing songs to Him or that simply singing was of some value greater than a life being led by Him.

Before we disparage conciliation to the point of rejection we must also see that God has been conciliatory – He has imposed measures that were temporary but short of the ultimate goal of reconciliation.

The law given at Sinai is one such measure. When the people were to come up to be in His presence, and thereby be changed from the inside out (“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”) the people, instead, sent Moses to hear from the Lord and report back to them. So, instead of becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, God instituted, by the law given at Sinai, a system of priests that was of only one tribe. And instead of being a holy nation, God pronounced them as a profane and unclean people… far from a reconciliation to Him, indeed!

AND, and this is the key, he gave them a set of written rules to live by that were impossible to keep! This is what it is meant by “The law was given because of transgressions”. Instead of integrating Himself – His character and His heart- into the people (That is what it means to write “His laws (his being a character) onto our own hearts”) He created an impossible list of rules to follow.

So, what purpose then did the Sinai law serve? (and by the way, there is no distinction between the 10 commandments and the 613 laws… they are the law given at Sina) The Sinai law created limits around the reach of sin. Instead of death, which was the penalty of sin, a substitution could be provided. A lamb, for example, could be sacrificed instead, for the life of a person. WHY?

So that the people through whom the ultimate sacrifice of sin would come, could be preserved. So that Christ would appear through the people of promise. And so that IN CHRIST – in the presence of the Lord – people could be actually changed from the inside out… to be given a new nature that was in likeness and kind to God Himself… the fullness of reconciliation that God was after from the foundation of the world.

So what does this have to do with the knowledge of sin? To ask it another way, if Sinai was a conciliation, not part of God’s original intent for man, How did God intend that man would know what to do and what not to do?

That’s the next part.

 

[Aaron56]

Wow, spell check much.

 

[Pilgrimshope]

Pardon me if the title seems a bit technical. I spent far too much time wondering what it should be. Instead of something catchy I decided to er on the side of the specific.

The word “reconciliation” (or “reconciled”) has become so ensconced in religious circles that its simple meaning has been lost. Used by the religious, it elicits a picture of Jesus embracing the sinner after a wayward journey of sin. I’m certainly okay with Jesus embracing whomever He decides to embrace, but reconciliation and, more importantly, reconciliation to God, changes not only the relationship between God and man but the nature of man himself.

To be reconciled to God is to be brought back into the original intent of God for mankind. This reconstitutes man and woman as God’s representatives in creation, as God originally intended. This is what is meant when God pronounced “Let Us make man in our image and likeness.” Had man not sinned and had man and woman not have been banned from eating from the Tree of Life, Man and Woman would have been heirs of the estate of God: beings capable of inheriting and governing the entirety of the terrestrial and the heavenly creation.

As an aside: I can show this clearly in scripture. But, because this is not the point of my essay, I will let it set here. If you know the scriptures, no doubt you will be able to find the related passages that support the point. To continue…

What is typically practiced in religious circles is conciliation to God. This is a lower standard. This is an accepted, partial measure, but not quite the intended result. To be sure, our calling, in the Lord, is to be reconciled to God:

“Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.”

But religious circles are content to practice conciliatory measures that appeal to people trying to give their best efforts. For example: “worship” is often only associated with singing songs. Whereas true worship is about a life lived by the spirit and truth.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

After a time of singing songs, typically during Sunday meetings, people may say “I just worshipped the Lord”. That arises out of a mindset of conciliation: wherein what was accomplished was good enough, or at least something of value. Such a statement also assumes God wanted us to sing songs to Him or that simply singing was of some value greater than a life being led by Him.

Before we disparage conciliation to the point of rejection we must also see that God has been conciliatory – He has imposed measures that were temporary but short of the ultimate goal of reconciliation.

The law given at Sinai is one such measure. When the people were to come up to be in His presence, and thereby be changed from the inside out (“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”) the people, instead, sent Moses to hear from the Lord and report back to them. So, instead of becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, God instituted, by the law given at Sinai, a system of priests that was of only one tribe. And instead of being a holy nation, God pronounced them as a profane and unclean people… far from a reconciliation to Him, indeed!

AND, and this is the key, he gave them a set of written rules to live by that were impossible to keep! This is what it is meant by “The law was given because of transgressions”. Instead of integrating Himself – His character and His heart- into the people (That is what it means to write “His laws (his being a character) onto our own hearts”) He created an impossible list of rules to follow.

So, what purpose then did the Sinai law serve? (and by the way, there is no distinction between the 10 commandments and the 613 laws… they are the law given at Sina) The Sinai law created limits around the reach of sin. Instead of death, which was the penalty of sin, a substitution could be provided. A lamb, for example, could be sacrificed instead, for the life of a person. WHY?

So that the people through whom the ultimate sacrifice of sin would come, could be preserved. So that Christ would appear through the people of promise. And so that IN CHRIST – in the presence of the Lord – people could be actually changed from the inside out… to be given a new nature that was in likeness and kind to God Himself… the fullness of reconciliation that God was after from the foundation of the world.

So what does this have to do with the knowledge of sin? To ask it another way, if Sinai was a conciliation, not part of God’s original intent for man, How did God intend that man would know what to do and what not to do?

That’s the next part.

Good read brother always a pleasure

 

[Gennesaret]

Pardon me if the title seems a bit technical. I spent far too much time wondering what it should be. Instead of something catchy I decided to er on the side of the specific.

The word “reconciliation” (or “reconciled”) has become so ensconced in religious circles that its simple meaning has been lost. Used by the religious, it elicits a picture of Jesus embracing the sinner after a wayward journey of sin. I’m certainly okay with Jesus embracing whomever He decides to embrace, but reconciliation and, more importantly, reconciliation to God, changes not only the relationship between God and man but the nature of man himself.

To be reconciled to God is to be brought back into the original intent of God for mankind. This reconstitutes man and woman as God’s representatives in creation, as God originally intended. This is what is meant when God pronounced “Let Us make man in our image and likeness.” Had man not sinned and had man and woman not have been banned from eating from the Tree of Life, Man and Woman would have been heirs of the estate of God: beings capable of inheriting and governing the entirety of the terrestrial and the heavenly creation.

As an aside: I can show this clearly in scripture. But, because this is not the point of my essay, I will let it set here. If you know the scriptures, no doubt you will be able to find the related passages that support the point. To continue…

What is typically practiced in religious circles is conciliation to God. This is a lower standard. This is an accepted, partial measure, but not quite the intended result. To be sure, our calling, in the Lord, is to be reconciled to God:

“Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.”

But religious circles are content to practice conciliatory measures that appeal to people trying to give their best efforts. For example: “worship” is often only associated with singing songs. Whereas true worship is about a life lived by the spirit and truth.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

After a time of singing songs, typically during Sunday meetings, people may say “I just worshipped the Lord”. That arises out of a mindset of conciliation: wherein what was accomplished was good enough, or at least something of value. Such a statement also assumes God wanted us to sing songs to Him or that simply singing was of some value greater than a life being led by Him.

Before we disparage conciliation to the point of rejection we must also see that God has been conciliatory – He has imposed measures that were temporary but short of the ultimate goal of reconciliation.

The law given at Sinai is one such measure. When the people were to come up to be in His presence, and thereby be changed from the inside out (“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”) the people, instead, sent Moses to hear from the Lord and report back to them. So, instead of becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, God instituted, by the law given at Sinai, a system of priests that was of only one tribe. And instead of being a holy nation, God pronounced them as a profane and unclean people… far from a reconciliation to Him, indeed!

AND, and this is the key, he gave them a set of written rules to live by that were impossible to keep! This is what it is meant by “The law was given because of transgressions”. Instead of integrating Himself – His character and His heart- into the people (That is what it means to write “His laws (his being a character) onto our own hearts”) He created an impossible list of rules to follow.

So, what purpose then did the Sinai law serve? (and by the way, there is no distinction between the 10 commandments and the 613 laws… they are the law given at Sina) The Sinai law created limits around the reach of sin. Instead of death, which was the penalty of sin, a substitution could be provided. A lamb, for example, could be sacrificed instead, for the life of a person. WHY?

So that the people through whom the ultimate sacrifice of sin would come, could be preserved. So that Christ would appear through the people of promise. And so that IN CHRIST – in the presence of the Lord – people could be actually changed from the inside out… to be given a new nature that was in likeness and kind to God Himself… the fullness of reconciliation that God was after from the foundation of the world.

So what does this have to do with the knowledge of sin? To ask it another way, if Sinai was a conciliation, not part of God’s original intent for man, How did God intend that man would know what to do and what not to do?

That’s the next part.

 

[Gennesaret]

Greetings in the name of our Lord, Brother Aaron. Thank you for taking the time to share such an in-depth devotional on this subject. I believe in the scripture "Deep calls out to deep," Psalm 42:7, and I am specifically drawn to your post. This forum subject including the effects on the knowledge of sin, I believe fits this scripture I mention as well. It is when we are in over or head, and in too deep, typically from sin or lack of knowledge of sin, when we need to call out to deep, which is the Lord's desire: "You may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. (Ephesians 3:18)
We hit upon the meaning of deep calls to deep when we recognize that human needs are great, but the riches of God are greater. Our wisdom is shallow, but His knowledge and judgments are unsearchable (Romans 11:33–34). God’s thoughts are deep (Psalm 92:5). His love is as deep as His immense heart (Ephesians 3:18–19), as He proved when He gave His only begotten Son to die for us (John 3:16). The height, breadth, and depth of God’s resources are without measure. From the depth of his despair, the psalmist found help in the depth of God’s goodness, and he was able to say in conclusion, “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God!” (Psalm 42:11, NLT).

I look forward, Brother Aaron, to your second part of this study on the subject of reconciliation vs Conciliation. I believe a deep abiding Love for God is necessary for reconciliation and/or Conciliation, but maybe as much as even just a mustard seed to get one started. Once we begin to grasp it, it takes root and then just grows, blossoms and blooms from there.

 

[Cameron143]

Wow, spell check much.

To er is human.

 

[Cameron143]

Pardon me if the title seems a bit technical. I spent far too much time wondering what it should be. Instead of something catchy I decided to er on the side of the specific.

The word “reconciliation” (or “reconciled”) has become so ensconced in religious circles that its simple meaning has been lost. Used by the religious, it elicits a picture of Jesus embracing the sinner after a wayward journey of sin. I’m certainly okay with Jesus embracing whomever He decides to embrace, but reconciliation and, more importantly, reconciliation to God, changes not only the relationship between God and man but the nature of man himself.

To be reconciled to God is to be brought back into the original intent of God for mankind. This reconstitutes man and woman as God’s representatives in creation, as God originally intended. This is what is meant when God pronounced “Let Us make man in our image and likeness.” Had man not sinned and had man and woman not have been banned from eating from the Tree of Life, Man and Woman would have been heirs of the estate of God: beings capable of inheriting and governing the entirety of the terrestrial and the heavenly creation.

As an aside: I can show this clearly in scripture. But, because this is not the point of my essay, I will let it set here. If you know the scriptures, no doubt you will be able to find the related passages that support the point. To continue…

What is typically practiced in religious circles is conciliation to God. This is a lower standard. This is an accepted, partial measure, but not quite the intended result. To be sure, our calling, in the Lord, is to be reconciled to God:

“Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.”

But religious circles are content to practice conciliatory measures that appeal to people trying to give their best efforts. For example: “worship” is often only associated with singing songs. Whereas true worship is about a life lived by the spirit and truth.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

After a time of singing songs, typically during Sunday meetings, people may say “I just worshipped the Lord”. That arises out of a mindset of conciliation: wherein what was accomplished was good enough, or at least something of value. Such a statement also assumes God wanted us to sing songs to Him or that simply singing was of some value greater than a life being led by Him.

Before we disparage conciliation to the point of rejection we must also see that God has been conciliatory – He has imposed measures that were temporary but short of the ultimate goal of reconciliation.

The law given at Sinai is one such measure. When the people were to come up to be in His presence, and thereby be changed from the inside out (“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”) the people, instead, sent Moses to hear from the Lord and report back to them. So, instead of becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, God instituted, by the law given at Sinai, a system of priests that was of only one tribe. And instead of being a holy nation, God pronounced them as a profane and unclean people… far from a reconciliation to Him, indeed!

AND, and this is the key, he gave them a set of written rules to live by that were impossible to keep! This is what it is meant by “The law was given because of transgressions”. Instead of integrating Himself – His character and His heart- into the people (That is what it means to write “His laws (his being a character) onto our own hearts”) He created an impossible list of rules to follow.

So, what purpose then did the Sinai law serve? (and by the way, there is no distinction between the 10 commandments and the 613 laws… they are the law given at Sina) The Sinai law created limits around the reach of sin. Instead of death, which was the penalty of sin, a substitution could be provided. A lamb, for example, could be sacrificed instead, for the life of a person. WHY?

So that the people through whom the ultimate sacrifice of sin would come, could be preserved. So that Christ would appear through the people of promise. And so that IN CHRIST – in the presence of the Lord – people could be actually changed from the inside out… to be given a new nature that was in likeness and kind to God Himself… the fullness of reconciliation that God was after from the foundation of the world.

So what does this have to do with the knowledge of sin? To ask it another way, if Sinai was a conciliation, not part of God’s original intent for man, How did God intend that man would know what to do and what not to do?

That’s the next part.

This is excellent, and understanding this affects one's understanding of so much of the rest of the Bible. Awesome.

 

[Pilgrimshope]

To er is human.

thank God for the Gospel !

“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged:

condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned:

forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall be given into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭6:36-38‬ ‭KJV‬‬

In mercy there is Hope for the imperfect

 

[Aaron56]

Let’s start with the question I ended with in the last post: if Sinai was a conciliation, not part of God’s original intent for man, how did God intend that man would know what to do and what not to do?

This is not difficult to answer and to find the passages in scripture that support the answer. The challenge, however, is to overcome a conciliatory perspective that is often taught as gospel in the churches. In pursuit of wisdom, we must be sure to start at the beginning. Often, we start somewhere within the narrative we are trying to explore.

For example: when we consider our “Christian reality” we typically start at the cross - there are even some church groups that nearly ignore the Old Testament and begin their reading at the Gospels. The problem with starting at the cross to understand reconciliation to God is that we miss the original intent of man and focus on salvation. We might conclude that God made man so that He could rescue him. Now salvation is certainly part of the gospel, and I’m very glad for it, but we are saved for something. That “something” is found in God before the whole of creation was formed. Since this is not the focus of this essay I’ll go past this for now to attend to the question at hand: without the Sinai law, how did God intend to let people know what to do?

The answer is simply this: He connected with people directly, one on one.

I’ll expound upon this but let me first say, if you don’t understand this, that God originally spoke to people one on one and that we are designed to receive direction from God directly, what you’ll create around the pursuit of God’s wisdom will be conciliatory: a partial measure.

You might practice, for example, a religion like Moses at Sinai where one man is sent to hear from God to bring it back to the people. This person is typically called a “Head Pastor”. Many times, the person was selected because of their educational credentials and/or their ability to get more people to attend Sunday meetings. Little attention, if any, is given to their personal walk with the Lord, their maturity in following Christ or their navigation of challenges where faith in God was required. He might help the budget improve or the new addition to get built but his ability to shepherd believers, personally toward maturity, is hardly examined. Indeed, “helping people mature in the Lord” is probably not on his Job Description. Again: partial measures.

I’ll expound upon the rich scriptural history of God connecting to people one on one in my next post. In short: God gave us a spirit that is in likeness and kind to His own Spirit. Indeed, every man is imbued with a deposit of God’s spirit… it’s what makes each person “a living being”.

More on that to come.

 

[Aaron56]

Creation was organized to host the full estate of God. This includes the heavens and the earth. Heaven is not eternal; it actually has a beginning and an end. God is without beginning and end. God IS and has always been. “In the Beginning…” we see God forming time, space, and matter; the eternal coming into the temporal. This was not done as a display of power or ability... “God is love” but He is not a “tree-hugger” as some might suggest. The object of His love, indeed, the object for which creation was designed to accommodate, was “a man in His own image and likeness”… “..male and female…”. To cement that truth, Paul writes about it this way “But God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And in Romans 5 Paul writes: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

Man's short-comings could not impede God's desire to have a Son just like Him.

“Glory!”

Pardon me…

We are now back on reconciliation… back to God’s original intent with man. We should see that reconciliation is inexorably tied to “His Son”. So that pattern of our reconciliation to God as our Father must be seen in the original connection between His Son and The Father. I can flesh this out if requested but it should be axiomatic. Jesus said, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father…” The source of our appearing in time and space is the same source of The Son!

Now some might say “Wait a minute! The Son is eternal. Are you saying that we are eternal?”

Jesus the man was not eternal. He actually had a beginning and an end. We tend to celebrate those events. We recently celebrated one of them. But here, I am only talking about the body of Jesus. His body had a beginning and an end. BUT THE SPIRIT WITHIN HIM HAS ALWAYS BEEN… The Spirit within Him is eternal.

And this is the spirit He imbued us with! His Spirit is our spirit. In the natural when you divide something you diminish its quantity. In the eternal, God’s Spirit may be given to all men without diminishing the source… Himself.

Paul would also write “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are sons of God."

So, our spirits align with His Spirit in the truth that we are derived from God. God is our origin, our progenitor… the Being from whom we get our nature and likeness.

See, this is why Jesus said, “Call no man on earth your father”. He was speaking to Jews and all the Jews happily said that Abraham was their father. Well, this was true of their bodies, but it was not true of their spirits. Their spirits were given by God as an endowment of His life in their bodies. So, Jesus was saying “Do not say you originated with Abraham.” Why? Because you can only live up to the standard of life established by Abraham. But if God is their Father, the ultimate Source of their life, then the Deep will call unto the deep; God’s Spirit to the spirit of man… both sharing the same nature and likeness.

This begs the question: “Why provide a pattern Son, THE Son of God, in perfect harmony with God the Father, only to have the object of His love live up to a middling standard… a partial measure?” The answer is you wouldn’t. Certainly God would not. If He provides the Pattern Son as a standard for man then He must also provide the way in which fallen man, the object of His love, may become like Him, thus fulfilling God’s intent for all of creation.

I think the next post will sew it up. We will get to the heart of the question “How does man know what to do and what not to do if Sinai was not God’s original plan for man?”.

Blessings

 

[Dino246]

To er is human.

Here, I thought that to err is human, but to er, one must be a politician.

 

[Dino246]

Pardon me if the title seems a bit technical. I spent far too much time wondering what it should be. Instead of something catchy I decided to er on the side of the specific.

The word “reconciliation” (or “reconciled”) has become so ensconced in religious circles that its simple meaning has been lost. Used by the religious, it elicits a picture of Jesus embracing the sinner after a wayward journey of sin. I’m certainly okay with Jesus embracing whomever He decides to embrace, but reconciliation and, more importantly, reconciliation to God, changes not only the relationship between God and man but the nature of man himself.

To be reconciled to God is to be brought back into the original intent of God for mankind. This reconstitutes man and woman as God’s representatives in creation, as God originally intended. This is what is meant when God pronounced “Let Us make man in our image and likeness.” Had man not sinned and had man and woman not have been banned from eating from the Tree of Life, Man and Woman would have been heirs of the estate of God: beings capable of inheriting and governing the entirety of the terrestrial and the heavenly creation.

As an aside: I can show this clearly in scripture. But, because this is not the point of my essay, I will let it set here. If you know the scriptures, no doubt you will be able to find the related passages that support the point. To continue…

What is typically practiced in religious circles is conciliation to God. This is a lower standard. This is an accepted, partial measure, but not quite the intended result. To be sure, our calling, in the Lord, is to be reconciled to God:

“Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.”

But religious circles are content to practice conciliatory measures that appeal to people trying to give their best efforts. For example: “worship” is often only associated with singing songs. Whereas true worship is about a life lived by the spirit and truth.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

After a time of singing songs, typically during Sunday meetings, people may say “I just worshipped the Lord”. That arises out of a mindset of conciliation: wherein what was accomplished was good enough, or at least something of value. Such a statement also assumes God wanted us to sing songs to Him or that simply singing was of some value greater than a life being led by Him.

Before we disparage conciliation to the point of rejection we must also see that God has been conciliatory – He has imposed measures that were temporary but short of the ultimate goal of reconciliation.

The law given at Sinai is one such measure. When the people were to come up to be in His presence, and thereby be changed from the inside out (“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”) the people, instead, sent Moses to hear from the Lord and report back to them. So, instead of becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, God instituted, by the law given at Sinai, a system of priests that was of only one tribe. And instead of being a holy nation, God pronounced them as a profane and unclean people… far from a reconciliation to Him, indeed!

AND, and this is the key, he gave them a set of written rules to live by that were impossible to keep! This is what it is meant by “The law was given because of transgressions”. Instead of integrating Himself – His character and His heart- into the people (That is what it means to write “His laws (his being a character) onto our own hearts”) He created an impossible list of rules to follow.

So, what purpose then did the Sinai law serve? (and by the way, there is no distinction between the 10 commandments and the 613 laws… they are the law given at Sina) The Sinai law created limits around the reach of sin. Instead of death, which was the penalty of sin, a substitution could be provided. A lamb, for example, could be sacrificed instead, for the life of a person. WHY?

So that the people through whom the ultimate sacrifice of sin would come, could be preserved. So that Christ would appear through the people of promise. And so that IN CHRIST – in the presence of the Lord – people could be actually changed from the inside out… to be given a new nature that was in likeness and kind to God Himself… the fullness of reconciliation that God was after from the foundation of the world.

So what does this have to do with the knowledge of sin? To ask it another way, if Sinai was a conciliation, not part of God’s original intent for man, How did God intend that man would know what to do and what not to do?

That’s the next part.

Good thoughts. This reminds me of the always-problematic use of “appease” in Christian circles. Human efforts at “conciliation” with God are the same thing: an attempt to smooth over a relational chasm with good intentions instead of humble accountability and positive change.

 

[Gennesaret]

Let’s start with the question I ended with in the last post: if Sinai was a conciliation, not part of God’s original intent for man, how did God intend that man would know what to do and what not to do?

This is not difficult to answer and to find the passages in scripture that support the answer. The challenge, however, is to overcome a conciliatory perspective that is often taught as gospel in the churches. In pursuit of wisdom, we must be sure to start at the beginning. Often, we start somewhere within the narrative we are trying to explore.

For example: when we consider our “Christian reality” we typically start at the cross - there are even some church groups that nearly ignore the Old Testament and begin their reading at the Gospels. The problem with starting at the cross to understand reconciliation to God is that we miss the original intent of man and focus on salvation. We might conclude that God made man so that He could rescue him. Now salvation is certainly part of the gospel, and I’m very glad for it, but we are saved for something. That “something” is found in God before the whole of creation was formed. Since this is not the focus of this essay I’ll go past this for now to attend to the question at hand: without the Sinai law, how did God intend to let people know what to do?

The answer is simply this: He connected with people directly, one on one.

I’ll expound upon this but let me first say, if you don’t understand this, that God originally spoke to people one on one and that we are designed to receive direction from God directly, what you’ll create around the pursuit of God’s wisdom will be conciliatory: a partial measure.

You might practice, for example, a religion like Moses at Sinai where one man is sent to hear from God to bring it back to the people. This person is typically called a “Head Pastor”. Many times, the person was selected because of their educational credentials and/or their ability to get more people to attend Sunday meetings. Little attention, if any, is given to their personal walk with the Lord, their maturity in following Christ or their navigation of challenges where faith in God was required. He might help the budget improve or the new addition to get built but his ability to shepherd believers, personally toward maturity, is hardly examined. Indeed, “helping people mature in the Lord” is probably not on his Job Description. Again: partial measures.

I’ll expound upon the rich scriptural history of God connecting to people one on one in my next post. In short: God gave us a spirit that is in likeness and kind to His own Spirit. Indeed, every man is imbued with a deposit of God’s spirit… it’s what makes each person “a living being”.

More on that to come.

 

[Gennesaret]

On your part 2, Brother Aaron, I so love how you answered the question with "He connected people directly one-on-one... We are designed to receive direction from God directly." And then, you wisely conclude this thought with opining that lack of understanding and abiding in that truth will lead you into a partial measure. I am excited to move to your Part 3. Thank you so much for this teaching!

 

[Gennesaret]

Creation was organized to host the full estate of God. This includes the heavens and the earth. Heaven is not eternal; it actually has a beginning and an end. God is without beginning and end. God IS and has always been. “In the Beginning…” we see God forming time, space, and matter; the eternal coming into the temporal. This was not done as a display of power or ability... “God is love” but He is not a “tree-hugger” as some might suggest. The object of His love, indeed, the object for which creation was designed to accommodate, was “a man in His own image and likeness”… “..male and female…”. To cement that truth, Paul writes about it this way “But God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And in Romans 5 Paul writes: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

Man's short-comings could not impede God's desire to have a Son just like Him.

“Glory!”

Pardon me…

We are now back on reconciliation… back to God’s original intent with man. We should see that reconciliation is inexorably tied to “His Son”. So that pattern of our reconciliation to God as our Father must be seen in the original connection between His Son and The Father. I can flesh this out if requested but it should be axiomatic. Jesus said, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father…” The source of our appearing in time and space is the same source of The Son!

Now some might say “Wait a minute! The Son is eternal. Are you saying that we are eternal?”

Jesus the man was not eternal. He actually had a beginning and an end. We tend to celebrate those events. We recently celebrated one of them. But here, I am only talking about the body of Jesus. His body had a beginning and an end. BUT THE SPIRIT WITHIN HIM HAS ALWAYS BEEN… The Spirit within Him is eternal.

And this is the spirit He imbued us with! His Spirit is our spirit. In the natural when you divide something you diminish its quantity. In the eternal, God’s Spirit may be given to all men without diminishing the source… Himself.

Paul would also write “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are sons of God."

So, our spirits align with His Spirit in the truth that we are derived from God. God is our origin, our progenitor… the Being from whom we get our nature and likeness.

See, this is why Jesus said, “Call no man on earth your father”. He was speaking to Jews and all the Jews happily said that Abraham was their father. Well, this was true of their bodies, but it was not true of their spirits. Their spirits were given by God as an endowment of His life in their bodies. So, Jesus was saying “Do not say you originated with Abraham.” Why? Because you can only live up to the standard of life established by Abraham. But if God is their Father, the ultimate Source of their life, then the Deep will call unto the deep; God’s Spirit to the spirit of man… both sharing the same nature and likeness.

This begs the question: “Why provide a pattern Son, THE Son of God, in perfect harmony with God the Father, only to have the object of His love live up to a middling standard… a partial measure?” The answer is you wouldn’t. Certainly God would not. If He provides the Pattern Son as a standard for man then He must also provide the way in which fallen man, the object of His love, may become like Him, thus fulfilling God’s intent for all of creation.

I think the next post will sew it up. We will get to the heart of the question “How does man know what to do and what not to do if Sinai was not God’s original plan for man?”.

Blessings

 

[Gennesaret]

Oh, I so see where you are going with this, Brother Arron. I will not comment as a spoiler alert. You are wrapping this up so nicely just like Moses was wrapped up so nicely and sent down the river, and Jesus was wrapped up so nicely and laid in the manger. Waiting patiently to read your conclusion.

 

[tablet123]

To be reconciled to God is to be brought back into the original intent of God for mankind. This reconstitutes man and woman as God’s representatives in creation, as God originally intended. This is what is meant when God pronounced “Let Us make man in our image and likeness.” Had man not sinned and had man and woman not have been banned from eating from the Tree of Life, Man and Woman would have been heirs of the estate of God: beings capable of inheriting and governing the entirety of the terrestrial and the heavenly creation.

Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2Co 5:18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
2Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Gal 5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

To be reconciled to God is to be back in the image of God an innocent nature in flesh.

Which is by the shed blood of Jesus and receiving the Spirit.

Adam and Eve had an innocent nature in flesh until they sinned.

And then nobody had an innocent nature until Jesus came.

And then all people led of the Spirit.

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Col 2:13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

Joh 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

Adam and Eve would of not been able to govern the heavenly creation.

But only govern on earth.

They were of the earth earthy with no spiritual connection.

Only Jesus can give a spiritual connection to God.

No person could ascend up to heaven until Jesus did.

Enoch and Elijah did not ascend up to the heaven where Jesus went.

2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Rev 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Rev 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

1Co 15:35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
1Co 15:36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
1Co 15:37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
1Co 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
1Co 15:43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

But their soul is there now awaiting their glorified body which they will receive first and then those that are caught up in the resurrection which will be same event.

Adam and Eve would not have any part in the heavenly realm only paradise on earth and dominion.

 

[Aaron56]

Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2Co 5:18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
2Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Gal 5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

To be reconciled to God is to be back in the image of God an innocent nature in flesh.

Which is by the shed blood of Jesus and receiving the Spirit.

Adam and Eve had an innocent nature in flesh until they sinned.

And then nobody had an innocent nature until Jesus came.

And then all people led of the Spirit.

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Col 2:13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

Joh 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

Adam and Eve would of not been able to govern the heavenly creation.

But only govern on earth.

They were of the earth earthy with no spiritual connection.

Only Jesus can give a spiritual connection to God.

No person could ascend up to heaven until Jesus did.

Enoch and Elijah did not ascend up to the heaven where Jesus went.

2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Rev 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Rev 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

1Co 15:35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
1Co 15:36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
1Co 15:37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
1Co 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
1Co 15:43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

But their soul is there now awaiting their glorified body which they will receive first and then those that are caught up in the resurrection which will be same event.

Adam and Eve would not have any part in the heavenly realm only paradise on earth and dominion.

Your arguments come from a position of conciliation. We have to look at Christ to see God's original intent for man. For example, one thing that is restored is the ability to judge heavenly things: "Do you not know that we will judge angels?" Another, is that the reach of our rule is as Christ's "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him."

This reality, our connection with both heaven and earth, was seen first by Jacob "Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." and then confirmed by Jesus"Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man"
We can imagine angels descending from heaven into the earth, but the direction in the passages is reversed: angels first ascend from earth to heaven. And we know that the pure definition of angel is a "minister of God' and that man can be an angel if he is a minister. So, is there a record of men, who are angels, ascending from earth into heaven? Of course:

Paul wrote this account: "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell."

And John this one: "And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it."

In Christ, we are restored to our natural estate: eternal spirit beings clothed in flesh. Consequently, the Lord may deploy us in heaven and on earth as He sees fit.

Remember, our natural origin is from the eternal realm: we were in the mind of God from the beginning. We did not originate from the earth or from creation. You may say, "Well, Adam and Eve were created from the dust and from a rib." Yes, that is true of their bodies, but the spirit breathed into them was what gave them life and made them a living being. That endowment was from God Himself. God is Spirit, and the spirits of just men made perfect are deposits of Himself in man.

"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect..."

Just as an aside: whenever a person expels a demon, he is operating in the rule that governs heaven.

I will create the final post (hopefully) in this series today.

 

[Aaron56]

“How does man know what to do and what not to do if Sinai was not God’s original plan for man?”

So, it’s important to note that I am talking about man as a whole… the race of man. This includes those who are led by the Spirit of God and those who are not; those who are of Adam and those who are of Christ.

I want to examine a passage. As believers alive today, we have always read this passage within the outcome of what was recorded… from the position of the completed work noted in the passage. In the passage Jesus is speaking to His disciples before He is crucified. His intent is to tell them what is to come and to encourage them to not lose heart once He is gone. Within this passage is the answer to the question ““How does man know what to do and what not to do if Sinai was not God’s original plan for man?”. Here it is:

“These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

“And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

It’s the last part I want to focus on: “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

We have already read that from this side of reality: that of the Helper, the Holy Spirit, being sent to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement. Before the crucifixion of Christ, the Spirit was not sent into the world to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement. After the crucifixion of Christ, in our present reality, the Holy Spirit is now convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement.

And notice it is both sin and righteousness followed by revealing of what is true, judgement. (Note: That’s what judgement is: concluding what something IS. It is not sentencing, that comes after judgement.) So, both what not to do (sin) and what to do (righteousness) are ministered to the world by the Helper, the Holy Spirit. Before Jesus was crucified that was not true. The Spirit was given to certain people for certain times and situations. Only through them could people receive direction for life. The scriptures actually make this distinction quite clear:

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things…”

God’s language to man changed: from various ways at certain times to, solidly, the Son, who is heir of all things. The Spirit, now sent by Christ, does not speak His own words. He speaks what He hears from Christ, the Son.

“..for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

The Holy Spirit, God’s delegate in the earth, only speaks the language of Son. So, everything He ministers; whether it be conviction of sin, conviction of righteousness, or conviction of judgement, all align with the Son: Christ Jesus.

And to be sure, this is not conviction toward repentance. Men do not have to repent when they are convicted. It is quite possible, and popular, to resist the ministry of the Spirit. (“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.”)

So do not error thinking that if one is convicted of sin and righteousness, he or she will turn to the Lord. It is quite possible that they will harden their hearts against the intrusion of the Spirit… to their destruction.

So, there it is. Although it seems unfinished, I will stop here for any questions. There are several in my mind but that requires a bit more writing.

Blessings

 

[Aaron56]

I guess the rapture, the law at Sinai, election, etc. are winning the attention in the forums.