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Calvinists get all hot and bothered about the free will question, maintaining that it's somehow wrong if God has free will and anyone else does, too. As if Sovereignty could ever be threatened or compromised by anyone else having free will, what a blasphemous thought. Of course, it's equally blasphemous to maintain that if we believe in God, learn God, or vote for God (i.e., believe in Christ to be saved), that 'we' contributed aught but a problem: which only GOD, can solve. I can will to be a turtle, and that accomplishes nothing. I am exercising free will, but it has no power.
The larger picture: we remain childish in all our ideas. For, children don't have enough thinking to overcome their body needs. Neither does man. We can't think our way out of a paper bag, and whatever thinking we have, is wacko (as demonstrated in Genesis 3). So the Contract among the Trinity Corporation (so to speak) is to RESCUE us (sozo, first meaning of). From there, to completely redo our souls with His Thinking. But we are alive, so this second birth requires we consent; so this spiritual life requires we continually consent: else, God does nothing to grow us. Our Consent Creates More Problems, But God Will Never Coerce Volition. So the Total Depravity itself only and ever means (in this body) that man's free will always creates problems. But that's okay, in God's Eyes, since only HE can solve problems. In fact, what 'upsets' God is our imagining we can solve our own problems, do something good, etc. Because then, we are not consenting to HIS Solutions. In which case, we reap what we sow: unbelievable problems!
Note to the squeamish: Isaiah 53 is very graphic and violent. It gets way over blanded in translations. God didn't write it blanded; the Cross was no stroll through the park. If you can't handle reading what God writes His Way, then please stop reading now. Frankly, I have trouble reading it too, but doggone it, God Wrote This! So I better get past my own arrogant squeamishness and learn...
There is a lot of wordplay you can't translate in all bearing/carrying words, because in the Greek these words sound alike. So I tried to show that linkage in translation, here, but it's far from perfect. Finally, there is also soundplay and wordplay in both languages' texts, between the KNOWLEGE and its results. Also, the text is highly dramatic and elliptical; I didn't check to see if it was poetry, but it probably is. Hebraic couplet style is like math, where much of the prior clause is repeated, but a few words are changed, to show HOW the prior clause is interpreted, enacted, effected, etc. So that's the biggest reason why the LXX verses are needed: you don't get that import, without them. All Bibles should be retooled, which is of course impossible. So we need to learn these texts from the original (heh, cry all the way to the Bible bank, you blessed believer).
Notice how sweeping infinitives and verbs are used without objects, when you read this passage. In English, we feel confused because we see no objects. So the verbs read intransitively to our eyes, incomplete. But in those original languages, the selfsame usage designates utter completeness, all-objects-receiving-the-action-of-the-verb. As dramatic as can be. So: carefully ponder all these sweeping verbs; and especially, the capped LXX words in v.11 (all of which come from PURIFY in v.10). These are multiple-entendre infinitives of purpose and intended result: PLUNDER, EXHIBIT, SCULPT, JUSTIFY. These infinitives are causally chained, one after the next: each one has so many meanings, you'll need a lexicon, since I had to pick which English words, seemed most apt (which always wrecks the translation, for God means all meanings of a word, in a hierarchy set inside the sentence/passage). Notice the unlimited scope of the infinitives; Christ is the Reason For All Of Them: only Christ. That stresses the quality and absoluteness of the infinitives -- idea that all existence is impacted (tie-in passage is at the end of Romans 8). In short, there's nothing 'normal' about the text here, and it requires a lot of rumination. So obviously, the translation below leaves out a lot of meaning, and can't but do so: one could spend a good year refining it. Get the original texts and study 'em under your own pastor. Worth a bizillion dollars, if you do, since all Scripture writers constantly refer to this passage and its keywords.
You might want to read Ephesians 1, 1 Timothy 2:5, and Isaiah 53:1-9, first. Verses 10-12 are an explanation for the previous dramatic prophecy of Sacrificing Him. I'm using the present tense sometimes where a past tense is indicated, to show interconnectedness and the vividness. (i.e., the first "delights" in v.10 is in the qal perfect in Hebrew, but the present tense in Greek, since the latter depicts the drama of the contract, and the former tense depicts the certainty of it, as a done deal decreed by God).
Isaiah 53:10 [Masoretic text] "But the LORD [Father] delights to crush Him [Humanity of Christ getting the Stone-too-heavy to lift], putting Him to total grief; [Hebrew wordplay: "heheli" in the hiphil, is multi-meaninged. Looks like He's crushed with longing, so Father crushes Him with our sins.]
Isaiah 53:11 "Then the LORD delights to PLUNDER, birthing/carrying out from His Soul's [pregnancy] Labor,
Isaiah 53:12 [Masoretic text] "Therefore I [Father] will distribute to Him the booty/spoils/plunder of victory because of the many; |
Notice the bonding. What's His is ours, and ours, His. He gets plundered for His Thinking, and He is deemed to 'plunder' our sins: carry off, carry away, carry as a burden, carry off as plunder or prize (all extensively wordplayed, in the Greek): so of course, we are HIS booty, and He is our booty. Ancient world was constantly subject to raiding parties who ran in and carried off the people booty, plus whatever valuables they fancied. It was an expected thing, and not always the horror we think it to be. (Sometimes the raiders were nicer conquerors than those who ruled the weak, prior.) That's why it was so shocking to those in Canaan, when the Jews did NOT take booty, either killing/burning up everything, or leaving it all behind. (Big way to advertise GOD is doing it, not the people, since it's against human nature, not to take booty you can legally claim as a result of victory.)
So that's being depicted here; He's being raped, javelin-stabbed with our sins (53:5 et seq.); so now, He reaps the booty: us! So you shouldn't be surprised that, since we are His Booty, and He is thus our Booty to Learn, that the NT constantly exhorts us to to carry off the prize: the booty, the gold silver precious stones, the true riches. Treasure in earthen vessels: His. Most of the booty words are kinda violent-sounding, so translations bland them out, i.e., the prize is often tamely rendered "promise", leaving out that it's a pledge/promise of booty or much wealth! The other words like crown (which, if not used in Olympian manner, always means a kingdom and loads of wealth to go with it), deposit, capital, are harder to mangle, but they manage. So look for the words in the original language.
Therefore: He has free will, since He made a contract. So do we: we can believe in Christ or not. Clearly if you have free will to reject, you have free will to accept; and either one, has consequences. Can't be blamed for what you COULDN'T choose, see. We, however, can nonetheless only contribute the problem, as the above verses so vividly explain; so He has to CHOOSE to be carried off (as booty, as in cut off, see Daniel 9:26) by Father, via the Cross: so that we can be carried off as His Booty. So that's who we really are.
We Are His Booty. So it's always and only about Isaiah 53:11, baby, and baby, you should be glad! For that means nothing in your life happens because of you, but because of Him. So all that talk in Bible about being a good or bad boy is.. for kindergarteners. Yes, it's all true, but.. it's basic, k? Not spiritual, really. What's spiritual, is to get the Light of His Thinking, the 'body' of His Thinking, yatser'd, plasso'd, Sculpted -- In You. Every Bible book is on this topic, and in the NT, it's harped on to the point of reader annoyance.
Now hear this: God doesn't want pets, but EQUALS. It's too boring to be around lesser-thans. We can opt, therefore, to get the Booty OF Christ to become better booty FOR Christ, ourselves. Or, we can refuse -- and, Being His Property, will be roundly punished. Subjective and objective genitive, or objective thrashing. Our choice. But we are owned, and that is not our choice, but HIS, from eternity past. Satan&Co. are owned. Unbelievers are owned. They don't want that to be true, so they own hell. Now they own something ON their own, get it?
So you have two choices: have your OWN life, or LOSE your own life to His. The first choice will be made by 99.999% of believers, even, which is why the Pleroma are few. These latter, will have made the second choice. 1 John and John 14~17 are extremely blunt about this stark choice, I now realize. Those who choose to have their own lives, will of course get what they want -- Far Away from Him. Look at a map of the universe, see how far away, most of the stars are. Notice how there are many stars, many planets, in groups each revolving around one center; and most of these are Far Away from that center. Bible always means the heavens to depict spiritual truth, and here's a biggie: if you want to be on your OWN, then you don't want to be God's Own. So, you will be DISTANT from Him.. forever. Even, in Heaven. No pain, no sorrow, but no closeness, either. Because, you didn't WANT that, and God won't coerce volition. You Get What You Want. So be careful, what you want!
Christ prefers hell, to distance from Father. He opted for 100% closeness with Father. That is the First Reason Why This Contract Was Made. Father would never do to His Son to get us puny beings, if it didn't First And Only Benefit His Son. But it doesn't benefit either Father or Son to get us, if Son's Humanity isn't totally "one" (John 17) with Father. But because "one" (coalescence of thought, not Scylla!), They can contract to EXPRESS that "oneness" by having 'sons' together. That's where we come in. But we still are a problem which can only be solved, by REPLICATING HIM in us. Because some family members are.. well, never 'enjoyable'. So they can be supported at a distance. So those who LIKE HIM would rather go through hell than be distant from Him -- will get the closeness they so ardently desire. You get what you want, irrespective of your worthiness (obviously: we are all only worthy of hell).
Those who prefer to be distant from Father (and therefore distant from Son and Spirit), rather than finish this spiritual life, well.. they get what they want, too. Forever distant, on their own just like they WANTED to be, around others who voted like they did. Maybe, if they are lucky, they will get to glimpse Him pass by every millenium or so. And you can tell quickly where your wants are, by how much you want to learn Him via being in God's System. Barometer of your spiritual life, is that desire. No other. Fool yourself with works all you want; use your abilities and moralities to fantasize God approves, all you want; but if you aren't Wanting And Doing The Word, which means getting in and staying in God's System, well.. you're just spitting in the wind. So wind is what you'll get, since you alone VOTED for it while down here. You always get what you want from God. Period.
The real person is what goes on in his soul. So what you think, is the real you. The 'body' of the real you, is the body of your thinking, and it is the REAL body of you. So think: many lives are spent daily chasing after windmills, and the thoughts are incredibly small: so-and-so is wrong, so-and-so is right, so-and-so humiliates me, 'they' are evil, I will beat them, how do I compare to the other guy, will this make me more money, they have more than we do, we have more than they do, give to the poor to make self feel important or less guilty, crusade on this cause, oh how important I am, look at my important job/husband/accoutrements, everyone should bow to me, how do I look, what should I say, does so-and-so like me, what should I eat, oh that is pretty, why does he get that and I don't, I don't like so-and-so, but so-and-so complimented me, how proud I am of myself, if I have that car/dress/boyfriend/job I will be happy, how smart I am, oh I am afraid, oh so-and-so is BAD, there oughta be a law... On and on and on. So what kind of SOUL is forming? A petty one. Narrowly-focused, eyes on people and self and things, narrow interests. So no matter how much information you give such a person (God binging in all knowledge, for example) -- it would be processed in the same narrow ways. Same soul. See why Getting His Thinking Is So Transmuting?
No parent wants his child to STAY a child. So, you are to grow up. So, you are thus free to screw up all you like.. or, free to learn Him. And it's still Isaiah 53:11 playing ON your life, so that you can see His Light. Which you will, if you ever once believed in Christ during this life. Which you will even more, if you get in and stay in God's System. I can't live without these verses. Frankly, none of us do.
The implications of this contract are staggering. And, once you get in the habit of living on these verses every day, you'll see much more how true they really are. Makes all the difference in the quality of your life. Blunts the seeming glories of this puny world, and beautifies its many shames. For Light Shines: His. If you are feeling particularly ashamed or gross, well.. it's Isaiah 53:11 playing, the highest and most valuable way for God to spend His own Time on you. So how shameful can it be, what you are experiencing, if it has so glorious a reason? If you are feeling particularly proud of some achievement, well.. it's Isaiah 53:11 playing, the highest and most valuable way for God to spend His Own Time on you. So, why settle for the seeming-glory you can see, when only GOD'S Level of glory, is worth having? So, why feel bad about the seeming-shame you can see, when only GOD'S Level of glory, is occurring?
See, if something good happens, it already happened to Christ. If something bad happens, it already happened to Christ. It is also already happening IN Christ, since He is "ta panta", (lit., the-all-things, a moniker), so all is IN Him. You'll find Bible verses all over the place on this, but the most poignant of them are all of Hebrews 2 and the last half of Hebrews 4, alike explaining how He's our High Priest, for He Himself went through what we do, yet He is without sin. So you're getting a taste of what He thoroughly tasted, so you can see Him better. Paul calls this the fellowship of his sufferings, and sharing in His glory. In a word: communion. Not mystical, but intimate. Caused to be knowing, even as you are known. For just as He is, so also you are in this world.
That's a type of communion, for you are together in it. If you've ever suffered with another human being, you know something of the bonding which results from that experience. Well, here it's double-digit exponentially higher. Think of "E=mc squared", where "c" is not a constant; and instead, it has an exponent of the same "E=mc" formula! Ever-increasing mass begets ever-increasing speed. That's Divine Physics, that's how Infinity cycling inside finity is supposed to work, and that's what suffering increases. Your capacity to enjoy HIM. Even when suffering. So that sets up a potential, as my pastor likes to explain: every threshold of the spiritual life sets up a potential for the next one. Here, the potential due to your soul being opened by the suffering, for a Bigger Rapport with Very God. It really works. This is how Isaiah 53:11, 'plays'. [Einstein's mistake won't show up anymore than the previous mistake he fixed, until one realizes that a "c" constant doesn't account for all matter-energy interactions, either. Newton's prior construct failed once the mass was large enough; Einstein's works for larger masses, but not for ALL the interactions. So "c" is not really a constant, but plays in given ways on given limited-mass quantities. The right value for "c" is 'c exponential', where the EXPONENT is the limiting factor. The potential exponent is unlimited, hence the designation e=mc as the exponent, where "c" is not a constant. Einstein's formulas work on a larger 'set' of mass, than Newton's did. So there must be a set of formulas bigger which 'contain' Einstein's formulas, just as Einstein's formulas 'contain' Newton's. You'll find the math -- probably something in singularity or the math of limits, will be helpful. All this is in the Bible (specifically, in Isaiah 53:11 and in the way spiritual growth works in Church): so its counterpart is somewhere in secular math, since all secular math is but the reflection of Truth itself. Now I wish I had majored in math in college, instead of International Relations!]
Prosperity is suffering, too. Any kind of intensity will be too much for the body. So you get plenty of prosperity, as well. Both the prosperity and the suffering are opening devices, if you keep on keeping on in God's System. The body is all about price and tit-for-tat, which is the opposite of God's Infinite, no-strings nature. So this opening is what in math is called a "singularity", a never-ending "open" number set, which only gets that way once you have recurrences of "a" which reach "a sub-j": the "a" stands for "aletheia", Greek word for Truth (lit., the unhidden); the "j" of course, stands for "Jesus", but mathematicians don't yet know that. 2 Peter 3:18, playing LIVE.
So, in cosmology, a singularity is what preserves a black hole, so a star can be born from all the chaos entering it. Quantum mechanics plays in the black hole, but the singularity holds it together (a 'line' as it were in the center of that black hole, what in military science would be called the mutual flank, so dense it is of infinite concentration-of-force mass). So, to your body, this singularity is so weighty, you feel crushed all the time. It's the DDNA Knowledge Which is Crushing you. The circumstances plus the knowledge are too much for the body. But you are living on the Spirit's power, not the body's. Just as Christ did. So that larger prosperity and the larger adversity act like counter-pressure, to hold you together (well, it's probably the Spirit's Indwelling acting ON the DDNA and other pressures which holds you together). So, you don't explode. So, you OPEN and GROW instead. Whether you feel horrible, great, wonderful, happy, miserable.. or, nothing.
And 'Mom' (the Holy Spirit, co-equally God but loving to play the restoring mother hen, Genesis 1:2's Hebrew) says: Well, then: what brood shall I make of this ugliness, being as in a nanosecond I could birth a whole universe? Well, I'd better do more than that! For the deal was, "if you will give". So, He did. So, this is my brood to brood over and make beautiful for Him Who I Alone Empowered on the Cross, so He would not use His Deity, so I would make of Him whatever I wanted. For the deal is, these are His Children which Father gives Him, per the contract in Isaiah 53:12, which He accepted wholly and without conditions, in John 17! So shall I cheat Myself, and Father, and Him if I do not make FAR BETTER than a universe, even out from these turd pieces who even themselves VOTED for Me to make them beautiful for Him, when they FIRST believed in Him? Especially, since they themselves didn't even UNDERSTAND anything, except that He paid for their sins, so no other payment was efficacious?
So anything in your life, in someone else's life, is being made beautiful. The uglier it is, the more God will make it oh-so-beautiful, for His Own Sake. The prettier it is, the more God will make it so, for His Own Sake. And frankly, what the world calls beautiful, God finds ugly, and vice versa: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor My ways your ways, Isaiah 55:8-9. So the big things of this world, aren't anything compared to even the smallest thing God touches. And the big things of this world, if GOD gives them, are nothing compared to what He Will Make From Them; so you never need gloat or feel guilty over what abilities or accoutrements you have or lack.
For Divine Physics, law of the differential, to make more kids even from the sterile, Isaiah 54:1! So the denominator of man's thinking is always infinity-1, since the soul lives forever; so endless infinite quality can be made OUT FROM those Thoughts! "If You will Give!" If Infinite-Quality, Mastery-of-Thinking FROM Christ is given over to Father, then! His Thoughts can be Sculpted in man! "Christ in you, the confident expectation of Glory", Colossians 1:25-27! Making known, displaying, justifying All At Once, One For All And All Time, Hebrews 10:12-14! Meanwhile, everyone doing and getting whatever he wants, no compromise, even though sin continues forever in the Lake of Fire! Qal imperfect, yireh yisba, raáh, sabéa: always seeing, always being satisfied, Isaiah 53:11 forever! After all, He's got a contract with Christ to complete!
Because, Eph1 -- that's the PURPOSE of history, to replicate Him everywhere, more than the stars of the heavens, yet also stars of the heavens, just as promised to Abram, and delivered from and TO, that One Uniquely-Born Son FROM Abram's genes through Mary: stars uncountable, full of the Light in His Soul! So He shall see, and be satisfied: He, Father, the Emanator/Author of the Plan; He, Son, the Executor of the Plan; He, Spirit, the Empowerer of the Plan. Three Separate Persons, each Co-Equally God, Each Independent, not hydra-headed. Each Voluntarily uniting as a Corporation to produce.. sons of glory. Can you imagine, us hapless brainouts being a glory to Them? But that's what Bible says we are gonna be, in Ephesians 3:20 and end of Ephesians 1! True Booty, then. Heh. And you know, if Isaiah 53:11 so easily answers the long-standing conundrum about what should be unified field theory (see "Evolution" link at pagetop), then.. it's pretty likely this 'glory' meaning is even more true. It is certainly the more important.
Takes a lot of growing in the Knowledge God makes happen in you, to have enough love to parent. And no parent who loves his children, wants but to substitute for them. You can't hop yourself up on feeling, you can't fake it; only what God does to you, makes this Love occur. And He continually must run it, since we hapless humans remain helpless, weltering in our blood, until the day we die. [We remain helpless forever. But we want to be helpless forever, for That Justifies the Fellowship with Them: 2Cor13:14 lasts forever, too. For we will be one even as They are ONE, United by Love-Thinking. Freely. They chose to live as IF helpless, by making a helpless creation. For They first chose to be helpless-with-love for Each Other, which we know for sure, from their Self-Chosen Titles of Father, Son, Spirit. For anything not Infinite by nature, can only BE helpless; but if Infinite, not JUSTIFIABLY Intimate unless CHOOSING subordination. It's that fact which Satan finds so horrible, he'd rather live in hell forever. Satan knows what he's gotten into, and still prefers it. Paradox.htm and DueDisclosure.htm are very long discussions centering on this forever-helpless situation, and why God chose it.]
So it's a stark choice: you can't but empathize with those "many" who opt to STAY, children. But for yourself, think: do you want that kind of stunted fellowship with GOD? There comes a point where you have to choose for YOURSELF. Christ opted for 100%, so we can opt for higher fellowship than we have now. Highest opportunity, for Church. After that, all the other fellowship contracts, are inferior; even as, the ones before. Why ours is unique, is covered extensively in Part IV of the "Thinking Series".
Clearly, what's a 'child' in eternity is a bizillion times bigger than the greatest hero, down here. But so also, all that DDNA which those who opt to RECEIVE from the Spirit, will be a bizillion times bigger than the then-'children'. For the essential difference between a child and a parent, is that the former RECEIVES, being too weak and too incompetent, to take care of himself. More importantly, the attitude of a child, is gimme gimme gimme. Which, of course, the parent loves doing. But that is their attitudinal difference. No matter how big we become, that will remain, basically, the attitudinal difference. And Father gave us all, His Uniquely-Born (monogeneis), Son. Or we'd not be here. Or there'd BE no 'heaven', for us ALL.
Vast differences, then, in eternity. Your choice, where in that vast hierarchy you want to be. And it's not a status decision. Nothing with God ever is. You get the status only because you want the content, since status means nothing of itself (except trouble). If you love Him, then you want to be a slave, anyhow. But you cannot stay a slave and BE a slave for HIM. He's too BIG. So you have to become a King, to be His Slave. It's that stark a choice. And only the Spirit can transform you with all that Spiritual DDNA, which is Christ's Thinking, Bible doctrine to be written in our hearts and minds, minds and hearts, constantly circulating...
