VERSE INDEXES, BY DOCTRINAL CATEGORY

Purpose: to have a handy reference of verses listed by doctrinal category in a cohesive context. All too often Scripture is used or quoted out of context, so the entirety of the doctrine to which it belongs, is cut off. You can't divorce context from thinking, and especially not from His Thinking, which is the Bible. So contextual definition helps you audit better, so you can see any questionable 'connections' in a definition, an idea, an interpretation, etc. So many verses on the same and related topics need to be reviewed, not just a few: just to be closer to the meaning of even ONE verse you read!

This is merely a brainstorming study tool; you don't have to agree, to brainstorm; it's like mental exercise. I update it regularly but haphazardly; so some entries will be spare, but others, extensive.

By Divine Design, one's spiritual growth level accounts for the comprehension, interpretation, slant one gets from study, since the Holy Spirit's Filling and believer consent are needed for growth, 1Cor2. Therefore, free will is not compromised (God's, or yours.) That's why Christians differ in their interpretations: differing spiritual-growth levels. Academic preparation without sufficient spiritual growth is useless. Laziness is arrogance, though, so don't use the need for HS-filling to excuse not studying with the discipline of an academic.

God made your soul. God makes every soul. So God CHOSE to make every soul which exists. Hence it matters not at all how we compare to each other, since the Sovereign Decision to Create, is God's Alone. We really have no relationship to each other, but only IN HIM. Since, we can't create souls -- only God can. So whatever lateral relationships we have or seem to have in this life, are but ketchup, condimental: we are all in Him. So it matters not at all whether one is allegedly better than another: for God chose to CREATE, each soul which exists. So much for all the vaunting man is wont to do over his fellow man.

So God didn't make you, to make you 'perform'; but rather, to just BE together. So Learning His Word, is not to 'perform' -- you're not a pet to do tricks God can do always better and faster than you. It's to learn so to BE with Him, even as He is in you. Whew. So much for all the fretting man is wont to do over his own real or imagined weaknesses.

So in learning Bible, the idea is to TURN OVER IN YOUR HEAD, what you are learning. Before Father Who Made Your Soul, Gen2:7. That's what Adam was to do: be a taxonomist, classify the flora and fauna, for all of them depicted stuff about the Relationship to God. God is over Adam, so Adam gets to be over something, to learn WHY God wanted to make the lowness of Adam, in the first place. Relationship with inferior or superior is designed to be more INTIMATE; it's relationships with equals which are necessarily more distant (idea of rulership compromise). So the Equal Spirit and the Equal Son choose to Subordinate to Father Who is Equal to Them -- for the sake of Love. No compromise, there, since each are Equal. So too, no compromise that we are inferior and They, Superior Infinite. No compromise to Love. DueDisclosure.htm focuses on this topic, since for centuries the Trinity being a Voluntary Corporation, confuses Christians (dunno why).

For Love is Occupied With, Turns Over In The Head, stuff about the Object of Love. Well, then we need a BIBLE, to have something in our heads -- Someone, actually -- to SEE. So it doesn't matter what we get right about that Someone -- it matters that we want to LEARN that Someone. Again, we get the Bible so we puny humans, can do that. Not on our own, though: GOD wrote the Bible, so GOD runs how we learn it. GodSystem.htm (link at pagetop) explains the very simple Elements which enable this to happen, never mind what religion you espouse. Learning Bible is a SUPERNATURAL thing; your volition is all you bring to the table, and is nonmeritorous (merit is in the OBJECT of belief, whether a pencil you believe will write, or a God you believe will write His Word in you). So anyone can want to know God, however smart or healthy, however dumb or handicapped. Makes no difference, since nothing human about you -- except your wanting to know God -- is used.

So look: we all are dippy, really. Word grows us out of our goofinesses. So when talking about dippy ideas on the one hand, we can't gloss over our misuses of "God" and Bible, pretending the misuses are 'chocolate'. On the other hand, we all defecate. Word alone turns our doo-doo into diamonds. So when you read something here, you might feel an ouch or a yay: but the ouch, hurts. The yay feels good. We are all to learn all the ouches and yays, and if some learned 'today' some yays more than someone else, so what? We all still need to use the toilet, k? God makes all the ouches into yays, and that on the Cross, 2000 years ago. We are all FUNDED, therefore. So we don't have to pretend chocolate, and we can all yay over the fact we are all Funded in Him, forever. So one person's ouch 'today' will be his yay, 'tomorrow', and vice versa. See? It's ONLY ABOUT GOD, not about how dippy we are. So we can expose how dippy we are and laugh it off: for all the ouches were converted to yays, 2000 years ago. Else, what's the point of living?

Body and soul don't learn the same way. Body is a dead battery, which is why you have to keep repeating over and over and over all those many banal functions in a day. Body has no 'charge', can't 'remember' absent a bizillion repetitions -- and even then, not for very long. Because we have old sin natures from Adam's Fall in our GENES, the body effectively blocks out a lot of learning in the soul. So the soul, must be body-like in its learning, with much repetition. Not, because the soul itself needed it -- but because the SIN-TAINTED soul needs it. Not to worry: every time you repeat a learning or get new learning or use Bible while in God's System, God the Holy Spirit makes Divine DNA out of that moment. So the trick is, to have as many of those moments as you can remember TO VOTE FOR, during a day. Which means an AWARENESS that you aren't voting.. or ARE voting. Habit: line on line, precept on precept, day after day.. lasting forever. For even a moment of faith in Christ, John 3:16 -- saves you forever. So how much more, all those post-salvation moments, BUILD you forever?

The Reason to be Alive is to see God's Thinking, Ps139:17. Hence the promise was, that this Thinking would be in writing, ever since Gen3:15 (very clever Hebrew). So here it is: Bible is written dynamically, not like a boring dictionary. (Dictionaries are necessary, but hard to understand because all the definitions are extrapolated out of context.) Ergo you cannot understand it when you read it, apart from the Filling of the Spirit (believer must be breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed), except for basics like John 3:16 and the Ten Commandments. Here's why:

• Bible Uses Every Literary, Legal, And Rhetorical Communication Device There Can Possibly Be, So You Should Never Just Gloss Over Its Words. Or, do gloss over its words, but repeatedly. Each time you will find another layer of meaning; another set of connections to other verses. Even in the most familiar verses, like John 3:16. This is especially true for study in the original languages. After all, if God writes something, it had better display How Smart He is, right? How else can you tell the difference between a smart human, and Omniscient, Perfect GOD?

• Bible Is Thus Written Like A PHYSICS Course: with the OT being lab-like deductive, based on observation/testimony; and the NT being deductive based more on the MATH per se. So, like a kid, you learn by example, from OT; so, like an adult, you learn the actual 'math' of living/learning Him, in the NT.

• So Bible uses KEYWORDS to denote a doctrinal/principle category in the original languages; so you track the usage of the keyword to see what the Bible's Doctrine is.
• Sometimes keyphrases are used, rather than keywords: they are usually either subsets of doctrines, or interlockings of doctrines (often both-at-once).

• You Must Always Think Like A THESAURUS, for all synonymal and antonymal conceptual and keyword linkages are being referenced, pan-Bible. Bible is extremely thesauretical, meaning that you have to understand other keywords and concepts which are both similar, and different, to track what God means by what He says. For example, the simple Hebrew phrase, "me ish", usu. translated "from man", really means BOTH "born from man" AND "beyond-man" in Bible, i.e., in Isa52:14. References the Hypostatic Union of Christ, there. Isa53trans.htm has the details about Hebrew preposition "min" in its Preface.

• This Tracking Is To Be Done ACROSS Scripture. A Bible book gets its status AS a Bible book, because it references all the Bible books before it in such deft ways and so perfectly, you know Only God Could Have Written It.

• So Since Scripture Is A Progressive Revelation, You'll Have To Know WHEN Bible Books Were Written. Chronological tracking of the thesauretical development of a Bible doctrine isn't always needed; but sometimes you have to do it, to see the doctrine properly (i.e., with respect to whether the Rapture is a bona fide doctrine, and its timing, the role of the Millenium, when the Exodus, etc).

• Bible's Original Inspired Languages Are Extremely PRECISE: translations are all screwed up; and there's really no good way to fix the translations. [Translation errors are largely inexcusable, and legion, but even if you fix those errors, you still fall far short of much meaning in the original. There's no way to really create a good-enough translation, and most any honest Bible scholar will admit that. I guess that's why they leave the legions of past errors intact, in translations?]

• SOUNDPLAY EMBEDDING is a frequent feature of the OT, especially in metered verses (i.e., Isaiah, Psalms, some of Job, every quote from the Lord in OT). Hebrew is so much the Bible's language, that every etymological nuance of a syllable communicates Bible Doctrine: i.e., preposition "al", upness, play on Most High and sweet savor; preposition "min", play on God's Begetting Plan of Salvation -- again, see Isa53trans.htm to get a sense of this embedding.

• FOUNDATIONAL LANGUAGE CHARACTERISTICS are used to communicate foundations of Truth, so you can know the 'grounding' of a given doctrine. For example, in 1Kings 6:1, David's death at age 77 (not age 70 when he retired) is foundationally communicated by saying the "fourth year" rather than the 11th year of King Solomon, because it's in the fourth year of Solomon's reign after David died. David's name isn't mentioned, since 2Sam7 explains that the foundation for the founding of the Temple, is David's prayer and God's answer to it.

• HUMOR. God reserves Humor in the most unlikely places. An example is the frequent use of "He" in multiples (often antiphonally), to denote Trinity in Concert, Each One Co-Equal and Infinite, but not-hydra-headed. Idea that you can't tell Them apart, for They are of Identical Essence. So any "He" represents the Same Attitude in Each "He". You don't need a Council of Nicea: Scripture is clear Who God is. Wordplay on "He" is rife in the OT, as is wordplay on the Father Fathering Son to Pay for the Sins of All Mankind. To take a peek at this, try reading the first "click here" translation (first sentence has the "click here") in Isa53trans.htm. Better to review the Hebrew, though. Even with a lexicon, you can see more meaning in the deft words; even if you are new to that kind of researching. Just breathe 1Jn1:9, keep asking Father in Son's Name to guide you. God answers!

• So God preserved the Original Words He had the Original Writers Write, so you are still able to read those words, despite a separation of centuries, of culture, etc. No go-betweens. Translations can't cut it, no matter how well done. For God intended the EXACT WORDS, to be read by a reader 'now', just as much as 'back then'.

• So you must learn the cultural 'loading' of the original-language words, or you will entirely miss Bible's FRAME OF REFERENCE, which means the CONTEXT, the where in God's complete Matrix of Truth, a concept is 'located', what are the boundaries of its application and definition, etc. This 'loading' is called "isagogics" in theological lingo.
  For example, the cultural background for the whole book of Ephesians, is Euripedes' play, "Ion". Paul writes Ephesians as a very humorous tweak on the sexual innuendo which runs through that play. Paul thus stresses God's superior 'begetting' to people all very familiar with that play. So if you don't know the play, you miss the manifold extra linkages made to every other book in the Bible (which is loaded with sexual innuendo), and how the building of Church was designed in eternity past, before the universe existed, to answer Satan (before he even existed), and to complete the answer of the Garden Test of that stupid Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Gen3:22, for example, has the sexual-innuendo connotation that man basically divorced God, fornicated with the tree and thus begot himself good and evil, via suffix attached to Hebrew preposition min. See also Ps139:15, which plays back to Gen3:22 using the same structure.)

Every Bible verse is chock-full of humor of every kind. Sarcasm, satire, reverse satire, tenderness, wry wit, irony, interesting sounds that convey extra doctrinal meaning, etc. Translations can't convey all this delicious information. Worse, the translators have largely been, or were politically constrained to be, ascetic: so sexual innuendo (rife, in Bible) is blanded out, euphemized; military and profit concepts are rendered painful and poor; Grace, which shines like the sun in every verse, is blacked out with language that makes God boring, sadistic, an ogre. Satan wants you to associate "God" with "pain". [This fact is a running subtheme in all my websites, and SatStrat.htm spends a lot of time showing the reader how he can himself detect the fact in anything he sees or reads, including translated Scripture. Christians are brainouts by Divine Design, so it's no surprise we can be so manipulated.] So, the translations make God look like someone who loves pain. And is out to hurt you. What a crock. Look for God's Humor in every verse. It's there, baby...

So every day is to be a sabbath, rest: Heb4, esp. v.11ff blatantly says that study of Scripture is Rest. Not, ar(gghh)rest. The spiritual life IS Matt4:4, learning and Living On, Eating, Scripture: not -- repeat, not -- works. Works is Satan's system: did Adam do any work before he ate that stupid fruit? No! He played with naming fauna all day. And, what was the first thing Bible records him doing after he ate? Work! Sewing figleaves! "Who denounced you for being naked?" The Lord humorously asked Adam in Gen3:11 (Hebrew verb nagadth, means "denounced", and is always mistranslated in that verse). So it's Satan who's the prude; Satan who wants works; "good and evil" is Satan's thinking, thus the world's thinking, not -- repeat, not -- God's. All Bible verses on works tweak works to differentiate between an act which God ordains for the sake of blessing you (itself, the 'reward' is builtin, not a result), compared to the huff-and-puff brownie-points system of Satan's invention, RELIGION. [Gen3 eating-from-Tree temptation is a religious temptation: see LordvSatan2.htm, "In the Beginning, Man" section and following sections.]

Scripture study is thus designed Solely For The Purpose Of Learning And Thus Sharing Rapport With Him, period: Heb10:5, 2Pet3:18, Eph3:15-21, Eph4:11-16 (Greek). If He needed your works, He could just use His Omnipotence to bing you to do 'whatever' rightly. If sin was in the way, there'd have been no Cross, and -- again, He could just bing you to not sin. He will Bing us after death, and we will never sin again -- so there's a different purpose to living, down here: learning His Son (ibid., plus 1Cor2,6,12-13; 2Cor5; all of Romans, Hebrews, and Philippians).

So my objective here is to list those verses which in the English seem to be the most indicative of the fact of a doctrine. I'm not comfortable with such "snap" usage of verses, since God clearly intended the whole of the Bible be mastered to really "get" a doctrine's meaning. On the other hand, it does help to know where key verses are located, and what they say. In this webpage, if there are too many verses on a 'purple' topic, instead of a comprehensive list you'll see a gist summary, plus keywords (or key structures) to seek.

My pastor likes to explain all the meanings of keywords in the original languages, and then walk us through a verse, each time rendering the translation in light of each meaning of the keyword, so we can see how many 'stories' there are, of meaning. Try that approach yourself: then you'll have a much clearer idea of what it means to say that Bible is GOD's invention, not man's. Plus, you'll come to see better what Scripture means by what IT says, not by what humans say. Of course, if all this 'work' seems too exhausting to you, quit reading now...

So, since every verse has:

• multiple layers of meaning which are all in view at the same time;
• manifold application to all other verses;
• manifold tie-in (relationship) to all other verses; and
• God wrote the Bible deliberately as a jigsaw puzzle/pkzip file so we'd all have to think about it (no spoonfeeding, haha!)

..the category you'll see assigned to a given verse in the list below is not exclusively "right".

Caution: Please don't use these verse lists as a substitute for studying under your right pastor. These lists are merely adjunctive, and meant primarily as discussion aids in chatting. Many of the biggest doctrines underlie every verse and are not explicit, since the human writer's frame-of-reference already knows them. Interpretation really requires a pastor-teacher's gift, and a lot of digging into the Word, by God's appointment. God prepares teachers: granted, the bad ones are always 'many', but good ones are always out there. If you want one, just use 1Jn1:9 to be online with Spirit; then, ask Father in Son's Name to cause you to find the good one He picked for you! Probably the right pastor is just around the corner (or otherwise-easy-to-find), and you don't see him...

the "Call", aka "Common Grace" but sometimes, God's "Election" or "appointment" of someone: over 700 verses here, in both OT and NT; a bunch of keywords are used. You can tell when God is the One calling, which 'type' of 'call' He means: words usu. translated "chosen" mean "election", though "called" in NT references it also (means called-to-inherit). It's kinda confusing. English translations are usually clear enough so you can get the idea. Matt22:14 distinguishes between calling and electing. Idea that if you don't elect to believe, then God doesn't elect you, either. Matt 7:23 in context also expresses this Justice-'matching' principle. See also "Matching" in purple font later on in this webpage.

Canon Completed: For some goofy reason, there's always been a raging debate in Christendom over whether Canon is completed. Of course, those who want to maintain it is not completed can thus interpose their own visions, etc. Satan in particular sponsors this attitude, for without it, he can't trot out fake scripture. If you look at the history of religion since the Cross, you'll see that a big trend in it has been the unrolling of 'updated' covenants which allege to improve the Bible -- and, particularly, to replace the New Testament. Book of Mormon and Koran are but two versions (covered at length to prove satanic authorship in SatStrat.htm). On a lesser scale, there have been scads of written counterfeit gospels, visions, etc. (usu. called 'apochrypha' or pseudopigrapha, to denote fakeness). Additionally, there have been thousands of folks rising up pronouncing their visions, claiming to be new apostles, etc. -- the 'catholic' denominations being primary among them. In short, it's a great way for Satan&Co. to beguile us all. Lies must be loud (i.e., make you FEEL good), to drown out detection. So the loudest, most popular claims of any kind are the ones which are most false. God doesn't need to make noise.

By contrast, the Bible is very explicit about the fact Canon is the Mind of Christ, and that Canon was completed with the Revelation (the right roster of books being in Bibles like KJV), so there should be no debate at all. Here's why: two of the biggest prophecies in the OT concern the revelation to the Gentiles, and the Completion of the Written Revelation of God. [Biggest, in terms of both number of verses on them, and in terms of importance in the eyes of FIRST God the Father, and Israel.] The latter is part of what is called (taking the term from Jeremiah, explained below), the "new" covenant. Book of Hebrews explains how this new covenant was then and still is understood to work -- in painstaking detail. Even the English is relatively clear. Book of Ephesians, primarily, explains the Structure of the Body of Christ, for the Purpose of Administering this New Covenant, not -- repeat, not -- replacing Israel in any way, but serving Israel, as the Bride of Her Messiah/Cornerstone (see Eph2). Read both books over a dozen times or more. They integrate perfectly. The "Thinking Out Loud" webseries (accessible from Home Page) is an epic-scale accounting workpaper on this topic.

Isagogics matter here. You gotta understand that, to Israel, it was really important to get Written Canon. Moses was maybe the first person in the world to get it: the glory of Israel thus was and remains, HaTorah. [Book of Job uses older Hebrew, so may antedate the Penteteuch. I'd have to study that question more; when I've had a chance to research it better, I'll put info in this small-font note.] That's why Acts 2 reads as it does: Peter is announcing the preparation of that Written Mind, quoting from another prophecy about it, in Joel. [Actually, Peter interpretatively quotes, changing the Joel quote to show how it applies now. Scripture writers frequently do this, as indeed Judaism almost always has, evident even in Talmud. Modern secular law similarly functions.] Therefore, in OT, the "new" covenant's salient and most cherished feature, was that the Ark would be replaced by a LIVING One whose Word would be Written in the Hearts of the People: Jer3:16+Jer31:31-34, quoted and explained in Heb1:1-4, 8:8-12 through 10:15-17, 11:39-40. The 10:15-17 passage in Greek wordplay stresses that as a result of the Cross, the MIND (singular of dianoia, means thinking, see a good lexicon) would be put into the hearts of the NT writers and thus Written onto the writing media; thus His Mind Is Written Into The Hearts Of Church; as a result (when you compare the changed word order in 10:15-17 versus 8:10), the Millenial believers would get the Word given and thus Written Upon Their Hearts. Deeper still, the earlier (Jeremiah) quote is a prophecy of Messiah Himself being 'written' on, so Their Hearts Could Be Written On, Too. The passage operates on many levels-of-meaning, a hallmark Divine Characteristic of God's Word.

Click here for a tentative translation of Heb10:15-17. It's not what I consider good enough yet, but the ideas in it might prove helpful. (I clearly know the meaning of the verse, but can't translate or explain it as well as I'd like. Tongue-tied.)

So the Ark was to be replaced by the Redeemer, who the Ark represented. His Thinking (see also 1Cor2:16) was to be in writing, as part of the New Covenant. Passages like Rev22:6-21, 1Cor13:8-13, 2Pet1:20-21, plus the above assert that the Canon would be His Thinking In Writing, hence replacing the traditional offices of prophet, miracles, healing, etc. -- since the "completed has come". [Usu. mistranslated "Perfect" in 1Cor13:8-10, which is okay, but perhaps misleading as to what is in view -- in Greek it's clearer that at the time of writing they only had partial revelation versus the Complete Written revelation -- again, because this is a longtime promise in the OT.]

This is so central a promise in the OT that references to it are very common. Every verse, practically, has this promise of a completed Messiah leading to a completion of God's purpose, ergo a complete TEXT: "It is finished", He said ON the Cross. So, all the finishes, roll out from there. From salvation to delivery, from birth pangs to fully mature (Eph4:11-16, 2Tim3:16-17). The wordplay on this focus-of-all-history promise, is everywhere. So, because everyone knew what the 'new covenant meant about His Mind in Writing, the references are often elliptical, and the style of writing is axiomatic and metaphorical. (Just as today, a writer implicitly states what the reader is expected to know.) Suggest you find some teacher who already knows Canon is completed, and ask him for verses, since there are so many different ways Scripture expresses this fact.

The deepest of the (many) Christian apostacies largely begin with the idea that Canon is not completed, and go downhill from there: so anyone can claim to have a vision (etc., ad nauseam), you see. I'll never understand how they can imagine that Scripture is not completed, when Church is Body, so obviously the entire point is to 'complete' CHRIST (Eph1, esp. 1:15-23); when Revelation takes you all the way past the conclusion of human history -- so what more is there to say? Further, since to be an apostle you had to be personally appointed by the Resurrected Christ appearing to you and appointing you (1Cor15:1-10); ONLY the Holy Spirit Personally gives Scripture directly (no other Agent: see 2Pet1:20-21, 2Tim3:16, Heb4:12), and such appointment must be attested with the marks of Divine Signature -- which no other set of books has (pseudipigrapha, apochrypha, etc. all are demonstrably stupid or even satanic by content review) -- what more is there to write? [The announcements by Gabriel to Daniel and Mary were not canon themselves; the later Writing of those events was the Canon, and the HS Alone gave that to the writers.]

God makes His Points exploiting every nuance of every feature in the original languages of Scripture. They work like fractals, in the Spirit-filled soul, if you keep on using 1Jn1:9 and studying under your right pastor. Just like Heb10:16 and Heb4:12 promise: "For the Word of God is alive and powerful" -- what need is there for 'more'? Again, read the Book of Hebrews and Ephesians over and over. Thus you will have an answer you yourself understand, to the silliness of 'new revelation' nonsense claims (like 2Nephi in the Book of Mormon, which purports to say a need for 'more' exists).

How ironic: back in the days before Canon was completed, its completion was everyone's dream. They wanted something WRITTEN, rather than dreams, visions, tongues, etc. That's why the "new covenant" in Jer31 was so significant, why (per Jer3:16) they wouldn't even miss the Ark (which Nebuchadnezzar melted down) once Babylon defeated them. So, too, the Corinthians were comforted by 1Cor13, which repeated the promise of the completed Canon, since Paul's focus there and in Chapter 14 was to explain that the gifts they had were merely temporary and childish, compared to His Mind being Written. Yet, here we are, post-Canon, and we dippy Christians long for the pre-Canon flash; or, cave into its opposite fit-in-crowd insanity, the i-am-intellectual-so-i-don't-buy-HS-inspiration! For nearly two millenia, this Beautimous Mind has been kept under lock and key by elites who (understandably) felt the masses wouldn't want to learn it -- but now, since about the 1850's it has become so available anyone, however poor, can get even the original languages of the major MSS (manuscripts) for free -- on the internet! And what do we do? Yawn or preen. But not everyone is yawning, preening. The hunger is so great in some parts of Africa, for example, I personally know of a guy who walks 30 miles just to hear some exegesis on tape. Do you know how dangerous and uncomfortable it must be to walk that far in Africa? Just to hear an hour's tape? Oh, we have a lot to answer for, in our generations...

Christ's Titles (OT and NT): The LORD has a bizillion titles. Some are in these verses: Mat1:21, Ezek2:1, Isa7:14, Luk2:11, Jn1:1, Gal3:19, Jer23:6, Acts 10:3,6, 1Cor2:8, Rev 19:16.

Confessing Sins: Ps32:5, Ps66:18, 1Jn1:9, "if we judge ourselves" verse in 1Cor, many others using different rhetorical styles (like James, in James 4). You name your sins to God, since He is the One whom you 'deserted' in order to commit the sin. It's a breach of fellowship, not a loss of salvation. If you don't learn to monitor your thoughts and 'breathe' 1Jn1:9 (or its equivalent) to God on a regular basis, you will stay in a spiritual coma, and eventually die the "sin face-to-face with death" in 1Jn5:16. "Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned", David acknowledged. So any naming of sins to other people, well.. better get God's opinion on that, lest you make them sin by reacting to hearing about yours!

So 1Jn1:9 is your lifeline: you'll never be able to read Bible or be spiritual, without it. Never. There is a serious fallacy running around Christendom today that because Christ paid for sins we never have to name ours to God. They base this killing idea on the wrong exegesis of verses like Eph1:7 and Col1:14, mistaking that Greek for koine (it's not, it's Attic of object and result). [This and like (many!) double accusative structures, are often mistranslated, as if the translators can't tell what accusative goes with what subject and verb. Of course, often accusatives play the role of a nominative or genitive, lol; so those aren't well-recognized, either.] Sheer common sense would tell you that, if you and someone else are at odds over something you did, you don't have fellowship with that person until you both patch it up! But then, common sense is almost extinct, among us Christians! Of course, when you see how many bald passages in Bible tell you outright you must name your sins to God, you'll understand that a lot more than our native wackiness is at work: Satan&Co. don't want you to think you must name your sins to GOD, for then you are cannonfodder for their games...

One can't have fellowship (aka be "online") with God in a state of sin. Cross paid for all sins, but your acceptance of post-salvation fellowship is a moment-by-moment choice. Choosing to sin means you choose against fellowship. So, to regain that fellowship, one acknowledges a sin remembered to GOD. directly to god, not to some cleric, for You Are A Priest-King In Training Yourself. (All sin is first a sin against GOD, so must be acknowledged to HIM -- sins against people may or may not have to be acknowledged to them: God will help you know when and if you need to tell anyone else.) So: when you name your REMEMBERED sins to God, you are acknowledging that you were offline with Him, and that acknowledgement puts you online again. (You don't have to remember them all; just name the ones you remember which took you offline between the time you LAST used 1Jn1:9 and 'now'.) You have no fellowship with God when you are offline, so you are not growing spiritually when you are offline; so your spiritual life is comatose/catatonic during that time: 'works' during that time are all dead. Worse, God will continue to punish you, maybe all the way to death, for not using 1Jn1:9 -- because the 'opportunity cost' of that time spent IN the Spirit, is being forfeited. There Is No Greater Evil Than Not Being Filled. This comes out in the use of adikia in 1Jn1:9 (last word in Greek). Seems analogous to the blaspheming-the-Spirit verse for the unbeliever's rejection of Gospel, since it's the Holy Spirit Who teaches it to us (Mark3:29+John 16:9+ougar lalesei apheautou, "He will not speak from the source of Himself" clause in John 16:13).

1Jn1:9 (especially in context of 1Jn1:6-10, couldn't be more bald, even in English) illustrates this doctrine. Every doctrine on this webpage is tied to this one, since you must be online with God the Holy Spirit, to be growing in Christ.

• See also "Holy Spirit" entry, below.
• In OT, this doctrine was depicted by "sin offering" and "trespass offering".
• See also Pharaoh's "I have sinned" verses in Exodus (even that unbeliever knew the doctrine).
• It was also displayed in the passage where Moses made that brass serpent (Egyptian cobra carving, hung on a cross).
• David prayed, "take not thy Spirit from me" when he had sinned (OT rulers had a limited human-power enhancing from the Spirit, far less than the Filling we get); the conversation between Nathan the prophet and David over Bathsheba;
• see also Ps32:5, Ps66:18.
• Some bald NT verses: 1Jn1:9 (esp. in context), 1Cor11:28;
• verses with the common keyword sarxz/sarkikos usu. translated "carnal" or "fleshly" or "worldly" denotes an offline status, since it's your sin nature which rules you in that status.
• There are many others (like kata anthropon, which NIV renders poorly, "mere men" 1Cor3:3, 4), but they are harder to spot in English, or more subtle: Jude19, 2Pet1 and like chapters (every epistle has passages like 2Pet1 -- idea that the teachers are carnal, so aren't teaching correctly).

• Passages like 2Pet1:20-22 are especially insightful (there's at least one in every epistle, and the doctrine is prominent in the Lord's statements about the Pharisees, too). Such passages show the result of prolonged carnality -- a progressive descent into animalism, whether 'holy' kind or the gross kind, which is very visible in Christianity today. The 'holy' kind becomes progressively animalistic in the sense of bullying, ostracising, taking control (esp. of your money). These folks just lust over the idea of verbal stoning. Control freak: a Charles Manson, in holy garb. The prolife crusade is brimming with such folks. 2Tim2:26-3:7 describes them well (though all the translations are off: too tame, vague). Works-lust and carnality are bedfellows, as you'll realize when you go through all these passages. When you cross-reference these passages with the Great White Throne Judgement (Rev20:11ff), you'll realize that legalism, i-work is the most difficult sin-nature proclivity to overcome. For, in the GWTJ, you'll notice people are not saved and instead judged for their good deedS. That's what kept them from ever believing in Christ -- they preferred their own good deeds, to Christ's!
  Here's a quick litmus test I use on myself to detect hidden legalism: If God gave me no credit for the item, would I feel even a twinge of "Unfair!" in reaction? If "yes", use 1Jn1:9, for it's the kernel of the greatest cancer of the spiritual life: the i'm-owed syndrome. Kills millions, every year.

• The passage in James 5:16, which is in a closing chapter about human-human relations, talks about the very common-sense idea that if you wrong someone you know, you also admit it to him (i.e., so he can stop sinning by being hurt at you).
  So it makes zero zero zero sense that, if you must name your sin to a fellow human against whom you sinned, you suddenly don't have to name them to GOD????? We are at a sad time in Christian history, when scholars teach you don't have to name your sins to God. Even a child knows better: it's instinctive.

Creationism: It's soo embarrassing how both sides in the evolution versus creationism political wrangles, are dead wrong. No one bothers to even LOOK at the Bible, to properly debate! Even common sense would tell you that Infinite God doesn't need to spend six whole days creating something. Infinity just Wills a Thing Be, however big, small, etc. -- and it is EXACTLY as He wants it. Instantly. Even common sense tells you that no matter HOW long God wanted it to take, that's what HE wanted, and it was so. Hence if you don't read Bible, you don't know what God wanted, and you'll only hallucinate how long it took: and the others who fantasize contradictory things, will argue with you. That's what those science vs. Bible debates all are: many people hot and disagreeing based on their contradictory delusions. Same junk as the hallucinations about when the Exodus happened, no one bothering to consult the Author of the Event.

• The very first thing the Author of the Event tells you, is that He did it all in a nanosecond: Gen1:1. Not one day, not six days, not six bizillion years or whatever, but djut! and a whole ORDERED universe suddenly appeared; God SPOKE it into existence, principle of Matt4:3 (Satan knows that, why don't we). No big bang, no entropy after some other slow start, etc. So most Christians don't learn their Bible, most pastors don't teach it properly; so there's long been this stupid anti-Biblical idea that Genesis is about the initial creation of the earth; so a bunch of stupid debates and documentaries have raged on about it. How embarrassing. So do your homework, and you won't be like them: Check Out The Bible For Yourself.

• Genesis 1:1 is an instantaneous creation from nothing (aka "ex nihilo") of the entire universe, including all life God wanted at the time. But there is a CHANGE in Gen1:2, necessating Earth's RESTORATION. For Gen1:2 even in translation, tells you Earth and perhaps a good portion of the universe in Earth's 'corner' went DARK. It didn't start that way, as many other Bible verses attest. Here in this "Creationism" entry, we'll cover some of the verses; so you can see how much it matters to Learn the Word before making documentaries, science-vs.-Bible debates, etc. which only prove everyone's ignorance of Bible. Learning the Word saves money, time, effort.. and embarrassment!
  The time period between Gen1:1 and Gen1:2 is the Angelic Conflict; as a result of that conflict, a Trial was held, Satan appealed God's Verdict (recorded in Matt25:41), and man was created as a new set of witnesses Satan&Co. could use to demonstrate their arguments. God doesn't say how long that first Conflict and Trial, lasted. So we can't know how long a period transpired between the INITIAL creation of the universe and the trashed-up state in Gen1:2. Could be a long time, billions of years. Could be 10 minutes. We don't even know for sure TIME operates the same way once the Earth was restored, and there are hints that it doesn't, i.e., microwaves cook foods faster than conventional ovens -- so did God 'cook' time for creation faster than the methods we know? But how Time might have slowed down post-creation/restoration, is outside the scope of this Creationism entry.

  Suffice it to say that for centuries, people all over the world, in every culture, race (etc.) have known of the restoration. Every culture's creation myths depict an initial perfect state which becomes "chaos", and the rest of history is about returning to perfection. In the 20th century, we got all hot and bothered over HOW LONG, because we misinterpreted Genesis 1 in the first place, and ASSumed it meant the entire creation happened in six days. But the ancients weren't so preoccupied. The six-day creation insanity can be traced back as far as Acquinas, his Treatise on the Six Days. See, the Bible is really from God: so you can't even read Gen1:1 rightly -- for centuries! -- on your own. You lost your (sin-nature) brains the second you 'did' John 3:16, hence the need to always breathe 1Jn1:9.

• Real Bible God the Holy Spirit Empowered the Writers to Write, explains what happened. Hebrew perfect tense in Gen1:2 and the adversative use of "waw" ("and"). Moreover, the Gen1:2's Hebrew keyphrase "tohu wa bohu", is poorly translated; it's better rendered "trashed up and desolate". Hebrew words tahat (lower, connotation of hell) and ta'ab (abhoring of idols and the unclean) seem relatives of tohu: Isa44:19 is hysterical, the quintessential example of someone hallucinating that a set can contain itself (you know, like the evolutionists all do); verse uses toeba (tau waw ayin beth hey -- comes from ta'ab) to show how it's nothingness-and-demonism, to idolize (whole chapter is on that topic). Also haram, idea of devoted-to-destruction, but I can't find a 'tohu' morphing in it.

  Now if Perfect God makes a thing, it's not trashed up and desolate, when HE makes it. So something happened to MAKE it trashed up and desolate.

  This change from Perfect Order to utter Disorder in the Hebrew, is recognized and translated to reflect the change in the Greek OT (aka "LXX") by the TRANSITIONAL (=reversing change) particle "de" plus the imperfect tense. So we know it's the right interpretation, since the LXX was used by the Lord and the apostles as much or more than the Hebrew OT. You can tell they used it, because the NT was originally written in Greek -- signifying the change of Contract to Church -- and the LXX is quoted in Greek, often. Sometimes the Hebrew OT they had is translated into Greek, instead; this you can also tell in the original languages. [So that validates the LXX as the only God-inspired translation, though of course with every "MSS" (manuscript) you test for Divine Origin, verse by verse. Not every verse of the Hebrew OT is right. Not every verse in the LXX is right. But BETWEEN THE TWO, every verse is right. Where one is wrong, the other is right. So you know God Preserved His Infallible Word in Perfect Accuracy, and you know everyone's been trying to trash up the Word, since it's in all these pieces, now. Just like Satan&Co. trashed the earth, so also the Word Who Made The Earth, is attacked in what He Causes to be Written. Even well-meaning scribes can screw up, too. They screwed up even in Jeremiah's day, Jeremiah 8:8.]

• Sin trashes up and makes desolate. "Genesis" in Greek means the Origin of Man -- especially, the Christ. So the Gen 1:2 RESTORATION, a remaking of tohu wa bohu into Perfection, is Bible's theme: why Bible was written FOR mankind. So tohu wa bohu is first a metaphor of sin; hence the need to be 'born from above', John 3:3, 7, 16. Gen 2:7, explains why: soul is immaterial (not evolved), and thus is trashed up by sin, so you need salvation to clean you up just as the Earth needed the Holy Spirit (Who makes you saved, Titus 3:5) to clean it up, too. All of Gen2 on Adam's nature likewise informs you that he wasn't a hunter-gatherer, so forget anthropology. See? Very different information is in Genesis, but no one READS it! So: it's a literal six-day restoration of the earth, alright; but for the purpose of teaching man how his days are numbered and should be organized -- for going home to live with God forever.
  So think a second: it's FUNNY, that God would say Light, Be! (Gen1:3) and then take 'off' the rest of the day. Whew, that one second's thought is done, restoring the light of the universe. I think I'll relax now. Then this hilarious pattern repeats for another five days. So if you are thinking about it, you realize that For God To Spend Eternity On You, Must Be Real Enjoyable For Him. That's the point to get out of this passage. God Loves You; You Are Worth Every Second To Him, He Makes You Worthy Via Christ On The Cross, so ENJOY learning Him! Couldn't be plainer. Unless the idea of God is frightening to you. Which, this passage proves should not be frightening, but relaxing. One second's faith and bing! you are saved forever, John 3:16. So you too can REST now, theme of Hebrews 4.

  This is very comforting to know. Like everyone else, I am a dufus. But God can bing! me any moment He likes, and make me whatever HE wants. So, what HE wants, is for me to be what I am now. What HE wants, is for me to learn Him, and who-cares-what-else-I-am, for that isn't bothering GOD. Well if it doesn't bother God, then it doesn't bother me. For what else is the use of living, but to live FOR God, Phili1:20-21! No longer having to live for puny banal reasons that so preoccupy and upset, the human race. Hebrew "me ish" means simultaneously BEYOND human, ABOVE human, and FROM Human. Clever term is used sotto voce to designate the Hypostatic Union of Christ in Isa52:14; since dual-natured, the same idea is repeated in the last clause of that verse as "me bene adam", beyond and above and yet from, "the sons of men". Hence becoming beyond what one is, tells you Why HE Went Down, as it were, to add Humanity to Himself and pay for us. So we are now dual-natured, too -- IN Him. So we don't worry about what we are now, 2Cor5 (whole chapter). Our tohu wa bohu messy "old man" nature is being DDNA-converted into His Likeness by living in God's System, per the Eternity Past Contract between Father and Son, "If you will Give Your Soul as a Substitute for sin, You will see Long-Lived Seed", Isa53:10-11 (see DDNA.htm and GodSystem.htm for details). So you are the 'universe' God wants to remake, and He wants to spend every second on you. Not just one second per day!

• Now let's look deeper into Genesis 1:1-2, to find its pointers to other verses in Bible. For every verse in the Bible plays on every other verse, and ALL verses tie back to Genesis.. somewhere.
  • Again, the initial creation of the universe was instantaneous: Hebrew bereshith bara elohim clause, in Gen1:1. The Lord (Son) did that in a nanosecond's willing that it all be so.
  • Satan trashed it up: Hebrew word "tohu" in Gen1:2 always means something TRASHED UP, never something pristine.
  • LXX translates "tohu" with very negative words, which vary with the context, from scene-descriptive to inner-soul descriptive; the strongest of these words is "outhen", Attic Greek for utter futility, good-for-nothing (that kind of "nothing"). 1Sam12:21 and Jer4:23 translate "tohu" this way. Term is always used in connection with demonism (see also 1Cor13:1-3). False gods.
  • Another not-nice synonym for "tohu" in the Greek LXX is "mataiotes", a vacuum in the soul, due to being trashed up with demonic thinking. Many passages here. Isa44:9 is a very satirical passage on how man makes idols out of dead stuff. See also 1Chron21:8, Jer2:5, Ps37:13, Rom1:21, Eph4:17, 2Pet2:18. Isa45:19 plays on it also in a very witty way: "tohu" is "mataiotes" again, how God didn't say we should pursue Him demonically. Always the tie between tohu, outhen, mataiotes, and demons.
  • Gen 1:2 in LXX uses aoratos kai akataskeuastos for tohu wa bohu, stressing how you couldn't see any shape (aoratos) and what you did see was in disorder, outside the proper boundaries of its 'container' (look up uses of skeuos, the antonym). Perfect metaphor for a world under water, whether a Pangea thing, an interglacial thing, or some miracle God flat CHOSE to do, who knows. See also Rom8:20, which uses mataiotes to describe it.

  The LXX words used to translate "tohu", then, are also used to translate other Hebrew OT words. So you go back-and-forth between the LXX words you found for "tohu", and the OTHER Hebrew words which are translated with those same LXX words. For those LXX words are used for more than merely "tohu". (Good lexicons will usually list which Hebrew words are most frequently used for a given LXX word.) So you search in the LXX, on the words used to translate "tohu", to find yet more Hebrew synonyms for "tohu". Then you start all over, back to searching on those Hebrew synonyms, which will lead you to yet more related verses. Which then leads you back to yet more LXX synonyms, then back to the Hebrew, and so on. This is what a pastor is supposed to do. Studying Bible is a forensic thing, not a hallucinated 'vision' thing. 1Jn1:9 and proper academic discipline is essential. God won't spoonfeed you: it's religion which does that paint-by-numbers junk.

  But start simply: just search the "tohu" verses. The 10 which I got quickly in BibleWorks searching ONLY on "tohu" are Gen1:2, 1Sam12:21, Job 26:7, Isa24:10, 34:11, 44:9, 45:18-19 (real important chapter on the topic, includes Satan's trashing up of earth), 59:4, Jer4:23. "The Genesis Gap.htm" at ichthys.com offered these additional verses: Deut 32:10; Job6:18; 12:24; Ps107:40; Isa40:17; 41:29. [That particular icthys.com page is thorough, yet succinct.] These forms are bat(t)ohu and watohu, generally. Another interesting usage of tohu is in Isa29:21: tohu is rendered in the LXX of that verse as "adikos", idea of someone with authority to decide a just cause, abusing it (there, an attorney twisting arguments). "Satan" means "opposing attorney". Another interesting usage is in Isa40:23 (kattohu), which the LXX then renders as "ouden" (common form of "outhen"). Idea of imagining one's power weighty, but really worthless, a nothing in value. Words full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Note: if you have BibleWorks 5 or later, you can get all of these by clicking on the Hebrew word "tohu" WHILE IN the AutoInfo window: that's the only way to get all the morphed versions (it uses WTM to do that).

  So in every usage of tohu whatever its root (tau hey hey is presumed), it's always about the connection between demonism (false doctrine, any kind) and wasteland. Kinda nasty. Kinda very nasty.

  More Initial-creation-was-instantaneous verses: Ps33:6, Ps19:1, by the Son (Heb1:3,10, 11:3, 2Pet3:5, etc). Contrast the Hebrew in them, versus the "asah" restoration reference which is the verb in Genesis, Exo20:11. Frankly Exo20:11 proves flat! that the six days are literal 24-hour periods. Can't otherwise construe Gen1, anyway (the turning of day and night, duh).

  Since the 1950's, my pastor (among others) has taught that earth got trashed up by Satan&Co., as that was their rebellion headquarters, post Satan's Fall. God picked Earth to restore so that the Appeal Trial could play on Satan's stomping grounds. So here are more tohu-related verses he found, with special emphasis on Satan's role: Ps104:30, Jer33:2, Isa14:12-17 (esp. v.17), Eze28:11-19. Isa 45:7's Hebrew for "evil" ra (resh ayin), should be "evil one", Satan -- compares to "darkness" in the previous clause as a parallelism (since God didn't cause darkness (or evil) directly, but did make Haylel-ben-Shachar, aka Satan, the author of it); guess that's why the LXX uses kakos rather than the usual poneros, to tie the type of parallelism (to darkness) in the previous clause. Oh: do a cross-Bible study on poneros!

• Isa45:18 confirms that Perfect Orderly God didn't make the Earth in its Gen1:2ff trashed-up state, but rather there RESTORED it in the six days. Corrected translation and explanation is in this bullet; so now you've two key verses to use for all your Hebrew and LXX synonym-tracing, throughout Bible. Many more than 10 verses tie in to Isa45:18; hundreds of tie-ins. So you'll be doing this forensic connecting for months! Now you know why we all need pastors teaching in the original languages. God ain't a soundbyte...

  Here the classic "He" wordplay on Trinity is depicted, using either "He" or "LORD" in triple, denoting Concert! Greek LXX so wittily picked up on that, and Hebraistically uses the Greek words to pick up the multiple entendre in each clause! Parse 'em out!

  • In Hebrew, the first clause, ki koh amar YHWH bore(h) hashamayim, is the Son talking, ref to Gen1:1 (which uses barah, to create ex nihilo).
  • Second clause, hu ha elohim yotser ha eretz w'asah refers to the Spirit, Gen1:2 (tohu phrase, uses yatser for out-of-tohu, idea of Sculpting restoration).
  • Third clause is Father, because "kun" in Hebrew first means the DECREE TO PROVIDE being Established, Funded; in OT, this corresponds to our redemption, ransom (Heb qanah, see wordplay in Deut 32:6) being a Decreed, Ordered result. [Heb qanah has the root sense of being purchased, paid for, ordered. Not a creation verb, but a Decree verb. Big difference between the two things, and in Mosaic Law and our salvation, that distinction is critical: law of restitution, redemption, acquisition, not a law of creating. The Decree orders a Judicial Redress or Authorization from what is otherwise dead, non-existent, damaged. The actual creating, is a result of the decree which 'bought' (authorized, paid for) it in advance. Trace the usage of qanah in the OT, see for yourself.]

  • Fourth clause Father talks about Both Son and Spirit 'obeying' the Decree (pairs up barah and yatser), and is witty play on Incarnation, here using Earth as God's Home and Footstool, not merely preparation for the dwelling of mankind: the contrasting wit of lotohu and lashebeth is fabulous -- embedded 7th day Indwelling to end waste for all time! (Shebeth sounds like shabath, from which we get "sabbath", the promise of rest.)
  • Fifth and last clause, Each One Speaks in unison, like a Chorus! and clause ending is classic: usu. too tamely rendered "there is no one else", is in either Hebrew or Greek "without Me, nothing! Before Me, nothing!" More aptly: in THIS verse, Hebrew ayin aod means "no turning!" more than it means "nothing". Same is true of the Greek "eti" used to translate "aod", in THIS verse. Meaning: the earth wouldn't revolve if He -- Each He! -- didn't keep wanting it to turn. Turn from doo-doo to Diamonds. Turn to live. Turn to the LORD.
  Bye-bye, big bang theory, God puts nothing on autopilot! Hence the idea that God pre-existed everything, and you can't live without Him! Yes! And yeah, no one else higher, duh: for no one else is the LORD -- for ONE Father ONE Son ONE Spirit -- singing in this verse, as it were, in unison! What a vehement statement that HE did not create the earth 'tohu', but immediately inhabited, and to be Indwelt! Oh! My pastor spent a lot of time on this verse to explain that Satan&Co. had made the earth their headquarters, and they had trashed it up; 45:7 ties in here, for when it says in mistranslation, "I the LORD created.. evil", proper translation is "the evil one" in both Hebrew and LXX. But I didn't expect to find Trinity wordplay in 45:18! That wordplay is usually overlooked by folks who don't understand the HaShem euphemism of the "He" pronoun. So: here's a quick translation of it, so you don't have to wait to enjoy something of this meaning:
  Isa45:18: "For thus speaks the LORD [Son], 'from nothing I, Creating the Heavens [=the universe]; He [the Holy Spirit], the God Reshaping the Earth and Finishing it; which He even He [Father] Decreed as Established, Certain, True, Right, Fixed: [Father now testifies to what He Decreed] NOT as chaos, confusion, wasteland [tohu wa bohu, Gen1:2 point-back, metaphor of sin] did He [Son] create it from nothing, but to be Indwelt [inhabited, but also a play on the eventual Incarnation, Footstool, God-with-us, as distinct from shakan, which is a God-filling-up inner] did He [Spirit] reshape it.' [Now, in Chorus, just like the shemah] 'I, the LORD, and without Me, no further, no furtherance, no [re]turning! Even before all existence, Nothing Else, No One Else, No Duplicate!'" [soundplay on He's Testifying, the Last Word, The One Who Makes the World turn, Who causes each new day to dawn, needing no seconding]." [When an independent pronoun follows a verb, noun, or preposition with the same-person suffix, that independent pronoun is emphasized. It's interesting that the third "hu" denoting Father, follows "asah", especially since "asah" can also mean "decree"; the word order strongly implies, then, that the Holy Spirit's finishing is done due to Father's Decree. To show this emphasis, "which He, even He" is the translation given; for the emphatic use of the pronoun is usually translated by translators as "I even I", "He even He", etc. In English, you have to supply the "which" to show the connectedness between the clauses. "Decreed as Established.." clause is one word, konenah. All meanings of that polel perfect seem called for, especially since the polel is an emphasis of completed, certain result. Cool definition of Decree which my pastor likes to repeat goes something like this: "God's Decree is His Sovereign, Wise, Holy and Eternal Purpose: comprehending at once all things in their causes, conditions, successions and relations; and determining their CERTAIN FUTURITION." The capped words are most stressed in the use of that verb kun (konenah).]

  Hebrew "ayin a'od" is a refrain in both this Chapter, and throughout the OT. Usually, it means no one else is God. But that meaning depends on whether the refrain is used temporally or not. Here it's used temporally, so is translated with the "no furtherance..Duplicate!" phrase, in an attempt to capture more of the many layers of meaning. Two mere Hebrew words mean all that, and really much more. True Genius of Wording is simple, not complex. So takes many human words, to capture even some of the additional meaning. So yes, the two words mean No Duplicate, Unique, No Higher. But the normal term for Uniqueness is "echad" (i.e., in Deut 6:4), so the wordplay here in Isa45:18 is temporal, given context: stressing His in-time testimony that He (Each He) authored the universe, so uses a term with wry emphasis on the Earth turning, the same "ayin a'od". So far, I can't yet think of an English phrase which would better incorporate the uniqueness, Supremacy -- and the Witness/Turning concepts.

  "I, the LORD" is a signature attestation in the OT; So He's giving witness that He is Alone the Witness of His Own Existence in Eternity Past, and there is nothing that can EXIST to testify, apart from Him. Endless wordplay with those last three words, "YHWH wayin a'od" -- notice the 'turning' in the sound, 'ah-yi' (or ah-yo) essentially sounding twice! This is sooo characteristic of the Word!

  The Greek LXX of the verse is so clever; clauses in Greek are matched to the Hebrew in number. First clause-second clause are linked in soundplay on houtos (with omega) as "like", houtos (with omicron) as "this one"; all clauses are linked by same-creation-verb usage (of poiew, a sweeping creation verb, aorist tense) to stress Identicality of Trinity's Essence. In clause 2, the Holy Spirit as "ho Theos" is depicted as coming down to teach the world, Greek verb katadeiknumi; which of course is why He dawdled for six days -- teaching man to order his days! In the 2nd half of the 2nd clause, Spirit's Identicality is indicated by poiew in same aorist active participial form as for Son (in first clause); Father's Decree Role comes next, in third clause, as The One Who Sets the Boundaries; the point-back proximity of poiew matches how asah is used in the Hebrew, stressing His Fatherly Decree as the CAUSE for the Spirit's causing the restoration of the Earth. Fourth clause is Father speaking, testifying that Each Son and Spirit did the initial creation of the universe and restoration of the Earth, respectively. Fifth is Their Triple Chorus. Translated, it goes something like this -- but as always, the original is so much richer, whether Hebrew or Greek! Italics show how the LXX differs.

  "For thus speaks the LORD [Son], Maker of Heaven [=the universe]; This [next] One [the Holy Spirit], God Inventor-and-Teacher of the Earth, even Making it; He [Father] Decreed its Boundaries: [Father now testifies to what He Decreed] NOT resulting in fruitlessness, emptiness, vanity, failure [metaphor of sin] did He [Son, Spirit, same poiew verb] make it, but to be Indwelt [play on Incarnation, Footstool, God-with-us].' [Now, in Chorus, just like the shemah] 'I AM, and no further, no furtherance, no [re]turning! Even before all existence, Nothing Else, No One Else, No Duplicate!'"

  Don't you just WISH you could spend all day and night on Bible, never needing to eat or sleep or do anything else whatsoever? What Glorious Word!

  This verse is picked up on in many NT verses; but for the Christian, the most notable ones are all of John 15 (in context of John 14-17, entire, ties to 4th clause so ties to whole verse); Acts 17:26 (ties to the boundary-setting of earth itself, in 3rd clause of LXX's Isa45:18, same construction idea); Colossians (main theme is a Hebraistic recap of Son's Creating, see also Hebrews 1); and most of all, the "in Him" and "in Christ" and "Christ in" NT verses all play on the third and fourth clauses of Isa45:18, since we are both DECREED created from nothing (the soul at birth, Gen2:7, and at new birth, Titus 3:5, 2Cor5:17); and recreated from tohu (sin nature, which is what tohu stands for everywhere in Bible), Rom6-8, not to mention the bizillion times the NT verses tie to Isa53:10-12, with this 45:18 alongside. Only God can be this smart, this witty!

  See, "Genesis" means the Origin of Man, not the origin of the universe. But the origin of the universe makes a handy metaphor to explain why The Man -- Jesus the Christ -- came. It's an instantaneous creation in Gen1:1, which got corrupted by Satan&Co. (parallel to the later Adam's Fall); then, the Holy Spirit RESTORES what got trashed up over a literal six days to teach the structure of TIME -- just as He regenerates us and restores our souls over time in God's System. So that's the main lesson being taught. When Bible talks of scientific stuff, it's always accurate, and exclusively so. But it never talks about scientific stuff to prove itself right -- it's always got the larger purpose of TEACHING. Obviously you'll see whatever proof you might need, as you learn about God Himself, that He Knows What He is Doing. Meanwhile, science is always guessing. Kinda like how 10 years ago you were told to avoid eggs, coffee, salt but now they are good for your health, science thinks the truth is "a" one day, but reverses it to "-a", the next. That's its job, to keep guessing. God doesn't have to guess. But we don't easily understand what He MEANS in His Book. So we fall all over ourselves misusing it. Not to worry: the Holy Spirit is the Master Re-Engineer of our tohu wa bohu!

Any time I have to comment on why there is no life in the womb, there will be nearby some small-font cites or data which lists yet more of the many keywords and phrases. So, search on "abortion" in my other sites to get this data. Once you see the pattern of the keywords/phrases, you know what else to look for, in Scripture itself. Keywords for point-of-making-soul are mi beten (Hebrew: "mi" means out from separated from away from; beten=womb), and ek koilia (same separatist preposition as Heb, but term is Greek). Both separatist prepositions are taught in first-year seminary courses on these Biblical languages. You can readily SEE the teaching in Mounce's primer on Biblical Greek (appendix on prepositions), and Badillo's tome on the history of the Hebrew language (see his index, then read those pages): Amazon sells those books. Others teach the same thing, so find whatever source you respect.

"Death", 7 types of, in Bible: (physical); (sexual)Rom4; (carnal, believer) keyword "flesh", "fleshly", see Romans 8; (spiritual) in Adam all die, and all-sinned-when-Adam-sinned, meaning of Greek of Rom5:12; my brain went out. I'll come back to this one later.

"Dispensation" verses (aka "God's economy" -- "dispensation" is the olde English term, but it's in the Bible, not an invention of the 19th century): Verses are very many (over 500 on aiwn alone, but not all mean "age" for this purpose), and are usually mistranslated in English (KJV mistranslates some time words as "worlds"). So go by keywords. NT keywords (which have LXX counterparts, so ALL Bible is dispensational) are oikonomia & oikodomia (search also on their cognate verbs), kairos, chronos (sometimes), and especially aiwn, though kairos is favored, too. Some NT verses are (too many OT refs to list): 2Cor3:9, Eph3:21 (critical, Greek lexeme), Matt28:20 (and it's in ALL the best MSS!), Luke 21:24 (the Lord is dispensational); Heb1:2, 9:26c all dispensations are Designed By Father through, owing to Christ. [English uses "universe" or "worlds" for aiwnas, trés bizarre.] Also Heb2:5, same concept as Heb1:2, but applied to eternity. (same mistake in English! keyword in that verse is oikodome, but it's in an idiom with mellw, so more excusable). Also Acts 17:26. Also look up the Greek word "sunteleias", in Bauer Danker or other really detailled lexicon to see etymology. It's used in Matt28:20, Heb9:26c and mistranslated, imo, as "very end", because the etymology is JOINT CONTRIBUTION, idea of fully funding Greek play or other taxed-for-special purpose. That ties to the fact that 1st Advent is its own Dispensation and His Body (Church) is a separate dispensation, together funding the REST of history. Other verses say this doctrine also, but I sure didn't expect to find it here! [L1604 exeg of 1Cor12:7 is way diff from Engl translations. All translations are off, and provably so by ref to unabridged lexicons. I could prove Thieme's translation, even from there. Amazing: sumpheron there has like concept to sunteleias in Matt28:20, too. Dan11:36 also uses the term twice. Notes in BibleWorks on the Cor pass.] "Last days" and "last times" and "end times" are sometimes, but not always, Church Dispensation terms. One example where the term applies instead to the end of one's own life is in 2Tim3:1-2 (often mistaken for last-days "age", but is not). "Mystery" is also a keyword for Church (so used to designate a FAKE Church in Rev17); but you have to separate it from "Mystery of God" which is a separate OT keyword. The similarity between the two terms is deliberate, for both Israel and Church are to be joined together (not replacing each other) at the Cornerstone, Christ: see Eph2. (A more sophisticated parallel passage to Eph2 is in Hebrews, bracketing of Heb8:8-12 with Heb10:15-17 with Heb11:39-40, but it takes too long to explain.) I don't remember whether 2Pet3:18's last word is used to reference the Church Age. (It might be a concatenation? hemaran aiwnos -- sure looks a lot like Paul's Eph3:21 lexeme, but w/"Day of the Lord" flair? Find the class tapes.)

As you search on these words, you'll realize that merely the period to which a particular covenant applies is the "dispensation". In short, it makes no sense why the covenantalists and the so-called 'dispys' fight with each other. Bible has no conflict at all: one is the covenant itself, and the other is merely the time period to which a covenant belongs. Read or hear (a dozen times or more!) all of Ephesians and Hebrews, each book, to get how the two FIT together, not 'fight' together, lol. (Ephesians covers time from Christological standpoint; Hebrews covers covenant from Christological standpoint. Both fit nicely together.) Where do the covenantalists thus get the idea that Church replaces Israel? Where do some 'dispys' get the idea that someone other than Christ was the one to believe in (because some think salvation was somehow differently obtained in OT -- what, is Gen15:6 missing in their Bibles)?

Free Hint: if, while under the Spirit (1Jn1:9 breathed), you read a whole chapter or book over and over, the problems with translation diminish, especially if you try to track the repeated words and get an aerial picture.

Elections, types of: (of Christ) ; (of creation) ; (of believers) Rom8:29-30, ;

Eternal Security (can't lose salvation -- see also the non-wet "Baptism" verses, and "Imputations"): Verses here are very many, because the Bible uses at least 10 different types of metaphors to communicate the fact you can't lose salvation. Root cause for the irrevocability of salvation is Christ, never us: we are Christ's Own Inheritance as King of Kings, just as saved Israel is to be HIS inheritance for Him as Son of David (cf Gal3, Eph1). So: substitution (e.g., 2Cor5:21, 1Pet3:18 -- note "that HE might bring us to God" -- "might" is subjunctive of purpose -- unlike tepid English, Greek has no doubt factor in it); all "redeemed/ redemption" (legal-status) verses used of people vis á vis God; blot verses tie to the redemption verses as well -- hard to search these in English. In Greek there are a good 50 verses with the 'blot' keyword exalepho alone (it changes ph-to-ps when it morphs); Hebrew is machah; gotta search on all synonyms (both actual and conceptual), too. All "reconciled-to-God" type verses; "born again" (e.g. John 3:16, esp. in context); legal-status litmus of have believed/have not believed (e.g., John16:9); "HAVING BEEN justified" (e.g., Rom5:1); "saint" (cf. beg. of most epistles); sonship (e.g., Heb12:6ff); heirship ("promise"/ "covenant"/ "inheritance" connected to the believer "us"/"you"), (i.e., Heb9:15ff); eternal life attribution (e.g, John10:28, 11:28); "Righteousness" attribution (e.g., 2Cor5:21); "in" Christ (position, e.g., 2Cor5:17 and all of Romans 6,8); "Sealing/Sealed" (ancient world's signature guarantee, search on "Holy Spirit" and "Sealing", below); priesthood status (because priesthood appointments are always for lifetime, e.g., 1Pet2:5,9 esp. compared with Heb7). In English, some of the more obvious verses in these areas are: Gal3:13&26, 1Pet1:23&3:18, Tit3:5, John3:16,18,36,16:9 1Cor3:15, 2Cor5:14,15,17,21, Ex32:32, Rev3:5; Heb12:6ff, Jn10:28, 1Jn2:25, 1Jn5:13 (5:11 and following), Acts 13:48, Jn17:2, Rom2:7, Rom5:8&21, Heb2:9&9:12, Heb11:7. Also: English translations reading "everlasting life" is really "Eternal Life" in orig langs. The two are NOT the same (unbelievers have everlasting life, too -- in Hell. Eternal Life, by contrast, is an Attribute of God, His Own type of Life. We sorta 'break into' it, as my pastor likes to note, upon salvation.)

Faith Alone in Christ Alone: There are hundreds of verses here. Most verses assume you already know it's faith alone, in both OT and New, so most verses referencing this fact of the only way to be saved, are allusive and in wordplay. If you have a computer Bible program like BibleWorks, search on "faith" and "believe" and their synonyms (or cognates), as your starting point in comprehensive research. Remember the basis for salvation is the Cross, so you either BELIEVE in Him or not; thus you can search on all those 'basis' verses as well, to assure yourself you're not hallucinating meaning. (See, if the Cross Basis is recognized, then you know for sure that nothing but belief is a valid verb for salvation, since there's nothing 'leftover'; which, of course, Bible repeatedly says.) Some of the balder, easier verses to see are: John 3:16,18,36 (really all of John 3 is a treatise), 16:9; Acts 16:31, Eph1:13, 2:8-9; Romans4:4, Gen15:6, Rom2:28(circumcision analogy), Phil3:9. Handy chapters of Bible which interrelate basis and that initial belief-for-salvation are 2Cor5, Galatians (whole book), Heb4-10, Romans 5-8 [all of which also explain how post-salvation life is a structural repeated believing, so Bible's consistent -- you don't get saved by faith and then work your buns off, you keep hearing and believing to grow up spiritually (main theme of Rom8)]. As you might guess, we of the 21st century aren't the first people to have trouble with the Gospel: nearly all the NT is based on it, to show WHY God constructed salvation (i.e., why not works). OT is largely based on it as well, but the writing style uses so many concrete metaphors (i.e., lamb analogy depicts basis and the OT sacrifice depicted belief), it takes more time to comprehend.

Related searches on why works are absolutely invalid, are important. Isa64:6, all of Isa53 (52:13-54:1, syntactically), Cain versus Abel (and Heb11 commentary on them), the Lord's comments about the Pharisees, Rom9 (Esau who didn't believe, versus the clearly-fallible Jacob, who did believe), Biblical verses on and by David (who nearly anyone remembers committed what humans would regard as big sins) -- these are but a few categories of Biblical research you can do to better see that Infinite God can't be satisfied by works. See, if you don't know the 'theory' (or logic) behind a verse, you can't properly interpret it. God makes sense. Works make no sense. If works, then why have a Cross? Stuff like that, analysis like that, should help you troubleshoot and prove that only Faith Alone in Christ Alone, is used by God to save you. Faith Alone in Christ Alone is a vote to BE saved based on God's criteria -- a vote, because God's Love never coerces. See the logic? Now -- when you read verses with that logic (John 3 is a great place to start, even in any translation) -- see if they don't suddenly make much more sense than you thought. (If you ever once did believe in Christ for salvation, you also need to keep breathing 1Jn1:9 as you read; keep asking Father in Son's Name to cause the Spirit to make you understand Bible better -- or your sin nature will skew the reading to suit accumulated prejudices, and you'll waste your time.)

Gentiles, prophecies of: This is one of the biggest doctrines in the Bible, in terms of verse quantity. It is a key to God's outline of all prophecies and to God's organization of the timelines of history. Essentially, Israel was supposed to evangelize the nations, but did not sufficiently do so. So, the prophecy was that a) the Gentiles would eventually get the 'light' (keyword, OT), and b) God would do it anyway, using it in part to discipline Israel for not fulfilling its priestly-evangelical role. Some really big passages on this topic easily come to mind: Isa54, Hosea's not-my-people, whole book of Jonah. But the references are everywhere. If you search on "Gentiles" or "nations" verses, you get a good many of them. However, in typical Biblical style, many more verses are uncovered by allusion -- meaning, some key concept central to the prophecy, or some keyword within one or more specific prophecies is tangentially mentioned in a verse. For example, when Paul talks about Israel's jealousy (Deut32:31 referenced in Rom10:19, 11:11, 11:14) he's talking about this prophecy. To see it, you might start by reading Bible beginning at Exodus, highlighting any references. For another example, the entire "call" to Israel to be a priest nation is itself stressing the prophecy. For, Israel was to be the salvation of the world, and thus the messenger to the world about Messiah-to-come. There is so much more to say here, but this brief set of 'hints' will have to do.

God's Nature, Attributes:(Eternal Life)1Jn5:20,Isa57:15,Hab1:12,(Righteousness)Dan9:7,Rom1:17,3:21,

Heirship of believer (See also "Crowns" and "Inheritance"): Rom8:17

Hell, existence of:Matt18:8,Mat25:41,Luke16:9,Isa66:16,

Hell, nonexistence of:

Holy Spirit, Godness and role of:Gen1's "Spirit of God". OT has too many verses to list. "Spirit of the Lord" and "Spirit of God" are the most common titles referencing Him. (In the Lord's Day, the Pharisees believed in the Spirit, but the Saducees did not, so the awareness of these verses was well-established, viz., Acts 23:8.) Some cites are: Gen6:3, Gen 41:38, Exo35:31, Numb11:17,25, Numb11:26, 24:2, 2Kings2:16, Isa11:2. There is a truly horrible false doctrine that the Holy Spirit is a 'manifestation' of God. I don't know where that nonsense comes from, but the egregious mistranslation of 1Cor12:7 in all Bibles I have (English or not) might be a reason. The word translated "manifestation" (and in non-Eng, cognate forms), which in original lang is the action noun "phanerosis": "Doctrinal teaching". Better (i.e., Bauer) lexicons usually say 'revelation' or 'disclosure of truth': which is fuzzier, but certainly not "manifestation"! (Frankly, that whole verse is mangled in every translation I have.)

It's real important to examine these verses in light of the huge OT prophecy concerning the Gentiles -- that God would one day be their 'light', too. You won't "get" the dramatic change and increase in the references to the Spirit in the NT if you don't understand the OT prophecy is being demonstrated in the NT as fulfilled and sibling to the upcoming fulfillment of all covenants to Israel ("Footstool"): using a good study Bible which has good cross-verse-references, see Peter's explanation at Pentecost in Acts 2. This background about the prophecy to the Gentiles is why the Lord's Humanity was deemed so offensive to the Sanhedrin, and why Paul was persecuted as well. For, this prophecy's fulfillment was foretold to be due to Israel's apostacy: Isa7, Isa28:10 are two of the "signs" that this prophecy was about to occur, and it was not good news only, but Judgement (akin to Church's Rapture in meaning). Keyword "Gentiles" or "nations" or "times of the Gentiles" (latter is in Luke 21:24). To recognize this is a separate prophecy from Israel's own helps one avoid the trap of thinking that Church replaces Israel. Since Divine Discipline for anti-semitism is so severe (see Gen12 promise to Abram), if you've any doubts on this topic you should investigate, rather than assume that Church replaces Israel in any way.

NT references are also many: like in the LXX, references to the Spirit are easy to distinguish in Greek because "the" (common Greek article) is missing (if missing, denotes the highest quality) or is used like English "the" (only of its kind, monadic). Some of these are: Matt1:18,20, 22:43, . Some verses are egregiously misinterpreted as if the Holy Spirit was less than God -- due to poor Greek scholarship, viz., John 15:26 and Eph4:30. (In John 15:26, "proceed" is Greek ekporeuomai, and it is a MILITARY term: Father being the First in Authority, 'sends out', orders, etc. Has nothing to do with inherent Co-Equality of persons. Stupid creeds which argue over this verse! Re Eph4:30: Attic genitive of Apposition should thus be translated, "Spirit, [who is]God" -- because that use of genitive denotes ESSENCE); 2Cor13:14 (In Greek, separate articles before each name means that they are SEPARATE PERSONS; here, each individually WHOLLY GOD. The article is used to denote MORE THAN ONE of same type. If one article for MORE than one name, means same INDIVIDUAL: "Granville Sharp" rule. (put in other verses here, and explain how ruach and pneuma can be distinguished as referring to Him rather than to breath/wind/life/human spirit.)

HOLY SPIRIT's Many(!) Roles: this list is very incomplete, as many keywords denote Him by FUNCTION, just like they do with Father and Son. So, do searches based on Divine Function to see better Who is Who. Note also in the NT none of the Lord's critics, nor Paul's critics, ever asks Who "Father" is, nor Who "Spirit" is. So they knew. (Father is essentially Planner/Grantor; Son, Executor/Heir; Spirit, quasi-motherly-metaphor: because Birther/Restorer/Mentor -- these roles are uniformly portrayed throughout Scripture, not just NT.) Also, As with the other Members of Trinity, because "the Name" is Sacred, "He" and "Him", etc. are often the only 'markers' given in the verses.

• Giver of Gospel: Matt12:32, Mark 3:29, Jas1:21 (in context and by analogy);
• Maker of efficacious salvation & "regeneration": human spirit Luke 1:35(precedence), John 3:5-8("of water" is Greek idiom for physical birth, breaking of amniotic sac), Jn6:63; Jas2:14&26, Tit3:5 (on regen);
• Church only: Baptism of Spirit aka Union w/Christ aka Temple: Matt3:11(prophecy), Acts1:5-8(fulfilled) -- many more verses in "Baptism" purple topic;
• Teacher (there are many OT verses -- this listing is just for Church): "Paraklete" verses (Greek word Parakletos means military advisor/mentor, trainer of royal/noble sons); Jn3:34, Jn4:24,14:24-26, 1Cor2, Eph1:17, Jas1:5, Jas3:17, 2Pet3:15, 1 Cor12:7 (but translations are all wrong, so use a good lexicon and parse the verse: pros to sumpheron is ATTIC greek, accusative of purpose, too. It's really the meaning of phanerosis which gets screwed up in translations, and it makes no sense why. The entire meaning of the verse depends on properly understanding that word.)

• Church only: Filling of soul, aka "spiritual" in NT, removed by sin, regained by naming sins -- see "Confessing", above: Matt3:16, 4:1, 12:18, Mark1:12; Luk4:14, 10:21; John 1:33, interesting (precedence), Matt10:20, Luke 11:13, 12:12; Luke 24:49, Jn4:23,7:39,14:17, 16:13-15 (really, all of Jn Chaps 14-16 is a primer); Acts 1:8 (prophesied; however OT prophecy of "I will pour My Spirit upon all flesh is a 2nd Advent prophecy, not Church, but Church is catalyst for it, see Acts2), Jn20:22, Acts1:5-8, Eph5:18 (fact of), Eph4:30 (stop grieving), 1Thess5:19 (stop quenching/squelching); plus Luke 1:15 (NIV trans is right), 1:47,67,80, 2:25; Acts 8:15, Rom8:26, Rom15:13, Eph1:17, 3:16, Phili1:19, -- see also all "spiritual" verses in NT

• Church only: Indwelling: see "Indwelling", below;
• Church only: Sealing -- Dan6:17 explains what "sealing" meant in ancient times; see also 2Cor1:21-22 (phenomenal wordplay with kai in Greek stressing His Godness, also reminds you how Genesis 1 is double-entendre for regeneration and the spiritual life, esp. using Heb loanword arrabona); Eph1:13, Eph4:30 (desc./appositional genitive stresses His Godness);
• Giver of Spiritual Gifts: wording is not what one expects. In 1Cor12:7, if anyone ever translated it properly, you'd see the bald statement that all spiritual gifts are fueled by the Doctrinal Teaching (phanerosis) FROM (origin) the Holy Spirit, which benefits the whole team (sumpheron). In short, if you don't live on doctrine, you're sitting on the bench, no matter what you do.

  First the Son gave the spiritual gifts @Ascension, Eph4:7-11 (also Acts1). Father delegated Spirit to give gifts after that in order to glorify the Son (per my pastor, who uses Heb2:4, 1Cor12:11 as cites, but the Greek is often very different from the English trans. in both books). 1Cor12 is flagship, whole chapter, but most are temporary gifts, there: as Paul explains in 1Cor13-14 (child metaphor). So where do people get the crazy idea that 'Tongues' was not a human language suddenly used to evangelize visiting foreign unbelievers who don't know Aramaic or Gallilean, thus also showing Isa28:7-11 was "on" (Gentile speech sounding to the Jewish ear like drunken speech, in context), presaging the 70AD Temple destruction? Lord first gave the spiritual gifts, to fulfill OT prophecy related to advertising Resurrection and 'times of Gentiles' (see Eph4:8ff); but also some only for the disciples, temporary calling cards. In short, most of the gifts were temporary either for the sake of teaching doctrine until Canon completed (same overall approach as used for the making of the OT itself); or, as part of the change-in-dispensation OT prophecy. (Mark 16:15-20; "with their hands" in v.18 is not in the better Greek MSS, and there's no connotation in Greek that one should seek to handle either snakes or poison: see related verses Luke 10:19 and Acts 28:4-5.) [See also 92SD L.1602-4.]

• UNFELT, 1st Advent and Church Only: you find this doctrine by what is omitted. The Gospels make clear the Lord is always Filled with the Spirit. So, then: do you see Him frothing at the mouth, rolling in the aisles, "getting the Ghost"? Do you see Paul doing that? Or Peter, John -- do any of them counsel that you get emotional as a result of Filling? Who rolls in the aisles or froths at the mouth, in Gospels or Acts, except demon-influenced or possessed persons? Think. The above verses, what are the roles? What did Paul warn about orderliness with respect to the temporary spiritual gifts, in 1 Corinthians? Beware of those who think that Filling is a felt thing. remember the "still, small voice" principle (1 Kings 19:11-13).

"Judge for yourselves" (Holy Spirit is Authority): 1Cor2, 2Cor13:5, Acts17:11,

Justification: Rom5:1, Isa53:10-12 in LXX and BHS original-language texts (not merely either one alone), all "tsedekah" and "dikaios" verses used in connection with man (hundreds of them); all "sanctified" or "sanctification" verses in the NT.

Learning Bible Doctrine, verses on: see "Priest-Kingship" table below. Also, Hos4:6,Prov4:8,Ps138:2,2Tim3:16,Tit1:9,2:10, 2Jn9, Jas1:22, Ps119:98, Prov8:11, Luk2:52, Acts 7:22,Rom11:33,1Cor1:24,1Cor2:16&1Cor1:30,

Matching-of-Justice by God, esp. regarding Judgement(see also SpirPath.htm). This is an extremely important doctrine to understand. It works both ways: positively, and negatively, as you'll see if you examine the following verses. Judges 1:7, Ps18:25, Ps137:7 (136:7 in LXX), Jer5:19, Obad1:15, Matt7:1-2, Mark 4:24, Luke 6:38, 2Cor 9:6, 2Thess 1:6-7, Jas2:13 (compare to flipside, the "royal law", Lev19:18 stated in Jas2:8); Rev18:6.

Mediatorship (of Christ), role of: 1Tim2:3-6, Job9:2,30,32-33, all "Mercy Seat" and "Redeemer" verses, whole book of Hebrews (esp Chapts 1-3, 5:1-10,6:13-20,7,8-10);2Cor5:21 (sample verse showing the essential function of Mediator),

NOTE: Israel related to the Son as God of Israel; the Levitical Priesthood was to His Deity, not to the Father's. By contrast, Church relates to Father, as Priest under Son's Humanity (see Priest-Kingship table, below). From what I can tell, because He hadn't yet taken ON Humanity, no one was allowed to pray to Father directly; nor was prayer strictly a priestly role; further, by praying to Son's Deity, since He would become High Priest to Father (viz., prophecy in Ps110:1), OT prayer wouldn't have to BE a strictly priestly role. There is an extra running conditional promise to Israel that if they persisted, they could become the priestly nation to Father. But that promise was not fulfilled, because Israel CORPORATELY did not fulfill its conditions.

So the screwed-up claim that Judaism was monotheistic probably stems from truncating this 'kernel of truth', that the God of Israel, though not the sole God, was the only direct object of Israel's worship. Father is essentially saying, Love Me by loving My Son. So when the Lord says in the Gospels that if you've seen Him you've seen the Father -- and note how no one ever asks who "Father" is -- the Lord is simply interpreting Deut 6:4. One can trace the mutation of the truth into the childlike, truncated concepts of one-God, God-too-high-to-know, and other surviving Judaic/non-Judaic distortions, from that 'kernel'. You can quickly tell it's a mutation: just Who was to RECEIVE the sacrifice of the Lamb of God? Certainly not the God Who would take on Humanity, depicted by the Ark! So to Who would the payment for sins be made? See how obviously Father is depicted? And the Holy Spirit is blatantly displayed in OT, and even in Talmud you find frequent references to Him. (Wish I had the time to write whole webpage on it all!)

Yet, the claim that Judaism and Christianity are each monotheistic is NOT screwed up, for look: Since Father Son Spirit are Co-Equal but do NOT choose to have Co-Equal Authority, as evidenced by Their Self-Chosen Titles, then "Father" is the One GOD Whom both Son and Spirit would rather worship, than use Their Own Godness to benefit Themselves. Stronger statement: that They SOVEREIGNLY deem using Their Own Godness to worship FATHER as the very benefit of BEING Co-Equally God. So, there really IS but One God as the Object of Worship, the Father, as evidenced by the testimony of the titles "Son" and "Spirit"; but, Father is too high for man to directly worship UNTIL Son takes on Humanity and VIA the Spirit, successfully pays for all the sins of mankind. You can see this all explained succinctly in Galatians 3-5; Ephesians 1-4; Heb1,2,5-10, if you seek to trace this idea in those passages. Hence, it becomes easier to empathize with those who, having a childish understanding of this structure, would simply truncate it to "one God".

The First Advent was thus a dramatic change: for the first time, they were allowed to pray to Father, because Son DID take on Humanity, so they could become that priestly nation through HIM, just as promised back in the OT. However, they rejected Messiah. So, those who DID believe in Him became part, instead, of a different covenant: Church. Church thus is not a priesthood to Son, but exclusively to Father, as Book of Hebrews painstakingly explains -- Son's Humanity is our High Priest. Israel thus still gets its own priesthood to Son and other covenants' fulfillment, at 2nd Advent. So you have two priesthoods, and two of the Godhead are separately the Object of Worship in each of them: joined, as it were, in the God-Man Who Himself is King-Priest kata Melchizedek to Father. See Eph1-2, esp. cornerstone analogy in Chapter 2. [Again, note how there is a type of monotheism of worship Object, which if truncated would result in the distortion that there is only 'one' God. LordvSatan2.htm and its kin trace out this doctrine to examine, test-for-accuracy& coherence.]

Pastor-teachers, role of: see RightPT.htm for a fuller explanation. All of 1 and 2Tim, Eph4:11-16 (in Greek: English is fuzzy and misleading). OT precedence is extensive: prophets were pastors and foretellers (but as Hebrews 1 and Rev19:? explains, all foretelling now goes through the Son); rabbis and priests also had teaching roles. In NT, pastors alone have that authority (Eph4:11's poime kai didaskalos, a hyphenated term due to Granville Sharp rule). Important to distinguish between the authority and the any-believer-can-explain (witness or "refreshment" "encouragement") role. The latter has no authority.

Position in Christ, of believer: 2Cor5:17, Col1:25-27, all "in Christ" or "in Him" verses in NT; John's term for this is "born of God", viz. 1Jn5:18. See also "Baptism of Spirit" in the "Baptism" purple topic, above.

Reconciliation (part of Work of the Cross), verses on: "Peace" offering in OT, also depicted in Nazirite vow (e.g. Numb6); Rom5:11, Isa53:5,

Redemption (part of Work of the Cross), aka "Ransom" (payment which causes Redemption), verses on: Ps49:8, Ps111:9, Rom8:23, Job19:25; some redemption of soul at salvation verses are Eph4:30, Gal3:13, Eph1:7, Col1:14 (both the Eph and Col. cites are in Attic Greek, not koine, so likely mistrans'd and nowadays misinterp'd), Heb9:12, 1Pet1:18-19. Body redemption verses are ones like Eph4:30 and the really-famous chapter in 1Cor15 (though 'spiritual body' in English is a bad translation, and very misleading); 1Thess4 is on it also. "Day of Redemption" is a synonym for what we today call the "Rapture" (a term derived from a Latin translation of 1Thess4:13; real Bible word for what we call the Rapture is exzanastasis, lit. "exit-resurrection" in Phil3:11).

Redeeming the time: Usu. mistranslated in English: Eph4:16, Col4:5 (same three words in Greek). KJV gets it right.

Resurrection of Christ: Father's role in restoring Christ's Human Spirit to and from Heaven and to the Grave, Acts 2:24, 27, Rom6:4, Eph1:20, Col 2:12, 1Thess 1:10, 1Pet1:21. Spirit's role in restoring Christ's Soul to and from Hades and to the Grave, Rom 1:4, Rom8:11, 1Pet3:18. Christ's role in His Own Resurrection (using His Deity), Jn 2:18-22. [My pastor reads this passage as saying the Lord created His Own Resurrection Body, so that passage alone completely destroys all those goofy 'shroud' ideas. See also the Greek of John 20:6, which show the traditional burial STRIPS (othonia, plural) being left in the tomb. Somewhere in my websites I cover the shroud fantasy in more detail, but can't remember which page has the material. Relic hunters have precarious faith and big emotional problems obstructing their faith; that's why blatant Bible verses like John 20:6 -- which is only correctly translated in NIV, but NIV is a popular translation -- can sit there, unnoticed, making a fool of those who believe in the shroud thingy. Common sense would tell you God wouldn't leave behind a naked picture of His Son's Body, especially since He bared His Soul for us to learn, aka the Bible, 1Cor2:16. Pray for all relic hunters? Note to self: latest review on this topic is L1818, 92SD.]

The Resurrection of Christ is the Justification for History to Continue, and for Church receiving so much power: see Eph1. So you couldn't BE filled with the Spirit, if Christ weren't Resurrected. DDNA1.htm's "First Aspect" and "Third Aspect" explain more on why the Resurrection is important ("First" covers now, "Third" covers eternity). In Bible (esp. the NT), "Resurrection" functions as a moniker for the JUSTIFICATION AND RELEASE of God's Omnipotence: to see that, look up all NT verses with "Resurrection" in them.

Idea of the Payment living forever, so Father is forever propitiated, main theme of Romans 6. I really need to make a webpage solely on this topic: DDNA3.htm is the closest one, for now. See, freedom is curtailed if there is no "forever" characteristic to soul life. God is Free, so would never curtail anything. That sets up the problem of there having to BE a "hell" ("Lake of Fire" is the forever-name, in Bible) forever. Okay, but then God has to hear all that evil forever, too. So what pays for the injustice to Him having to hear it? God isn't compensated by pain. (Only evil people think pain is compensating to the victim.) The only compensation can be a LIVING PAYMENT that also lasts forever: Our Lord's Humanity, Who paid for sins (present-value concept, see someone who knows finance for an explanation). For sin is the source of all evil (specifically, all sin is rooted in self-righteousness, see Gen3). And of course the sinning goes on forever, in "hell" (and its later spinoff universe, the Lake of Fire). Which is why getting a Royal Family of Priests to complement the Living Payment's Thinking forever, results in Church. It's a 24/7 communion, which is designed to be built down here, and functioning forever 'up' there (really, in the new universe which constitutes the eternal state).

Thinking is everything. Misery means you don't share the same thinking as someone with whom you must be in close association. Happiness, means you do. So it's not a status question, but a thinking question, and Christ's Thinking Paid For Sins on the Cross, Isa53:10-11 (both inspired texts, not just the Heb or the Greek, see Isa53.htm, last full screen, for an amalgamated translation). So since Christ was Successful in that Payment, He is Resurrected, He Ascended, and was Seated (Humanity 'sits'). Operation Footstool is now playing (LordvSatan3.htm and LvS4a.htm explain that in detail, long pages). So the Thinking can replicate in us.

That's why the Resurrection is a JUSTICE issue, not an is-God-able issue. It's a Judicial Miracle that Holy God can put His Thinking in us sinners. If there was no Justifiable Way to do that, we'd not be Judicially Allowed to Exist: it wouldn't be fair to God to see such too-low and rebelling Creatures. But due to the Success of the Cross, which the Resurrection signifies, we can not only exist -- but we can Get His Thinking. That's why we have a Bible, His Thinking in Writing (Heb4:12, Greek wordplay using OT familiar terms).

Big Bible Chapters on this Architectural Design are Romans 6, 2Cor5, Hebrews 5-10 (especially Chapter 7), all of Ephesians (which in the Greek gives you the blow-by-blow structure and mechanics of the results and how to live them). 1Cor is on this topic also but it's sotto voce, and is so mistranslated (key verse being His Word in your words, Greek wordplay in 1Cor1:5, 10, etc.) -- you can't see it in translation. Wordplay is awesome. Note the contrast: a) dingdongs who doubt God can make a tree also doubt He can resurrect Christ, so focus on human ideas of light and mass to justify believing what was a flat miracle (hello); but b) Bible focuses on the Judicial WHY of the Resurrection, and What Judicial Results Occur. Idea of getting Infinity to cycle inside your head, for 24/7 Communion of Thinking (not emoting). Search and ponder all Resurrection verses, trace their keywords, see for yourself. [Those who want to lie to themselves that God doesn't exist will neatly do so by claiming they can't see any natural explanation for stuff said in Bible, therefore the Bible is wrong. Hello -- if it were a 'natural' thing, then it's not coming directly from God, get it? So if you circumscribe your criteria for belief to a non-God set, then you can smugly conclude God doesn't exist. Lawyers pull that gambit in courtrooms everyday...]

Bible is always about the whys, big-picture; for Omnipotent God can do anything He likes, but.. what justifies what use of His Power? Love loves Justice (refrain in OT). God's Hermeneutics: to properly discern Bible, you must be in God's System, and you should look for the underlying structures on which the verses are built. Then and only then can you see the design, and thus interpret a verse, a passage, pan-Bible. If my pastor has taught that rule once, he's taught it a bizillion times, in as many variations-of-phrasing, as there are days in 50+ years. John 4:23-24 is but one succinct verse in Scripture, depicting this rule. For, only GOD can properly tell you about Himself.

So look for the Justice angle God covers, in any Bible verse; when you find the answer from God's Point of View, your faith will burgeon. It's most scientific and objective to find the LAW of a thing. It's least scientific and objective to look at pieces of what seems a puzzle, when you have no box cover: blind men and the elephant. It's sheer "rationalization" -- a psychological defense mechanism denoting irrationality feigning reason -- to restrict your data set to what buttresses the conclusion you want anyway. Evolution is based on the irrationality of a set containing itself, which math proves false (see Evolshort.htm). So let's not make the same tautological mistake, with what Bible says of the Resurrection: look for the Judicial Law the Bible explains, and you'll have more objective proof than you can even imagine, of the facts.

After all, the first law of science is that the proof of a theory, is what is successfully explains. Evolution explains nothing conclusively: you can take the same data and prove from it Intelligent Design, and even the cause-and-effect nature of the evolution construct science lauds, points to a Designer (must be an Ultimate cause, see). Godindex.html goes through some of those issues. So look for what the Bible says is the 'theory', and then look at any facts you like, testing the Biblical explanation. Of course, most people don't live in God's System so can't read the Bible properly, so naturally can't see how the Bible fits and perfectly explains virtually any fact you wanna name; how literally everything you see displays Biblical truth, no matter where you look (true isotropic property of the universe, Romans 1:19-20 due to deiknumi clause of Isa53:10-11, LXX). And, it takes time to learn what the Bible says -- lots of time. Which most people, won't do.

So poorly-understood ideas applied to facts yield garbage ideas, viz., that Genesis 1 depicts the initial creation of the world. It doesn't: inspired Hebrew and Greek texts of Gen1:2 tell you right away that a change occurred post-creation-of-universe (tohu wa bohu with the adversarial use of waw, Heb; imperfect eimi and disjunctive particle hey, in the Greek). Adam is not a hunter-gatherer, but rather God makes him a taxonomic biologist -- yet who notices that, when reading Genesis 2? So, see: if we don't really know what the Bible says, we can't test it. And we are enjoined to test it, viz., "the ear tests truth" in Job -- so we test our understanding, and thus learn better. But no one learns anything, outside God's System: see GodSystem.htm.

If you also happen to be under the same pastor as mine (or his son), tie the meaning of Resurrection (which is the Power System) to his year 2000+ classes on how "Love is the Integrity of God!" (which topic really begins back in his Romans '77 exegetical tapes, though he didn't describe God's Integrity the same way back then). The Rom5:5 depiction of he agape tou Theou being a LOVE-INTEGRITY CIRCLE So That Infinity Can Cycle inside our puny souls is the whole meaning of life. Christ's Resurrection is what Justifies that Circle Being Built In Us (see last half of Rom5 in the original Greek). Seriously. I "get it" now. DDNA.htm is the highest of my webpages (and the longest) on the topic, which seeks to weave together the internal meaning of what happens to the believer in God's System: the transmutation of thinking referenced in the original Greek (not English) of Romans 12:1-3. Took me 33 years to "get it" from hearing my pastor's classes day in and day out; hopefully some reader will have a shorter timeline partly due to that webpage (assuming God wants to use it).

Respect and justice don't require hallowed tones, fancy words, gestalt ideas.. or rah-rah. Sadly, political correctness in all centuries always motivates man to cheapen respect and justice with such boasting, rustling-robes' noises; so, the average joe calls such noises 'love' or 'truth'. But those are Satan's noises -- oh, if only the TONE of Matt4 were properly translatable! So seek CONTENT, not sound. Seek God, not popularity. Seek to learn the original language texts of Scripture (as much as possible), not the noisy translations. Then you will truly be set free, John 8:32, Gal5:1,22, Heb11:6.

Righteousness of man: Isa64:6 ("filthy" there is literally "menstrual"), "none..righteous" verses (passim in NT and OT, first in OT), "stench" verses; Rom5:12's "come short" clause; "unclean" verses (not mere ceremonial uncleaness, but rather substantial ones like the "I am a man of unclean lips");

Sainthood of believer: Deut33:2, Rom8:27, all "saint" verses

Salvation: Context is critical here, as "save" in the Bible is used in more ways than merely the getting-you-to-Heaven sense. As saved-for-heaven: Acts16:31, John3, Eph2:8-9 "shall live, even if he dies" (the Way Truth Life verse); as delivered-from-upcoming-destruction, or saved from loss/harm: "endure" verses;

Sanctification: Jn17:19, 1Cor1:2,30,Heb10:14-17(tied to Footstool)

Sins, verses of: (of the tongue) Eph4:29,Tit3:2,(anger)Jas1:20,(hatred)1Jn4:20,Gen27:41, 2Sam13:15,Jn15:25,17:14,Num35:20,Ps25:19, (pride)Prov6:17, Rom12:16,

Sola Scriptura (aka Canon is completed w/Rev), verses supporting: See:"Bible is Infallible", above. Frankly, this is a Promise from the beginning, baldly illustrated by the fact MOSES Wrote the first five books of the Bible, which the people were then to 'write' in their hearts: see Deut 6, 9, 30. Which promise Jeremiah repeats to comfort Israel in the context of their losing the Ark, in Jer31:31-34. David notes the promise frequently; i.e., when he prostrates himself in Ps138:2. The Ps119 people, who were torturously marched to Babylon, kept on recalling this PROMISE and 'writing' Scripture in their hearts: when they say, "Thy Word is Truth." Poignantly. Of course, the very meaning of calling the Lord, "The Word" sums up the entire REASON why getting Written Word is so important: to know HIM. His Humanity is the Completed Writing in a Human Soul of all this Truth, which He Became ("Way..Truth..Life" verse). Which, until that happened, people couldn't get the REST of the Word written in them (John 7:39). See? The entire point is to get the Word written in you. So, the writer of Hebrews also repeats the Jeremiah promise in Heb8:8-12, to show how, now that Christ is Risen and Seated (theme since Chapter 1), Church Gets Completed Canon As The Method To Implement "Footstool", bookending in Heb10:15-17, martureo in EFFECTIVE PRESENT TENSE.

Of course, if you don't read and know the nuances of the Bible's original languages, you won't see all this meaning, since its wordplay is largely untranslatable in English. So, for example, you won't recognize what Peter means in Acts 2 by interpretatively-changing the Joel quote to reference this promise; what Paul means in 1Cor13, anephorically showing how Canon is a completion to complete the Body of Christ. So, for example, you won't recognize that all those pre-Canon gifts were just substitute teachers, "until the Perfect has come" (v.9). The Perfect Mind of Christ (1Cor2:16), for which written text they were hoping (v.13). Bible is not simple, and the biggest PROMISE of the OT is Messiah, so therefore the RECORDING of Messiah's thinking. So, Bible won't just dully say, "Hi, I'm infallible Mind of Christ". Oh no: anyone can say that, lying. Instead, Divine Drama is needed. Wordplay is needed. So you can't but realize only a Divine Mind Could Write It. Over and over and over...

So, there are really hundreds of verses reiterating both the Promise and its Fulfillment, in Bible. Foundational truths in the Bible are expressed normally using foundational elements of the language, like case endings, nuances in a tense, etc. So, for example, Paul uses the IONIC DATIVE in Ephesians 2:10 to show we are all Founded On And For Christ (instead of "Ion", the mythical founder of the Greek sea peoples -- great wordplay). So, for example, Paul spends Chapters 12-13 of 1Cor to show that the "body" of Canon will be completed for Church. But if you don't know the Greek you can't follow its wordplay, esp. with "meros" (part of a WHOLE; translations chop that meaning to "part", so you don't get the real meaning Paul writes). So, since there are so many references to Bible being completed with Revelation (baldly stated as such in Rev22:6-21 If you know Greek drama epilogues), you should ask whoever you respect for what verses, etc. THAT person thinks are apt.

Temptation, role of: Matt4, Gethesemene prayer, Heb4, Rom4. What's essential to understand about temptation is the word itself: Greek word is the same as TESTING, pereizo. Love is essentially tested in every temptation. Christ CHOSE to be tempted, so one should never be ashamed of being tempted. One of the biggest pitfalls in the Christian life is shame about being tempted; the shame is the goal of the temptation, because guilt results, and guilt is VERY hard to get past -- you can lose your whole spiritual life over guilt. But Christ DISREGARDED the shame: Heb12:2's corrected translation of the verb normally mistranslated "despise" (despise is a sin, so you know it's a mistranslation). See, we are weak, and that weakness means that if we choose to obey anyway, with all the conflict raging in us, Only God's Power Is Working To Enable Resisting The Temptation. So it's a big deal, to have that conflict. Christ CHOSE it, rather than staying nicely God. Father must have preferred it also, else He'd never have decreed creation, which necessitated a Christ, and thus a cross. So never feel bad about being tempted, for you are human: feel good about it, and better about the fact you can fire Bible Doctrine at it. For when you are weak, then you are Divinely Strong (2Cor12:9-10).

We humans have a weird habit of being devastated if we catch ourselves or someone else in some "sin", as if forever after the person who committed the sin can never change, so is never to be trusted again, etc. What rot. First of all, the biggest sins are indifferences to God (e.g., going to church on Sunday as if it were a good deed); secondly, any sin is an act which can afterwards be reversed. Just like a cold, sin strikes. So, Forgiveness is in order: 1Jn1:9. If God sees fit to forgive sins, then REVERSAL of whatever contamination got done, is possible. In fact, the verb "katharizw" in that verse says that we are PURIFIED from all wrongdoing (which is actually worse than sin, if you trace that word in Scripture), as well as the sin itself being cancelled (root meaning of "aphiemi", usu. translated "forgive" in English Bibles). So, we humans should understand that a sin committed can be reversed, and stop branding each other. Sin which is against a polity's law must also be juridically handled, but personal attitudes should be like God's, in 1Jn1:9.

Think about this from God's Perspective. He can bing us at any time and prevent us from sinning. He can also prevent wrongdoing from happening TO us. But, He doesn't do that: why? It's more meaningful to Him to NOT interfere with freedom; it's more meaningful to Him to RESPOND to free will's otherwise-impotent choice NOT to sin, by granting His Power to ENABLE resisting temptation. That's a LOVE decision, don't you see? Don't you find yourself more loved when a difficult thing got done? One which you know was hard for the person to do? Don't you find it more impressive that a retarded person, or a person in combat, or someone with some other problem..accomplished something, anyway? Who doesn't cheer someone like that? So, God cheers us too; the fact that HE has to do all the work, is His Joy. Just like it was the joy for Richard Gere's character to make Julia Robert's character pretty, in "Pretty Woman". God Likes Making Us Beautiful. But never, coerced. To Him, this is not shameful, but a joy. Of course, He really is the Rich One, and we are all prostitutes (Isa64:6, Hosea (whole book), Eze16). So, if it doesn't demean Him to do all this beautifying, we needn't feel ashamed of our natural condition. Instead, let's wear all those Diamond Verses we're learning ("clothe..Christ" verses and 2Cor5)!

More: Athletes don't become proficient overnight. They are constantly tempted to do less exercise, to rest on whatever achievements they have. They are constantly tempted to NOT go the extra "rep", to not go the extra mile. They fail all the time; conflict rages all the time. But they go on anyway. Same is true for soldiers. It's not whether you suffer conflict or conflicting desires, but DO YOU GO ON. That's why we have 1Jn1:9, so that we CAN go on, in the Holy Spirit's unfelt power. You will begin to 'see' this power if you habitually use 1Jn1:9 and study under your right pastor. You will, when you see it, mistake it for your own power, but as you keep on keeping on, you will come to recognize that the HS is doing all the work, not you. His work just plays out in your body. So it doesn't matter if you are tempted by whatever sins society excoriates, or by sins so subtle society praises them. KEEP ON GOING. Just fire doctrine at it; or, fail, use 1Jn1:9, get up again and try again. That's how you win the spiritual Olympics (Pauline term for the spiritual life): Heb12:1-2 outlines the goal, in Greek. Study the athletic metaphor, there. QUITTING PERMANENTLY is the only failure. Being tempted, is the exercise!

Voting, role of. That belief is a voting should be common knowledge, and I was surprised to find it isn't. When you believe in Christ, you are voting to live with God, whether you know that or not, for example. When you study Bible, you are voting to know God better, whether you know it or not. When you choose religiosity, you are voting against God, whether you know it or not. Every webpage talks about voting, since it's central to your life with God, especially Mirroring.htm's synopsis (which you'll see as soon as you load the page). This webpage just notes some of the Bible references to get you started in your own proofing.

I did a quick search from verses and topics I easily could show in BibleWorks, which is a collection of Bibles and lexicons in both the original-language God-inspired texts and most of the world's languages. This doctrine on voting is so big in Bible, you either get it or you don't as you read Bible -- use 1Jn1:9 as you read, ask Father in Son's Name to guide you, since if it's true, God will be the One Testifying, no mere human. Every act of volition is a vote. That should be plain to see. If not, then ask God to show you how to see it better. We are all brainouts apart from the Holy Spirit, hence the need for 1Jn1:9 to stay online.

Keywords din (i.e., Gen6:3 daleth yod nun), riv (i.e., Hosea 4:1 resh yod beth), "testimony" and "witness" verses in OT which are connected to God (too many to list). "Satan" means opposing lawyer in Hebrew. Once you see those terms you'll be alerted to the many others.

Voting verses: for voting is a CONSENT to be governed. Every act of volition is seen and heard by God, and you are choosing Who and what will GOVERN you. It has legal, binding effect (i.e., you 'bind' the time you spend by whatever you 'voted' to spend that time on). Ps14:2 succinctly expresses the principle.

Voting for the Law, all of Deuteronomy (Deut 30:19 summarizes the rule of voting), end of Joshua (24:13ff). That rhetorical style to express the voting is repeated throughout the OT, especially in Isaiah and Hosea (Hosea is about Samaria-Israel's rejection). Even the latest remake of Moses by Hallmark Entertainment picked up on that voting meaning in its last hour of the film, so it's not rocket science, this political-voting-toward-God meaning. Another example, 2Chron 15, whole chapter, the voting described bluntly in verses 13-15. A nation of priests. Israel rejected the contract when the Groom came, which is why Matt16:18 is the building of CHURCH upon Christ ('Petra' means BedRock, so means Christ, never Peter -- the Bedrock in the Holy of Holies where Abram almost sacrificed Isaac).

Voting For King,1Sam8:5 through the end, voting against God and for Saul; 2Sam3ff, voting for David to be king (whole chapters 3 through 5, final outcome of the voting bluntly stated in 2Sam5:1-3; parallel passages in 1Chronicles Chaps 11-12, with 1Chron11:1-3, 12:38 bald even in English). The ten tribes voted to defect from Rehoboam and go with Jeroboam, another voting example.

Voting For God versus voting for man, Isa31:1, 63:19, Acts 15:17, Heb11:1,6 (Greek, usu. mistranslated). Heb11:1 is the quintessential verse in Greek tying the courtroom witness vote and the voting for Christ together in dramatic meter. No translation is any good at all. Too much nuance in the words.

Voting For Messiah, John 6:14-15; tied to "seek", John 6:26ff (and condemned by Christ, for the vote was based on the miracle, not on the Messiah). Hence all "seek" verses which have a voting meaning in the OT, still have a voting meaning in the NT. Their voting negative against Him, 6:41ff; His reply on how the voting is BELIEVING, John 6:47ff. Disciples even voting against Him (unbelieving believer example), John 6:60, 64,66; His reply on their negative voting to show why they should vote positive, John 6:61ff; Peter and the 12's positive vote, John 6:67ff. Notice how voting for the Word is voting for Messiah. All of 1Jn is patterned on this voting, which once you've analyzed John 6-17, you can see better in 1Jn, even in translation.

Basic voting principles: Gen3, voting for God's governance versus Satan's, the heart of the Angelic Trial in which men are witnesses; all of Lev26 and Deut28 as the contract of voting and God's response; Hosea 4, effect of voting against God (hybrid of court case voting, as well); 2Chron7:14 prayer as voting for God, rather than man. So not political toward man, but ONLY toward God. Notice the mixed voting in John 7:40ff in both the people and the Sanhedrin; so Israel understood that this was their part in the contract.

Verb Baqash in 2Chron7:14 in TWOT lexicon (The Workbook of the Old Testament, a lexicon pastors and seminaries use) shows its contractural hence voting meaning. Many verses, usu. translated "seek". It's a legal term, and cognate noun baqashah reflects that. Synonyms are there listed. As you track this keyverb and its synonyms you get the voting meaning in many other verses and terms. Everything is a contract, hence AGREEMENT is required. Disagreement is punished, so it's 'political' in the sense of Sovereign God ruling and you agreeing to Him. Punishment if you do not, and reward if you do. Central theme of Bible is this voting based on the contractural relationship, as you'll find if you trace out the concept. Key contract underlying it all is Isa53:10-11, in BOTH LXX and Hebrew (Heb doesn't have all the text). Sample synonymal verse is Ps14:2, where darash -- a synonym of baqash -- is used. See also baqash's usage in Prov28:5, which ties back to the contract summarized and reiterated in Deuteronomy.

Works, role of: 'strictly Ambassadorial (get Sir Harold Nicolson's Diplomacy to learn what "ambassadorship" means secularly, for Bible draws analogies to the secular function in its descriptions). Not, really, the spiritual life at all. Precedence is Christ, Who Himself really didn't do any works at all, but rather RESTED in the Spirit, thinking Divinely-pleasing thoughts, which is how our sins all got paid for. His Precedence and our resultant Royal Ambassadorial role runs rife throughout the Epistles, but here are some bald verses (probably mistranslated, so get a lexicon): 2Cor5:15,16,19, 1Tim2:6,5:10, Tit2:11, Heb2:9, 1Jn2:2, Jas2:8. Also, use Bauer or other detailled lexicon and look up the Bible keyword DIAKONOS, for it's surely no "deacon" you've ever heard of!

Because Christianity has largely missed noticing that the Christ radically CHANGED what constitutes the spiritual life, most Christians persist in thinking it's like the OT version. Truth is, the real spiritual life Now is nearly the opposite of the OT's: like Paul says when he writes in 1Cor13 that when he was a child (OT, pre-NT Canon's completion), he thought like a child (see also Gal3 on the law being a schoolmaster, lit., a "boy-leader", just a minor supervisor). OT folks learned doctrine by doing stuff, so the doing had to come first: by contrast, we learn it Straight From The Spirit, and later learn how to USE what we learned, to do stuff. See: Kings' sons get Mentors (a Parakletos, heir/military advisor, not "Comforter" or "Helper", for crying out loud). And, when Mentors trained kings' sons, they trained them to Think First. For, that's what kings are to grow up to 'do'. For, the King of Kings. For, the FATHER OF the King of Kings.

Okay, now take a common-sense test of the Bible's context for any works mentioned in the NT. Look at any passage which mentions works, in the NT. Back UP about one or two chapters to establish context; then, start reading 'down' to the works passage. What do you notice? Oh, there's been a bunch of talk BEFORE the work was mentioned, about THINKING! What you should know, or think! Who you should know and think about, 24/7! Well, why? Well, what are you? You are, your SOUL. You get a human spirit so that your soul can live a spiritual life with GOD, toward FATHER, since you are a King-Priest in training. Ergo the constant need for 1Jn1:9 so to be Filled by the Spirit and thus cycling Bible Doctrine, the Mind of Christ! So, then: what's your body for? It's NOT spiritual, but physical. Like Paul quips in 1Cor15, the physical must first die for a spiritual body to be had. So, we're stuck with this physical body, down here.

Ahhh. Now you know why every NT epistle has a bunch of stuff to know in its first 2/3rds or 3/4ths; why each one almost always ends with some diagram of applications one 'does'. See? Your body is connected to your soul, not divorced from it. So, your body should not be disconnected when you do "works", either. Body is LAST, not first in priority. So, is covered last in any presented topic on the spiritual life, in the NT. Connected at the END -- are things you do with your body which are compatible with the Spiritual Life you only live in your SOUL. Easy, now, to see the role of works: compatible physical life, one which doesn't cause trouble to others, and it's refreshing to your body and their bodies. Works truly are refreshing, a blessing to have in and of themselves. Someone expecting some kind of reward for works is NOT living the spiritual life. Because, works aren't spiritual, since works don't think! Also, since you DO think, any 'works' are to be SUBJECT to thinking, not running on their own. Like James said in James 2 (which he precedes with a whole chapter about Thinking the Word), Doctrine ("faith") without works, is dead. So too, as James coyly quips via the strawman in Jas2:18a, works without Doctrine which FATHER HEARS in your soul, are brain-dead-out!

The real HEROIC work is to THINK LIKE CHRIST. This, of course, only the Holy Spirit can enable, even as He enabled Christ during His First Advent (see John 1, 14, esp. v.26, 16:12-14). Of course, most English translations don't bring out how assiduously the Bible stresses this purpose, which is light-years bigger than works. 2Pet3:18 is fairly easy to read, but compare it to Romans 15:5-6. Well, on second thought, the translations of that passage are awful, so here's a corrected one [Source: L1647, 92SD]: "Now may the God of perseverence and encouragement give you THE SAME OBJECTIVE THINKING with each other ON THE BASIS OF THE THINKING OF CHRIST JESUS, that with one accord, you may with one voice glorify the God, even the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ" -- see? God is glorified by Thinking like Christ. Who was a Lamb, Doing Nothing.

Ancient Greek drama always praised the hero, who was heroic due to his thinking. Action was but the follow-through. Paul makes a big point about this in 2Cor11:3. Greek word is "aplotes" (apLOHTayss, phonetically). It's a specialized word, and has no English equivalent. It means a love integrity so strong, it's 'simple', because nothing can dent, dissuade, distort, or confuse it. Translations are way too tame. So here's the corrected trans: "But I am afraid that just as the serpent deceived Eve by means of his cunning, perhaps your thinking may be corrupted AWAY FROM THE NOBLE-HERO's-SIMPLICITY with reference to Christ." [Same source.] See, it's Thinking Like Christ, not bodies doing for bodies. Thinking Before The Father, on the Cross, paid for our sins, get it?

One last verse, Eph4:23, ought to really seal the coffin on the idea that spirituality has anything whatsoever to do with works. Corr. trans: "Become renewed/refreshed/reinvigorated BY AGENCY OF THE SPIRIT, by means of your thinking.." If you read the verses before and after verse 23, you'll notice that you are being commanded to be clothed with Christ, a frequent command in NT. That command's syntax is a play on how God the Son set aside the trappings (privileges) of Deity in order to clothe Himself as a Slaveson down here (Phili2:5-10), which glorified Father. So, What's cool about Eph4:23's Greek, especially since Ephesians is, on one level, burlesqueing a famous play (Euripedes' "Ion") about the founding of the Greek peoples: the tense is CONTINUAL, COMMAND is stated as an infinitive (purpose is thus stressed, meaning the design is to keep on doing this); and, the dative/instrumental calls special attention to the Spirit (meaning, it won't work otherwise), and the genitive/(ablative, in 8-case-classification) of means calls special attention to the ACTION of thinking. So the 'do', is 1Jn1:9 to get Eph5:18, and Thinking Like Christ, the Last Adam, New Man (v.24)! Instead of being clothed with a snake's thinking ("Ion" means "venom"), you are to be clothed with the Thinking of the One who crushed his head. Very funny, very profound.

So there's no excuse for teaching "another Jesus" (2Cor11:3, esp. in context); no excuse for not noticing this Radical Change To A Royal Priesthood FOR FATHER, during all these centuries we've had Canon IN WRITING! It takes time to learn Scripture, sure: but for so many centuries to pass with so many still teaching and believing Scripture peasantly, childishly? Yikes! It's like still using an abacus, but calling the abacus a Pentium! Don't get caught up with the lemmings and their 2Tim2:26-3:7 prances! Instead, 'do' 2Tim1:14 (corr.trans.): "Guard the Noble Deposit by Agency of The Holy Spirit Who keeps on Dwelling in us"! [Greek for "deposit" is paratheke (see also v.12); it's a common financial Bible term for Bible Doctrine -- usu. misleadingly translated in English -- but French, Portuguese, and Spanish Bibles often get it right. V.14 in French Bible Jerusalen is mistranslated where it says "avec l'aide" -- Louis Segond's "par" is more accurate. BY MEANS OF, ONLY BY MEANS OF, is the idea.]