The Old Covenant and the New Covenant Church: Parallels

[Arial]

Beginning to see parallels in OT Israel as the people of God, and the people of God in the NT takes time and growth and constant immersion in the Bible. And it is like the peeling of an onion except that all our earthly lives, the layers never end. Perhaps in the days of old theologians and students of the Bible began to uncover these parallels sooner than we might today, for they were more inclined to a focus on the things of God and in systematically mining the scriptures. It was, to them, everything and a very serious thing. Whereas today we are all in one way or another, victims of the culture. We have families and jobs and endless errands and appointments, and countless, ever repeating responsibilities. And we have at our fingertips an escape from all that. The television remote, our phones, the internet. And the mind does need a rest.

So I thank God for those men he raised up to do the tedious work of serious bible study and exposition and exegesis for us. We can and should, always check what is said against scripture as to its validity or not. This of course still involves actual reading beyond google bites.

We begin, if we are paying attention, to see parallels in Israel as a covenant people and the church (all believers of every nation, language and peoples)as a covenant people of God. However, never substitute a parallel for the meaning or its application to whoever it is applied to. Historical events in Israel are historical events. And never spiritualize what is historical so as to cause it to lose its historical place and significance. And yet these parallels can act as significant caution, warning, discipline and blessing.

The reason there are parallels is because God never changes, and neither does mankind as to his nature in Adam. Even those who are redeemed and are by grace and through faith, wrapped in the robes of Christ's righteousness, fully justified before God, and sealed there by the Holy Spirit, still deal with our sinful nature. As Paul describes it, our spirit desires one thing and our flesh another.

Those who have been Christians for any length of time, have no doubt been introduced to the types and shadows in the OT that are revealed in the NT. But parallels are not necessarily the same thing as types and shadows. I am going to deal here with one particular parallel that I came across this morning as I was reading in Judges 3, on my trek through the Bible again. It is not the first time I have seen this particular parallel between unfaithful Israel and a great majority of the New Covenant people of God. But this particular passage---which for the sake of brevity I will get to in the following post---was like finding something given directly by God that was percolating in the background for some time. A "there it is, right there!" moment.

 

[Arial]

OP Part 2

First we need to take a peek at the time period that Judges covers. The author is unknown but from internal evidence we learn that he evidently supported David's kingship over Saul's. So he probably wrote during the early time of David's reign in Hebron. The events in Judges span about 350 years, from the time of the conquering of Canaan until just before Samuel. The first judge appears during the generation following Joshua. Each successive judge follows a time of crisis in which Israel has followed after idols and abandoned the true God, and by the decree of God, gone into bondage to those they had not removed from the land as commanded. They repent and cry out to God and he raises up a Judge to deliver them from their enemies. Rinse and repeat.

It must be noted, that beginning with that first generation after Joshua died, these were people who had not witnessed the signs and wonders of the deliverance from Egypt. Neither had they seen the provision of God in the wilderness, or experienced God's deliverance in the battles to take the land promised to them. They had not even witnessed any battles.

In Judges 3:1-2 we find a curious thing, and one that may seem shocking to a church that sees God only as love, and peace to such an extent that truth is compromised in exchange for keeping the peace and a false understanding of the unity of the body of Christ.

Now these are the nations that the Lord left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before.

The nations that were not driven out are named and then it continues in vs 4-6 They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hitites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the HIvites, and the Jebusites. And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.

Do we not see the very same thing, in a different way, happening in the new covenant people of God today? Are we to think that we are not also tested in this manner, and as we shall see in a moment, supposed to be trained for war. That war against God's enemies is essential, on going, and necessary? We have a church in very large proportion to the whole, not only not trained and equipped for war, but not even aware they are in one. Christians are in the world, and this world as it stands now and will until Jesus returns, is at enmity with God. The spiritual forces of darkness are always warring against God and his people, his church, whether we know this or see this. And what has happened? We have opened the gates to the enemy and invited the world in. We soften our words, avoid even teaching from the pulpit on the very basic apostolic doctrines. Trinity acknowledge but not discussed. If you don't believe in the Trinity that is ok too. We love you. God loves you. Substitutional sacrifice? Atonement? Justification? Sanctification? The cross? Jesus and him crucified? Who cares? What has that to do with anything? Gay. No problem. God loves you just as you are. Come be our shepherd. Adultery? Many sexual partners? Not the ideal of moral behavior but we still love you and so does Jesus. Come to our church, we have fun. We are alive.Etc., etc.

If any should scoff at the idea of Christians being in a war, and despise warlike behavior, let's go find the scriptures in the NT that parallel the idea of war and being equipped for it from Judges.

Eph 6:11-12 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

2 Cor 10:3-5 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

Jude 3 Beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people , who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

The combattants have changed, the method of warfare has changed, but it is still a war, and his people are meant to be the soldiers, trained and ready, just as they were in the physical wars to take the land. And without the training and teaching of those crucial doctrines, going ever deeper and deeper into them in our understanding, we have what the author of Hebrews was dealing with. A bunch of true believers who were so immature and untrained they could not even discern good from evil.

And another thing has changed. And it speaks to the glory and power of the victory Christ in his death on the cross. "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ." This then is the irony in all that the enemy does and is doing as he appears to be successfully destroying the foundation the apostles laid, and appears to have burned her gates to the ground in his fury. Not one who the Father has given to Christ will be lost. But still we are tested and everything that is built on a foundation other than the one the apostles laid will be burned up. They will be saved but as though through fire.

1 Cor 3:11-16 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay straw---each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward, If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

And lest any should think that what is being said here pertains to slamming down hard and judgmentally on Christian behavior---which is pretty much a natural human reaction that causes one to recoil----it is not. Morality is a teaching of Christianity but that too is because the God to whom we belong is moral in his very character. But that is not the emphasis here. The emphasis is on sound doctrinal teaching of those doctrines that belong to Christ's church. This is what equips, and this is also what bears the fruit of willing moral behavior as we are progressively sanctified by the word of God, learning what pleases him and delighting in pleasing him. Our sanctification is his work in us that we respond to.

 

[makesends]

Beginning to see parallels in OT Israel as the people of God, and the people of God in the NT takes time and growth and constant immersion in the Bible. And it is like the peeling of an onion except that all our earthly lives, the layers never end. Perhaps in the days of old theologians and students of the Bible began to uncover these parallels sooner than we might today, for they were more inclined to a focus on the things of God and in systematically mining the scriptures. It was, to them, everything and a very serious thing. Whereas today we are all in one way or another, victims of the culture. We have families and jobs and endless errands and appointments, and countless, ever repeating responsibilities. And we have at our fingertips an escape from all that. The television remote, our phones, the internet. And the mind does need a rest.

I would agree, except that —guessing from my own experience— as a child being steeped in the Scriptures and raised to walk according to my parents' biblical precepts, the paralleling of the OT with the NT was an intuitive question, (not at all saying I understood it, but that I did notice it and try to define or represent it). It was not a systematic thing, 'layers of the onion' as such, but rather just a 'gather data' sort of thing, and I'm still in that process, yet what I have gathered has opened my eyes to things that I have yet to hear from other sources, that I cannot discount, and most of them entirely glorifying to God, at least so they seem to me. I've been a 'bible student' from my childhood, though I suppose you might not call it that; my point is that not all students study systematically, and we are all to a degree ('degree', lol, pun not intended) theologians.

As for the fact that the OT - NT parallels have taken a back seat to many other focuses, I agree completely, and more specifically, I decry the focuses that have taken its doctrinal place. I think God has shown us in the OT many NT principles that we completely get wrong or skewed by shoving the OT into the background. Just reading the threads of late, here and on CF, some of the speculations concerning meaning, interpretation and application would not even have been questions, I think.

 

[Arial]

I would agree, except that —guessing from my own experience— as a child being steeped in the Scriptures and raised to walk according to my parents' biblical precepts, the paralleling of the OT with the NT was an intuitive question, (not at all saying I understood it, but that I did notice it and try to define or represent it). It was not a systematic thing, 'layers of the onion' as such, but rather just a 'gather data' sort of thing, and I'm still in that process, yet what I have gathered has opened my eyes to things that I have yet to hear from other sources, that I cannot discount, and most of them entirely glorifying to God, at least so they seem to me. I've been a 'bible student' from my childhood, though I suppose you might not call it that; my point is that not all students study systematically, and we are all to a degree ('degree', lol, pun not intended) theologians.

Growing up with a solid and constant biblical background and center, is something I cannot imagine. But I agree with you, that nothing is always exactly the same or comes about in the same way for anyone, ever. And I also agree that we can glean it by way of the Holy Spirit shedding the light of understanding on it, these parallels and principles. And always, we only ever get some of them and never all of them. And some of them are ignored altogether. I think one of them is this idea of war and battle continuing from the OT into the NT, and that we are meant to be soldiers---though not all on the front lines so to speak, in this battle just as the Israelites were in order to take the land for God's purposes. We have grown incredibly soft as a whole. And I think that is because of the switch almost completely for a time, from Christianity becoming man centered instead of God centered as it was historically.

I would be interested to hear the things you mention that I highlighted in red.

 

[makesends]

At the risk of departure from the subject of the OP:

Growing up with a solid and constant biblical background and center, is something I cannot imagine. But I agree with you, that nothing is always exactly the same or comes about in the same way for anyone, ever. And I also agree that we can glean it by way of the Holy Spirit shedding the light of understanding on it, these parallels and principles. And always, we only ever get some of them and never all of them. And some of them are ignored altogether. I think one of them is this idea of war and battle continuing from the OT into the NT, and that we are meant to be soldiers---though not all on the front lines so to speak, in this battle just as the Israelites were in order to take the land for God's purposes. We have grown incredibly soft as a whole. And I think that is because of the switch almost completely for a time, from Christianity becoming man centered instead of God centered as it was historically.

I would be interested to hear the things you mention that I highlighted in red.

I agree and very much appreciate that about preparing the Children of Israel for battle. This, and many other references to the horror of violence that God not only promoted but even commanded, and obviously brought to come to pass, is too often excused and the real reason for it hardly mentioned. And the paralleling into the New Testament, I haven't heard of to my recollection, since Sunday School circa the 60's.

This lack of teaching in part deals with what you mentioned in that other thread, concerning how we got to where we are. God is LOVE, certainly, but we are not the ones who get to define LOVE, in the end, lest we depart from truth.

But, to your question:
makesends had said:
I would agree, except that —guessing from my own experience— as a child being steeped in the Scriptures and raised to walk according to my parents' biblical precepts, the paralleling of the OT with the NT was an intuitive question, (not at all saying I understood it, but that I did notice it and try to define or represent it). It was not a systematic thing, 'layers of the onion' as such, but rather just a 'gather data' sort of thing, and I'm still in that process, yet what I have gathered has opened my eyes to things that I have yet to hear from other sources, that I cannot discount, and most of them entirely glorifying to God, at least so they seem to me. I've been a 'bible student' from my childhood, though I suppose you might not call it that; my point is that not all students study systematically, and we are all to a degree ('degree', lol, pun not intended) theologians.

I have had some formal training, but that was, frankly, most of it so obvious to me as to cause me to decide to quit the seminary. Hermeneutics, for example is just common sense, for a missionary kid like myself. Yet intuitively I have to ask, how do they KNOW which is symbolic vs literal? Who made these rules? How closely do they really apply? At which verse does a prophetic Psalm cease to be prophetic? What is this 'real' life, compared to the life in Christ, and what is this life in Christ, compared to the life to come? What is IN CHRIST, considering Rev. 21, the doctrine of the Trinity, and so many others passages and doctrines? Is it possible that the city adorned as a bride is The Bride of Christ herself? Are we the [possible play on words] place he has gone to prepare, which he is doing through the Spirit of God in Sanctification? The fact that the hermeneutics books say the word, "as", in "as a bride", denies that we can consider the city to be the very Bride herself, doesn't do it for me, anymore.

And is she not, in the end, the only REAL bride, the rest of them only pictures of the real thing? Is the great pearl that is a gate not the REAL thing, instead of what we get so complicated about, and what we know of as pearls, only dull, tiny, representations of the REAL thing?

There are many other, (and, curiously, all interrelated), tangents my mind seeks out for consideration, but as to the one(s) I mention above, stemming in part from my skepticism toward modern Christendom, I see a particular focus on things such as the meaning, or the working out of, the term, "IN CHRIST", to the point where I see different uses of much of scripture from the usual. For example, it has brought me to understand, (and not just speculate, but I am as thoroughly convinced of it as I am of most anything else), that it was not hyperbole when Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing."

 

[Arial]

At the risk of departure from the subject of the OP:

I agree and very much appreciate that about preparing the Children of Israel for battle. This, and many other references to the horror of violence that God not only promoted but even commanded, and obviously brought to come to pass, is too often excused and the real reason for it hardly mentioned. And the paralleling into the New Testament, I haven't heard of to my recollection, since Sunday School circa the 60's.

This lack of teaching in part deals with what you mentioned in that other thread, concerning how we got to where we are. God is LOVE, certainly, but we are not the ones who get to define LOVE, in the end, lest we depart from truth.

But, to your question:
makesends had said:
I would agree, except that —guessing from my own experience— as a child being steeped in the Scriptures and raised to walk according to my parents' biblical precepts, the paralleling of the OT with the NT was an intuitive question, (not at all saying I understood it, but that I did notice it and try to define or represent it). It was not a systematic thing, 'layers of the onion' as such, but rather just a 'gather data' sort of thing, and I'm still in that process, yet what I have gathered has opened my eyes to things that I have yet to hear from other sources, that I cannot discount, and most of them entirely glorifying to God, at least so they seem to me. I've been a 'bible student' from my childhood, though I suppose you might not call it that; my point is that not all students study systematically, and we are all to a degree ('degree', lol, pun not intended) theologians.

I have had some formal training, but that was, frankly, most of it so obvious to me as to cause me to decide to quit the seminary. Hermeneutics, for example is just common sense, for a missionary kid like myself. Yet intuitively I have to ask, how do they KNOW which is symbolic vs literal? Who made these rules? How closely do they really apply? At which verse does a prophetic Psalm cease to be prophetic? What is this 'real' life, compared to the life in Christ, and what is this life in Christ, compared to the life to come? What is IN CHRIST, considering Rev. 21, the doctrine of the Trinity, and so many others passages and doctrines? Is it possible that the city adorned as a bride is The Bride of Christ herself? Are we the [possible play on words] place he has gone to prepare, which he is doing through the Spirit of God in Sanctification? The fact that the hermeneutics books say the word, "as", in "as a bride", denies that we can consider the city to be the very Bride herself, doesn't do it for me, anymore.

And is she not, in the end, the only REAL bride, the rest of them only pictures of the real thing? Is the great pearl that is a gate not the REAL thing, instead of what we get so complicated about, and what we know of as pearls, only dull, tiny, representations of the REAL thing?

There are many other, (and, curiously, all interrelated), tangents my mind seeks out for consideration, but as to the one(s) I mention above, stemming in part from my skepticism toward modern Christendom, I see a particular focus on things such as the meaning, or the working out of, the term, "IN CHRIST", to the point where I see different uses of much of scripture from the usual. For example, it has brought me to understand, (and not just speculate, but I am as thoroughly convinced of it as I am of most anything else), that it was not hyperbole when Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing."

Beautiful Makesends. But for me to go through it piece by piece and give my thoughts and ask the questions it provokes will have to wait. Probably until my best time---early morning after three cups of coffee. There is a lot there to be examined.

 

[Arial]

I agree and very much appreciate that about preparing the Children of Israel for battle. This, and many other references to the horror of violence that God not only promoted but even commanded, and obviously brought to come to pass, is too often excused and the real reason for it hardly mentioned. And the paralleling into the New Testament, I haven't heard of to my recollection, since Sunday School circa the 60's.

This lack of teaching in part deals with what you mentioned in that other thread, concerning how we got to where we are. God is LOVE, certainly, but we are not the ones who get to define LOVE, in the end, lest we depart from truth.

Even humans who are defining love by their standards and applying it to God, would, if they considered it, see that they are being inadvertently hypocritical about it. And all it would take to get the true picture is a slight turn away from that, point of hypocrisy. It could be a light bulb moment that affected their view of God and what love is when it comes to him.

Let's say we have a king with a kingdom. The kingdom has borders and it has people who are loyal to him and depend upon him. And the king loves his people. Along comes another king of another kingdom who begins to take the people captive and oppress them. What would love for his people do, regarding the first king? Love would destroy the enemy king and his armies.

What is lost I think in seeing these things is the awareness that from Gen 3 and the curse of the serpent and the promise that one would come and crush his head, the entire Bible is the story of one thing----redemption. The King of kings is destroying the invading king who takes his people captive, and that king's armies. God's love is covenant love for his covenant people. He gave the ultimate sacrifice to set them free from captivity to the evil king.

 

[LeviR]

Even humans who are defining love by their standards and applying it to God, would, if they considered it, see that they are being inadvertently hypocritical about it. And all it would take to get the true picture is a slight turn away from that, point of hypocrisy. It could be a light bulb moment that affected their view of God and what love is when it comes to him.

Let's say we have a king with a kingdom. The kingdom has borders and it has people who are loyal to him and depend upon him. And the king loves his people. Along comes another king of another kingdom who begins to take the people captive and oppress them. What would love for his people do, regarding the first king? Love would destroy the enemy king and his armies.

What is lost I think in seeing these things is the awareness that from Gen 3 and the curse of the serpent and the promise that one would come and crush his head, the entire Bible is the story of one thing----redemption. The King of kings is destroying the invading king who takes his people captive, and that king's armies. God's love is covenant love for his covenant people. He gave the ultimate sacrifice to set them free from captivity to the evil king.

The two kings work independently of each other?

 

[Arial]

The two kings work independently of each other?

That would depend on what you mean by independently.

They are not working in tandem. They each have a different intention. But Satan can do nothing without God's allowing him to do it. God's purpose in allowing him to do it is serving God's own good purposes. Just as Jesus going to the cross, which God meant for good and those who crucified him, and the spiritual forces behind that, meant it for evil. Instead of accomplishing what evil men and Satan hoped it would accomplish ----defeat of the Savior from Satan's POV----was Christ's victory over sin and death for his people.

What we need to remember is all the forces of men on earth that are working against Christ and his people are fueled by the king of the kingdom of darkness in the spiritual realm. They are his people and his army. Just as Christians are God's people and God's army. Revelation gives an awesome picture of that through visions, if we could just stop using that book as a means to determine when the second coming will be and identify all the signs in the visions. And that is just a comment to emphasize what I am saying. Not an invitation to now talk about the book of Revelation or end times.

 

[makesends]

Even humans who are defining love by their standards and applying it to God, would, if they considered it, see that they are being inadvertently hypocritical about it. And all it would take to get the true picture is a slight turn away from that, point of hypocrisy. It could be a light bulb moment that affected their view of God and what love is when it comes to him.

Let's say we have a king with a kingdom. The kingdom has borders and it has people who are loyal to him and depend upon him. And the king loves his people. Along comes another king of another kingdom who begins to take the people captive and oppress them. What would love for his people do, regarding the first king? Love would destroy the enemy king and his armies.

What is lost I think in seeing these things is the awareness that from Gen 3 and the curse of the serpent and the promise that one would come and crush his head, the entire Bible is the story of one thing----redemption. The King of kings is destroying the invading king who takes his people captive, and that king's armies. God's love is covenant love for his covenant people. He gave the ultimate sacrifice to set them free from captivity to the evil king.

True enough, but they then logically ask, why would an omnipotent king set things up so that there even IS an invading king? It is not like he came upon an already existing situation, with subjects who exist in and of themselves. Reality didn't begin where your story, here, does.

I'm not trying to be difficult, here, but to me, while I agree that the Bible in places does present things in a sometimes-even-anthropomorphic way, and even at times sounds so puerile as to astonish me, I have to say that although the Bible often speaks to man according to man's ignorance —"how stupid were people back then, that they honestly believed wooden idols, that they themselves fashioned, were gods"— the fact that God set things up to be precisely as they are at any moment, defies notions of the dualistic nature of good vs evil and the superstitious notion that God almost didn't win. If God is the uncaused causer, there can be no system that operates apart from his continuing say-so. There is no fact that he comes upon as though it was new to him, or beyond/outside his intentional causation.

 

[Arial]

Yet intuitively I have to ask, how do they KNOW which is symbolic vs literal? Who made these rules? How closely do they really apply?

There are rules that apply (and don't ask me what they are) that are based on how the Hebrews wrote. But mostly they are obvious I think. If something is said to be a vision, the things in it are usually given symbolically. And the other places the same imagery is used give a clue. But what is somewhat of a puzzle to us, was not a puzzle to the Israelites. Hebrew poetry uses symbolic language especially when referring to God. And we do not need to understand all these things in order to understand what God is saying.

At which verse does a prophetic Psalm cease to be prophetic?

Prophetic Psalms, like all the Psalms and a great many of the writings of the Prophets, have present and future applications. They have the application to the person or place in which they were written (which is why we see much of the Psalms referring to the covenant law),and also a higher fulfillment in Christ. For example the wedding song, Psalm 45, refers to the wedding of a king and was sung on that occasion. And yet the language is highly Messianic. The human king of Israel was to be the vassal king of God. And in that capacity a type of the coming King.

What is this 'real' life, compared to the life in Christ, and what is this life in Christ, compared to the life to come? What is IN CHRIST, considering Rev. 21, the doctrine of the Trinity, and so many others passages and doctrines? Is it possible that the city adorned as a bride is The Bride of Christ herself? Are we the [possible play on words] place he has gone to prepare, which he is doing through the Spirit of God in Sanctification? The fact that the hermeneutics books say the word, "as", in "as a bride", denies that we can consider the city to be the very Bride herself, doesn't do it for me, anymore.

And is she not, in the end, the only REAL bride, the rest of them only pictures of the real thing? Is the great pearl that is a gate not the REAL thing, instead of what we get so complicated about, and what we know of as pearls, only dull, tiny, representations of the REAL thing?

Each of those things, fleshed out, deserves its own thread. (hint, hint) Therefore I will not even attempt to tackle them one by one and I do not think you intended that I or anyone should. You were just naming some of the musing and ponderings as I ask you to.

There are many other, (and, curiously, all interrelated), tangents my mind seeks out for consideration, but as to the one(s) I mention above, stemming in part from my skepticism toward modern Christendom, I see a particular focus on things such as the meaning, or the working out of, the term, "IN CHRIST", to the point where I see different uses of much of scripture from the usual. For example, it has brought me to understand, (and not just speculate, but I am as thoroughly convinced of it as I am of most anything else), that it was not hyperbole when Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing."

The meaning of "in Christ" is one I heard a lot of definitions of in my pre-Reformed life, all of which do not begin to grasp it as far as I am concerned. I have come to my own understanding of it from the scriptures, and that too would make a good thread. It is a very deep thing and there are any number of scriptures that when put together and in their context tell us something very profound about it. And to cover it all here would be too long of a post. I will get to work on a thread. As to "Apart from me you can do nothing," I do not think it hyperbole at all and don't know that I ever have. However, there was a time when I did not look at it closely enough to really get what that means. We live and move and have our being in God. We would not be and we would do nothing, without God. (A case for the deity of Christ.) But also we cannot go to God without Christ. And our flesh cannot take us to him. And anything we do apart from him is nothing.

 

[Arial]

True enough, but they then logically ask, why would an omnipotent king set things up so that there even IS an invading king? It is not like he came upon an already existing situation, with subjects who exist in and of themselves. Reality didn't begin where your story, here, does.

Well I am speaking of the story that we have. I am inclined to believe that the "story" began long before our world was created. It is just that the story we have begins when Satan began gathering a human army to himself to fight against the kingdom of God in humans. To fight against God through humanity. The true God and the counterfeit God. Take a look at Revelation. The dragon, the beast, the false prophet, Still counterfeiting.

But what went on between God and Satan before creation we do not know because we are not told and speculation about it is really, out of bounds, because we will never know if we are speaking the truth or not.

I'm not trying to be difficult, here, but to me, while I agree that the Bible in places does present things in a sometimes-even-anthropomorphic way, and even at times sounds so puerile as to astonish me, I have to say that although the Bible often speaks to man according to man's ignorance —"how stupid were people back then, that they honestly believed wooden idols, that they themselves fashioned, were gods"— the fact that God set things up to be precisely as they are at any moment, defies notions of the dualistic nature of good vs evil and the superstitious notion that God almost didn't win. If God is the uncaused causer, there can be no system that operates apart from his continuing say-so. There is no fact that he comes upon as though it was new to him, or beyond/outside his intentional causation.

That doesn't change anything from our perspective. There are places of God that are just too big for us. We can learn from the Bible by his self revelation that God is sovereign, causes all things, ordains all things, is outside of time but we are not, etc. And as far as I am concerned, our faith must rest there. No amount of trying to describe it or make all the pieces fit with our own finite minds, will ever satisfy those who oppose all those things and insist on libertarian freedom. We just can't even find it ourselves, let alone put it into finite words that have nothing to compare it to. For that is how we learn what something is, by describing what it is like. There is no "what it is like" with God. There is only one and none like him. Then again, I guess we could go and try to count the stars.

 

[LeviR]

That would depend on what you mean by independently.

They are not working in tandem. They each have a different intention. But Satan can do nothing without God's allowing him to do it. God's purpose in allowing him to do it is serving God's own good purposes. Just as Jesus going to the cross, which God meant for good and those who crucified him, and the spiritual forces behind that, meant it for evil. Instead of accomplishing what evil men and Satan hoped it would accomplish ----defeat of the Savior from Satan's POV----was Christ's victory over sin and death for his people.

What we need to remember is all the forces of men on earth that are working against Christ and his people are fueled by the king of the kingdom of darkness in the spiritual realm. They are his people and his army. Just as Christians are God's people and God's army. Revelation gives an awesome picture of that through visions, if we could just stop using that book as a means to determine when the second coming will be and identify all the signs in the visions. And that is just a comment to emphasize what I am saying. Not an invitation to now talk about the book of Revelation or end times.

Why are men a women exhorted to not be devils?

Anyone who is a false accuser is a devil. Therefore, there are many devils.
Why is there only one devil in Christianity?

 

[Arial]

Why are men a women exhorted to not be devils?

Anyone who is a false accuser is a devil. Therefore, there are many devils.
Why is there only one devil in Christianity?

There is only one Satan. Diabolos translated devil simply means false accuser, slanderer deceiver. It can be applied to a man who is opposing God. It can be applied to demons. It can be applied to Satan.

 

[LeviR]

There is only one Satan. Diabolos translated devil simply means false accuser, slanderer deceiver. It can be applied to a man who is opposing God. It can be applied to demons. It can be applied to Satan.

Where are we told there is only one Satan and Devil?

According to Scripture there are many devils. And a Satan is an adversary which also refers to men.

 

[Arial]

Where are we told there is only one Satan and Devil?

According to Scripture there are many devils. And a Satan is an adversary which also refers to men.

Could you just read what I said again?

The Bible speaks of Satan as an entity. An entity can only be one entity. See the first chapter of Job.

You must go by context to see how it is being used. But persons are never called Satan in the Scripture and before you point out that Jesus called Peter Satan ---he did not. He called Satan, Satan.

But aren't we off topic here? What do you have to say about the parallel given in the OP?

 

[makesends]

Well I am speaking of the story that we have. I am inclined to believe that the "story" began long before our world was created. It is just that the story we have begins when Satan began gathering a human army to himself to fight against the kingdom of God in humans. To fight against God through humanity. The true God and the counterfeit God. Take a look at Revelation. The dragon, the beast, the false prophet, Still counterfeiting.

But what went on between God and Satan before creation we do not know because we are not told and speculation about it is really, out of bounds, because we will never know if we are speaking the truth or not.

That doesn't change anything from our perspective. There are places of God that are just too big for us. We can learn from the Bible by his self revelation that God is sovereign, causes all things, ordains all things, is outside of time but we are not, etc. And as far as I am concerned, our faith must rest there. No amount of trying to describe it or make all the pieces fit with our own finite minds, will ever satisfy those who oppose all those things and insist on libertarian freedom. We just can't even find it ourselves, let alone put it into finite words that have nothing to compare it to. For that is how we learn what something is, by describing what it is like. There is no "what it is like" with God. There is only one and none like him. Then again, I guess we could go and try to count the stars.

Besides the missing Agree emoticon, we need to be able to respond with at least two emoticons at-a-time. Your last line was worth a

Musings. And pardon the departure from the point of the OP, but this does parallel the point of the OP, in that notion of ever-increasing revelation —even with a definite border between two facts.

Twice now, in these last two posts, you have mentioned things to the effect of, "we can't go there", or of limits beyond which we shouldn't even try to go, (or that is how I took you to say). There are mentions of such in Scripture, too: "My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty. I do not aspire to great things or matters too lofty for me. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." But then, there is also, "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out." But I think it is fair (and you didn't say otherwise) and even prudent to speculate, as long as extraneous thought is continually compared to Scripture, and it is understood that it is only speculation, even though it may overwhelm one at times with emotion and praise.

I entirely agree that we can never understand completely, and that makes me wonder about what it will be like, in Heaven where we are so thoroughly IN HIM that we are his very body and his 'dwelling place' in some literal way. (This makes me think of the nature of salvific faith, where the degree of it is not what saves, but the nature of it, that it is OF God himself, and thus fully capable.) When we see him as he is, and know him as we are known, it is not the end of knowledge, but the knowing of the only source of NEW. I think we will be ever-increasing in getting to know him, yet every bit of it of full understanding. And we have that now —already, but not yet— because we are already IN HIM.

 

[Arial]

in Heaven where we are so thoroughly IN HIM that we are his very body and his 'dwelling place' in some literal way

This I will have to disagree with, at least in the way I am understanding your meaning. I do not think that Rev 21:1-7 represents anything like that anymore than Adam and Eve in Eden with God dwelling with them, did.

 

[Arial]

Persons are called Satan in Scripture. Look it up.
Look up “adversary”. The word is satan.
The Satan in Job has been told to you that he is a fallen angel.
I don’t buy it because the scripture never says that.
But you’re free to believe what they say.

Off topic. It will be deleted so as to not spark replies that carry it off topic further. I began this OP because I think it is very important for the church and for Christians. It is not a host which anyone can attach itself to in order to further their own agenda. OK? Thanks.

 

[makesends]

This I will have to disagree with, at least in the way I am understanding your meaning. I do not think that Rev 21:1-7 represents anything like that anymore than Adam and Eve in Eden with God dwelling with them, did.

You probably meant to refer to this notion: I do like to think that the New Jerusalem IS us, his bride, but I can't prove nor teach that as fact —it is speculation, with a lot of reasons to think it is true. Regardless, I do believe there is something to the notion, and it has to do with the fact that we are In Him (but it is beyond me, of course ). And THAT —not the NJ being us— is what I meant to refer to.