blogs, comments & discussion hosted by Martin Scott
My apologies the link I sent out by email was wrong… If joining tonight for the zoom on eschatology (March 6 7:30 UK time) the correct link is here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5728039267?pwd=NEozVVM0Z1NJSDFKKzNwdG9KUDc5dz09&omn=83786357434
Meeting ID: 572 803 9267
Passcode: 5GkMTA
Nothing to do with cowboys and sherrifs with their gathered together posse, but a bit of Latin: posse non pecare or non posse pecare – mainly a question regarding the human life of Jesus: able not to sin or not able to sin. If Jesus was not able to sin then in what sense did he willingly submit to the divine purposes? Anyway quite a discussion back in the day and one that extended to the four states of humanity. Ah well!!
So what about me? By that I don’t mean something like ‘can I make sinless perfection?’ but what about the REAL me? 1 John can make a seemingly set of contrasting statements:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin (2:1).
No one who abides in him sins (3:6).
Those who have been born of God do not sin because God’s seed abides in them (3:9).
We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them (5:18).
So which is it? ‘I do not sin’ is my statement (the hypothetical ‘me’, just for clarification) and I am deceived; or I read this letter so that I may not sin and if (and only ‘if’) I sin I can at least get back on course. And of course claiming to be born of God it is self evident that I do not sin!!!
I am sure the writer is making a few points considerably deeper than I can grasp but I think at the heart of it is what (who) I can see. In the midst of the letter we read:
What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. (3:2).
‘See him as he is’. I am sure that when I claim ‘I know God’ it is in part true, and in part carries a little bit of self deception. Maybe that is why Paul corrects himself in Gal. 4:9:
Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God
Do I really ‘know’ God; do I truly see God as s/he is? And as Jesus is the revelation of God (see me, see the Father) if I see Jesus as he is then I can truly claim to know God, and if I truly see Jesus then I will be like him. In truth non posse pecare, not able to sin. Not because of some pre-ordained inner nature but because of being captivated and thus motivated by love. I think Jesus was posse non pecare (not to sin being a choice, otherwise he was not like us in every way) and also non posse pecare (not able to sin) as the choice was made. Love, eternal love, permeated his being, reflected through him to us so in that sense he was not able to sin – the love makes no room for sin.
Anyway, some of all this Latin can swing around speculative discussions but what remains is my sight of Jesus, not my trying harder will help me keep on course. We see in part… one day we will see him as he is.
I do realise that today’s date is 16 February 2024 and I have not made a mistake in the title.
I was talking to someone recently who reflected that 2020 (perfect vision) was to be the year of sight and that perhaps we were only entering that this year. My response is 2020 was indeed the year of sight – maybe there is grace to re-enter the grace of sight this year.
Jesus spoke about ears and eyes:
The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand’… But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
So we can have eyes (and ears) and yet not see (nor hear). Sight is a strange thing, what we see depends on what we are looking at, and two people can even look at the same thing and see something very different. Take those who are asking the hard questions that will take them to a deeper place of faith; they might be nervous and unsure about their journey but they are pursuing a future that they see can take them beyond where they are; to others who are observing the journey they see someone who is on a journey to ‘lose their faith’.
When reflecting back on 2020 and the severity of the lockdown, the controversy over vaccines, and the devastation brought about through COVID seldom has there been something that has affected life globally at that level. Surely it was there to be SEEN. But did we have eyes to see what was ‘blidingly obvious’ or did we see it as an incovenience and we had to get back to normal asap.
Gayle and I have just returned from an extended time in the UK, beyond what we anticipated. We arrived home on Tuesday after 2 days of driving. As we drove home we passed numerous vehicles on a 15 kilometer stretch all with the sign on them ‘Overcoming Obstacles’. Then we hit the farmer’s strike with tractors blocking the main highway. Detour through single track roads and dirt tracks and meeting trucks coming the other way. Not the fastest drive and highly inconvenient. Can you read the signs?
We get home Tuesday and Gayle has to get a visa for China, leaving next Friday, a week today. Visa? That took a day to fill in the forms, get all the documents ready followed by a 7:00am train and a journey to Madrid (round trip of some 8 hours today) and the Chinese embassy, to discover that the letter of invite was in English and not acceptable. Chinese office is 8 hours ahead, those who can send the invite in Chinese are out of the office… Overcoming obstacles. Just a few minutes ago all submitted successfully, for a return trip to be made next Tuesday – another 8 hours – overcoming obstacles. Two words: obstacles which we all hate!! and overcoming – a good promise there if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.
So I consider 2020 was the year of global sight, and sight that will frame the following 20 years.
Maybe we are in a year where we can see what was there to be seen in 2020… It is certainly going to be a pivotal year, and seemingly a year when obstacles will be many, and grace to overcome will be abundant, if we engage with the obstacles.
A while back related to Gayle’s work we received a very significant prophetic word that it was a ‘back to the future’ sitatuation… this morning I had an article sent me from a very different perspective entitled back to the future. Marty McFly went from 1985 to 1955 with all that entailed – we all laughed back then when 30 years prior to his time the suggestion that the actor Ronald Reagan would be future president was extremely bizarre. The article looked at 2024 and travelling back 30 years to 1994 and perhaps the suggestion to Doc that Doc that “the casino guy with the gold-plated toilets who left his wife for the Wrestlemania girl” would get elected president would be as bizarre. Those were the humorous part of the article, the rest was much more profound and disturbing. Humour for sure, but..
1994 Nelson Mandela just elected as South Africa’s president; Yasser Arafat returns from Exile and begins the ‘peace process’; Ukraine gives up its Soviet based nuclear weapons with part of the deal between Russia and the West being that the Ukraine will not be invaded by either party… that and many other ironic observations were being made. The aritcle ended very poignantly with
What does 2054 Marty see during his visit to our world? What seeds are we planting, and can we possibly know what harvest they’ll bring?
[For us charismatics we might also add in 1994 and what became known as the ‘Toronto Blessing’… seeds sown then and 30 years later? Now what seeds are being sown for 1954?]
On the global (middle eastern) scene in 2054 we would travel back to 2024 to realise that so much came in 2024 to destabilise… we would read that there was not only conlfict in Gaza, but that was the year that the border to the occupied West Bank was closed shutting out the 150,000 Palestinian workers had been crossing into Israel regularly for jobs in agriculture and construction, causing something around 30% unemployment in the West Bank. Tied to the Middle East 2024 was the year when 15% of all global trade stopped using the Suez Canal thus adding to global costs enormously… who knows whether those events will help someone in 2054 make sense of their world?
Can we affect the future? The future is always rising from the seeds of today.
I mentioned a few nights ago to someone that the demoniac who was delivered (Legion) was found to be
They came to Jesus and saw the man possessed by demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion, and they became frightened.
Of course it is a literal statement but I consider that probably behind it is carrying a little more meaning, and that the two phrases ‘clothed’ and ‘in his right mind’ could well be connected. To be in our ‘right mind’ is a process for all of us toward ‘having the mind of Christ’ or at a more human, day to day, level to be thinking straight about ourselves and the world around us. Many years ago I had a woman at the end of a church session ask me to pray for her and her work. I asked her what work she was involved in and she replied that she was a fashion designer. (Of course this SOOOOO connected with me!!??) I replied that this was a wonderful line of work for a believer – OK I will give my reasoning a little later.
I am not convinced that we are to understand the early chapters of Genesis as giving us a literal report on what took place but we do encounter clothing in those chapters. First, of course, there was nothing hidden between them – indicating a radical openness and honesty, but once the abandonment of eating from the ‘tree(s) of life’ came in shame entered and a measure of hiddeness and the couple used something quite inadequate – fig leaves (not recommended!). The first ‘clothing’ was inadequate but indicates a level of personal shame – and I am thinking beyond the shame of the body. God comes and we read,
And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them.
God clothed them is an enormous statement. And it does tie with the ‘end’, when Paul looks beyond death to being clothed (resurrection body),
For in this tent we groan, longing to be further clothed with our heavenly dwelling, for surely when we have been clothed in it we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan under our burden because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. The one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a down payment (2 Cor 5:2-5).
The resurrection body will be that final element on our journey. Never to be found ‘naked’ but totally transformed with no shame, guilt, sadness, tears… and no more death. God will do this.
The Spirit is given to us as a down payment, an ‘arrabon’ (modern Greek: an engagement ring); the Spirit comes to us as a result of the clothing that God gives to us, rather than the hurriedly put together clothing (fig leaves) that we tend to put together.
[And back to my prayer for the woman who was a fashion designer… You have a great job, think of the resurrection, we will be clothed in a way that we will be totally who we are. If you can think of the resurrection and design clothes that will complete people, you will have people wanting to wear your clothes, for they will ‘feel’ clean, whole, they will feel that they are themselves.]
So clothing… Let’s take it symbolically as I am still waiting for my conviction by the fashion police to be rescinded!! Clothing in the context of the Scriptures I am quoting is more than for modesty or protection, they are an outward expression of an inward perception. That is the connection between being in one’s right mind and being clothed. When my outword expression matches my inward perception I am ‘clothed’ at a level of integrity; when my inner percpetion lines up with external truth and my outward expression line up with that I will be ‘clothed and in my right mind’. It begins – assuming we have faith – with God clothing us, the removal of the fig leaves of self-protection, false humility (shame is intrinsically connected here), and goes on to that of self-perception. Perceiving ourselves increasingly through heaven’s eyes of grace… and one day that will be completed.
Perhaps… you will go way beyond me and connect your (literal) physical clothing with your interior self.
Language – corporate exorcism… dealing with a corporate spirit… cleansing a house. I am not sure what the best language is for what I am about to describe, and there might well be different (and also effective) approaches to the situation. In summary I hold that there is a corporate ‘spirit’ that comes into being as any organisation (even those that begin organically) develops. That corporate spirit might be a spiritual entity (as in ‘being’) though I probably side toward understanding it to be some of sort of reality, of manifesting all the elements of personality but falling short of being an independent ‘being’.
[I probably have not fully grasped the writings of Walter Wink on this but I consider what he has written is some of the best on this – he does not believe in what we would term a ‘personal devil’ but is very happy to use the language of ‘demon / spirit / devil. I have certainly used his understanding in my own writings when seeking to understand how a city develops.]
So painting a progression. Here comes a handful of people who come up with a brilliant idea and they collaborate together to move it forward. This is driven by the energy and vision of those people and so in the early stages everything is very malleable and open to adjustment. Probably the organisation (and by that I am not suggesting it is all tied down, but am using the term as a catch-me-all term for the spectrum of corporeality from loose to structured) then receives a name. [In Scripture the term ‘city’ is pretty much the term that would be ascribed to what I am terming an organisation.]
At this early stage the organisation is there to serve the vision. All seems in harmony. The naming is an important element (here I think we can draw on the naming of the animals in the creation story) for the name gives it an identity. A great challenge later will be if the name is appropriate and if so can the organisation continue to live up to what the name should entail.
As the development continues the organisation will move through from interdependence between the organisation and the ‘founders’ to then the beginning of the organisation gaining a measure of independence. If this independence continues there will be a greater measure to which ‘Babylon’ will manifest, with its claim that:
I am, and there is no one besides me;
I shall not sit as a widow
or know the loss of children (Is. 47:8).
The claim then is of continual existence through the generations,
The Hebrew for Babel and Babylon are the same and in Babel we see the vision ‘make a name for ourselves… raise a tower to heaven’, all fuelled by what can be imagined. Within all organisations (business, schools, systems, churches, clubs) are the ‘babylonic’ and (possibly) the ‘new Jerusalem’ attributes. So as the development takes place there will be a tendency for more of the babylonic to manifest – it is the default direction, it will simply happen if left unaddressed. And certainly the further it moves to the babylonic expression the more likely a (assuming they exist) demonic entity will be attracted.
[The make a name is not that of I will make a name for myself, but I will be part of something that has a name and reputation… it will live to perpetuate its own existence, and likewise I will be present to give my energies for its continues existence.]
Because this is a default direction it is very dangerous to leave this all unattended. An ‘exorcism’ or at least a re-alignment will need to be carried out on a regular basis.
Scripture uses the term ‘beasts’ to describe that which rises up with an imperial presence. An imperial spirit is simply that which empowers a few at the top of the pyramid who in turn offer success to all who comply but the benefits simply flow to those at the top… and if such a system claims also the endorsement of ‘heaven’ we have a right old mess on our hands! The use of the ‘beast’ metaphor is from creation, where there are domestic and wild animals (Jesus in the wilderness – yes in the wilderness – lived eschatologically and ‘the wild beasts were with him!); the wild beasts, those that cannot be domesticated by humanity are then the appropriate metaphor for ‘babylonic’ systems.
In Revelation 13:5 we read that ‘The beast was given a mouth’. That is always an important stage for it initiates the 42 month period (that is what is known as a ‘rectangular’ number and signifies the time and place of conflict). The ‘mouth’ manifestation is a major sign that we have gone past the time when an exorcism / re-alignment should have taken place – this being when there are those who verbally are contending for the success of the organisation… success at all costs. They think they will benefit personally but in reality they too will be sacrificed once they have no value to the future success.
In simple terms all organisations are looking for those whose faces fit; who will be loyal. This can work for some, but it is always open to dehumanisation, for no organisation, nor leader(s) can say ‘my people, my money/ resources’.
In summary then as the organisation develops and if it is left unchecked an independent life will develop (a corporate life that transcends the sum total of the individuals) it will increasingly devour people and reward those who align with its babylonish intent.
So what do we do?
Those within need on a regular basis – and surely something annual would be helpful and probably enough if done with conviction – to address the corporate reality. As with all demonic expulsions, muzzle the voice (and here practically any advertising, self-promotion needs to be looked at) – the voice is so important. Then to exorcise or to re-align I consider that the corporate spirit needs to be addressed with a firmness of conviction, and addressed till there is a submission… something along the lines of ‘we are not here to serve you and see you succeed (and if ‘Christian’) we command and align you to the advance of the kingdom, not to our idea of what that means but to be coformed to the pattern of the Son of God’. It is amazingly how challenging those words are to us – we are not seeking your success. If we cannot say that we might need some deliverance first! If the body of people addressing the organisation are not ‘Christian’ then maybe something along the lines of ‘we command and align you to serve humanity and with a particualr bias to the marginalised’.
Now just for a moment think of a before and an after. Before: the world as we have it. After: when all governments, cities, businesses, organisations, churches etc. all together make those declarations.
Maybe we might get something different:
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed[b] together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Just imagine… imagination was not cursed in Babel, just how it was being used.
I have been provoked by the quoting of Scripture in the mouth of ‘the adversary’ when confronting Jesus in the temptations. Three intertwined temptations related to mammon, religion and power. Interrelated because they impinge on one another, and are seldom ever totally separate. The Scriptures are a dangerous set of writings as can seemingly bend them for my own purposes. The three take place in three separate locations: the wilderness (the journey through with enough but not an over-abundance) hence a good place to throw the temptation of abundant provision; the high mountain to see whatever oikoumene (imperial domain) might be appealing to us to be the king of the castle over; and then the Temple (religious context) – the context in which the Scripture was quoted by the adversary.
In Revelation (the book that corrects our sight) the wilderness was the place where Babylon was manifest (Rev. 17:3) to John; unless we learn how to navigate the wilderness it is unlikely we will see Babylon manifest. Likewise it was at the top of the mountain that John saw the New Jerusalem come down (21:10) and we are going to be tormented by the seemingly eternal existence of Babylon unless we can refuse status, domination and hierarchy.
So to the temptation where Scripture is quoted:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
This is the temptation in the temple. God is with you in a unique way. Always this is what seems to be the signs that surround those who can tell us the way to go. God is with them, thus proving they are beyond me. Or… God anoints the person who is embodying the great rejection of heaven (the king); the disciples (not the 11 but the 12) come back with ‘even the demons are subject in your name’. Says a lot about God; does not speak about the approval of deviant behaviour or position.
There are those who carry the presence of the Lord in unique ways – that is the nature of the anointing… but super-stardom is not the way of the kingdom.
One of the big concerns I have is when the three temptations come together in a way that ‘a three-fold cord is hard to break’… Economic promise, political power and religious uniqueness, then add to that the quoting of Scripture. Warning bells sound!
I read a post this morning and in it was the following sentence:
The other instigates a secular political war against imaginary enemies.
Imaginary enemies! For the likes of me who live with an oppositional viewpoint to everything the danger is that when I come to peace with something I will have to find something else to be in opposition to, and can of course just come up with something totally from my imagination. ‘Binding’ something imaginary of course needs a very tight noose indeed!!
The post was looking at how evangelicals can paint a picture of what is ‘evil’, signs of ‘decadence’ in society, the ‘loss of Judeo-Christian’ values (and of course terms such as ‘pro-life’ becomes tightly defined into the abortion issue while being able to support one of the biggest anti-life industries – that of the various war-machines, including never questioning where their pension fund is invested…) We can easily do this either by stating what the ‘enemy is / enemies are’ or create an environment of general fear so as we lose sight on the real issues threatening our future.
It reminds me of a dream I had recently, the first part of which might be relevant here. I walked with Gayle into a large auditorium where someone is holding forth on the various prophetic insights they had, and as they did this they noted the presence of someone from a different background who held to different perspectives. An acknowledgement was made, and a welcome, with ‘we need to hear later from xxx’. However no space was made for this person and once all the prophetic revelation was given out the person holding forth simply began to shadow-box around the stage and the auditorium. Realising that this was going to be the ‘content’ Gayle and I left.
Shadow-boxing – looks impressive, but there is no opponent. To shadow-box is simply to pretend there is an opponent there, to duck, to weave, to jab, to punch. It is all for the show, for the watching crowd…but it has no reality to it. Hence the post today and that sentence that caught my attention.
What are the true enemies? what is the enemy doing – after all Paul said he was not unaware of such scemes 2 Cor. 2:11? how do we foster what – even if imperfectly – is moving humanity forward? How do we avoid the shadow-boxing? Loads of questions for you and me.
I read this article this morning:
In it I read of Maoz Inon:
Maoz Inon — who swims every morning to keep from drowning in grief — says he’s experienced this other reality of peace. He and his wife opened a guesthouse in Nazareth in 2005 that serves both Israeli Jews and Palestinians. And he’s seen these two groups “not living next to each other but living among each other based on equality” in what Inon calls a shared society…
Inon says he had something of a vision after this war began. It was the middle of the night, and he awoke in tears.
“And I saw an image of everyone crying,” he recalls. “Just we all cry — you cry, your daughter cry, everyone. And our tears are healing the wounds from Israelis and Palestinians. And our tears wash the blood.”
He says we shouldn’t have more weapons, build higher walls and create better security systems. “That’s the old world, OK? You want to start a new world? We need to cry.”
“And then,” he says, “we’ll see the path for peace.”
The old world and the new. So provocative, for that is the language of the New Testament.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… e will wipe every tear from their eyes.
This vision is what has inspired countless thousands of those we know and many more of those we do not know, those who could echo those immortal words ‘I have a dream’. We can intellectually discuss the ‘when’ and ‘how’ of that fulfilment but any discussion has to be connected to current hope and faith.
Maybe, and I say maybe, we could globally be moving toward a turning point. I wrote, earlier this year, about the season where boundaries will become visible, with all that is written in Scripture on the area it is not a small side-issue. Gaza is a bloody reality that sadly is causing division among many who are no-where near the situation, more division than tears and a call for a peace path. The Roman pax-Romana was by the sword (hence Paul’s ironic critique of the sword in Rom. 12), peace by blood; the Jesus peace was by his own blood. There is all-but no hope currently – such was also the time when Jesus came, at the ‘fullness of time’ – when there was no hope for Jew nor Greek. What about now? I am sure we have entered a level of unprecedented crisis (many crises), and a big global sign is ‘no hope’. While out this morning I was praying realising that we pray for the transformation of the world – and indeed we must persist – it is not in God’s hands, but if we cry s/he will partner with us, partner with Maoz (regardless of faith nor ethnicity).
I have a dream, and maybe we wake up amidst the dream to tears and pain. Both have to co-exist.
In what I write, if there are aspects I leave out please do not make assumptions as to what might be my take on those areas. My concern is we sit powerless against the level of catastrophe of Gaza / Israel. It is far enough away that it does not touch us directly, and if we add to that and we try and plot this against a prophetic ‘time-line’ that we are further paralysed but are then content in that we have ‘inside knowledge’. The centre of ALL of God’s purposes is Jesus – all the promises find their double ‘yes’ in him. Yes we have to nuance Israel as a people some with reference to Rom. 11 but not to the level of over-riding the centre. And beyond that…
1948 and the giving of the land (by the British) as a homeland to the Jews in order to be a solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ has not exactly resolved that issue! If as many assume that that act was a restoration of the land as a fulfilment of prophecy we should also consider that whenever God is active that the ‘enemy’ is active. The work of the enemy – and Paul says ‘we are not unaware of the schemes of the devil’ – is something we are to consider as we can easily unwittingly play along or fail to see what is happening. So with the above premise of enemy activity…
What if the land and promise is connected (not my view) then the enemy scheme would be to play with that, and dare I suggest that encourage us to lose sight of something bigger than the land, that of ‘kingdom’ or even ‘new creation’. The kingdom of God is righteousness, shalom and joy. The new creation is without tears, and harmony between peoples as they bring in their gifts to that new Jerusalem – the city that has no Temple.
That scheme would not be too difficult to execute. Biblically there would be more than enough texts and complete passages of Scripture to defend our view and lead to a blanket support of one side (Israel) in any confict, as God is with them (a theme that was VERY loud in the two major catastrophes in 586BCE and 70CE),
There has to be – and always has been a third way – that of ‘God is neither for us nor for our enemy’ (and of course ‘love for the enemy’ as advocated by Jesus does somewhat move us beyond what Joshua encountered). Add the wisdom of Solzhenitsin who said the line of good and evil never runs between ‘me’ and someone else, but through us both, and our allegiances have to be tempered.
Maybe also add the summary (as I read it) of Old Testament prophets as they chastised a people they identified with over the two-fold issue of ‘provision’ and ‘protection’ and where their trust was and I do not think there would be at this time a blanket support coming from any of them.
Yes it is deeply complex, how does a nation-state (not the same as a biblical nation) act when attacked? As those privleged (for now) not to be caught up in what is taking place, my plea is that in our powerlessness we ask not for the vindication of this side or that, but that sanity and humanity comes into the situation (at least that might be within our faith level even if calling for the righetousness, shalom and joy of the Spirit is beyond our faith level).
