Three "R"s

The historically agreed upon views of the Church from the beginning concerning eschatology (Last Things) can be represented by the three "R"s:  return, resurrection, and restoration.

The “return” is the physical second coming of Christ; historically, the Church has held to a literal, physical return of Christ to the earth as judge and king.

The “resurrection” is the physical resurrection of the body of all who have died; the righteous will be resurrected to eternal life and the unrighteous will be resurrected to eternal judgment.

The “restoration” is the future restoration of all creation; there will be a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, no longer under the corruption due to the original sin of Adam.

Of course, there have been dissenters down through the centuries, and even to this day, but they are outside the historically held views of the Christianity.

Of course, within and related to these three views, there are a lot of details Christians can disagree about, but they are the historically held views.

Jesus will return to the earth literally and physically, the dead shall be raised to physical life, and the creation will be delivered from corruption and restored.

If you reject these things, you are not only rejecting what Scripture teaches, but what the Church has historically held down through the centuries.

Why Eve?

Why did Satan temp Eve instead of Adam?

Satan will look for weakness to exploit to bring about failure.

It could be that Eve was questioning why they could not eat of the tree, and Satan took advantage of that. Maybe Adam chose to leave it alone—because God said so--until Eve took the plunge.

It could be that God allowed Eve but not Adam to be tempted, because if Eve made the fatal choice, maybe Adam could have negated it. I know that sounds questionable, but there is the authority that a husband has over his wife or a father over his daughter. We read about that in Numbers chapter 30. If a daughter makes a vow to God, and the father hears it, he can choose to overrule it, but if he hears it and says nothing, then the vow stands. The same with a wife and her husband. Adam could have refused to eat the fruit, and maybe God would have removed the consequence.

We read in Genesis that it wasn't until Adam ate of the fruit that their eyes were opened. We are told in Scripture that the head of woman is man, and so it may have been that the consequence of disobeying God did not result until Adam ate of the fruit. We are told that sin entered through Adam. When their eyes were opened, there was an awareness that they did not have before. Something changed within their consciousness that I believe amounts to a new inclination of inordinate desire, and they saw things differently than before.

It could be that Satan just chose Eve first because he saw opportunity, and she was more vulnerable. But the idea that Adam could have negated it is an interesting possibility. We just don't have enough revelation to explain all that was going on.  

Scripture references:

“...if a woman makes a vow to the LORD, and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth, ⁴ and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand. ⁵ But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the LORD will release her, because her father overruled her. ⁶ "If indeed she takes a husband, while bound by her vows or by a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound herself, ⁷ and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her agreements by which she bound herself shall stand. ⁸ But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the LORD will release her.” Numbers 30:3-8

^“3 But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” 1 Corinthians 11:3

^“6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” Genesis 3:6-7

^“12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—“ Romans 5:12

Holy Spirit Blasphemed

 Jesus said blaspheme of the Holy Spirit would never be forgiven, and this seems comparable to taking the mark of the beast, if the non-forgiveness is a salvation issue, for those who take the mark are destined for forever torment: “⁹ Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰ he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. ¹¹ And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name." Revelation 14:9-11

This would suggest that the blaspheme, like the Mark, involves a “point of no return.” If one has opportunity to come to saving faith in Christ until death, how could one's fate be sealed like this? It would seem that they have reached a certain degree of hardness of heart that nothing will change their mind or turn them around.

If we say that the blaspheme is unbelief, we can only say it is a certain degree of unbelief, because non-believers can have a change of mind later.

One other option is that the blaspheme of the Holy Spirit could result in a consequence that one is not forgiven. This does not have to be about that kind of forgiveness that keeps one out of hell. Forgiveness involves being released from consequence. The consequence of this blaspheme may not be about going to hell. If the blaspheme is about resisting what the Holy Spirit reveals or convicts you about, it could be that the non-forgiveness of this particular resistance involves a consequence that is not about going to Hell. It could be like Moses who was not forgiven of his disobedience to speak to the rock, and so he was not allowed to enter Canaan—God would not forgive him. Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit and God killed them—this doesn't mean they went to Hell, but they lost their lives early.

Understanding the blaspheme of the Holy Spirit must not mean that salvation from hell depends on our perfect obedience to the work of the Holy Spirit. A person can resist the Holy Spirit at one point in their life but obey him later in life. It could be about reaching a point of no return by the hardness of the heart, or it could be that there is a consequence that is not about going to hell, but there is no escaping the consequence.

Image of God

I believe that being created in the image of God means that God gave man dominion over the earth. The text in Genesis puts the dominion over the earth by man in the same reference to being created in the image of God. This sets man apart from the animals.

A while back, I was reading a book by Michael Heiser called “The Unseen Realm” that made the same claim. He would refer to man as God's Imagers.

I am presently reading a book by Michael Svigel called “The Fathers on the Future,” and he says that same thing. He says that to be created in the image of God means we have dominion over the earth.

After the flood, God said that whoever sheds man's blood shall have his blood shed because man is created in the image of God. This is capital punishment—the death penalty—for someone who takes the life of another unjustly. The reason is because man is created in the image of God: to take one's life is to violate his dominion.

^“26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." ²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:26-27

⁶ "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.” Genesis 9:6

star light problem

 I recently finished reading the book, “The Created Cosmos: What the Bible Reveals About Astronomy,” by Dr. Danny Faulkner. Faulkner is a professor with degrees in Physics and Astronomy. He is a young earth creationist.

What led me to read this book was a video on YouTube in which he discussed the light-travel-time problem. He did not take the view that was theorized by Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, a view that I have held to for about 30 years in explaining how we can see starlight from stars more than 6000 light years from earth—believing the earth/ universe is around 6000 years old (though maybe up to 10,000 years old).

There's the additional problem of the timing of seeing something like a supernova in a young universe. The simple explanation of God creating the universe mature would seem deceptive with respect to a supernova, because that would mean the star didn't really exist, just the supernova of the star placed at some point to appear thousands of years later.

Humphreys got his PH.D. in Physics and worked in things like nuclear physics and geophysics. I read his book many years ago, titled, “Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of distant Starlight in a Young Universe.”

I don't know if I fully understood Humphreys' view, but it presented a theory of how God created the earth and universe that made it possible to see star light on earth from the beginning from stars more than 6000 light years from earth.

How I understood it was that the processes at work on earth relative to the processes at work in the universe were like one day (on earth) to billions of years (in the universe). Humphreys theory as to how this worked was that God created through using a white hole, which is a black hole running in reverse. But you would have to read his book to understand what that all means.

Faulkner did not agree with Humphreys' white hole cosmology in explaining the star-light-time problem in connection with a young earth. He also said that Humphreys abandoned his view for a view closer to his own. This surprised me, and it's why I got Faulkner's book.

Faulkner's view is that God did not simply create a mature universe, but that he matured the universe so that Adam could see star light from the very beginning. The difference is between mature and matured. It seems similar to what I said earlier about the processes at work, but I think Faulkner is saying it was just God directly speeding up the process to get the universe to the point that the stars would serve their purpose to be seen on earth (like watching those time-lapse films of a plant growing, from seed to mature plant in seconds), as opposed to making it immediately mature or using some mechanical means like Humphreys' white hole cosmology.

I'm sure many are not concerned in understanding these things, but I do see a problem--if you take a young earth view--with explaining something like a supernova being seen in recent times from a star more than 6000 light years away. Did the star really ever exist?

Besides all that stuff, Faulkner's book discusses some interesting topics like Astrology, extraterrestrial life, flat-earth cosmology, the gospel in the stars (constellations) claim, unusual astronomical events in the Bible (as in the manipulated days of Joshua and Hezekiah, and the Christmas star of the Magi), and astronomical aspects of Good Friday, Resurrection Sunday and prophetic literature and the end times.

Faulkner writes that the heavens and the stars do not give us special revelation in order to know God, but it gives us general revelation about God.

Faulkner quotes Romans 1:20 (see below) and says that there are two things that general revelation tells us, being, “his eternal power and Godhead.” “That is, God exists and is very powerful.” “Romans 1 also tells us that men are without excuse for their condition, but there is nothing in general revelation that tells us that God sent his Son into the world to pay that penalty for our sins. To learn these and other things related to salvation, we must turn to special revelation, the Bible. In other words, general revelation can lead us to conclude that there is a Creator and what at least some of His attributes are, but general revelation alone is insufficient to lead us to Christ. Furthermore, this proscription from Romans 1:20 would seem to rule out the entire gospel message being found in the stars and constellations (general revelation) as supporters of the gospel in the stars require.”

^“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,” Romans 1:20

Futuristic Fathers

There is a claim that futuristic views of end-time events are a modern invention. Such views as a coming “antichrist” who will rule for 3 1/2 years during a time of “great tribulation,” persecuting Christians, are said to have developed in the 1800s.   This is not true, for there was an early belief in the Church in a future antichrist who would rule during the great tribulation. 

Bless or curse Israel

Just as there are Christians who are supportive of the Jewish State, there are those Christians who are not supportive of the Jewish State. Those who are supportive believe that God has a future purpose for the nation of Israel, and the promise to Abraham still applies: “³ I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you.” Genesis 12:3 The non-supportive Christians may reject both of these things.

I've seen the non-supportive Christians to be more visible and vocal. It seems to be the spirit of the age to be anti-Israel.

One of the claims I've seen is that the promise to Abraham was to Abraham only and not to his descendants through his grandson Jacob. But even if that were true, or even if the promise doesn't specifically apply at this time, does that mean we shouldn't be supportive of the Jewish State? Should we curse Israel?

Balak, the king of Moab, sought to employ the prophet Balaam to curse Israel as they settled near them, and Moab was afraid of them. The mysterious Balaam said that he could only speak the words that God “puts in his mouth.”

⁵ Then the LORD put a word in Balaam's mouth (Numbers 23:5)...

⁷ And he took up his oracle and said: "Balak the king of Moab has brought me from Aram, From the mountains of the east. 'Come, curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!' ⁸ "How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced? (Numbers 23:7-8)...

​¹ Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, (Numbers 24:1)...

Balaam raised his eyes, and saw Israel encamped according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him.

³ Then he took up his oracle and said: "The utterance of Balaam the son of Beor, The utterance of the man whose eyes are opened, ⁴ The utterance of him who hears the words of God, Who sees the vision of the Almighty, Who falls down, with eyes wide open: ⁵ "How lovely are your tents, O Jacob! Your dwellings, O Israel! (Numbers 24:2-5)...

"Blessed is he who blesses you, And cursed is he who curses you." (Numbers 24:9)

This last part of Balaam's prophecy speaks of a blessing and cursing, just as in the promise to Abraham. So the application goes beyond Abraham to his descendants.

But even if you say it doesn't apply at this present time, due to Israel still suffering the consequences of God's wrath for the rejection of Jesus, should we not be supportive of the Jewish State?