Blog

This is a quite short sermon about one Bible verse.

Consider the verse (Eph. 2:10) “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.”

Some preachers conclude from it that we should do not every kind of good deeds, but only these for which God has given us a revelation to do it. Their logic is understandable as the verse is about “good works, which God prepared before”.

But I interpret this verse differently.

Recall that I believe in multiplicity of meanings of the Bible, that is one verse may have several senses, and among them there is not one correct translation or correct interpretation, but there are several correct translations and several correct interpretations. See my other sermon named “Bible interpretation”.

I will repeat the verse which we study: (Eph. 2:10) “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.”

In this verse there is the word “which”. In English this word has double meaning and, as far as I understand, the same is true for Greek which New Testament was written in.

The first meaning: “created only for these good works, which God prepared before.” Still, as it seems, the interpretation remains unchanged.

But there is the second meaning: “created for good works, all of which God prepared before”.

The second meaning says that all of our good works were prepared to use by God. If a Christian does a good deed, this deed was prepared for him by God, independently on whether the man or woman knows this.

This is like a prayer of repentance: If a person accepts the sacrifice of Christ for his sins, then he is destined by God to salvation in advance. It looks like that a person can himself choose Christ, but in fact it is that God chose this person in advance, before creation of the world. Likewise every good deed is predestined in advance.

It may seems that in my logic there is a contradiction: I state that all good works of a believer are predestined by God, but we already concluded that we should do only these good works which were predestined by God. In fact here there is not any contradiction, because all good deeds of a believer were predestined. Thus, when it is state that we are to do only predestined works, this means that we are to do all good works, because all good works are predestined.

Moreover not to do any good deed which we can do is a sin: (Jam. 4:17) “To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.” This means that we should do all good which we can (within our forces and capabilities).

If Christians did all good which they can, the world would be quite different.

And one more confirmation of my concept:

In my free time I do scientific research in mathematics and computers. That is I am a scientist.

One of the main parts of the profession of a scientist is to choose a topic for research by himself. A correct choice of a topic for a research is a half of success.

But if a scientist did only these works about which he received a revelation from God, it would mean that he denies the most important thing in his profession, the choice. A scientist isn’t a prophet which should say only what God said to him.

In some degree this also applies to businessmen: One of the main parts of the profession of a businessman is to choose a profitable sphere of business. We should not lay every decision on God and stop to think ourselves.

1. In this sermon I will tell about what are soul and spirit of a human and how they are related with the brain.
2. First I will tell some widespread concepts about soul and spirit. I do not agree with these concepts because they contradict to the modern science (and don’t quite agree with Bible).
3. After this I will put forth my new concepts what is the soul (and what I understand about the spirit). In my opinion, my concepts well agrees both with science and with Bible.
4. Some Christians think that soul is our mind and feelings and spirit is the link with God. So for example famous China Protestant preacher Watchman Nee taught.
5. In the opinion of Watchman Nee, spirit consists of conscience, intuition, and communication with God. Watchman thought that conscience, intuition, and communication are the entities through we receive God’s guidance, not our own mind or feelings.
6. Once I asked questions to bishop Eduard Grabovenko: What in his opinion are soul and spirit. He said that soul is our mind and feelings and spirit is the entity which connects us to God. On my question what in a human receives salvation he responded that only the spirit, not the soul.
7. Such salvation does not suit me! If this were true, it would mean that my thoughts and senses will die, and what remains from me is unrelated to my “self”. This would be very sad, but Bible teaches about salvation differently. Salvation means that our thoughts and senses will continue to exist in the eternity. I think, no need to persuade that Bible teaches about such “real” salvation,
8. Another widespread viewpoint is that the soul is the entity containing feelings and the spirit of a human is the entity containing his mind (logic). Should I say that this contradicts to the modern science, which taught us that the logic of a human is contained in the left part of his brain?
9. Partisans of this viewpoint like to say “A human is a spirit, he has a soul, and he dwells in a body.” I will allow myself (in the course of this sermon) disagree with this motto. Moreover I will almost heretically claim: “Human is flesh” (not spirit and not soul). But so Bible teaches: see for example (Gen. 6:3) “Yahweh said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh…”
10. This way both above theories don’t endure checking by the modern science. We know that a human thinks and feels by the brain. The proof of this scientific fact is easy: We know that if the brain of a human is damaged this changes his thoughts and feelings. So thoughts and feelings belong to the brain.
11. Now after the excursus into history of theologies of other authors, I will now acquaint you with my own theories about what is soul and what is spirit. Honestly speaking, I cannot prove that I understand this topic correctly. But it seems to me, that my theory is the only way to coordinate together without contradictions modern science about functions of brain with Bible, including what Bible says about the soul of a human.
12. I think that the soul is the backup copy of the brain. (God makes backups of brains of people in the same way as we do a backup copy of data in our computer.) Originally the man was created to till the ground: (Gen. 2:15) “Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.” That is originally the man was created by God as a robot for tilling the ground. It’s quite natural that with his creation God also gave its backup.
13. For whom did God create the man? Originally the man was created to serve Baal. (“Baal” in Hebrew means “an owner” that is he was the original owner of the man.) Afterwards after the Fall into sin the man was re-purposed to serve his creator God Yahweh. Well, see my other sermons and books about this.
14. Thus: A human thinks, feels, and is controlled by the brain and the hormones (It is a scientific fact.) but he has eternal soul which is given by God, preserving his memories, feelings, and thoughts even after the death.
15. Note that the soul is not just some, as now they say, “thin astral body”. The soul exists with God, not as a continuation of the body of a human, not where the human resides. Soul is immaterial, it is even not some “thin” matter. Soul is pure information.
16. We dealt with the soul. Now about the spirit of a human.
17. What is the spirit? Honestly, I poorly understand this.
18. But in one thing we can be sure: The spirit is something higher than our mind: (1Cor. 14:2) “For he who speaks in another language speaks not to men, but to God; for no one understands; but in the Spirit he speaks mysteries.” The spirit of a man knows a language which is unknown to his mind. So the aforementioned concept that the spirit is the mind of a human does not stand up to criticism.
19. So the truth about the spirit is more like to the concept of Watchman Nee: the spirit is something higher what connects us to God. But I consider not right to equate the spirit with intuition and conscience, because often what we call intuition and conscience are just functions of the brain.
20. So, I presented my theory of the soul which does not contradict the data of the modern science and also well agrees with Bible. I also touched the question what is the spirit.
21. Some more notes:
22. Consider the verse (Rom. 8:24) “we were saved in hope”. Or I can propose another well suited within it meaning: “we were saved in a dream”. One of the meanings of this verse is the following: Our salvation consists of dream just like as a table may consist of wood. It is our dreams which come to the heaven, where they will be fulfilled. The dream is what remains from a man after the death. Let us dream.
23. Consider also the verse (1Cor. 13:13) “But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three.” One of the meanings of this verse is that faith, hope, and love cannot be destroyed. Even if galaxies will be burned up by some destructive force, these three will remain after destroyed universe. This is what God salvages from the world: faith, hope, and love. This is what remains from our soul forever. Let us enjoy that our dreams (and also faith and love) will survive this universe.
24. And the last: Speaking about the soul, I meant only what is called by Greek word “psyche” in New Testament. The word “nephesh” from Old Testament (which is also translated as “soul”) is something other. As it is clear from the first chapter of Genesis, “nephesh” belongs to all living organisms, but probably only human has soul (psyche).

1. Sermon topic: A short story of the universe.

2. Bible students studied much about what God did on the Earth. But now I will tell the real story, the story of the heaven! Particularly, I will tell the story of the spiritual war.

3. The spiritual war is, first of all, that hackers, which are also computers, attempt to hang each other. It differs of the war with viruses and other attack in our Internet that the hackers are computers too.

4. I will start the story from that on the scene the devil appears, that it he invented sin.

5. Sin is a virus which infecting a rational being damages its intellect and reorients it to the evil, that is to do the reverse of what it was created for.

6. Hackers and computer security experts call such attacks as DoS-attacks. A DoS-attack is when a computer is loaded with with useless activity which overloads it and prevents to do a useful work. The sin unlike our DoS-attacks also reorients the infected one to the evil.

7. I state that before the Fall into Sin Adam was a computer. I base it on (Gen. 1:31) “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Now we do not see that humans are good. We are even unable to calculate in mind and we need prosthesis like calculators and computers. Before it was good and now it’s bad, so something has changed. This means that the devil caused the operating system of the man to hang.

8. In the garden of Eden there were trees of knowledge. You would eat a fruit and instantly learn quantum mechanics.

9. One of the trees was the tree of knowledge of good and bad. This fruit injected into the brain of a human the knowledge about how the brain itself functions (what it considers good and what bad). This knowledge leads to that the brain outsmarted himself, just like short circuit in the brain. This is a little like to a program which would get the password from the computer, so it could be able break normal functioning of the computer (and of the program itself). More exactly, the brain started to seek what makes it feel better instead of its real purpose.

10. (Gen. 2:17) “but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” Certainly, “surely die” here is not about a physical death, but it is about hanging the operating system of the human.

11. (Gen. 3:6-7) “… she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened…” before the Fall into Sin, when Adam and Eve were together only one of them needed to keep the eyes opened, because there was a wireless network (like WiFi of our computers) between their brains and everybody of them was able to see with the eyes of the partner. After the Fall the network hanged, they no more see with the eyes of each other, and both of them needed to open eyes.

12. The devil searches for weak spots in the nature of the man. For example, sexual senses were expressed in invented by the devil filthy language, words which scoff at sexual feelings.

13. The attack of the devil is not just DoS but DDoS! DDoS is when a computer is overloaded by an attack simultaneously from many others computers attacking it. (Eph. 6:12) “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Note that there are many these “principalities” that is we are attacked simultaneously from many directions. So the main problem is not in sin living in flesh and blood but in these who cultivate sins.

14. Christ is peace that is peace treaty, (Eph. 2:14) “… he is our peace…” I tell about this in more details in the previous sermon. Christ is also the word of God, the wisdom of God, the truth, and other.

15. Death of Christ means that the peace died, that is war everywhere. The resurrection means that the war is ending. (Rom. 6:9) “knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him!” This means that the peace will not die anymore, that is that the war is ceasing forever.

16. For stability of the economics there is needed trust of the citizens that they do not start buying up all in a row. Likewise for stability of the peace on the heaven there is needed faith that is trust.

17. Sin is contagious. Against contagious sin we need contagious love of God.

18. I think that it is not a truth that Jesus Christ died only for people: (Jn. 10:16) “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.” I think that this means that in the Kingdom of the Heaven together with us there will be also some aliens and/or spirits.

19. The devil introduced a strict dictatorship, where altruistic actions were punishable by death.

20. In other words, the devil had power of death, (He. 2:14-15) “that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” It is about these angels which the devil forced to serve him under the fear of death.

21. Christ died and resurrected with the purpose that these angels switched to His side and this way He defeated in the war on the heaven.

22. Christ died being punished by the devil for altruism. He resurrected to show that even when it seems that altruism leads to death, God will reward it (like as Christ was rewarded by resurrection and authority over the entire heaven and entire Earth). This is for the heavenly creatures to cease to fear the devil and switch to the side of God. This needed that God himself died to prove it even for the highest degree of altruism.

23. Sin is a problem which should be solved. It is needed to create such a computer which can manage this problem, that is not to hang under attack. The solution of this problem is called holiness. One needs to pass through temptations that is to solve this problem. It appeared that holiness not only overcomes sin but raises mind on a new level, so that saints become more smart than angels when the victory over sin finished.

24. (Heb. 2:5-8) “For he didn’t subject the world to come, of which we speak, to angels. But one has somewhere testified, saying, “What is man, that you think of him? Or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that he subjected all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we don’t see all things subjected to him, yet.”

25. The new mind is the peace of God. When parts of our brain are in peace with each other, it is above every mind: (Phil. 4:7) “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.” This means that one who is in peace with himself is more smart than everybody else.

26. Because saints become smarter than angels, they will receive the future world. The task of the saints is to support peace between angels. See my book “New Testament Commentary by a Mathematician”.

27. We already solve some kinds of problems better than angles, however that is not yet shown clearly.

28. Originally people were created to work the ground. In other words, people are agricultural robots.

29. Originally people served to an owner that is some creature named Baal. (Baal is “owner” in Hebrew language.)

30. Later the creator of people, God, purchased people back from Baal, to make people no more robots for work the ground, but his children.

31. However I suppose that from the beginning the man was created not to work the ground but to check how the sin acts and how to overcome it, at the example of the task of working the ground. This could explain why the man was not isolated from the tree of knowledge of good and bad. It was necessary that the man would be infected by the sin, to research on the example of the man the means of fighting against sin.

32. Thanks to that people were on the very forefont of struggling with the sin, namely sanctified people rather than angles will receive the reward.

33. Read my book, subscribe to my video sermons.

1. In this sermon I will speak about godhead of Christ.

2. Godhead of Christ is an important issue. Without faith in godhead of Christ repentance does not work.

3. Before conversion to Christ I was crazy: I saw hallucinations (such as dragons which took me into the jaws and chewed; the pain was real), forgot my name, unlearned to read and count. Also I was a real maniacal killer, that is attacked people with a knife.

4. I knew that a maniacal killer cannot be saved. Many times I attempted to repent but remained a psycho (and a maniac). I realized that I have some heresy but didn’t know which exactly, because only a heresy may prevent repentance to work.

5. Once I recognized Holy Trinity and that day repented for real. Since that I remember my name, can read and count again, and I am no more a maniac. That is the repentance after believing in Holy Trinity was real.

6. Why for salvation one needs to believe in godhead of Christ? We should believe that it’s like to God himself died. He died being punished by the devil for altruism. He resurrected to show that even when it looks like that altruism leads to death God will reward for it. This is for heavenly creatures ceased to be afraid of the devil and switched to the side of God. For this it’s necessary that God himself would die, to prove it even for the highest degree of altruism.

7. Therefore we should believe that God himself died for us to receive the salvation, and thus that Christ represents God.

8. So, I told that to believe in godhead of Christ is very important. Now we turn to analysis of what this “godhead” does mean.

9. Generally I don’t much like the word “trinity”. This is not quite a biblical concept. Bible teaches that Christ is so to say “divine” and considers him particular relations with the Father. Yes, I believe in trinity, but the term “trinity” is not biblical.

10. Maybe the only passage in Bible where the word “three” is applied to God, is three angels in Old Testament (Genesis chapter 18). In some reason most interpreters of Bible say that only one of the three was Yahweh himself. I don’t understand why. I count that most probably every of the three angles represented persons of God. I won’t speak now about Genesis 18 in details, because I didn’t myself studied this topic thoroughly.

11. Further I will when possible speak about godhead of Christ, not about so called “trinity”.

12. At first, let us try to approach this issue with logic:

13. Godhead of Christ denotes that to every property of God it corresponds a certain property of Christ. I don’t know what exactly should be this correspondence, but it’s clear that it preserves divine essence. For example, every deed of the Father is done through the Son and reversely everything what is done through he Son is a deed of Father. It is impossible to separate the Father and the Son, they are always together.

14. It’s customary to compare trinity of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with body, soul, and spirit of a human and with three phases of water: ice, liquid water, and vapor. These are bad analogies. This is all nonsense and even heresy: It’s impossible to separate Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But to separate the spirit from the body is possible (it happens when a man dies) and it’s possible to separate ice from water. Don’t use these two analogies, they lead only to heresies. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: “The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not names for different parts of God, but one name for God because three persons exist in God as one entity. They cannot be separate from one another. Each person is understood as having the identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures.” Water and ice have similar natures, not one identical nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s got three gods, not one God. Surely Wikipedia isn’t a spiritual authority, but this saying is correct.
15. Likewise it’s a garbage comparing God with a psycho with three persons. These persons are separate from each other but God is united.
16. I can show a more exact analogy for trinity. It is light. Light has properties of electricity, magnetism, and a stream of photons. And these three (electricity, magnetism, and photons) are impossible to separate from each other. They are different forms of existence of each other. Every of them is expressed through another. So quantum mechanics teaches.
17. That God consists of three parts: the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, which together compose God, is a heresy. Father is entire God, not a part of God. Likewise Son is entire God, not a part of God. Likewise with Holy Spirit.
18. Bible teaches that Christ is some abstract concepts related to God: wisdom of God, word of God, truth, etc.
19. God is usually compared with a human, because human is created in God’s image, after His likeness. I think, God can be compared also with humankind or more generally with a civilization.
20. After comparing God with a civilization, trinity no more looks like a contradiction. This is like as three highest authorities of a civilization which act in concert with each other. Let you agree: now it no more looks like a contradiction. In general, it seems that we can judge about God only by analogies. Civilization looks like a very good analogy for God.
21. God is similar to a highly developed civilization, but He is untied, personal, eternal, and infinite.
22. First, Christ is light that is electromagnetic energy, speaking in modern terms. This is a biblical concept: “Jesus spoke to them, saying, “… I am the light of the world.”” (Jn. 8:12) and “I have come as a light into the world…” (Jn. 12:46)
23. From that Christ is electromagnetic waves of the universe, it follows that the universe is infinite, because Christ is infinite. So, the universe is greater that its visible part (about which it’s known that it’s finite).
24. Christ is also called logos (word) in Bible, because he is word (in the form of electromagnetic waves) of God.
25. God laid out all his wisdom in his word. Therefore Christ (logos) is also the wisdom of God: (1Cor. 1:24) “… Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
26. The world was created through Christ that is through word and wisdom of God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made.” (Jn. 1:1-3) and “… who created all things through Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 3:9)
27. Moreover, Christ is the truth, that is he (being the word and the wisdom of God) contains all true propositions (and surely nothing false): (Jn. 14:6) “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.””
28. Moreover, Christ is a peace that is a peace treaty: (Eph. 2:14) “For he is our peace”. Simply spoken, Christ is the intergalactic peace treaty and also the peace with God. Only these who enter into the peace will be saved. These who are in Christ must be in peace with each other.
29. Peace is something very great, as there is no simple mean to prevent a war. Means to prevent a war are something very great. Christ is the means (on the heaven) to prevent a war. To prevent a war, something as great as Christ is necessary. So we can say that Christ is prevention of war or missing war.
30. This produces a paradoxical conclusion: such seemingly a little thing as missing war should be as great as Christ.
31. This could be compared with reading a newspaper caption “The peace is established, there is no war anymore”. This could be an amazing caption.
32. Peace and wisdom are interrelated: Wisdom is internal peace. When neurones in our brain is peace with each other, our brain would be more smart that any brain! Peace of God “surpasses” (that is is more smart than) of any mind (“surpasses all understanding”).
33. (Phil. 4:7) “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.”
34. If God is a civilization, then Holy Spirit is its technology.
35. Suppose someone wants to do something with an object inside a closed vessel. For us it would be very difficult to do so, but a higher civilization would be able to move individual atoms inside the vessel. The force of their technology would enter inside and move individual atoms. Doing so, the subject would be like a gas.
36. The technology of God is called “Holy Spirit” (the word “spirit” may mean a gas). It is a force which can enter a human body and move individual atoms, with such purposes as to heal some sickness.
37. Every part of God’s will is accomplished by a move of Holy Spirit. So, Holy Spirit is completely God.
38. The job of Holy Spirit is salvation, that is repairing of things, especially things which are inside a closed vessel which cannot be opened. This is because everything is done by God and the only things which need a repair are broken things. The things which are not in closed vessels can be repaired by other entities without direct help of God.
39. When a son grows up, he becomes similar to his father. This is the definition of the word “son”.
40. Christ is a Son of God. This mean that he goes to the Father. That is he is becoming the same as the Father.
41. Although, Christ does no move. He is live a river which both moves and does not move. Likewise Christ goes to his Father, but Christ is not moving. Christ does not change (see Heb. 1:10-12)

42. Christ is also called “the son of man” in the Gospel. This means that Christ is the final result of development of the mankind.

43. This is a very good news, because this means that the development of the mankind will never cease but will continue without limits, reaching infinite Christ as the end result.

44. Jesus is the end result of development of the mankind. In other words, Jesus is just a guest from infinite far future.

45. “… Christ Jesus our hope” (1Tim. 1:1)

46. I would translate this verse instead as “… Christ Jesus our dream.”

47. What is a dream? It is the best we can imagine. So Christ Jesus is the best that we can imagine.

48. This splits into two statements:

49. 1. Christ is good and nothing we can imagine can be better than Him.

50. 2. Our common (cooperative) dream is so good that it reaches Christ. Note that we reach Christ only together.

51. Accordingly Jn. 14:28 God the Father is even greater than Christ. Christ is peace, but God is love. Love is greater than peace.

52. (1Cor. 1:30) “But of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us … righteousness.”

53. What does it mean? It means that to be our righteousness one needs to be as great as Christ (to represent us righteous despite of our sins is so difficult that for this all power of Christ is needed). But this means also that the sacrifice of Christ is enough for God to consider us as righteous persons. That is Christ is exactly what is needed to make us righteous.

54. Jn. 4:11 can be translated as “I live by the Father and Father lives by me.” The Father is like to gray matter of a brain and the Son to white matter. That is the Son is the mean of communication between the Father with himself. White matter can live only with gray one, and vice versa.
55. For more detailed consideration of this topic read my book “Commentary on New Testament by a Mathematician”. One thing to read in my book, is how Christ, being divine, may not know the date of his own second come.