ChronoSapiens: Time Machine and Religion

Category: Bible study

  • Christ passing through the sin

    The following is a rough idea and my explanation may be not detailed or not exact enough:

    As I state in my New Testament commentary, Christ is the radio waves (well, not only radio but also other parts of the spectrum) of the universe. Christ is also the truth (the true information contained in the cosmic radio waves).

    When information passes through the sin, it is damaged, that is loses its content.

    Christ is the only kind of information which can pass through the sin without being damaged.

    So in likeness of sinful flesh it appeared the essential content of cosmic radio waves. All other kinds of information except of Christ has faded away, but Christ has appeared in likeness of sinful flesh, without any damage but remaining true.

    This way, despite of being bad, sin reveals Christ, filtering away anything other.

    Get my rough idea on how Christ is related with sin.

  • On the purpose of Jesus’s death

    I continue to think about the purpose of Jesus’s death.

    He died for us? By his deaths he restored the God’s justice? Yes, but WHY is it necessary?

    Yesterday, I have got this idea:

    Death of Jesus means that he stopped to do business as a human.

    Now it is a step more clear, why he did it.

    The next question: Why he considered it profitable to stop all human activity?

    One (but probably not only) possible explanation is that he quieted fighting the forces of evil and “by inertia” forces of evil continued to struggle so to say in the place where he was, so confronting each other instead of Jesus. This way, probably, forces of evil harmed each other.

    If you have any other concrete ideas why Jesus allowed to kill himself, please leave comments.

  • God and divine council

    Hello Dr. Michael S. Heiser,

    What do you think about this idea? (It is my idea, but I am not quite sure if it is true.)

    One of many ways to describe God (I mean Yahweh or Christ or maybe Father): “God is the democratic way of governance of the infinite universe.”

    This way God and “divine council” are essentially the same. (But note that extrapolating of what we know about finite council to the infinite one may be wrong, moreover there may be several different ways to extrapolate finite systems into the infinite.)

    This aligns with my social description of Christ in my free e-book:
    http://books.portonvictor.org/nt-commentary/

    Note that I duplicate this email in my blog. I ask your permission to possibly publish your answer too in my blog.

  • Why Christ was tempted

    Long time I wondered why Christ was tempted: (Heb. 4:15) “For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.”

    God cannot be tempted and Christ is an image of God.

    A few minutes ago I’ve understood this: He was tempted not with the purpose to make Him himself to take a right decision (He always makes right decision). He was tempted with the purpose that others (people, angels, whoever) would see His reaction to a temptation.

    In other words, He was tempted to set the world right about responses to temptations, so that others would learn from Him.

  • The mission of saints is peace

    (Rev. 13:10) “10 … If anyone is with the sword, he must be killed. Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints.”

    Saints were created by God who has given them faith with a particular purpose. This purpose is to keep peace in the heavens. Saints are created to keep one particular principle: “If anyone is with the sword, he must be killed” that is to stop any war. This is a simple principle, but keeping it is a hard task splitting into many different areas of service of saints. The word “endurance” in Rev. 13:10 signifies that one needs endurance to endure over many different facets of war and keep peace in all situations.

    (Gal. 4:26) “But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” This is about a city in heaven. The word Jerusalem translates as “a city of peace”. This is a capital city in heaven whose purpose is to keep peace in heaven. It is our mother because we were created after its task (to keep peace).

    The Jerusalem on the Earth was also created with the same purpose to keep peace, but as we see now, it has not yet reached its service, it is its future service to keep peace.

  • Christ is our hope (theology)

    I have added an interpretation of 1Tim. 1:1 and Rom. 8:24 to God compared with a civilization theological article (see chapter 10).

    I state that Christ is hope/dream and that our salvation consists of dreams.

    Read more in the article.

    (1Tim. 1:1) “… Christ Jesus our hope”. I would translate instead “… Christ Jesus our dream”.

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

    This is twofold:

    1. First this means that Christ is good and nothing we imagine can be better than Him.
    2. Second this means, that our common imagination is good enough to attain Christ.

    Also: (Rom. 8:24) “… we were saved in hope …” or “… we were saved in dream …”. It means that our salvation consists of dreams (like as a table consists of atoms). It also means that our dream (the best we can hope for) is exactly what we will become when our salvation is accomplished. We will be exactly what we hope to be.

  • Matthew 24:6: rumors of wars

    Mt. 24 4 Jesus answered them … 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. (about when the end of this world will happen)

    It what has happens now in Ukraine which is at a civil war. Instead of verified information we have “rumors”.

    But this saying of Jesus has also a deeper sense. “Rumors of wars” is what is called “information warfare” today.

    I am not going to say whose propaganda, Russian or American says deep lies, but “information warfare” (“military rumors” in Jesus’s terminology) is clearly present. This is that “new method of war” spoken by many.

    I feel that come of Jesus Christ is near.

  • On Christian prosperity doctrine

    Hearing about prosperity doctrine preached about by some Gospel preachers, I wondered:

    (1Tim. 6:9) But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction.

    Isn’t the whole point of donations under this doctrine to boost the donor’s own prosperity?

    For example, I am a mathematician and keeping money for myself rather than donating it to more stupider people, I would use money more efficiently as it supports breakthrough science research.

    Following “prosperity Gospel” I must donate money to others in order to increase my own blessings. It is not because money there would be better but just for my own prosperity.

    Now, after I have determined that I should no more consider myself as a slave of Christ not following the slavish doctrine anymore, I can freely prefer to give money to these who need it the most (or keep to myself if I myself need money for some useful project).

    Read my book about renowned Christianity where we don’t anymore consider ourselves as slaves of Christ but as free people.

    By the way, if you want to use your money efficiently you can donate them to me because with me they would efficiently support: math research, innovative software, and Bible research and theological writing. Use money where they are the most efficient, or keep them to yourselves if you can use them effectively to help other people.

  • Evolution of my views on evolution and creationism

    My story

    In childhood I was an atheist. I was taught evolution theory as an unquestionable truth.

    It’s worth to note that that time I thought: “People need yet 100 million years of evolution to become really intelligent”. My modern opinion of this topic (whether people’s brains should be effective computers) is expressed in this and this chapters of my theological book.

    Some time passed and I became a Christian. Yet I kept to believe in evolution theory. I was in a Baptist church and (with no reason, just to speak about something) said to a preacher from an other city: “It is great how evolution is described in the book of Genesis.” He said me back some standard creationists’ arguments (probably it was that “days” are literal days and that the plants could not be able to grow if they would wait yet millions years for appearance of light, as grass was created on the third day but the lights (including Sun) in expanse of the sky appeared only at the fourth day, and that death entered the world only after the sin of Adam whilst evolution is impossible without death).

    After hearing these arguments I momentarily converted into a creationist. I’ve said like this: If Bible says it it is true, not matter what science teaches.

    I keep to think this way: Bible is more authoritative than science for me. I believe Bible says truth and truth only not only on morality issues but on all kinds of topics, including science and history.

    New interpretation of Old Testament

    Thus I should be a creationist, yep? My further study of Bible has shown that in Bible there are probably more arguments pro evolution rather than counter evolution.

    I reveal you a secret: Initially Old Testament was written without vowels. The vowels were inserted later by Jewish scholars. We can insert other vowels and get an other meaning of the text. And that other meanings may be equally credible as the usual translation of Bible. Again: The meaning of Bible was restricted by Jewish tradition, and there are more meanings of the text. You can study Old Testament without vowels at this wiki site. (Don’t only read but also add your own translations! At that site it is explained how to interpret Hebrew text without vowels and you don’t need to become an expert linguist for that. The grammar of Hebrew without vowels is quite easy to learn.)

    I have explored first few chapters of Genesis. And I was surprised that it witnesses pro evolution. I’ve setup a wiki page where anyone can read others and add his own arguments pro or counter evolution.

    Next it follows my current opinion on evolution from literal biblical positions.

    Arguments pro evolution in Bible

    Here are some quotes from my alternative translation of Bible, which seem to support evolution:

    (Gen. 1:11) “Earth will sprout green plants producing descendant, fruit tree making fruit for its kind making progress of his offspring in it on the Earth”.
    (Gen. 1:25) “God has made relatives on the Earth by their kind” (if it is translated correctly, different kind of species are called relatives by Bible).
    (Gen. 1:29) “grass offspring bearing seed making progress on the surface of the entire Earth, and all trees making progress in their seed of the tree, offspring bearing seed”.
    (Gen. 1:31) “God saw his deal all (time) making advance” (becoming better).
    (Gen. 2:4) says about “generations” during God’s creation what may imply existence of death and thus evolution.

    Gen. 1:11 is especially strong: It says that trees are descendants of grass. It is what is commonly called macro-evolution.

    It is also difficult for creationism to explain, how predators and parasites have appeared.

    Jesus says that serpents and scorpions are created by Devil: (Luk. 10:19) “Behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will in any way hurt you.” Thus it is a liable theory that the evolution on the Earth was going under effect of both God and Devil.

    People and monkeys

    Are people descendants of monkeys?

    At first it could seem “NO!” for a believing reader of Bible:

    (Gen. 2:7) “God Yahweh has formed Adam pulverized from soil and breath into his nose living spirit, and Adam became a living soul.”

    Reading it looks like a case of direct (non-evolutionary) creation.

    However I see no reason to assume that Gen. 2:7 describes a quick event. May the event described in Gen. 2:7 longs for millions years? Why not? If the evolution theory is true, humans were created from atoms of the soil breathing oxygen, exactly as described in Bible.

    So, does anything in Bible contradict to the theory that people are monkeys’ descendents?

    However, it is quite likely that some biotechnology of God (or an advanced civilization used by God) was used to transform monkeys into people. Why has God used a biotechnology, not direct creation? We do not know.

    Bible disagrees with modern science about the time period (as investigated by radiocarbon dating) of existence of man. But this can be easily explained by the fact that before the Flood the atmosphere of the Earth was different (so producing different quantities of carbon isotopes) and thus radiocarbon dating produces wrong results when analyzing events before the Flood. (Yes, I believe in the Flood over the entire Earth. It is described in errorless Bible and can’t be false.)

    In short: God created living creatures on the Earth, as described in errorless Bible, word of God. Evolution was God’s mean of creation.

    See more at this page.

  • Reconciling humility and God’s purpose

    (I’m going to add the text of this blog post into my book.)

    Gospel teaches to (Phil. 2:3) each counting others better than himself consider others below ourselves. Now I will muse about the following topic: How we knowing Gospel may consider others above us? Doesn’t knowledge of Gospel makes us above other?

    The correct answer is that converting to Christ makes us worse not better.

    Do I imply that people should refuse to convert to Christ? No, and the reason is the following: The God’s desire is (1Tim. 2:4) who (God) desires all people to be saved to save as much people as possible. But there is a limit on the number of saved people (Rom. 11:25) … the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. It is clear that the reason for this limit is the impossibility to “pack” more people into the heaven without a conflict. God solves the following mathematical problem: Save as much people as possible without falling into a conflict between them.

    I mean a worse man is somebody who disturbs salvation of others more. And by this criterion already saved are worse than unsaved.

    Probably the best example of how a saved person may prevent salvation of others is my spiritual war which I fought in the past. I was really the biggest of sinners. I could call my sin “magic”, that is misuse of spiritual powers.

    Thus follows that evanglelization should not be our main purpose. Instead we need humility before each other and before unbelieving people which are actually better than us, as the mean to reach the full number of pagans. If we need to choose between evangelization and humility we should choose humility, because it influences the process behind the scene. Evangelization is just a screen before the actual essence of events as it is clear from (Jn. 6:44) No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. I can say: People are saved not by evangelization but by move of Holy Spririt, evangelization is just an external appearance of God’s work.

    Thus remember: From the moment you convert to Christ your are already saved and thus you become less important person that unbelievers as long as it concerns future, but indeed only future matters not past.