Wisdom: Redemption & Reality

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

"It is because of him [the Father] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30 NIV

Redemption is progressive. Yes, we who have been born again are redeemed right now, but there is so much more redemption that Christ has already paid for. The Bible speaks of the redemption of our bodies and says that the whole creation is waiting for this event to take place. Our spirits now have a great communion with the Holy Spirit. However, the current battle is for the mind/heart/soul. This battle is being fought as each of us individually overcomes our flesh. At the same time, we can only go so far on our own. If we obey the Spirit of God, the Spirit will urge us toward the genuine scriptural pattern of the Church. We will find ourselves being led into these orders and patterns and away from the precepts of men. If we don't contend with God in these things, He will redeem us from the forms, rituals, entertainments and disorders of the Babylonian churches. The genuine Church is the method by which God brings us to full redemption.

God has restored the pattern of the Church. The Church must be built according to the pattern. When it is fully built according to the pattern, then the Almighty, Eternal, Creator God’s glory will suddenly fill the temple. (Mal 3:1, 2Chron 7:1) This is the manifestation of the sons of God.

The manifestation of the sons of God is seen in part in the gifts of the Spirit, but there is a coming full manifestation of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies that is beyond our ability to comprehend in our current state. We must continue to press toward the mark of our very high calling in Christ Jesus.

The full reality is the full unity and completeness (perfection) of the Head and the Body. The Church must be without any spot or wrinkle.

Our calling is very high, higher and more wonderful than we are capable of imagining. We use the term, the manifestation of the sons of God, the redemption of our Bodies, or the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is the inheritance of those who grow up into Christ. This describes it: "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect [mature or complete] man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:" (see Ephesians 4:11-13)

When this work is complete and we see this Scripture fulfilled, every member of the Body will be filled with the fullness of God and His Christ.

The unity will be so complete that to be in the presence of one member will be to be in the presence of the entire Body of Christ, Christ the Head, and the Father. The Body will be fully assembled together. For those who have not entered into total holiness, to be in this presence will be a terrible experience. (Psalms 1:5, Joel 2:2, Amos 5:18, Matt 25:1-30)

The Body of Christ will finally come to be a totally mature and complete man. Note that it does not say that we are to become totally mature and complete men and women, but we are to become ONE totally complete man. That is unity so complete that this man, the Church, comes to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Christ the Head will be fully manifested in every member of His Body.

Righteousness will have led to faithfulness, which is stability. It is holiness or sanctification. Holiness will have brought us to complete redemption. Every member of Christ’s Body will be fully in submission to Jesus Christ the Head, fully in the place in that Body to which they have been called and in perfect order fully ministering by the power of the Holy Spirit in the exact capacity for which God set them into the Body of Christ. This is the state of being fully in Christ.

Wisdom: Redemption & Reality

How can we know anything about anything

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