The Doctrine of Dreams
Left Behind
Who Is The Antichrist?
Will Catholics and Muslims be Reconciled?
Limited or Unlimited Atonement?
The Parable
Thy Holy Child
Render Unto Caesar
Good Will Toward Men
Preincarnate
Are The Chronicles Canonical?
The Washing of Regeneration
The Doctrine of Dreams
[Presented at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency on August 12, 2005 for Pulpit Masters]
I’d like to speak to you today from the book of Genesis, on the subject of visions and dreams. In their excellent treatise, The Visionary’s Handbook, authors Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor give the axioms that govern the realm of visions. First and foremost among them is this – the future always disrupts the present, and the present resists the future. Thus, the man who had a glimpse of the future cannot peacefully coexist with the present.
Moses knew that long ago, when he wrote this account of the life of Joseph: “And [Joseph] said to [his brothers], Hear, [please], this dream which I have dreamed, for …we were binding sheaves in the field and …my sheave arose and …stood upright, and …your sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brothers said to him, Shall you indeed reign over us…And they hated him yet more for his dreams and his words.” (Gen. 37:6, 7, 8)
Now Joseph’s dream is not highly detailed, lacking even time and place. But the main event has been declared. Joseph has taken baby’s first step, by verbalizing his vision. And the opposition is swift and severe, from those whose dreams are dead. Yet they are inseparably linked to him, for his brothers are his interpreters.
Joseph’s dream is now on its way, and his world will quickly change. In days, he awakes to new surroundings, as God protects both dream and dreamer. For his brothers would have the dreamer killed, for defying the status quo. Potiphar’s wife would kill him too, in a pit of warm, soft flesh. So Joseph must go down again, to a prison of safekeeping.
Joseph expected a rule in Canaan, but his future is here in Egypt. The timing is also not as expected, for the greatest lesson lies ahead. Young Joseph must learn the doctrine of dreams, for the dreamer must also be a doer, or the vision will fade as a vapor. There is work to do in this prison of dreams, and he is the doer of it.
Joseph had hoped to rule a hill, but God has provided a mountain. He has given Joseph a mountain of gold, and his brothers are back from the dead. Would you achieve your dreams today, the ones that are truly given by God? Then learn the lesson of godly Joseph. Verbalize that daring dream and withstand the assault of envy and lust. Then persevere when all looks lost, ’til God does raise the dead.
Comment: If they knew the site of his rule in grain (and Israel’s future affliction) Joseph’s brothers would not have sold him there, nor Jacob have departed Canaan (Gen. 15:13; 37:27; 46:3).
© 2005 Joseph B. Conti
Left Behind
It is rightly described as a parent’s worst nightmare. While shopping at Walmart, your child wanders off; searching, you grow alarmed. Frantic now, you plead with the staff. Doors are locked; Code Adam announced – everyone now is looking. There in the bathroom they find your daughter, shaved, being prepped as a boy. Someone was planning to spirit them out and do them great bodily harm.
While that story was fiction, Code Adam is not, as in thousands of Walmart’s in North America, it is used to find missing children, the bathroom being the favorite place for perps to attempt abductions.
And Walmart aside, where one looks for a child depends on how well they know them, even if they are not rebellious, too headstrong to follow orders. You might start your search at a candy store or a place where toys are sold. But no one would go to the doctor’s office to look for little-boy-lost.
Yet in Luke Chapter 2 that is where he has gone, his mother the one who is lost. She has lost track of him in more ways than one, forgetting that this is the miracle child, the one born of the Spirit. Angels gave glory, shepherds glory to the second Adam and Son of God, the one announced as Christ.
But twelve years have passed since that heralded birth. Other children have come along, sibling rivalry the rule. Bills must be paid, kids clothed and fed – they have settled into a routine.
So has he, in the synagogue, whenever those scrolls are opened. An unusual child, he is otherworldly, and manhood lies just ahead. Like Delacroix on a trip to the Louvre, he now knows his true vocation. While Paul will make tents, he swings a hammer, yet this is the Word of God.
Up until now, he has not been a problem, never a cause for concern. Yet the head count was off; someone counted twice – it is time to retrace their steps.
The last place they think of is where they will find him. And Mary, incredibly, calls Joseph, “Your father,” while the text rightly calls them, “…his parents.” Forgetting those visits with Gabriel, Elizabeth, the magi, and Herod’s great wrath, she had been focused on the task at hand, getting the kids safely home.
He and Mary are heading in opposite directions – it is time for a wakeup call. With a growing sense of who he is, he is yet not impertinent to the doctors, when the answers he gives astonish. False humility will not be his style. The Psalms, Isaiah, and Zechariah – in time the Scriptures will speak to him of true humility’s death.
And a true teacher listens to other teachers, while knowing what questions to ask. He will do this again, after twenty-some years, in a Masterful repeat performance, asking how Christ is David’s son when David himself calls him Lord.
Yet Mary asks, “Why have you dealt with us so?” – it will take a while to sink in. She will take no offense – he has given none – not thinking, in growing self-importance, to tell Joseph, “You’re not my father!” A peg fastened in a sure place, he is heading for the cross.
As for us, in whatever our task at hand, there is one way to make sure we do not lose track, distracted by duties and cares. We must keep making time for the Word of God, though told not to call brethren Doctor.
***
Comment: If he is not found among our kin, we seek love in all the wrong places.
Who is the Antichrist?
“And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.” (Revelation 17:11)
In the star-studded world of end-times scribes, it is not uncommon to hear this cry, “I don’t know who the Antichrist is, and frankly, I just don’t care!” Seemingly pious, it has its appeal, as they rightly add that John’s last book is a revelation of Christ. To inquire as to the man of sin is like setting a date for the Second Coming and inviting a helping of scorn.
Yet Daniel, beloved and attended by angels, has taken the opposite tack. In the midst of his vision of four great beasts and the Son of Man in glory, he asks, not of Christ, but the Antichrist, that little horn with eyes. It is not a mistake to emulate Daniel, the prophet approved of God.
But there are mistakes in our present approach – the Spirit who shows us things to come guides us into all truth. One-hit wonders should not be the norm. The end-times guru must master Moses, the psalms, and those suffering prophets. The greater he is in his grasp of the Old, the greater he is in the New.
But the biggest mistake that is made today, in our read of Daniel and John, is putting the cart before the horse, interpreting the Word of God in the light of world events. Those intel reports are not inspired. The identity, nation, and mark of the Beast will end up as moving targets, as the author strives to stay in the spotlight, to gain interviews and sales.
In this nation that once taught Hebrew to kids, Bible scholars of yesteryear forgot more than we know. In the late 1800s, they already knew Thrace-Asia was the Antichrist’s kingdom, a marriage of Muslim and Catholic. With Alexander’s four-way split, Daniel’s four is the seven of John, and this one is last man standing. The kingdom Attalus willed to Rome will be the Antichrist’s home.
And as for that mark, do not be deceived by those who extol the techne of man to minimize reproach. It is faith, not bombs, that moves those mountains. A concurrent explosion of all man’s nukes could not turn these titans to rubble. John’s judgments proceed from the hand of God, not the proud hand of man.
Moreover, Israel is not the church, though at the end we are one. Our salvation is secret, treasured within, in the place where mysteries thrive. But Israel’s salvation was manifest, as they marched in fear through the sea. And in the time of Jacob’s trouble, with the church now delivered from wrath, that mark is a brand, as it was for Paul, a stigma identifying the lord of those who profess their god is their belly, their mind set on earthly things.
Turkey is the nation to watch, and that Beast is already dead. He will come from the pit in a great resurrection, with his locusts, the kings of the earth. © 2012 Joseph B. Conti
[For the Antichrist’s identity, see Revelation Revisited – the Destruction of Our Times.]
Will Catholics and Muslims be Reconciled?
In November 2001, columnist William Safire wrote a tongue-in-cheek article entitled, The Turkey Card. In it, he described a phone interview with Richard Nixon in Purgatory. Asked about the war in Afghanistan, the former president recommended dividing the Muslim world through an alliance with Turkey, just as we had previously split the Communist world by our overture to China.
“Cut a deal with Ankara now,” Nixon said, suggesting that the U.S. move across the Turkish border and annex the oil-rich northern third of Iraq. Baghdad would then be in the hands of a friendly government, and the subsequent increase in oil flow might even break up OPEC for good.
In 2002, Turkey itself warned that Northern Iraq was theirs, in a claim dating back to 1920. As a secular Muslim nation with a large standing army and a track record of dealing effectively with terrorists, Turkey is the likely key to America’s exit from Iraq. It is also Turkey that controls the headwaters of the Euphrates. And, as author George Friedman notes in his book, The Next Hundred Years, control of Eurasia has historically been one of two main components (the other being sea power) in controlling the world.
From a political, geographical, and spiritual standpoint, Turkey is therefore the nation to watch. And the challenge of mating the Islam of Turkey (Asia) with the Orthodox Catholicism of neighbor Bulgaria (Thrace) may not be as great as we think. In 1952, Catholic Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen suggested that Muslims and Catholics would one day be united in a mutual veneration of Mary. The Koran, he explained, praised Mary, citing her virgin birth and tracing her lineage back to Abraham, Noah, and Adam.
As Islam’s true lady, he continued, she surpassed even Mohammed’s daughter Fatima. To then preach her as Our Lady of Fatima (with accompanying shrines) would ensure Muslim respect. And as devotion to her increased, so would the likelihood of embracing her son’s divinity.
Where then is the U.S. in prophecy? It is not mentioned, despite numerous attempts by end-times gurus to distort the Scriptures. We are merely the isles of the Gentiles, though blessed by blessing Israel.
What should we then as believers do? Stop looking for the Antichrist (he will proceed out of the pit, not the womb); interpret world events in the light of the Bible (not vice-versa); and pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the greatest city on earth. And search the Scriptures daily, to see if these things are so.
Limited or Unlimited Atonement?
It would almost be funny if it were not so tragic – an LED readout with fourteen digits, the last six increasing wildly. The second line reads, Your Family Share, letting us know we have nowhere to hide and no way out of this mess. Constantly updating, showing no mercy, our National Debt Clock is a painful reminder that we are in need of forgiveness.
Our debt, being astronomically huge, would climb to the moon time and again, if stacked in one-dollar bills. And with Christ speaking of the uttermost farthing, we tend to think of our sin debt that way, seeing the cross as a clock that is ticking, the numbers increasing until the end, in a record of sins atoned.
Some sins are left out, one group contends, while the other thinks it covered all. Both groups effectively limit the cross, though their mantra is Handle with Care. For one, that limit is quantitative, the Savior giving no thought to those who are not God’s elect. Bypassed, this tree was not for them – they never had a chance. The other group’s limit is qualitative, a diminishment of power. Though dying for all, he has failed to save most, their unbelief thwarting his will. He will leave them boasting or blaming him for leaving them in their sins.
The conflict is understandable, with proof-texts that look to be ironclad as they’re cited by either side. He has loved the church and died for his sheep, while declining to pray for the world. “It is finished,” he cried, and it certainly is. He was offered to bear the sins of many whom Isaiah will call my people. And in Asia, some Gentiles will be grafted in – as many as were ordained to life spend eternity now with Paul.
Yet God desires all men to be saved, drawing all to the cross. Christ gave his life a ransom for all, for every man tasting death. By the trespass of one all men are condemned, yet by the righteousness of one the free gift came on all men. And if that were not convincing enough, there remains the matter of katallage, used in exhorting the wandering wife to go back to her husband. While God has no need to be reconciled, he has reconciled man to himself. God reconciled the world, says Paul, making us all ambassadors of reconciliation.
“But God cannot love the reprobate,” election’s devotees protest. Hitler could not have been loved by Christ, invited to lean on his breast. God hates all liars and evildoers, the psalmist clearly declares. And though the cross covers sins that were past, the Lord drowned a world of violent men who were not inclined to repent. Yet the false teacher bent on denying the Lord is a purchase in the marketplace – Peter describes him as bought.
Back and forth the argument goes. The rich young man who remained unsaved had agapeo love from Christ. Yet Jesus had no love for Herod or the hypocrite Pontius Pilate. And Spurgeon maintained he could not have died for those already in hell.
Limited, unlimited, particular, and general – this redemption is truly a weighty thing, from the firstborn of all creation. We must handle the matter with reverence, giving him all the glory – which leads us to pre-eminence, the reason that Paul says all. Creating all things, before all things, upholding all things by his power – God reconciled all things in heaven and earth, says Paul, by the cross of Christ. All power in heaven and earth is given to the Savior of the world. In this agora, he has purchasing power. Given exousia over all flesh, he can open both doors and hearts.
The reader might ask, “Then are both sides right?” and in a sense they are. In his manhood, Christ Jesus has purchased the field to gain the peculiar treasure. That field is the world and we the jewels, like Jewish believers before us. In, but no longer of the world, we are hid with Christ in God. Sixteen times in Romans 5, Paul’s text on the gift by grace, that text reads we, us, and our, with little said of the world. He is the Savior of all men, especially those that believe.
And speaking of power, he is willing to show it. Having paid the price, God will do what he will. Israel would hear what Sodom did not, though that would have secured its salvation. Pharaoh will serve as an object lesson, hardened by God without objection, also hardened by self.
Yet there is great hope in the passage on Pharaoh, the most controversial chapter in Scripture, the mishandled Romans 9. For the greatest revelation of sovereign grace has been penned by two men with great passion for souls, the forbearing Moses and Paul. And the world’s greatest city was won by Jonah by embracing sovereign grace. “Salvation is of the Lord,” he confessed, to get out of the belly of hell.
Election and outreach go hand-in-hand. “Who has believed our report?” said Isaiah, “and to whom is God’s arm revealed?” Romans 9 did not deaden Paul, but served as a springboard to Romans 10, with its five-fold doctrine of outreach. God still desires all men to be saved – the results must be left with him.
We have not been told how to spot the elect, but to preach the gospel to all. Like Paul, we must go to the ends of the earth, enduring all things for God’s elect – even the Hotel Philippi – to bring them salvation and glory.
The Parable (Ps. 78; cf. Mt. 13)
When unbelievers brag about their understanding of Scripture, they often turn to the parable as the ultimate proof of their prowess. In doing so, they forget the warning of Proverbs 26. With a thorn in their hand and lame in the dance, they will injure themselves – and others. And they have not considered Psalm 78 and the solemn warning therein.
With the Most High God and tehowm, the depths, the themes in that text are panoramic, worthy of epic Isaiah. No wonder, then, as he cites this psalm, one apostle includes the far-reaching blindness of Isaiah Chapter 6. Matthew also widens the parable’s time span, for the mystery now is revealed.
While one passage starts with the birth of the nation and ends with the Davidic kingdom, the other begins with the onset of time and ends with the kingdom of heaven. Oral tradition no longer suffices, as taught of the fathers has been surpassed, for the church, by taught of the Father.
Yet both have these fundamental themes – divided waters, wonderful works, then flattery and rebellion. Those works are pala, as Sarah heard, with nothing too hard for the Lord. The Jews are thus called to believe such works – to reject them amounts to stubborn rebellion that flatteries cannot assuage. Persuaded the promise would be performed, Father Abraham would have none of it, as in hope he believed against hope.
The parable, then, is for the rebellious, the first for Barak when he stood against Israel, then later for Israel when, embracing rebellion, they rejected those works and commands. They will act like Balaam, two strings in their bow, thinking God can be sought through enchantments. Their flattery will give way to defiance, when admonished to turn to the Word of God, not wizards that peep and mutter.
Ten wonders in Egypt, then statutes at Sinai – the two are not disconnected. Ten gods were destroyed; one true God is left, and he suffers no competition. “Cast down, cut down…” Gideon will hear, when, taught of the fathers, he asks, “My Lord, where are all his pala?” (that sign he received, of barley bread, was a wonder in time and space).
The last main theme in these texts is food, for the faithless man whose god is his belly, looking for bread and circuses. God’s manna should have reminded the Jews that majesties reign above. Jesus will speak of what they know best – seed, wheat, leaven, mustard, and fish – before a transition to treasure and pearls, the stuff of true Israel’s gates. That pearl is born of great irritation, for this, the nuisance-nation.
“Now you speak clearly and speak no proverb,” will only be said by the church. The wonderful works of men are corrupt – they will hear, “I never knew you.” Christ’s parables exclude the proud, strong bulls surpassed by the sheep. The Jews were redeemed by Egypt’s firstborn; a firstborn must now rule their kingdom, with David higher than the kings of the earth, then a Son who is even higher still, the firstborn of all creation.
Works remembered, words kept, and hope equals faith, hope, and love. “If [you] love me,” Christ said, “you will keep my words.” This is the stuff of obedient David, the remedy for rebellion, while Peter will later hold blindness at bay with an eight-count from faith to love (2 Pet. 1:5-11).
For Israel, that blindness will finally end when Messiah rules to the ends of the earth. Their salvation will be life from the dead for a weary, worn-out world.
Comment: ‘Hinder parts’ in v. 66 speaks of emerods, when the ark of Israel took a tour of Philistia (1 Sam. 5:9, 12).
Thy Holy Child
It is not uncommon for believers to question when the apostles were saved. No disrespect is therein intended, for we read of Peter rebuked as if Satan, told he would three times deny the Lord, and instructed by Christ to strengthen the brethren after he was converted.
Yet Peter declared him the Son of God, Nathanael the King of Israel, with Thomas adding, “My Lord and my God,” in the archetype of trust, yet verify. Moreover, John 17 makes it clear only Judas had not kept his word.
The answer may lie in a curious phrase exclusive to Acts Chapter 4, where these same men referred to as idiotes are commanded to not preach the gospel. Having just been anointed, they know it is special. “Thy Holy Child,” the text repeats, for Christ is chrio, smeared with oil. And this honor reserved for Jewish kings is opposed by those who are pagan.
This is the great battle of the ages, found in the second Psalm. If these kings are of earth, the child is of heaven, and heaven and earth are opposed. A Hebrew parallelism is here, with a tumult in the making. The meek ones must not inherit the earth – the violent take heaven by force.
Our boys are now targets – one will be stoned for having the face of an angel. But epistrepho, they have been turned around. What has happened within is like Naaman’s skin. This anointing is as the birth of a child – converted means anti-greatness.
Shameless, blameless, almost nameless, they will never again debate which of them will be greatest in the kingdom. Years later, even Saul of Tarsus will begin his walk as Israel did, being led about by the hand.
This is the place where all must begin if they would enter that kingdom. At Jerusalem, children welcomed Christ; in glory, he welcomes children. The child is the least, his name the greatest. Holy Child says newly converted, in this, their fledgling cause.
It will not end there – we must mature – as the high and mighty are denied the truths that God has reserved for babes. Mega-power, mega-grace, this is Mega-Church. Herod’s and Pilate’s must not prevail, making a name for themselves.
Though said before, it bears repeating – the glory-hound is not glory-bound, and those who are pre-occupied with greatness are trying to duck the cross.
Render Unto Caesar
In the beginning, there was barter. The straight exchange of available goods, it was tin for timber and corn for cattle. Cultures then turned to primitive money in the form of wampum, nails, whales’ teeth, feathers, glass, and salt.
Banking was next, with temple receipts for depositors of grain. The nations then moved from weighing to counting, as coins became both a means of exchange and of paying tribute to Caesar.
Minting would later give way to printing, with the advent of paper IOU’s, convertible to gold on demand. But in Jesus’ day, the exchange is by coin, well before the printing press, dead Presidents not yet the rage. “Bring me a penny,” the Pharisees hear, when they ask him if the double drachma should be given to Tiberius.
Like the coin, these hypocrites are two-faced, stage-players wearing a mask. And in Luke 16 he adds to the charge – with mammon their God, they are servants of Caesar, the eikon in which they trust. While the talent is God’s, the coin is not. Jesus thus calls it, “another [man’s].” Subject to recall, lent out with interest, what bears Caesar’s image is his.
It falsely pretends to be what it isn’t, just like those hypokrites. Christ warns them this mamanos will fail, contrasting God and the Czar. His bankers come to take, not give, wealth without industry their goal, thanks to those high interest rates. Though the children are free, the whole world is taxed. There will never be enough cash on hand for that world to pay off its debts.
The unrighteous man will see God that way. Like Cain, whose sentence was too hard to bear, he will make the Lord as Egypt’s oppressors, who kept back straw from the Jews. “An exorbitant [divine] demand for profit,” is the charge in those other passages, that speak of talents and pounds.
Yet his yoke is easy, his burden light. He is Joseph returning cash in our sacks – his interest is us, not interest. And a pound for a city is such a deal, from the one who makes servants lords.
Be wise as serpents, he warns his own, who are already harmless as doves. As the unjust steward with the men of his world, so should we be with ours. The money will fail, our bodies will fail, but we are sent forth with unsearchable riches, bearing God’s eikon and epigraphe, his word written in our hearts.
Though that money is not true, use it for good, overcome the unrighteous with good. Reconcile those debtors to God. Make friends, the best kind of riches in heaven, where none can break through to steal.
Comment: Those who are fraudulent with money will likewise mishandle God’s word.
Good Will Toward Men
If you want a real dose of persecution or to be an instant pariah, try announcing to family, neighbors, and friends that Xmas, for you, is out. The hostility will be palpable as, a cultist, with no ‘reason for the season,’ you reject the world’s religion. No matter that it was initially banned, unendorsed here for decades after – not only are you a child abuser but lack good will toward men.
John Knox was not fooled, as he called this thing, “the lascivious rites of the Bacchanalia.” The reasons abound, beyond the lust, with no mention of it in epistle or gospel; the seasons wrong, shepherds needing no fire (and taxpayers able to travel); any mass putting Christ to death again contradicting Hebrews 9; and the glee in Rev. 11:10, when the world sees the law and the prophets are dead.
But another reason may be the greatest, stated by Paul, though elsewhere implied, when he prayed with some Asian elders. God gives to those who cannot give back – it’s more blessed to give than receive. And those who did give at the birth of Christ did so at the risk of their lives (while Paul, in Asia, was bad for business, when he censored a magic act).
David would see it from both perspectives when, gathering spoil to build God a temple, he hears his Lord say, “I dwell in tents – I’m more humble than you can imagine. Ask not what you can do for your God, but what He can do for you.” Then later a self-professed ‘dead dog’ will be summoned to David’s table, having absolutely nothing that he can give in return to the king (who himself was a ‘dead dog’ – and a flea – when on the run from Saul).
Perhaps David heard the Savior say, “Love those that hate you; freely give; and when you give a supper, call not your friends or anyone who can repay. You shall be blessed at the resurrection when you give to the poor, lame, and blind.” Our God is not as the creditor, who gives to men only to take (and getting in debt while buying presents is never a great idea).
But the holiday heathen will have none of it, looking, like magi, for lights in the sky that announce the retailer’s bonanza. They love those who love them, give to receive, and push and shove their way through the mall after tailgating out on the road. It’s all for the children, don’t you know, and the magic seen in their eyes. “Though evil, men give good gifts to their children,” will not diminish their ardor.
The world’s sentiment is Paul in reverse, Bengel’s Gnomen says. Though men often speak of the Good Samaritan, they fail to heed his example – generous, anonymous, though clearly despised, as the Lord Jesus was on the tree. The morally bankrupt cannot pay God back, when they meet with his Son at the cross.
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Comment:
“That Christmas was originally a Pagan [winter solstice] festival is beyond all doubt…at Rome called the feast of Saturn…the Yule log is the dead stock of [the sun-god] Nimrod…the Christmas tree is Nimrod redivivus – the slain god come to life again.” (The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop, Pp. 93, 96, & 98)
Preincarnate
We hear the terms in Christian circles, though nowhere found in Scripture – triune, Trinity, God the Spirit, theologian, and layman. We share instead of preaching Christ to those who give their hearts to the Lord rather than repenting. Our singing soars with God the Son (now personal Lord and Savior), when God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ is the right rendition of Paul.
Such liberties serve in will worship, to minimize offense, or explain what seems implausible, beyond our understanding. Preincarnate Christ is a prime example, a favorite of those theologians. He appeared in flesh before coming in flesh, his birth thus a second coming. He must have been Melchizedek, made like unto himself (Heb. 7:3).
The solution is simple, John testifying, “No man has seen God at any time.” With, “My name is in him; my name is secret,” the angel of the Lord stood in God’s stead when declaring his word to Abram, Moses, Gideon, and Manoah. For the Savior from glory to enter this world is a monumental event. Those angels who sang when Creation was sinless have a repeat engagement when the sinless Son of God becomes incarnate. Of the three who dined with Abraham, two did not close with a hymn (meanwhile, all Creation waits for the apokalypsis of the sons of God).
That brings us to the critical matter of hidden and revealed. Like responsibility equal to a saint’s authority, so a revelation, if truly great, has been Masterfully hidden. Even the anointed cherub, in glory, did not therein know Christ, “If you are the Son of God…” the start of their very first conversation.
Man cannot find out what is hidden with God. Sealed with a Spirit the world cannot see, we are thus unknown to the world. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God because he regards them as treasure (Mt. 13:44). Our God is in secret – he sees in secret the saint who prays in the inner chamber, rejecting the praise of men (I Ki. 22:25) and the inexhaustible treasures of the church of self-esteem (Gen. 11:4; Rev. 17:5; cf. Isa. 53:3).
But like H. G. Wells’ Invisible Man, God has left some tracks behind. His invisible traits are clearly seen in our fallen, yet still-great Creation (Rom. 1:20). The choice today is as long ago – men must be before the Lord.
Before the Lord Abram stood, while Sodom reveled in sin. Before the Lord Hannah prayed, receiving a son who hacked sin in pieces, Agag’s mother childless. Most men, however, are in the earth, like the giants of antediluvian days, and Nimrod, who had been before the Lord when he still hunted beasts, not men.
We close with this warning to worldly men, always prone to scorn. Though eternal things must remain unseen, God has left those tracks in the earth. While he is hidden, you are not – and all men must give account (Rev. 20:12).
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Comment: If translators prefer Rome’s ‘Holy Ghost,’ then why not, ‘the Ghost of God?’
Editor’s Note: For the identity of Melchizedek, see A Priest Forever, Ch. 7, The Order of Melchizedek.
Are the Chronicles Canonical?
Recently, after decades of study, I came to a hard conclusion – while First and Second Kings were inspired, the Chronicles were not. The reasons were not merely those of addition, but those of glaring omission. And, ironically, the greatest of these relates to the prophet Elijah.
The add-ons, never mentioned in Kings, are not all great events. Some numbers are off, in the tally of tribes. Jehoshaphat was delivered by singing, after a stinging rebuke. And a man named Jabez utters a prayer that is not in lockstep with Christ. In this world believers will have tribulation, despite his attempt to escape. “If my people will pray,” the chronicler adds, when for us it is second nature. Manasseh did, presumably saved in a brief stay in Babylon.
Yet Kings omits this deportation and his post-conversion revival. The text makes it clear that Jerusalem’s fall was because of his unpardoned sins. Then David warns those coming to him they better not be betrayers. He will give Shelomoh the temple blueprint never mentioned in Kings.
But the greatest addition for father and son is their calling down fire from heaven. And when coupled with Chronicles failing to speak of David’s sin with Bathsheba, these discrepancies show a concerted effort to exalt the Davidic kingdom. Rivals in glory will not be allowed – no mention is made of Elijah’s fire or a king killing Jezebel. The one called a man of God twenty-three times will not make the printed page. And his mentor’s presence is limited to a letter he writes from the grave.
Most will object on the grounds of perspective, but these are not quadriform gospels. And there is no need to magnify David at the prominent prophet’s expense. David is great, with a kingdom based on seven I will’s from the Lord. He is higher than all the kings of the earth – the Son of David will reign.
And those who followed that Son of David, when considering fire from heaven, did not speak of David and Solomon, their focus instead on Elijah. They appear to conclude what this author does, that the only man calling down fire from heaven is the one who went up in a whirlwind.
The Washing of Regeneration
Recently, during a reading of Titus, I ran across a familiar challenge, two terms that looked redundant. I had long believed them synonymous, or at least simultaneous – whenever the Spirit of God moves on darkness, to regenerate is to renew.
But Chapter 3 clearly separates them, regeneration the product of washing, renewing the work of the Spirit. And Jesus, while dressing down Nicodemus, will say that new life, a birth from above, is of water and the Spirit.
Most commentators will then band together, in this, their party line. With loutron a bath, this is a laver, water baptism thus the intent. If so, then new church members need not repent. The covenant community welcomes all those who hop into the tank.
But Peter will not allow us that out, in Acts or his first epistle. He will tell a baptized sorcerer that, still bitter, he needs to repent. While a baptism saves, it is not the one that strips off dirt from the flesh. A true Bible scholar, his reference is where we need to go. He speaks of Noah, when six miles of water washed all the filth down the drain.
And it dawned on me, as I thought of the dove John used to describe the Spirit. If it could not alight upon the unclean when venturing out of the ark, then the Spirit of God cannot come in until a man’s sin is removed. Peter makes baptism a non-carnal matter, as does the writer of Hebrews – their concern is the conscience, the place of defilement for those still attached to idols. The baptism of John and the kingdom of heaven always begin with repent.
That brings us to the question of why Peter called righteous Noah the eighth. He clearly was not eighth in line from Adam. Perhaps he, in sincere humility, was the last to enter the ark. But more likely he was the source of the seed that brought the world’s regeneration.
For eight is the number for regeneration, even for Antichrist. Bible Study Tools will put it this way, “In his mortal stage he is the seventh head…in his superhuman…the eighth…,” Study Light adding he is not an eighth head, but “[his] form of government…a restoration of one of the previous seven,” while Quora sees eight as, “…symbolizing a new order or creation.”
But back to that washing – if it is not corporal, how could it not be in the Spirit? We can turn to John 15:3 and Ephesians 5:26 – the apostles were clean by the word Christ had spoken; Paul’s washing of water is by the word. When a sinner, repentant, grabs onto God’s Word, that snake-bitten man has an antidote and a clear conscience before God.
Once cleansed, the Spirit can do his work. “Though the outward man perish,” the Corinthians heard, the inward is daily renewed. Washing up at the Super 8, we conclude, is never a bad idea.
© 2021 Joseph B. Conti
Comment: Found elsewhere only in Matthew 19, palingenesia there restores the kingdom, with Messiah now sitting in glory.