Category Archives: Alphabetical

Atonement

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Atonement

The old adage, “at one with God” is very true to this concept. The idea begins with an acknowledgement that we are at odds with God because we have offended God, sinning against God. This antagonism between God and us is caused by our sin, and cannot be lifted or remedied by us. God offers a solution in the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary as the remedy that God accepts. But God conditions this remedy from becoming effective ONLY IF we believe in Jesus as our Savior. Faith is the key around which atonement works. Faith has a basis, and it is not in a power within us, but in the confidence of God, that He has solved the situation through Jesus.

-DCox Continue reading →

Symbols, the Holy Spirit

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The Symbols of the Holy Spirit

The Finger of God.

Luke 11:20 But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.

The Holy Spirit is the “finger of God” in the sense that a finger is used to indicate things, and teachers use a “pointer” to teach by focusing on the most important.

The Seal.

1Cor 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

Eph 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Eph 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

A seal has basically two purposes. One is like branding to mark ownership, and the second purpose is to guarantee quality, or set a degree of authority (make sometihing official). A third use is to “seal something” making it private, personal, or not open to “public consumption”. This third idea alligns itself with the concept of making something holy.

The Earnst or Deposit.

1Cor 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

Eph 1:14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

http://www.heraldmag.org/2005/05so_2.htm

accursed

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Accursed

This concept goes hand in hand with the concept of blessing, or being blessed. To be blessed is to be in the favor of God such that God is actively giving you good things, protecting you, and helping you. To be accursed is the opposite. The person who involves themself with something that is “accursed” is to take, like, want, or otherwise involves themselves with something that utterly has God’s disapproval.

God identifies certain things as being “accursed”. These accursed things (and those people associated with it) are things under the condemnation of God, and will shortly fall under the actual punishment of God. The concept of accursed is someone or something that is cast off from God. They (for some reason, by their decision to reject God, or because God has seen their sins and decides to reject them) are separated from God and all the goodness that is associated with God.

Rahab was taken out of the accursed city, but the city and all that were in it fell under the condemnation and punishment of God Joshua 6:17.

Josh 6:18 And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.

God made everything in this city “accursed”, i.e. the Israelites were not to take or rescue anything from it, not animal, not possessions, not even money, gold or silver. Think atom bomb here. Everybody and everything is destroyed and nothing is to be left for Israel’s possession.

In Joshua 7 Achan took gold from the accursed city, and this caused the wrath of God. The entire story of Achan speaks to us of an utter and explosive declaration that things are not in themselves always good. Things associated with evil, especially things gotten through evil or wicked means, retain an association with that wickedness, and therefore, even though they in themselves can be good (food, money, clothing, etc), God has declared them off limits for us. From a purely carnal view, a gold coin is a gold coin, and we should not refuse to grab it if we can (without law enforcement grabbing us for stealing). But the story of Achan teaches us that this thinking just doesn’t check with God.

Possessions gain a kind of moral association with them, and therefore we have to be careful not to grab what is morally wrong, or what is good but gotten through morally wrong means.

Isa 65:20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.

“Blessing” (a good thing) is not blessing (is not good for us) if it incures the wrath of God in the process.

Things declared accursed

 

The idea of being declared accursed is to have no remedy to the ills of life. In other words, the only true source of blessing and rescue from the issues of life is God. To be accursed is to have God say, “I am not at home, go away, and don’t come back”. When you enter that situation, their is utterly no hope. The problem is, is when a person that is not accursed does something to get involved with something or someone accursed, and thereby also becoming accursed by association. On the one hand, it can happen, and on the other, normal people utterly refuse and reject anything related with it because nothing good can come from it.

Illustration. Consider a large city with a nuclear power plant. Something happens and the power plant powders the entire city with radioactive dust. Everybody left things as they were, not taking anything with them. You go into the city knowing this. You pick up clothes, eat their food, and drive one of their cars, and go to jewelry shop and put on a lot of gold jewelry. What good does it do you? The more you involve yourself with anything there, the more radioactive you become. You take money from a bank and then go out of the city and start buying things, and shortly the police track you down, and put you in jail for passing off radioactive money. The people that received it also are wanting you lynched. Nothing good comes of anything related to the accursed city.

Jesus became “accursed” for us, by hanging on the cross, in order to save our souls.

Deut 21:23 His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

-DCox

Continue reading →

Adam 4

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Adam.

The first man. The name is supposed to be derived from Adamah, ‘earth, or red earth,’ agreeing with the fact that “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, Gen. 2:7. He differed from all other creatures, because God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, by which man became a living soul. He differed also in being made after the image and likeness of God:he was God’s representative on earth, and to him was given dominion over all other living things, and he gave them names. He was placed in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it, showing that occupation was a good thing for man even in innocence. God said also that it was not good for man to be alone, so He caused him to sleep, took from him a rib, and of this ‘builded’ a woman. Adam called her Isha for she was taken out of Ish, man:the two being a type of Christ and the church, in the closest union:cf. Eph. 5:31, 32. Continue reading →

Adam 2 (Jowett – Scriptural Characters)

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[Jowett – Scriptural Characters]

SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS, CHARACTER OF ADAM.
SECTION I. ADAM IN INNOCENCY.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

(Genesis 1:1 and Gen 1:26-28.) Continue reading →

ablution

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ABLUTION. definition a ceremonial washing of the body which has a spiritual meaning.

-DCox

 

Ritual purification is a feature of many religions. The aim of these rituals is to remove specifically defined uncleanliness prior to a particular type of activity, and especially prior to the worship of a deity. This ritual uncleanliness is not identical with ordinary physical impurity, such as dirt stains; nevertheless, body fluidsare generally considered ritually unclean.

Most of these rituals existed long before the germ theory of disease, and figure prominently from the earliest known religious systems of the Ancient Near East. Some writers remark that similarities between cleansing actions, engaged in by obsessive compulsive people, and those of religious purification rites point to an ultimate origin of the rituals in the personal groomingbehaviour of the primates, but others connect the rituals to primitive taboos.

Some have seen benefits of these practices as a point of health and preventing infections especially in areas where humans come in close contact with each other. While these practices came before the idea of the germ theory was public in areas that use daily cleaning, the destruction of infectious agents seems to be dramatic.[1] Others have described a ‘dimension of purity’ that is universal in religions that seeks to move us away from disgust, (at one extreme) and to uplift us towards purity and divinity, (at the other extreme). Away from uncleanliness to purity, and away from deviant to moral behavior, (within one’s cultural context)

[Wikipedia.org]

 

ABLUTION. A ceremony in use among the ancients, and still practised in several parts of the world. It consisted in washing the body, which was always done before sacrificing, or even entering their houses. Ablutions appear to be as old as any ceremonies, and external worship itself. Moses enjoined them, the heathens adopted them, and Mahomet and his followers have continued them. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, all had them. The ancient Christians had their ablutions before communion, which the Romish church still retain before their mass, and sometimes after. The Syrians, Copts, & c. have their solemn washings on Good Friday; the Turks also have their ablutions, their Ghast, their Wodou, Aman,& c.

[Buck]

Adam Parte 1

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Adam

Adam’s place in history is very unique. He is the first created human, therefore he is the father of humanity. He and Eve are the first couple, and the first parents of human beings (a kind of secondary creation in that of procreation). Moreover Adam lived in the garden of Eden and apparently saw God face to face, living in perfection with God. The worse infamous element of Adam is that he plunged humanity into sin.

-DCox

Continue reading →

Moses Part 2

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Moses. [Mo’ses]

Son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi, brother of Aaron and Miriam. He was born after the mandate by the king that all male children of the Hebrews were to be killed, but his parents by faith hid him three months, and when he could no longer be hidden he was put in an ark of bulrushes and placed among the reeds in the river. Being found there by Pharaoh’s daughter he was named by her MOSES, signifying ‘drawn out,’ and adopted as her son, being nursed for her by his own mother. He became learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, and was mighty in words and deeds. Continue reading →