NATURAL BRANCHES AND GRAFTS
Has not that violently rapacious, Old Testament, devil-god taken by storm, taken by violence, and by deceit, the true God on earth; "in the kingdom of heaven," since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, since, too, the days of John the Baptist ?
"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Matthew 11:12.
Why would that evil one's votaries stop merely at the outer temples of history, law, science, philosophy, government, mathematics, physics, when the Sanctum Santorum , the "Summum Bonum," the untold treasure of the inner temple of God, lies wide open, awaiting, like the gates of Troy, the fallen Greeks' tributary gift of that magnificent wooden horse?
Judging rightly from my reading, it would seem that the priests and votaries of Baal, Seth, Beelzebub, Lucifer, did not stop diffidently on the outskirts of total victory; but instead, they lifted, confidently, the inner skirts of complete plunder, then plunged into the truest prize!
Once inside the bar of the holy of holies, they usurped, they sullied, they slew and distorted. They also donned the vestments, mimicked the motions, lifted the ensigns, symbols, literature; they assumed the identities, resumed the former rituals of those now either, displaced, disgraced, or destroyed, then, boldly declaring that hey were God!
In so doing, they spawned a new paradigm that was a poor parody of the divine, but as the primordial people were blind, they were fooled time after time. Their usurpations and desecrations were many, are many, continuing to unfold. But, it was only by grace that they were permitted to exist, much less to subsist: to whet, perfect, correct, those whose primal stewardship ended.
But the paradox of their paradigm is that it too has served its time! It has now succumbed to another one that is much more sublime with no signs, no priests, no ensigns, no lands, no cognizable leaders, yet like soldier ants it too relentlessly rebuilds anew.
Woo!
"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give light to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body."
2 Cor. 4: 6-10.
So God has not forsaken, nor cast away his people. Rather, there remains a remnant who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. "For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee... For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee... For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?"
Romans 11: 16-24
Saturday, March 19, 2016
NATURAL BRANCHES AND GRAFTS
NATURAL BRANCHES AND GRAFTS
Has not that violently rapacious, Old Testament, devil-god taken by storm, taken by violence, and by deceit, the true God on earth; "in the kingdom of heaven," since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, since, too, the days of John the Baptist ?
"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Matthew 11:12.
Why would that evil one's votaries stop merely at the outer temples of history, law, science, philosophy, government, mathematics, physics, when the Sanctum Santorum , the "Summum Bonum," the untold treasure of the inner temple of God, lies wide open, awaiting, like the gates of Troy, the fallen Greeks' tributary gift of that magnificent wooden horse?
Judging rightly from my reading, it would seem that the priests and votaries of Baal, Seth, Beelzebub, Lucifer, did not stop diffidently on the outskirts of total victory; but instead, they lifted, confidently, the inner skirts of complete plunder, then plunged into the truest prize!
Once inside the bar of the holy of holies, they usurped, they sullied, they slew and distorted. They also donned the vestments, mimicked the motions, lifted the ensigns, symbols, literature; they assumed the identities, resumed the former rituals of those now either, displaced, disgraced, or destroyed, then, boldly declaring that hey were God!
In so doing, they spawned a new paradigm that was a poor parody of the divine, but as the primordial people were blind, they were fooled time after time. Their usurpations and desecrations were many, are many, continuing to unfold. But, it was only by grace that they were permitted to exist, much less to subsist: to whet, perfect, correct, those whose primal stewardship ended.
But the paradox of their paradigm is that it too has served its time! It has now succumbed to another one that is much more sublime with no signs, no priests, no ensigns, no lands, no cognizable leaders, yet like soldier ants it too relentlessly rebuilds anew.
Woo!
"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give light to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body."
2 Cor. 4: 6-10.
So God has not forsaken, nor cast away his people. Rather, there remains a remnant who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. "For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee... For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee... For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?"
Romans 11: 16-24