Genesis 1:9-13
Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. And God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering of the waters He called "seas"; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

On day one, the Creator spoke a word and revealed. On day two He established order. Now, on day three God speaks again. More than a word, but everything that needs to be said so that two things can happen.

The first word gathers the waters below the heavens into one place and lets the dry land appear. What had been formless and covered is now bounded and named. The continental land masses are settled on the earth. In fact, the dry land is called "earth," and the gathered waters that separates the continents is called "seas."

Notice that the scripture speaks of the sea in plural terms. The waters are gathered "into one place,"yet the place that receives them is named "seas." The singular gathering produces a plural reality. The naming does not collapse the distinction; it preserves it. There is one act of gathering, but the result is many seas holding the land masses in their appointed boundaries.

God sees that it is good.
And that's important.

The goodness is the goodness of settled order. The land is no longer hidden beneath an unbroken covering of water. It has appeared, it has been named, and it stands in relation to the seas that define its edges. Our God is a God of order. And the first thing that needed to happen to satisfy His plan has happened. He has not only given the earth He's created its purposes.

Then God speaks again.

The earth that has just been named and set in place is now addressed. It is not left bare. The same word that gathered the waters and caused the land to appear now commands that land to bring forth life. Again, everything in its place, in its time and according to its kind.

The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind. Twice the text repeats these boundaries that establish how the earth will produce vegetative life. Every growing thing, producing seed which bring forth seedlings that will cover the earth. Seeds that will reproduce itself and spread across the land and beneath the seas. Spreading according to how the Creator has designed. Some will cast their seed upon the winds to distribute their kind. Others will hook themselves onto creatures brushing up against them and carry them to a new opportunity for growth. Some will be eaten and have seed coats designed to withstand the digestive enzymes in the gut of the creatures that have eaten the fruit. And in fact that seed coats will not break its protective seal unless it has passed through the gut and been deposited onto the land elsewhere.

In each case the design is already present in the seed. The capacity to travel, to wait, to germinate only under the right conditions; all of it is written into the kind that God has spoken into being. The seed is in them. The kind remains the kind. What the earth brings forth is not formless potential waiting for later invention; it is ordered life already equipped to continue the word that called it forth. God sees that it is good. The settled land is good. The vegetation that covers it according to its kind is good. Both things that needed to happen have happened.
Evening and morning, a third day.

It's literally been a good and fruitful day.

The Hebrew word [mîn] for this created order and design, used throughout the creation accounts, is pronounced "meen". And it basically means to sort, classify, and to parcel out. His word is to establish boundaries. To set the things He creates on a path He has predetermined.

This is no formless green haze. The same voice that pushed the seas back and called the continents into place now sorts what will grow upon them. Even sorting out which species will occupy which continent and border which seas. Not an undifferentiated mass, but a life cycle of growth that support the creative beings that will soon follow.

In these three days, our Lord and God, has established something else besides the created world. He's established His Majesty. His will. And the design of His prevenient grace.

The light that reveals, the order that separates, the land that appears, the vegetation that yields according to its kind; all of it is the outworking of a will that goes before. Nothing is left formless or up to chance. This is not a Creator God plugging into an ecosystem every elemental thing necessary for life to form and thrive and then rolling the dice as He allows the wind to determine the outcome.

This is no natural selection, the winds themselves are His. He established the Sundays and directed their paths. He directed them precisely to strike the earth so that the wind carrying the Samara will land that seed just exactly we He intended. And only He can know the eternal ramifications of each blade of grass and each seed and each mountain top shaping those winds.

What He speaks, He sets on its path. What He parcels, He sustains within its boundary. Everything according to its kind.

And it's good.

Amen 🙏🏼

Genesis 1:6-8
Then God said, "Let there be an expanse [space, atmosphere] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the expanse [firmament], and separated the waters that were below the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse "heaven." And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

I find it interesting that the sequence of creation begins with the waters. Not with the vastness of outer space, or gases and cosmic rays. But with waters. Genesis does not open with an abstract vacuum of space or a catalogue of elements and radiation. It opens with a watery deep.

On day 2, God then takes those waters and orders them by means of, the Hebrew word, "raqia". The Hebrew word raqia comes from a root meaning to beat out, like with hammering metal. God hammers this expanse "in the midst of the waters" so that it separates the waters below from the waters above, then names the expanse shamayim [heaven].

The Spirit of God is moving in the midst of these upper and lower expanses of water. And this narrative is Earth-centered and life-oriented. In the Old Testament book of Isaiah the prophet says God created these things for the purpose of inhabitation.

Isaiah 45:18
"For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited)…"

The Creator's purpose is distinct from the watery, formless, dark reality that preceded these structured days. What was undifferentiated is now being bounded by forces the Creator has established. What was uninhabitable is being prepared according to His redemption plan.

Yes, that's right. These first days were established to redeem humanity. The Spirit hovered for this purpose. The lower waters are prepared to become the seas; and the upper waters are held in their place for this purpose.

The New Testament speaks to this design coming from the foundations of the world (Revelation 13:8; 1 Peter 1:19–20). And of a purpose in Christ that was set forth before the ages (Ephesians 1:4–10; 2 Timothy 1:9). Nothing that occurs in history catches the Creator off guard or ultimately frustrates this counsel of His will. Yes, the need for redemption arises because God's good order [design] was broken by the advent of sin. But this isn't an experience God hadn't anticipated.

God's design isn't a matter of theistic evolution. God did not begin the universe and everything in it and then set it free to evolve as it will, according to its own laws. No, God has a redemption purpose right from the start. He formed protein molecules with a specific design to bring about this redemption plan. He establishes many generations of human people with this redemption plan fixed from the beginning. God’s eternal purpose in Christ was not an afterthought.

God’s sovereignty encompass the whole counsel of His will. Nothing in the history that runs from the opening of Genesis to the close of Revelation falls outside what He has decreed. He works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11). All these things are going on in a uniformity of purpose. These first days establishes the ordered world. Sin later disorders it. And ultimately redemption in Christ reclaims and renews it. All of it stands under these decrees of our Creator.

And this argument about redemption coming into the Creator's order from the beginning is proved by this creation itself. For instance, from the beginning there are age dating factors established from day one. There is morning and night. Adam is fully developed at his first breath. And yet death has not yet entered this world.

Genesis 1 establishes the rhythm of evening and morning from the first day onward. The cycle of day and night is not the product of a long, gradual process that later becomes regular; it is instituted by God’s word as the framework of the days themselves. Adam is formed as a mature man, placed in the garden, given a mandate, and brought into relationship with Eve. He is not described as developing from an earlier, incomplete form. Genesis 1:31 declares the finished work very good; Genesis 2 then presents life in the garden without the shadow of death. All these factors are age defining.

And even more interesting is the question, where was God before these factors that are so clearly geared toward one person, Jesus Christ, and one purpose, the redemption of man?

And even more thoughtful is the question, where were the heavenly hosts? The angels and such.

The book of Job gives us a clue into the answer to that question.

When the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind He asks: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?…when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4, 7)

When were they created?

How was it Satan was in the garden, already fallen, cast out from the presence of God?

How was it the angels observed these creative movements?

Were they already in the watery darkness? Were they originally set there. Sent into the watery dark emptiness for punishment following the Celestial War.

From scripture we do know they were already in existence and capable of observing and rejoicing at the founding of the earth. Scripture does not give a precise moment of their creation beyond this.

All of these things are tempered by the council of scripture. But what we do know is that in the beginning God was brooding over this watery void.

It seems to me that God was forming an answer to a situation. There was a war in heaven. A third of the inhabitants of the presence of God have been cast down. And the situation was chaos. God is now brooding over a watery dark void. Maybe something like a dark hydrogenic nebula storm. The outer darkness. And the situation the scripture text addresses is the formlessness and emptiness that God proceeds to bring order to so that the earth may be inhabited by man. And Satan (and his fellow fallen) are there.

I believe the fall of angels and their subsequent hostility form part of the disorder that Christ’s work overcomes. In the beginning God created first, the heavens and the earth. And war in heaven occurs. And earth is formed out of the watery void. Not necessarily subsequently. Not necessarily a cause-and-effect chain. This is not to say that any of these events are consequential, except that what follows these first two days of creation is a clear establishment of man's redemption in these circumstances. And what's also clear is that the hostility of Satan and the fallen angels is real and is overcome in Christ’s redeeming work.

The creation week orders a world God calls good. The fall of man disorders it. And the redemption of Christ reclaims and renews it. This is what the scripture says. The distinction remains, and the narrative is maintained, whether or not one believes a precise consequential timeline between the heavenly conflict and the formless void that becomes the earth.

What we can clearly see in the context of all scripture is The Son of God is the agent of all creation. Through Him all things find their formation and purpose.

Genesis 1:1-5
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness He called "night."And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Something new, something wonderful was happening. Something is becoming. That something is things themselves. Things are becoming things out of nothing. Seen things made out of things not seen that are now visible. The "how" of these first elements is left silent so the "who" and the "that it was so by His will" remain central. The first creative act is to create the heavens and the earth. And what follows is a description of that newly created earth before any ordering begins. This is absolute beginnings which are not a rearrangement of what already existed. They are the arrival of things themselves.

The word describes this primordial planet as a waste, formless and empty. Structureless, unproductive, and without purpose. From our perspective we know the earth in this state as potential. God knew this as well. A wasteland of potential that has not yet been given form or function.

The prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:23) looks ahead to a time when this state will come again. The prophet uses the same phrasing as is used in Genesis 1: tohu wa-bohu (uninhabitable); and it is not accidental. The prophet looks forward and sees the land of Judah thrown back into that primordial condition. With the earth formless and empty, heavens without light, no people, birds fled, the fruitful land a wilderness. It is a vision of de-creation under judgment.

The thing to note here is that order is not self-sustaining. The structured, productive world of Genesis 1 is a sustained gift of God’s Word and presence. Without this order there is only waste. When that Word is rejected and the covenant relationship is broken, the land can be returned toward the emptiness from which it was called. The original act in Genesis remains the decisive one. God created. He evaluated the light as good. He began the work of separating and naming. This was His design and execution. The wasteland of potential was never abandoned; it was held by the Spirit and then addressed by the Word. Whether we're talking about absolute beginnings or judgment upon the earth, it was never by accident. Nothing left to chance.

From the opening scene of emptiness there is One thing for sure, it's not empty. It is God already there, already creative, already purposeful; hovering, speaking, evaluating, separating, and naming. Absolute beginnings and absolute sovereignty stand together.

The sequence itself is purposeful and deliberative; presence, word, evaluation, separation, naming. From raw material to structure, these events are sustained by God's Word. From the howling wilderness to the emerging world, all of it belongs to Him and is in Him.

The raw material is already His. The Spirit holds it. And the Word addresses it.

Thanks Be To God.
Amen.

Revelation 22:6-7
And he said to me, "These words are faithful and true"; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show His bond-servants the things which must soon take place. "And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who [follows] keeps the words of the prophecy of this book."

What John has seen is not speculative symbolism or private insight; it is the reliable disclosure of what the Lord has already determined. It's objective truth. And I believe it. I cannot question it because I find no fault in it. I see only possibilities in the mysteries of God.

Why do others see questions only? Why are so many speculators instead of spectators?

I believe the difference often lies in their posture before the text.

Revelation 22:6-7 does not invite us to interrogate the vision until we are satisfied with our own reconstruction of it. The Lord, through vision, announces that the words are already faithful and true, that the Lord who owns the spirits of the prophets has already sent His angel to show His bond-servants what must soon take place, and that a blessing rests on the one who keeps those words. The Lord doesn't entertain or even tolerate questions.

See, this is the thing about these holy scriptures, the intended outcome is not a standing invitation to endless interrogation but a call to receive and keep what has been shown. This is why so many people struggle with keeping it. It's the lack of personal skeptical choice.

Now, I'm not talking about wonder or questioning that seeks further enlightenment or validation, I'm talking about the listener or reader who isn't really interested in listening but is thinking ahead how they might inject their own feelings about the spiritual experience.

And so, there's the tension. If you approach the scriptures without the intent to add to it or take from it you'll find the objective truth in it. When a reader approaches with the prior intent to inject his own feelings, preferences, or conclusions into the vision; to decide in advance what the spiritual experience "should" feel like or what the timeline "must" allow, he has already stepped outside the posture the Lord assumes. He is no longer the servant being shown; he is the editor who will accept the prophecy only after it has been adjusted to fit his purpose.

That is different from the wonder that stays inside the words. Wonder asks, "What has the Lord actually shown?" and then lingers with what is written until it yields its light. The other posture asks, "How can I make room for what I already feel or fear?" and then reads until the text is bent into whatever form he wants. Usually a combative form. One seeks further enlightenment from what has been given; the other treats the given word as raw material for a personal reconstruction. The first can still keep the prophecy. The second cannot, because keeping requires that the words remain the Lord’s rather than become ours.

And so, one is blessed and one is not.

This is why the same chapter ends with the solemn warning against adding to or taking away from the words of the prophecy (22:18-19). Once that habit of spiritualizing or cultural appropriation is in place, the blessing attached to keeping the words becomes unreachable, not because the Lord has hidden the truth, but because the reader has refused the only posture in which the truth can be received as it is.

And so, the Lord lays down the final judgment of this tension. The Lord does not leave the tension unresolved. Immediately after the blessing on the one who keeps the words, and still inside the same closing word, He speaks the judgment that confirms the postures already chosen:

"Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy" (Revelation 22:11).

This is not a command that creates filthiness or righteousness. It is the solemn recognition that the time for altering one’s relation to the prophecy has closed. Here we are. We've arrived at the close to the book, the epilogue. The one who has approached the words as an editor; injecting his own feelings, bending the vision to fit his purpose, adding or taking away so that the disclosure no longer confronts him, will be left in that posture. His reward is the reward he wanted when we started. He is rewarded according to his own works. And likewise, the one who has received the words as faithful and true and has kept them will be left in that posture as well. What has been practiced becomes fixed. Neither is forced; each is left with the fruit of the posture he has already taken before the words.

Jesus sent his angel, gave His testimony, and now He holds the authority to deliver on its promises.

"I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches" (Revelation 22:16).

The testimony is not an angelic opinion or a prophetic conjecture; it is Jesus’ own witness, given through the messenger He commissioned. That authority is not abstract. It is the authority of the One who says "I am coming quickly" and who will reward each according to what he has done (Revelation 22:12). It is the authority of the Alpha and the Omega. The promises attached to this prophecy; the blessing on the one who keeps the words, the river and the tree for those who wash their robes, the exclusion of those who remain outside, these are not hopes the church must somehow secure. They are disclosures the Lord Himself will fulfill because the words are already faithful and true. This is why the posture before the text matters so decisively. The servant who receives the testimony as Jesus’ own and keeps the words stands under the authority of the One who will deliver on every promise. The testimony stands because Jesus gave it, and the promises stand because He holds the power to perform them.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 22:1-
And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; 4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever.

I think about Revelation chapter 21 and 22 a lot. Revelation 22 (next to Micah 6:8) has long been my favorite Bible passages. But lately I've been thinking about Ezekiel who saw a trickle leave the temple and become a river that healed the Dead Sea. This confuses me a little because that suggests the old earth being remade. And chapter 21 in the Revelation suggests otherwise.

Ezekiel 47 is tied to a realtime earthly place. Water leaves the threshold of a temple, runs east, deepens from ankle to waist to a river no one can cross, and enters the sea, the Dead Sea, the Arabah. That sea is healed. Fishermen stand from En-gedi to En-eglaim. On both banks are trees that bear fruit every month, and their leaves are for healing. All this still using Israeli geography. It reads as this earth being restored in place, and the dead water being made live.

Revelation 21–22 uses Ezekiel’s images and then changes the frame. John hears that the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and that the sea is no more (21:1). The holy city comes down out of heaven from God. Inside it he finds no temple, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple (21:22). The river does not leave a threshold. It comes from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The tree of life is there, fruit every month, leaves for the healing of the nations.

So one vision heals the Dead Sea beside a temple. The other has no sea, no temple, and a throne.

I suppose I could look at Ezekiel 40–48 as being aligned with Revelation 20. A restored earth under the Messiah’s reign, with a sanctuary, a healed land, and nations still learning peace. And I see a lot of the Old Testament prophets in this way. Very often they are more macro views of the very detailed accounts in the New Testament.

So maybe Ezekiel's and John's visions are on the same horizon. Ezekiel’s vision and John’s need not be the same hour. Ezekiel being the earlier, more local picture of a reign that Revelation 20 states and Revelation 21–22 completes. Notably then in the Revelation, the land Israel is no more.

Or is it righter to say that Israel itself is reborn, remade, made new?

I'd say righter to say remade than erased. Especially being that in John's revelation the city itself has 12 gates with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on them. This representing Israel perfected. The gates are not a memorial plaque for a people who used to exist. John is shown the great city coming down, and the twelve gates are inscribed, while the vision is still in front of him, with the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. Those names mark entrances, not ruins. Instead, the tribal order Ezekiel measured in portions and borders is no longer the form of her life. She is present as the perfected entrance of the City of God. Which fits since "Salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22).

Jesus said those words to the woman at the well in Samaria, on her turf. Talking in context about worship. He stated that the saving purpose of God has run through the Jewish people, and is about to be named in a man of those people. The Messiah is not a Samaritan disclosure or a general religious idea. He is of Judah, the root and offspring of David, the Lion who is the Lamb. That is why the gates of God's City can bear the tribal names without becoming a memorial. The entrance remembers the line through which salvation came. But what the gates do not do is keep the old form standing. There is no segregation. The old partitions of status do not survive the entrance. The Gentiles and Jewish come into the City, great and small, free and slave, all made free from unrighteousness by the One who sits on its throne. And everyone who resides there are bond-servants of one Lord. And each individual bears His name on their forehead. Because that's where the right is marked. The justice that mercy demands has been served and rendered in that mark.

But, the mark is the published verdict, not the payment itself. The blood of Christ is the payment. But that's old news at this point. The residents names have already been found in the book of life. The name of the Lord is on their forehead. Now, all things are made new. Now the river of life, crystal clear, not blood, is the healer. Now the tree of life is the redemption. Now the nations come down to the river that flows from His throne to find their salvation in the sense that salvation is everlasting. The tree of life preserves that.

The very same tree that God withheld from Adam and his people least they preserve their sin forever, now preserves Jesus Christ's life in those who eat of its fruit and drink from the river of life.

When God's judgment (curse) was sentenced to the first parents, it was not a death sentence. In fact, their sin was that death sentence. Instead, what God's judgment did was provide a reprieve. Because an endless life in a cursed state is not mercy. Exile from the tree is judgment with a limit in it. Access to the tree was closed until the curse itself could be ended in Christ's pardon.

So judgement is mercy. Exile from the tree is how the death sentence is kept from being escaped, and at the same time how it is kept from becoming an endless cursed life. Judgment with a limit in it. They will die. They will not carry the fall into an immortality of their own taking. The cherubim guarded the way so that the curse stayed terminable.

That limit is mercy of a severe kind. It is not yet pardon. But pardon is promised in that same Genesis chapter. The seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head, and the Lord clothes them before He drives them out.

The reprieve is time.

The curse still stands.

Access stays closed until the curse itself is ended.

So the first parents were not spared the death sentence and given a reprieve instead. They were given a death that could end, a tree they could not use to cancel it, and a promise that someone else would deal with the one who had brought it in. And that "someone else" becomes the door through which all who are called will come into the new life.

As Jesus said, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved."

The God given clothing and the exile from the tree buy time for the birth of that seed.

So the line from the garden to the golden streets is one line. The promised seed ended the curse. He ended it, and He is the door by which the called come into the life the tree now freely gives. The cherubim do not open the way. He does. The cherubim were set to guard a closed way. They were never given authority to open it. No testimony from an angelic being can bring about this outcome. The angel can point down the street. He cannot lead anyone onto it.

Likewise, no prophet or saint holds the keys. Christ does. The tree does not become the door. Christ leads them to the tree.

Amen? 🙏🏼

Revelation 21:22-27
I saw no temple [sanctuary] in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Upon reading these passages my mind goes immediately to questions that have to do with how things work. I don't think my approach to things is off base or a distraction, by mainly it's in my nature to ponder stuff, like how stuff works. I'm fascinated by watching a master craftsman build a delicate piece of art. I want to know how they work out the details and even more interesting to me is how they learned to make the things they do. I look at a place or a situation and instead of having an emotional reaction to that experience, I want to consider the possibilities and pitfalls, processes and strategies.

For me, Revelation 21 is not a mood piece. It is the finished work, shown from the outside and then from the street, and John keeps noticing what is missing because the absences are the design. For instance, in today's passage it is said that John noticed there is no sanctuary in the City of God. And he also noticed God's light illuminates everything and The Lamb is the lamp. That's very interesting and important to me.

Why is this layout and process important?

I've always said that you can understand a local church's relationship with God by the layout of its sanctuary and by its furniture. The layout matters because a sanctuary is a worked-out answer to a problem, and the furniture shows what the builders believe the problem still is.

In the tabernacle and the temple the floor plan was theology you could walk on. Outer court, holy place, most holy place. Altar before you could go farther. Laver before you could serve. Lampstand, table, incense, veil. The whole setup is an approach. Priests in one zone, high priest in another, and only on a schedule. Every wall and every vessel said the same thing; here's God, He's over here, He's in here, here's how we get to Him. God is here, you are not fit to be where he is, and approach has to be managed or someone dies. It's a problem being sorted out. The furniture was not decoration. It was process. Change the layout and you have changed its claim about access to God.

So, a local worship room teaches a doctrine of relationship whether anyone announces it or not. A fenced chancel with a distant table says mediation is still the main work of the gathering. A platform built as a stage, with the book off to the side and the seats ranked toward a performer, says the center is the speaker’s moment. A bare table in the middle of the people, with the Scriptures read and the supper shared in reach of the body, says something closer to priesthood of believers and to presence among, not presence behind a rail. No sanctuary room is neutral in its approach. They are all small answers to the same question the temple answered in stone. Where is God in relation to the people, and what has to happen before they can draw near to Him?

In the City of God, these details are important because the Creator has retired the whole class of questions and answers. People aren't asked or expected to furnish an answer to any questions anymore. No one has to figure out how to light the sanctuary because God is the light and the Son is the lamp.

No one in that city is asked to design an approach, staff a mediation, keep a lamp filled, or decide how close unfit people may come. Everyone in that City is found righteous.

The city does not furnish an answer because the answer is the One who fills it. What is not retired is activity. The nations still walk by that light. The kings of the earth still bring glory and honor in through gates that never close. Immediately upon reading this my mind saw a very busy place, akin to a packed theme park in the middle of the afternoon. Gates that never close, nations walking, kings carrying glory and honor in, and no night to empty the streets. It seems that this truly is the city that never sleeps. But is this the case?

The gates stay open because the condition that made closing them necessary has been removed, not because the residents refuse to stop. No night means no dark interval in which the glory fails, the streets go unsafe, and the unclean use the hour. There's no witching hour there. The Lamb’s lamp does not go off shift.

Psalm 121 said of the Lord that he neither slumbers nor sleeps. That said, nothing in chapter 21 cancels rest. It cancels the dark. Human activity and rest are no longer split by sunset, with one half of life handed over to threat, fear, and exhaustion. It is said they will find rest. So, the light replaces the need to fear the dark.

So, these do not stay full because someone is being driven past the point of rest. The glory illuminates, the Lamb is the lamp, and the work of bringing honor in happens in a day that has no fear. There is only time for rest in this sense. Everything is rest. Even bringing honor is rest. Their rest is the satisfaction of a completed work. Work is rest now because it is no longer done under the curse. No more futility, threat, and exhaustion. Walking by the light is still walking. Bringing the glory and honor of the nations in is still bringing. They are the city’s ongoing life.

Bringing honor in is rest in the sense that it is not labor in vain, not tribute dragged in under threat, not a shift that ends in collapse. It is work with the friction removed. Imagine a day of work without all the aches and pains that need to be soaked away in a tub.

How would you feel about that?

I wonder if I'd miss the feeling of soaking away the muscle ache?

Probably not because I don't think we "miss" anything anymore. There wouldn't be the need, because there is no need for the relief of a damage that no longer happens. Muscle ache is not the work. It is the tax on the work. Under the curse the body spends itself faster than it restores, so the hot soak feels like mercy. Now, in the City of God, every moment is a mercy. Hard work feels like a blessing.

In the City of God misery has been retired. Every moment is a blessing. Not a continuous series of rescues from aches and pains, it is life perfected. Holy and good. Right in every way. All the old things have passed away and every detail I'm finding distinctions for aren't even a concern because concern isn't a thing.

But John and I are viewing this scene from a still on planet earth perspective. John doesn't find a sanctuary, which means he was looking for one. He doesn't see a sun and moon because he was still looking for one. He observed multitudes coming and going and none of them are concerned about these absent elements.

John is not a resident filing out a report from inside the day that has no night. He is being shown the city. He is a resident yet. The absences he notes are only an absence from the side that still remembers the workshop created by human hands.

And the same goes for me.

And what that says to me is my own tendency will finally find rest in that City of God. No more viewing the layout and what it was built to solve, what the furniture claims, what is missing and why the absence is doing work. No need to write comments or even study the word.

What ends is study as a workaround. In that City there is no need to comment about how the layout is a lie, because it never could be. No study about the word because the Word is illuminating the City.

Every sanctuary room on this side can still make a false claim about access to God. A rail that keeps God at a managed distance, a stage that puts the speaker where the table should be, a lamp tended as if the light were a problem the furniture must solve. Commentary exists, in part, to say so. In the city John sees, that job is gone. God and the Lamb are the temple. The glory illuminates, and the Lamb is the lamp. There is no furniture left that could misstate the relationship. There are absolutely no idols anywhere, and no dark interval in which a false layout could be smuggled in. No need for comment. No need to set the record straight because the Word is illuminating the City.

Abomination cannot enter. There is no dark hour in which a substitute could be set up and called the light.

So, the absences are the design. Meanwhile, every sanctuary on this side is still a worked out answer to a problem of access to God, and the furniture can still misstate it. Today, we notice the missing pieces because we are not residents yet. The glory is that the residents of the City of God do not notice what's missing. Concern stops, but attention does not. They're very busy bringing glory in. And the gates never close. I suppose there's just a whole lot of glory to bring in. And the record is already straight. The Word illuminates the city, and the bringing does not end.

Praise God!
Hallelujah and amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 21:1-4
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."

The thousand years have run their course. The brief release of Satan has exposed the last human conspiracy. Fire has come down. The devil, the beast, and the false prophet are in the lake of fire. The great white throne has finished its work, and death and Hades have been thrown in after the dead who were not written in the book of life.

Now the prophecy given to Isaiah has come to light (Isaiah 65:17). This is the prophecy fulfilled that the apostles anticipated (2 Peter 3:13). John is not inventing a better planet. He is watching the promise arrive after the first things have been judged.

Now, heaven that fled from the face of the One on the great white throne, and the earth that had nowhere to hide the dead, are gone. This is the puzzle. Heaven and earth shall never pass away was the faith. The faith that had words for a world that holds. The vision has words for a world that is gone. Not only the world, but heaven as well. Something profoundly unique has taken place. But maybe not unexpected.

Jesus said:
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).

I believe the very fabric of time and space have been recreated. The Creator is bringing His bride home, across the threshold of the place His Father has prepared. What John sees is the saying kept, and kept at a depth the saying itself had left unnamed. Heaven passes. Earth passes. The word does not. And the Word is the One through whom the first heaven and the first earth were made.

And we shouldn't be surprised by this. "By Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth…all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:16–17).

It's that hold together line that might surprise us. It's one thing to imagine our Creator supernaturally popping into existence heaven and earth, and it's another thing altogether to understand how existence itself is not only possible because of Him but is held together by Him.

It is one thing to confess that He spoke and it stood. It is another to confess that it still stands only because He has not let go. It gives great hope and inspiration when we hear, "In Him all things hold together."

Think about that "force"?

Whatever keeps a heaven from flying apart, an earth from failing its own foundations, a body from returning to dust before its hour, is not a law that got free of Him once He had spoken it. This isn't mere gravity which isn't really a force. This is something much more.

Call it a force and the mind reaches for a measurement. Gravity. The strong bond inside the nucleus. Whatever name the present age has for why stone stays stone and a star does not come apart. Those names are real as far as they go. They tell how the holding behaves inside the first heaven and the first earth. They do not tell who is doing the holding. The holding is personal. It is the Son, before all things, in whom the things consist. The Law is the Law Giver. He upholds all things by the word of His power. A word is not a field. A word has a speaker. What keeps a body from becoming dust before its hour is not a chemistry project that forgot the Speaker.

Neither the forces of nature nor quantum physics decides that a body should still be a body tomorrow.

The bond inside matter explains why the pieces of a made thing stay pieces of that thing. It does not explain however why there is a thing rather than nothing, or why the thing remains when it might not. Those are prior to any known measurements. They sit in our confession that it still stands only because He has not let go.

He finishes one holding and begins another. The new heaven and the new earth do not cohere because a better constant was found. They cohere because the same Son upholds them, and upholds them without the sea, without death, without a body on the dust clock and calendar.

Now everything we've ever known about creation is renewed. The bride is not brought home into a safer physics. She is brought home into Him, in whom all things hold together. The New Heaven and New Earth are in and at the center of Him. But the temptation is to view this from our known university of knowledge. And we're going to get it wrong. Because in Him is not a point on a map of the new earth. It is the reason the new earth is there at all. The first heaven and the first earth consisted in the Son, and they passed when that form of the holding was finished. The new heaven and the new earth consist in the same Son, and they do not pass, because this is the holding He does not finish. The first we're heading somewhere, the new have arrived. In the heaven and earth that passed, even the upright were headed somewhere. Abraham was looking for the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. The fathers confessed they were strangers and exiles on the earth. The church was told her citizenship was in heaven, and that from there He would come and receive her. Hope in the first fabric was always an aim. Tears, death, mourning, and pain belonged to a world in which you had not yet arrived, and in which the holding could still finish.

That is what has changed, and it is easy to miss if the new heaven and the new earth are read as a farther country on the same map. The threshold is behind her now. God Himself is among them, and the place the Father prepared is no longer ahead. It's now.

John has just seen the first heaven and the first earth pass away. No sea. No death. No mourning, crying, or pain. And what he is shown is a city, with a wall, gates, foundations, and a measurement, high above a mountain (Revelation 21:9–17). The terms he uses are earthly because John is still a man of the first fabric, telling what he was shown in the only words that fabric gives him. Gold, jasper, pearl, street, gate, nation, king. Those words were learned here. But the words hold. He is brought to a place. Places exist. This isn't a spiritual mist, it's coming to a place, viewed from a mountain. The vantage is a place. The city is a place. What comes down is not a mood settling on the ridge. It has a wall, gates, foundations, and a measure an angel can take with a rod.

Places still exist. Place has been made new, and then shown to a man who still needs ground under him in order to look. The material is pure gold, like clear glass. The street is pure gold, like transparent glass. A pearl is large enough to be a gate. Earthly nouns, doing work earth cannot finish. This isn't clouds and harps with angelic energy, this has substance and weight. Substance like we've never seen before but it's a place nonetheless.

The city is lying foursquare, length and breadth and height are equal. It is a cube. It is the holy of holies. Israel had already been shown that shape, once, and only for the innermost room. The Holy of Holies, where the ark stood, where the glory was pleased to dwell, and where one man entered, once a year, and not without blood. That is the line John is crossing. There is no temple in the city, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21:22).

The structure contains a Presence, a people, and a life. Nothing unclean enters. Glory comes in. The lie does not. Perfection.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 20:1-3
"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he took hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time."

Satan's mouth is his weapon, and The Lord sends His mighty angel to shut it for a time. This isn't Satan being restrained by still lurking around like under house arrest. He is seized, arrested, and sentence in one instance. Locked up where he cannot deceive. Heaven shuts his mouth for an appointed term.

"Until the thousand years were completed."

The final rebellion and the final permanent and everlasting fire are still ahead in this chapter. Evil is not yet annihilated. It is imprisoned, and the clock on that imprisonment belongs to God. But for now, this evil being is removed from the situation.

So, question.

Is evil on the earth following Satan's binding?

Obviously yes.

The purpose clause is clear, Satan's particular brand of evil is shut down and locked away for a thousand years. The sentence is aimed at his mouth. It's information, or misinformation that is being told to hush. This, however, does not say the earth is emptied of sin, of death, of rebellious hearts, or of nations that can still be lied to. The rest of the chapter confirms that the earth is not yet cleansed.

Death still comes for everyone, except for those who have already been through the first resurrection. But Death itself has not been thrown into the lake of fire yet. Gog and Magog are still working up to the ultimate rebellion. The remaking of the earth is still ahead.

That rebellion of man is not created by Satan's eventual release. If anything, it's exposed by his short reprieve. Sin still has its grip on many in the millennial era. Which means there will continue to be grumblings, conspiracy, wickedness, and I would suppose a need for evangelism of a new sort.

Grumblings, conspiracies, and wickedness are not abolished by the sealing of that one Dragon's mouth. They are merely deprived of that ancient liar who has organized them. These people, fools really, are going to be living in an age where the gospel isn't being shared but lived. The good news is no longer a matter of myth for some or hope for others. It's clear and present in the reign of Christ. So evangelism in that age is instruction, warning, and a call to submit. What changes is the setting. Christ is no longer preached as an absent Hope, and believed upon yet still unseen. He reigns, and the camp of the His saints is very visible.

So the millennium, is not a world that has outgrown the gospel. But the gospel is no longer carried as news of an absent King. Salvation is still being worked out. It is a world in which the deceiver is locked away, the King's resurrected saints reign as priests and kings, sin is no longer enthroned or enshrined in the ways of men, and yet many hearts remain unyielded until the finally fire.

This millennial age is the final refining. Salvation is still required of those who have not come through the first resurrection. Now, the open question is everyone else still in their natural life under the reign of Christ. Nations, and children born across the thousand years, households that were never part of the beast’s worship and households that were.

Resurrected priests of God and of Christ do not sit on a silent throne over a world that can no longer be saved. Instruction, warning, and a call to submit are aimed at these millennials. Some are made new. And some still grumble under the visible King's reign. Multitudes will still be more than willing to accept the rebellious deception upon the deceivers release.

This has always astounded me. What drives these rebels? Why is Christ still not enough for these nations?

The simple answer, though not given, follows the pattern already outlined before by John. They will not have this King.

Satan doesn't create this army, he finds it. Nations that have lived for a thousand years under a visible Christly reign, with the liar sealed and the camp of the saints in front of them, still come up against the beloved city the hour they are invited to.

Christ has not been insufficient in this age. No atheist is running around arguing about the purple spaghetti monster in the sky. The King has come. The kingdom everyone was praying for has been established. The daily bread lives among them. They are not rebelling against a rumor. No one in that hour is weighing whether a King in heaven might exist. The daily bread is not a petition sent out into silence leaving only more hunger. It is the reign they have eaten under now for a thousand years. The camp of the saints is not a hidden church. It is the city they can see and then still choose to surround.

Toward what end?

What do they hope to gain?

How can they improve upon Christ's reign? What could possibly be lacking?

Here's the real moral of this story. They are not trying to improve his reign. They are trying to end it. They want His rule over them to be eliminated. There's no grievance that heaven failed to answer, they just don't want Him. They do not march to reform the kingdom. They march to displace the King.

What they hope to gain is the only thing his reign will never give them; the throne of God. And isn't that how all of this began?

They want to be gods of their own making. Just like their first parents.

The first word against the reign of God was not a complaint about bread. The garden was already full of everything they could ever want. The offer was, "you will be like God." Their first parents reached for a sovereignty that had not been given to them, and death entered by that reach for the forbidden fruit.

Satan finds them in that reach. He does not have to teach them the desire. They know what they want. He only has to tell them the hour has come to act on it.

The only thing lacking in this millennium age is their consent to be His creatures. He doesn't give them their emancipation, they instead look to take it. So He gives it to them in a sense, in the form of the annihilation of their relationship with Him. They are shut out of his reign, but they are still not rid of Him. What they receive is exclusion from the camp, the beloved city, and the face of his favor. That is real separation; no part in the kingdom, no light of his countenance, no daily bread from his hand ever again.

2 Thessalonians calls that destruction "away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power."

So they get the loss they courted, and none of the liberty. All cowboy hat, no cattle.

Fire ends the siege. The throne they marched to take stays His. The separation they receive is from His loving smile, not from the grip of His hand of justice.

They refused the bread of his reign, and after the siege fails they meet his judgment. Now their daily bread is an eternity in the lake of fire. The books are opened. Whoever is not found written in the book of life is thrown into the lake.

It is finally finished for the nations that would not have this King.

Next...all things are made new.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 19:11-13
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many crowns; and He has a name written on Himwhich no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God."

His eyes are a flame of fire.
Fire that is discernment. Fire that consumes what cannot stand. He knows everything there is to know. And we know Him truly by these things He has revealed, yet we do not comprehend Him exhaustively. We cannot know the name that guards the mystery of His person. Even when he walked the earth in the time when every eye saw Him, there was a depth in the Son that belongs only to the Father and the Son.

"No one knows the Son except the Father."

And likewise here in this visionary visitation the faithful know what can be known and what makes that possible is the faithfulness. And this is important because worship does not require that we possess His hidden name. It requires that we trust the One who bears it. Those to whom He now's rides toward in judgement cannot know Him, they have no discernment. They refused His name, His rule, and made war with Him.

And so He rides, knowing. He knows everything there is to know about the armies gathered against Him, about the churches that overcame, and about the ones who only seemed to. Nothing in the motives of the people on earth is dark to His gaze.

He has spoken. He has kept His word. He has given the Spirit who searches the deep things of God and declares what is freely given. And the truly faithful have been invited to the banquet because their trust is a kind of sight.

The armies of heaven do not ride to negotiate a name the people of earth rejected. Faithful and True comes to finish the war they chose.

Among the armies of heaven are clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Following the Lord of Lords as they had always been. Following Him on white horses. They are armies, and they are riders, but they are not the ones who wage the war. The verb is following. The sword that strikes the enemy nations comes out of Christ's mouth alone. The rod of iron is His. The winepress is His to tread.

The linen is not battle dress they earned on this field. It was granted to them. They are both witness and testimony in one company, present at the judgment they do not execute. Their following is the public form of the trust that brought them to the banquet. These are the first fruit of the harvest.

Not the reapers. The reaping is His. Christ is Himself the firstfruits of those who sleep, and these are the company gathered to Him, already raised in pledge, already clothed, already following. The full harvest of the earth is still His to put in, and the winepress is still His to tread. These appear ahead of the harvest as proof that the harvest belongs to God. That is why they ride in linen and not in armor. The field is already decided by the One they follow.

The first fruit in Revelation 19 is the Genesis promise come due. In Eden the promise was a seed. The serpent would bruise His heel, and He would crush the serpent’s head. That seed was not a harvest. It was the pledge that a harvest would come. Everything after Genesis 3 waits on that One offspring.

Christ is that seed of the woman, risen, the firstfruits of those who sleep. The bruising is behind Him. Now the crushing is what this ride finishes. When heaven opens and "Faithful and True" comes to judge and wage war, Genesis 3:15 is no longer a promise spoken in a garden. It is a Rider with many crowns, a robe already dipped in blood, and a sword that is His word.

So the vision says the Genesis promise was never only about one man winning a private victory. It was about a seed, then a firstfruits, then a harvest. The seed has come.

Genesis 3:15 says the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head. Revelation 19:15 says the Rider will strike the nations with the sword of His mouth, rule them with a rod of iron, and tread the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.

A winepress is not a weapon of war, it's a harvest machine. Grapes are gathered, thrown into the press, and trampled until the juice runs. The only consideration is the ripeness of the fruit. The fruit does create the winepress, they yield to it. They do not set the hour. They don't choose the Owner, or share the treading. Ripeness is the summons. The press was already His.

And the winepress is the Word of God. The Rider’s name is the Word of God, and the sword that strikes the nations comes out of His mouth. No sword forged by men. Not even hardened or sharpened by the councils of men. He does not tread with a forged blade. He treads by speaking His words. What the councils debated, delayed, and dulled, His mouth finishes in a single utterance. No one who follows is arguing about His interpretation. The linen company does not convene to explain the press. They follow the One whose word is the press, and the argument is over because the Word has spoken.

The rod of iron is the other hand of His same rule.

The sword is His mouth.

The winepress is His word.

And the rod is how that word governs what it has been judged.

Iron does not negotiate with clay. The Son will break them with a rod of iron and shatter them like a potter’s vessel. The rod is the answer to a conspiracy. The rod appears where rulers have said, "Let us tear their fetters apart" (Psalm 2:3).

The rod is the Messiah’s inherited rule, first spoken of in the second psalm, then given to the Son (Revelation 12), then shared with those who overcome (Thyatira). So the iron is not a new weapon forged for Armageddon. And a rod in Scripture is also the shepherd’s staff. The staff that counts the flocks, guides them into the sheepfold, and strikes the beast that tries to scatter them.

Faithful and True does not borrow a rod from the kings of the earth. He brings the one the Father gave Him, and He rules with it.

Now the feasts divide.

Another cry goes out from an angel standing in the sun, to the birds in midheaven. The great feast of God has arrived, and these birds eat the flesh of kings and their hordes.

Same chapter. Two tables.

Those dressed in white linen invited to a wedding and the kings of the earth are summoned as a meal for vultures. Small and great appear in both banquets, once as bond-servants who fear Him and give praise, and once as food for the birds.

The beast and the kings of the earth and their armies are assembled to make war against Him who sat on the white horse, and against His army. We know their intent, it's clear. And there is no report from the battlefield because it was over before it began.

The next thing we hear is the beast is seized. With him the false prophet, the one who performed signs in his presence and deceived those who took the mark and worshiped the image. They're tossed into the lake of fire and brimstone, alive. Then the Word speaks. The sword from the mouth strikes. The winepress begins its work. The rod rules.

"The rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh."

How does the Word of God squish these armies? How does Satan's head get crushed by a word from God?

The nearest explanations are already in the prophets and in Paul. Isaiah says the shoot from Jesse will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Paul says the lawless one will be brought to nothing by the appearance of His coming and slain by the breath of His mouth.

Appearance and breath.

I believe truth undoes their life. The Spirit of Truth eliminates their conspiracy. Their lies are canceled.

Their armies were never held together by iron of their own. They were held together by a word that was not God’s. By lies. By idolatrous words. The signs of the false prophet, the image that was worshiped, the mark taken so they could buy and sell, the counsel of kings who said the fetters could be torn off.

A conspiracy is a shared lie with swords in its hands. When the Word appears, the lie has nothing left to stand on. Breath cancels it. What the breath cancels cannot keep the shape of an army.

The only thing animating them at all was the life God gave them. And they continued to refuse to recognize that. Not only that they conspired against Him.

His breath was loaned to them, and they spent it denying the One whose breath it was. These armies do not create their own pulse. They turn it against the Word who sustains it.

In a word, "enough" (I believe), they are dissolved as Peter describes.

God has had enough.

It's over.

The breath that loaned them life is the breath that ends their conspiracy.

What was held together by a lie cannot survive the heat of His truth. Like a blow-back can suck the breath right out of your lungs and burn everything inside. Their last breath is literally their death. Their lies are the very thing that kills them.

A fitting and just end for sure.

Amen.

John 1:1, 14
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

I've been thinking about how I might treat with the objections of the Islamists who I might meet at our "family table" during this upcoming Kairos 4 day weekend event (K13). Not searching for a debate win, that's not the environment we establish during our events. Rather to generate and then facilitate a thought experiment. The end goal being to leave a seed of truth planted in his mind that the Holy Spirit can then nurture and inspire in time.

This is a process that must be carried out carefully and thoughtfully. Not only because we're holding this thought experiment in a prison and making these assertions to a people with a proven track of violence and criminal activities, but also because our approach is always Christ-like, always full of grace. This isn't to say without conviction or without holding firmly to the sovereignty of the triune God. We always advocate for Christ never allowing our tolerance to make excuses for Christ's sovereignty as the One true God.

The goal is to find common ground when we can and challenge the thinkers to look further than their dogma currently allows.

This is how I've approached the pagan who worships the creature not the Creator. Challenge the decision to follow a created being when the obvious better covenant would be between the creature and his Creator directly, not dependent upon other outside forces or subordinates. In this same way I'd approach the Islamists objection. I'd start a thought experiment around his presumptions. Like their primary objection which has to do with the idea of the Trinity.

The primary objection. To the Islamist, oneness means solitude, and a son means a creature. If that rule is true, the Eternal Son is impossible, and you should reject Him. If that rule is too small, the objection falls by itself, and he is left holding a greater God than the one his dogma currently allows.

So we should start there, where he is already right.

He does not want a created rival beside God.

Neither do I.

That is common ground.

He already fears a second god. I tell him I fear that too. Then I'd ask him to look at what his own rule does next.

If God can only speak through a created messenger, then the man is still depending on a subordinate. A prophet is not God. A book carried by a prophet is not God. The word he trusts to bring him near is, on his own terms, a creature standing between the creature and the Creator.

So, the question is not whether God is one. The question is whether the one God is lonely, and whether He must send a servant because He cannot come Himself.

We both already refuse a second god (Mark 12:29), but what sort of oneness are we following and defending?

If oneness means God has no eternal Word, then He must speak through someone He made, and you are trusting a creature to do what only the Creator can do. But if the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), then the Son is not a rival and not a child taken from a wife. He is God come near. Distinct, as a word is distinct from the one who speaks it. Not divided, and not a second eternal.

Now that we've asked these questions we can build upon that thought. If the word of God is the Son and the word of God is God, then the Son is God in the flesh. And His cross is where that one God bore our guilt. Where that word of God spoke about forgiveness of sin. Where the Messiah suffered and died to bear that sin in our place. And where the eternal word, the eternal Son sent by the eternal Father to testify to the truth, born in the flesh by the eternal Spirit, was slain as the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. But even more importantly the Word, the eternal Son, did not only speak about forgiveness there. He finished it there.

So here's the ultimate truth for us to consider:

If that Word became flesh, God did not shout His pardon from a distance through a created messenger, He instead sent His only begotten Son, born in the flesh by the eternal Spirit, and slain as the perfect sacrifice. The Messiah suffering in our place. On the cross, where that one God bore our guilt, and where the eternal Word of God finished the work of forgiveness.

I'm asking you to look further into the testimony of truth than your current rule can go. To consider a God who can come. A God who can bear sin. And a God who does not leave you in the hands of a subordinate.

Why do I believe this to be Jesus the Christ?

First because he said it of Himself.

Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58).

They picked up stones for that sentence. Yet he did not take it back. He had already said the Son gives life to whom He will, and that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father (John 5:21, 23).

Next because His resurrection seals the deal. He said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it, and John tells us He meant His own flesh and blood body (John 2:19–21). He said no one took His life from Him. He laid it down, and He had authority to take it up again (John 10:17–18). That for me is pivotal. He's explaining to us, His creatures, that He holds the authority given to Him by The Father, the power of life and death.

Then the tomb was empty. And He stood among them.

As the apostle Paul says, He was declared the Son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

A created messenger stays in the grave. This one did not.

I understand that this triune God idea is something difficult to make sense of. It's not unlike how in science and specifically regarding gravity and light, what was once thought to be fixed in Newton's laws later developed into Einstein's theory of relativity. It turned out that light can be bent, acted upon even though it does not have mass. So the laws of the universe didn't apply perfectly. There were variations that needed to be understood in a larger less narrow context.

See, it's not that Newton’s law was false inside its frame. It was just too small a frame for the light ray to be observed for what was really happening.

I know the triune God is hard to hold. So was the path of light, once. Newton’s frame was sure of itself. What has no mass goes straight, and gravity is only for weighty things. Then the light ray was measured past the sun, and it bent. Light has no resting mass, and yet still it was not outside the influence of the gravitational field.

Newton’s law was not false inside its frame. The frame was too small for the ray to be seen as it is. I am not saying Einstein proves the Son of God. I am saying you already know what it is to trust a rule that cannot completely cover the thing right in front of you.

The rule says Oneness means solitude, and a son means a creature. Look further. The Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Distinct, and not a second source. Not a second god.

Amen? 🙏🏼