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Chapter 7

 

The Divine and the Human

The False and the True Man

 

News 238 The Advertiser, Sept 5, 2002

 

 

THE DISEASE CONCERNED

 

It is a pretty pass when a man has to ask not to be called God, a term used as a result of football prowess. Tony Ablett, Geelong AFL (football) ‘superstar’ felt the necessity to be rid of such a term, and appealed to followers to cease the use. He realised that most meant no harm (to him anyway) by the term, and in fact may have intended it as a compliment to him, but, said he, it is “quite inappropriate” and “also disrespectful and dishonouring to God. Not only am I human, but probably more human than most and I would appreciate it very much if the tag was dropped.”

 

There goes one of the laugh-mongering aspersions on God, through the outrageous insolence, the daringly misplaced courage of using HIS name on a man, not only not the Messiah, not merely without warranty as God-as-man,  a matter of the divine initiative and mercy, but not even making any claim so  much as to be sinless!

 

Ablett’s abdication from the tag, presumably never to his taste, is the precise opposite to Christ’s dedication to the post. The one is declaring that such a title ruptures realities for him, in word, because “my sense of significance and security are based on my heavenly father’s unconditional love and acceptance of me, in Christ, and in what He says is true of me, and not in the opinions of people.” That seems to mean this: that his meaning and safety are in and of the Lord, Christ the avenue to the very Father of spirits, and the sure rest; that he accepts the declarations of GOD on this topic, and not the opinions of men. That is where his meaning lies, his heart, his future and his assurance.

 

How COULD people call him “God” ? It would presumably be because his skill seemed to leave competition and comparison rather in arrears, that his capacities seemed to roll flat over opposition and to be  almost in a class of their own. This is an apt confirmation of what has been noted earlier, that sporting mania which possesses some approaches of the religious, that the awe at the splendour and majesty of God becomes for many perverted into wonder at created things, so that it becomes a pathological substitution, not of Christ for their sins, as a remedy, but of the creation for the Creator, as symptomatic of the disease. What is its name, this disease ?

 

It is what C.S. Lewis called the DIVINE DIVORCE, it is a spiritual severance from source, a maintenance avoidance of service, a wallowing in works other than the work of God Himself, a fascination with the house instead of the Builder, a decline to the pit when the avenue is celestial, a denudation of the soil of life, instead of making it a crop, an aridity of heart instead of understanding, an axing of wisdom by efficient deficiency, robbing the life of vitality of grasp, reality of depth and continuity of personality. It is … sin!

 

It includes rebelliousness against the framer of our thought powers, fractiousness against the codifier of our complexities in DNA and in all the multitude of automatic and semi-automatic provisions which occur to specification, plan, program and synthetic concurrence in our physical seat, and even in our mental equipment, yes and in our spirits, which we do not need to create in order to survey the scene, consider our response and evaluate our purposes. We are altogether a GIFT, and a SPONSORED SPIRITUAL DOMAIN, and yet men act as if they could use a few fine-spun words to ignore the necessities (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Little Things Ch. 5, It Bubbles …  Ch. 9, TMR, SMR), and plunge away in that Rolls Royce they ‘happened to find’ by the kerb-side and  expect no action by police.

 

After all,  does not the computer control invent itself, do we not continually see this increase in information spouting out of nothing and nowhere, and does not the engineering snugly formulate and then form itself with no direction, so that the computer can integrate and articulate its orders with the finely composed responsive equipment, always and of course speaking the same language as the program, without encouragement; and does not the NEED of the equipment for the program automatically become the FEED, so that the raw materials OF COURSE are available, are synthesised and subjected to the astute and acute chemical and  information input processes required to correlate with the programmatic orders, themselves in due course synthesising the preliminary supplies for the various later productions required into procedural input for further programmatic output for components, for organs, in layers and regimes of order, occupied with integrality and functionality.

 

 

Do we not see this all  the time, such as NEVER! And do we not know HOW it is all done by itself before it gets there, since this too is always to be seen, that is, AT NO TIME. Again, it is not obvious WHY it is all made so concordant ? as when anything happens without direction in any system, and all sorts of wonders arise from the non-properties of what never is found to be able or willing so to act ? Is this not what is to be seen in any laboratory, in any dream! This is the very quintessence of dream.

 

So does the dream of mankind illuminate his darkness with the sulphurous follies of frothy fantasy, as far from science as is an idiot from adding up your income tax, and yes, all but infinitely further, for that is a mere nothing compared with your equipment, which then, perhaps, someone would like to call “God” for fun, for kicks, for a farce!

 

Moreover, are we not aware that given TIME, anything can happen. A mongoloid child, given this precious commodity of TIME, can become Einstein. Is it not so ? In a dream. His system has NO limits; is that not why he is called mongoloid! Ah yes, but of course it is so: but in a  dream! but this, it is a machined dream, wrought out with passion, taught on with calibrated techniques, applying to nothing, showing nothing with nothing with remarkable assiduity.

 

So has the dream swept  much (but by NO  means all) of science in its enslaving slavering, so that mutterings like those of intoxicated witches arise like steam from an over-heated car engine, with the radiator cap suddenly removed. Then others, trusting the gurus who invaded that excellent field of science, and ignore its methodology on which ALONE its respect is based, called men without ANY divine credentials “God” because they are good  at football.

 

Thus does the Rugby crowd sound very nearly like an evangelical meeting, with those  deep-throated cries and that sense of awe and wonder, as the crowd sways and  appears overcome with emotion and a sense of grandeur. WHY ? It is because of the perversion of the spirit, to seek to SATE the spirit in the accomplishments of creatures, lest they should ‘err’ into the domain of God Himself personally,  and  so, being converted, come to realise what life is about, and why not only THEY, in their DNA, but the BIBLE was written.

 

 

THE EXPOSITION OF CHRIST AND THE EXHIBITION OF HIS POWER

 

Consider how Jesus put it in words,  in the midst of works truly those of the One whom He called Father, with whom He worked acting in the same way (John 5:19-23), in Matthew 12:13ff.. First see the context of action and then, we shall return to the comment of the Lord on their response. 

 

 

1.   THE ACTION:


Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.

 

“But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all. Yet He warned them not to make Him known, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:

 

     “Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen,

My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased!

I will put My Spirit upon Him,

And He will declare justice to the Gentiles.

      He will not quarrel nor cry out,

Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.

      A bruised reed He will not break,

And smoking flax He will not quench,

Till He sends forth justice to victory;

      And in His name Gentiles will trust.”

 

“Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, ‘Could this be the Son of David?’ Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, ‘This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.’ But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them:

 

“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

 

“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

 

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I tell you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

 

“Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them,

 

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

 

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

 

“When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

 

 

2.   THE COMMENT

 

This we see in Matthew 13, following the works which no man could do, far less continue without fail to perform as He spoke, later in that same day (13:1), many coming to consider what He had to say. Since there was a spiritual  obstruction in many,  as with many in this country, because of long  standing traditions now dismissed either in heart or head, or in both by the many, He used parables in much of His instruction. He explained as needed to His own disciples, but to the others in their restless tendency to be tangential to principles, promises and truth, the parables stirred dim thoughts, pierced thick skins and like a dye, flowed to the heart from the ear and eye. For all that, few would believe (Matthew 7:13,21) though in the arithmetical aggregate there have probably been millions.

 

 

Now consider His words…

 

“And the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Why do You speak to them in parables?’

 

“He answered and said to them,

 

“Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 1For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

 

“And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:

 

‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,

And seeing you will see and not perceive;

 

      ‘For the hearts of this people have grown dull.

Their ears are hard of hearing,

And their eyes they have closed,

 

‘Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,

Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,

So that I should heal them.’

 

“But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

 

There is a systemic obduracy, like resistance to “rust” in specially selected or genetically engineered wheat; but in that case, it is AGAINST disease, whereas in this, it is RESISTANCE AGAINST REMEDY.

 

They SHUT their eyes to prevent the ophthalmologist of the spirit; they CLOSE their ears to distance the EN & T specialist from enabling hearing. They PROTECT their ignorance, and RESIST all correction, so that alienation might continue like a drunken song, blotting out from their very beings the swift attestation of truth, the overwhelming power of reality. When the current is strong, upward, they use stainless steel cables to attach them to the sinking submarine, lest they should be rescued. They are often like Zedekiah, last King of Judah before the destruction of Jerusalem by the imperial power of Babylon. Jeremiah TOLD him when he enquired, what to do, but he would not do it.

 

Why did this king decline to act as directed ? It was, he said, because he feared the mockery of those who had fled from the city before. What oh King! They might have said. YOU too, you like us, you have fled.  Where now the royal majesty, the arrogant regality, the train of power!

 

Lest this should be said, he wanted to accept whatever the willful ignorance of God would bring.

 

What is it like ? It resembles someone with infantile paralysis, with blemished nerves and painful stringencies limiting movement, and endless seeming exercises attenuating but little, who on seeing that a specialist with a cure had come, hid in the shadows of the wards, lest the truly terrifying potency of this cure should disturb his routine, and once more make it necessary for him to earn his living, fine tune his talents and exercise his mind on the nature of life where there is contest, peril and reward. One has met a mental patient just like that,  who virtually admitted to just such  a desire for the social acceptability of a pensioned existence, as sick in mind, rather than facing the spiritual challenge of drinking from the cup of life and  moving into its midst, healed!

 

 

TRUE MAN IS MAN IN TRUTH

 

Moving from the shadows in the wards, in the spiritual hospital which is so crammed with dissatisfied, disenabled man, participant in problems, but not ultimate solutions, filled perhaps with hope but hopeless in prescription, inscribed with sin and unwilling to be re-written, there is that residue of our race which tumbles to its final ruin. It cannot solve selfishness, aggression, martial madness, wild cries whether of alienated thought or hearts or both, endless provocation, lethal lessons repeated like a piano lesson when the music is never right and so never acceptable, the dynamic ignorance of the spiritually lost, the mentally enervated,  the driftwood of the deep. The world tumbles on like a rolling bramble by a cliff in high wind, unable to avoid its destiny, unwilling for re-direction.

 

Man without the truth is like geometry without figures, arithmetic without figures, thought without logic, language without definition, the ocean without water, the sun without power. He is lost, and justly wonders about his meaning, since he has voided it in avoiding it, except for this meaning, that being willfully lost, he is subjected to the ways and destiny of the lost. Surely this does have meaning, but not one that man is willing to face; for did he but once face it, he might turn and be converted, as Christ put it, and He should heal him! It is with obstinately fallen man, just as God says in Hosea 7:16,

 

Ø   “They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a treacherous bow.”

 

The bow ? It is MEANT to fire straight to the appointed target; yet now it is twisted and so torturously fires either backwards or sideways. It is bent not to the task, but to the falsification of it. It hurts not the foe, but rather makes for hurt to the sender. It is unreliable, unusable. Its meaning ? It is in discard, abiding its dismissal: unless remade!

 

If however the bow is useless to the point, the Cross is not. There the twisting was not of metal, but of flesh; the drooping was not of sullen rebellion, but for squalid rebellion, to pay for it that those who are of heart to find Him, might be forgiven, then as forgiven fortified, the ignorant informed, the unwise, made understanding of heart, the lost be found, and those awry be made straight (cf. Isaiah 35:4-9, 33:3-8).

 

It is so simple, only One has done what was necessary, to bring man in peace to God, not merely in terms of absolute justice, but absolute mercy, with absolute change so that absolution being granted by Him who alone can do it (Mark 2), man no more absconding with that precious equipment made by God, might abide in truth. It is only then that man can be true man, when He is in the truth.

 

Then the squalid scenarios of

 

Ø   misplaced language, God to the football star!,

Ø   misplaced action, MY will to the Lord as what He must bear,

Ø   misplaced spirit, autonomous and anonymous,  and not a child of God,

 

are replaced by what not only means, but is like a thing of beauty. So FILLED with meaning is it that it is almost a delight abounded to find yet more  and more (Proverbs 15:24) *1 . If it tends to be so with a child with his father, if that person be kind and  wise; yet when the Father now is God, there is no limit. It is like finding out that your tutor in art in Rembrandt, in Music Chopin, and that this is merely a beginning. Indeed, it IS to find out that your Instructor is … GOD!

 

That, it is where man belongs, not with the foolish idols of mass (SMR pp. 1032-1088H), immeasurable pride, unutterable guile, martial moments for obliteration of opposition by blood, new bombs to make more suffer longer, new philosophies when the answers are so clear that it is like finding 2 and 2 = 4 too much to ponder. When man is where he belongs, then is peace like a river, and the sun of righteousness within, Christ in you the hope of glory, removes the sense of amputation and without disputation, restores the glory of God into the soul, where it has always belonged, but NOT always been found. You tell light by its illumination.

 

 

NOTE

 

*1 This reads:

 

“The way of life winds upward for the wise,

That he may turn away from hell beneath.”

 

To this relates Proverbs 4:18:

 

“But the path of the just is like the shining light,

That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”