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Chapter 2

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE ON EARTH

It is not obscure, to fumble,
not dim, to see faintly,
but manifest, avoidable only by deadly zeal



We have been considering, in our last chapter, some of the ways of life as it is presented to our eyes, ears and reason. Selfishness is seen as one option. It is distinguishable in toto from the preservation, sustenance and maintenance of any equipment, whether it be genes, man or imagination. Such maintenance may be for reasons good or bad, imperviously self-oriented, irrationally self-centred, as if the self were the very centre of meaning in the universe, or for reasons godly and glorious. In itself, it does not reveal this!

It may be for any number of reasons, as we saw, that something is watched over, maintained and constrained or enabled to continue. It could be to bring blessings to children, as an aged mother seeks diligently to stay alive; or to bring a loss of tax on a trust.

The mere use of contrivance to secure this is no more significant of the purpose of the inventor, or creator, in the case of man, than is the use of some cooling system in an engine, lest it loose its special qualities, character and function, and become instead some melting metal with interesting geometrical remnants of design, as in a particularly rough remnant sale.

WHY the engineer was so interested in the preservation of his engine is not answered from the FACT that evidence exists of such an aim, for it is wholly separate from the means to secure it. WHY we eat is not the same as evidence that we set out  to do it. These are not the same. We may seek to eat in order to enable others to gain knowledge which we possess and they need; or in order to indulge a lust for paranoid power, as Hussein of Iraq seems to do. Presumption of purpose from passion is like 'knowing' that a beggar is a deceitful rogue, not a helpless victim, without even investigating. It is as near to science as is astrology.

What then was the purpose of the Creator in creating life on this earth ?

It may interest the reader to consult first News 87 with TMR Ch. 6 and Ch. 9, which both in various ways deal with such a matter, and this is recommended.

Assuming this knowledge, whether a priori or a posteriori, then we proceed. The purpose has many elements. These include a pilgrimage for man, with options for glory or shame, sincerity or sham, guilt or purity through pardon and reinvestment with the glorious presence of God IN the life concerned; as also  for social, tribal, national and international exhibits of both of these things. In the negative, it provides for the whole gamut of gambling with God, taking on the Almighty in various and varied actions of defiance, defalcation with His property, attacks on His people, ruination of His globe, cruelty to other life and the like.

Dickens shows some of the interstices of such things in Merry Olde England, and you can read of Spanish concepts and conquests in one readily combined form, in Story of Native Americans: Invasion of the Coast a title which relates to a fascinating series shown recently on SBS television in this State.

As to that, its topic covers Indians and the advent of Spanish gunfire into Florida and way up to the Mississippi under the exalted, and infamous leadership of de Soto, whose bands took thriving civilisations aplenty, and reduced them to slavery, plague or death with equal equanimity, savagely slaughtering, pillaging and raping the land, as if it were a divine right to ruin, to grab and to gobble up, like some insane turkey.

That of course is merely an example, but its interest lies not least, apart from showing the ruinous rapacity to which man without God can subject himself and with which ruin the lives of others, in the fact that many of the victims had such dignity. The leaders of some of the races at times said such morally attractive things, sometimes noble in tone and tenor, and addressed the issues of trhe rapacious attacks by the Spaniards with such all but dauntless courage, as to make the invading forces seem rather less than barbarians by contrast. Their power was corrupt, their work was defilement and their success a disease upon the earth.

So does false religion mimic the worst madness.

Then of course there are the tender mercies of our old Adolf of Europe, and there is the inflated pomp of the anything but pompously ending Mussolini together, wanting to rule everyone on their self-assured format and with their uninsured philosophy; and you can consider the question of how Columbus went for SPAIN, that tyrant directed country in religion and political power as it then was, and not consider what his discoveries might do, in such hands! This is a message concerning YOUR purpose in all YOUR actions and needs, and a sermon in blood on the point: DO NOT BE UNEQUALLY YOKED WITH UNBELIEVERS (II Corinthians 6:14, I Corinthians 5:9, Romans 16:14), and that includes all who name the name of Christ, for example, but do not follow what God has chosen to say in the Bible, concerning Him, His reason for sending Him, His purpose for man.

Thus we return to the divine PURPOSE. We have been nibbling at the edges, seeing the consequences of the liberties He has created so effulgently, for what other than perhaps truth, peace, love and joy can compare with liberty ? If you have the equipment of mankind, look at the pinnacles of achievement in all the professions, and consider in this gamut the glory of GOD, for it is HIS equipment which has been enabled so to be used. WHY did He make it ? THAT is the question worthy of thought, and capable of resolution only from His word. Thus,  you cannot steal the thoughts of man, though you think you can, for he is subtle. Far less can you steal the thoughts of God. You may learn of His minimal power, of His divine nature; but as to His purposes, these must be learned from His words.

However since God has declared His thoughts to man, concerning man and life on this earth, and since He has also declared His own nature, and character with considerable detail, has provided for us to know the way to authenticate the Bible and show its solitary validity in the field of divine knowledge and declaration to mankind (Romans 1:16-20 - as exhibited in SMR, to take one example), our current task in the field of clarification and information, for all things must be clear which are to be held, is to find what He has said to this point.

Is it coherent ? Is it consistent with itself ? Is it seen exemplified in history ?
 

1. God declares His Meaning for Man.

This involves the joint features of making it clear that declaration of meaning is intended, and then what that meaning is. Naturally, the two tend to go together, the asseveration of the declaration as such, being associated more than a little, with the explication of what the point for man actually is!

You see this in Amos 3:7, 4:13 (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven, Ch. 9, No. 24), Isaiah 44:24-28, 45:19, Hebrews 1.
 

a) AMOS 3 and 4:

"Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?
Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey?
Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing?
Will a bird fall into a snare on the earth, where there is no trap for it?
Will a snare spring up from the earth, if it has caught nothing at all?
If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid?
If there is calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it? Surely the Lord God does nothing,
Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.
A lion has roared!
Who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken!
Who can but prophesy?"
Then in Amos 4:
"For behold,
He who forms mountains,
And creates the wind,
Who declares to man what His thought is,
And makes the morning darkness,
Who treads the high places of the earth—
The Lord God of hosts is His name."


In Amos continually, and in this arena where we have come, God is CONTINUALLY declaring His mind to man, in survey, displeasure and revelation. This is its constant tenor. He exhibits His plan to forecast His plan for Israel (Ch. 3), and His mode of revealing Himself to man (as in Ch. 4 cf. Jeremiah 16:19, Isaiah 42:6, 49:6). Thus with meant with Israel, that they were not left, despite the very company of God, to wander like a stray dog, but were given glorious overview, apparent from Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 29ff., and in many a plenary session! (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17).

The things He has said, are never left undone - and they are most various and numerous, operating at levels individual, such as found
 


b) Then we look to Isaiah, 44 and 45.

"Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
And He who formed you from the womb:
'I am the Lord, who makes all things,
Who stretches out the heavens all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;
Who frustrates the signs of the babblers,
And drives diviners mad;
Who turns wise men backward,
And makes their knowledge foolishness
And makes their knowledge foolishness;
Who confirms the word of His servant,
And performs the counsel of His messengers;
Who says to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be inhabited,’
To the cities of Judah, ‘You shall be built,’
And I will raise up her waste places;
Who says to the deep, ‘Be dry!
And I will dry up your rivers’;
Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd,
And he shall perform all My pleasure,
Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,”
And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” ’
Then again:
"For thus says the Lord,
Who created the heavens,
Who is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who has established it,
Who did not create it in vain,
Who formed it to be inhabited:
'I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I have not spoken in secret,
In a dark place of the earth;
I did not say to the seed of Jacob,
‘Seek Me in vain’;
I, the Lord, speak righteousness,
I declare things that are right.

'Assemble yourselves and come;
Draw near together,
You who have escaped from the nations.
They have no knowledge,
Who carry the wood of their carved image,
And pray to a god that cannot save.
Tell and bring forth your case;
Yes, let them take counsel together.

'Who has declared this from ancient time?
Who has told it from that time?
Have not I, the Lord?
And there is no other God besides Me,
A just God and a Savior;
There is none besides Me.

'Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
I have sworn by Myself;
The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness,
And shall not return,
That to Me every knee shall bow,
Every tongue shall take an oath.

'One shall say,
‘Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength.

'To Him men shall come,
And all shall be ashamed
Who are incensed against Him.
In the Lord all the descendants of Israel
Shall be justified, and shall glory.’ ”

(bold is for alerting only).

He has told man what He wants Him to know, has not left him a fatherless orphan, and to Israel from early times signified His intention of declaring His program for them, jsut as he has shown His Gentile plan (cf. The Biblical Workman esp. Ch. 1, *3, Ch. 3, *1).  See SMR pp. 623ff.. As to man's response, see SMR pp. 620ff.!
 

c) Hebrews 1.
 

"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."


In Hebrews 2, accordingly, we are asked this question:
 


 

2. The Meaning has Many Facets.

First let us consider what we have seen so far.

The Lord is clear that He intensely wishes to speak to man concerning His purpose for Him, from His own heart and according to His own will.

This is intensively vital for man, that he hear and act as indicated.

Man is currently in an unadmirable condition. It needs remedy called 'salvation' and it is so severe, his situation as to its outcome, that failure to receive this salvation is tantamount to defilement into debasement, as a condition irremediable and subject to final judgment from the Creator.

This salvation involves a concept of being 'justified' in the LORD, and as we have often seen from such scriptural sites as Romans 3:23ff., Galatians 3 and 5, this involves
 


In Micah 6:6-8, He declares it in very simple terms.
 

What then from all this can we discern as to the PURPOSE for making life on earth ?

Clearly and of necessity it involves at least the following:

a) correlation in company with God as a Father, Creator and Saviour (cf. Isaiah 45 as above, 43:10-11).

b) restoration of this where it is lost (in all not yet found by Jesus the Redeemer).

c) a love of mercy.

d) a love of and commitment to justice.

e) a humble rather than statuesque mode of living before God.
 

f) a state of earnest heart, not of artful presumption.

g) reasonableness in accepting the Fatherhood of God, so that you do not engage in wild and intrusive actions for your imagined advantage, against the crucial realities of truth, love and wisdom.

It is in Hosea 13:14 that we see God Himself prepared to pay the price of ransoming man from the judgments truth demands, his love equal to anything. Reception of this is as crucial as the cross, and exhibited in it (as forecast in Psalm 22, Zechariah 12:10 cf. Joyful Jottings 25). This we see in Galatians 6:14 with Romans 1:16ff., I Corinthians 1, Romans 3:22ff., Matthew 20:28, Romans 10:9.
 

3. THE ULTIMATES ARE VAST

In Genesis we are told that God made man in His own likeness. Since God is represented constantly and consistently as a SPIRIT, this is not geometry, physiology or anatomical architecture, but what relates to a being specifically equipped with a SPIRIT, the capacity to do together what Spirit does. What is that ? Spirit as we see by studying the myriads of statements and concepts in the Bible, is a being capable of thought, communication, love, hatred, imagination, initiation, originality, creation and understanding, wisdom and knowledge, power and action in that relatively simple domain, even in that comparatively simple domain  of material things (like paper compared with thought - it IS useful, but not comparable).

God, then,  made man with abilities in some respects correlative to His own, but not of course with the power to BE GOD, since man is neither eternal nor independent, but created. That would simply be a confusion of terms. However SINCE man has a spirit, he is capable of such confusion, or even dignifying it by the name of rebellion when he is caught up in it, so that he makes it seem for some as if he were advancing his cause, pushing his due plea, making his presence felt, overcoming divine selfishness and the like.

In fact, it is not a matter of selfishness to BE GOD, or a matter of deprivation to be MAN, since man in fact is neither autonomous nor eternal, and is simply dependent. Such is the Satanic assault from the first however, that God is to be made to appear selfish, self-interested, unjust, a conner of man, a seeker of privilege, fearful of man's might and so forth. It is infantile in the extreme, and this is one of the other PURPOSES of creation of life, to show this folly.

Thus in Genesis 3:5 Satan, the created Adversary (and this facility for liberty is again seen here, making life what it is!) suggests that God FEARS the glory of man and is trying to protect Himself from the advent of so marvellous a creature, when its full regalia is found! The madness of the contra-factual proposition, since man could be snuffed in a moment, had only derivative equipment and was a gratuity from God, comprehensively constructed, created, endued and imbued by the Lord, is as strange as sin.

Sin blinds. Ambition, money, dominance in its various vicious fields, authority in its tiny tinniness and power in its surges of lust, can blind. Sin is wider than devious passion for these, but they do exemplify it.

Where however do we learn of the PURPOSE of God in creation, including this, that SIN should be exposed for what it is ? It is to be seen in Ephesians 1:4, which shows us that BEFORE the CREATION, God had selected His own people from among the sinners. Other facets come in Ephesians 3:10, where what happens on earth is made a scenario for the instruction of celestial powers, spirits, an education class. Earth's lessons then are not limited to its own denizens, but reach to the amplitude of spiritual beings themselves.

The LAW, to take another particular facet, was brought in to show the EXCEEDING SINFULNESS OF SIN. Thus an intensive course was provided to exhibit, as it were under high-power microscope, the nature of this spiritual disease (cf. Romans 7:13). It is well to observe this statement of revelation from the Lord:

"Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."
In terms of education, indeed, the Lord is on record as desiring understanding and wisdom in man, and being made this to His own in Christ (I Corinthians 1:30-31), so that they might glory in the Lord (their source) and not in themselves (its derivative). He seeks the granting of special gifts in this area (cf. Ephesians 4, Romans 12, I Cor. 12), as so starkly visible in Daniel. This we see, not only in the illustrious example of Daniel himself, but in his words given to him, which indicate expressly the power and willingness of the Lord to answer seemingly ineluctable problems and put light where darkness for man was: as in Daniel 2:20-23, to which we now turn:

"Daniel answered and said:

'Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
For wisdom and might are His.
And He changes the times and the seasons;
He removes kings and raises up kings;
He gives wisdom to the wise
And knowledge to those who have understanding.
He reveals deep and secret things;
He knows what is in the darkness,
And light dwells with Him.

'I thank You and praise You,
O God of my fathers;
You have given me wisdom and might,
And have now made known to me what we asked of You,
For You have made known to us the king’s demand.' ”

In more general terms, you find it in I Corinthians 1:20-31 and Ephesians 1:17-19, as follows:
"Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
 

"For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.

"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God - and righteousness and sanctification and redemption - that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

In this, you see not only the special preparation of understanding as a specialty for some, in order to help others, all being of the Lord, for the Lord, and according to His inscripturated whole given to man (cf. SMR Appendix D), but the categorical character of wisdom. It is DERIVED from God, DEPRIVED from man in rebellion, and is given by him a substitute in the form of ludicrous imaginings, rebellious in type, illicit in status, miserable in quality, thrust against the truth. What however is the PURPOSE of this EDUCATION, where it is to be received, for those whose thirst is blessed with such waters ? This we find treated in no small manner in Ephesians 1:17ff..


"And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all."
 

AND THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL ...

Here we find that there is a DIVINE DESIRE for man's understanding to be given light, access to reality, by spiritual vitalisation, sensitisation and inculcation from God Himself, acting on those whose base problem is solved, that of sin and sedition in an inane fashion against His majesty.

It is His desire likewise that this should include a comprehension of the glorious togetherness in wonder, in the presence of God, which He has prepared for Christians, those redeemed, those who receive Him as He is and hence abandon the lie and the author of it, with all his minions (John 8:44ff., I John 2:22, 3:8). It is also the Lord's divine beneficence that we should know the availability for His purposes in and through us, of a power comparable with and derived from the same source as that which raised His own only begotten Son from the dead.

This is of course delicious, and in the field of conflict which this earth provides, it is quite exhilarating to know that there is no limit. When one finds it happen, as the author has on numbers of occasions, such as in fulfilment of Luke 21:14-15 (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 11, and within it *3). It is a very privileged and delightful thing to find. It is the FATHER acting like one, and in this case, the FATHER of one's very CREATION! It involves equally a determination for His children that they should find in Christ, Him who is the Lord, for He has been placed over all creation.

In lachrymose form, you see the intensity and strength of such divine desires, and purposes, in Luke 19:42ff., where Christ is lamenting for Jerusalem, in view of its stubborn insensitivity in NOT responding to His most costly mission, and most ardent presentation, even of His very self, for their deliverance. Instead, they chose their own thoughts, their own plans, programs, preferences and principles, however unprinicipled morally, these were. It resulted in a destruction, the echoes of which are a significant part of the entire history of the world (cf. Professor James K. Hosmer, The Story of the Jews, News 34).

Liberty ? It is wonderful as an essence. Without it, nothing of value. Love ?  It is essential in kind. Without it, nothing of value. Liberty that loathes love and worships selfishness, or any other profane passion ? Alas, it is a sports car on a lamp-post, the excess of the juvenile, or the passion of the middle-aged, yes or even the folly of the old, taken for a ride in what they should be using for journeying from point A to point B. They have missed the point.

How then can we summarise so far ? At least in outline, it would be like this.

GOD has a purpose to make companionable beings who can share in the witness of His glory, know His mind, be informed of His missions, delight in His enterprises, be brotherly and sisterly (though there being no gender in heaven, we could invent 'kindredly') in love, imbued with comprehension, enlightened with understanding, stirred with spirituality, gifted from and going with God as a friend, as was Abraham, far nearer the first (James 2:23). Christ has made this yet clearer in John 15:14-17. It involves such a warmth, sensitivity and spiritual kindness that it spreads to the lateral as well as moving from the vertical.

Of course, there is also the aspect of the KING and His Kingdom. It is unfortunate that the Jehovah's Witnesses, who defile the witness of Jehovah to Jehovah (John 8:58, Isaiah 45:22-25, Philippians 2:1-11 cf. With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 5*1), use this term amiss. Nevertheless, that is but one aspect of freedom, the capacity to defile. In the end, the leaven, the invasive error, does harm only to those who use it, and those who share the rebellion against the word of God, the Saviour and His divinity, from which the essential integrity of the love of God is so keenly demonstrated. On this kingdom in its grace and glory, see The Kingdom of Heaven... esp. Ch. 2.

There you see some of the foci and features of the royal loveliness in this sublime sovereignty, not that callow short-circuited thing which so often some Calvinists seem to fly to, as if God were not HIMSELF LOVE, just because He knows His own, selected them before the foundation of the world, and has to bring salvation to those so sick that they lack the power of their own OPERATIVE WILL, to choose Him. YOU have not chosen Me, but I you! Christ indicated, and Romans 9 makes it quite clear. To imagine that this makes man irrelevant because he cannot control, is like imagining that a passenger is irrelevant because he is not the pilot. More things are wrought in the power and precision of God than this world dreams of; and IF you had not heard these words, seen those deeds, Christ indicated (in John 15:22ff. you see it), you would have had no sin.

God knows what He is doing, and does what He says, who would have all men come to repentance and the knowledge of the truth (I Timothy 2). There is no frustration in His own assured principles and love is no tyrant.

In this Kingdom, then, the essential reality of the inalienable love of God is paramount, as is truth and grace and kindness, indeed LOVINGKINDNESS, that all but inspired translation of 'mercy' a term so broad in its signification in Hebrew.

The PURPOSE of God is that people should share in His kingdom, and have responsibilities within it (as in Luke 19:19). There is to be dominion without domineering, as Christ makes so clear not only in His own inimitable example (though it is one for all that to be held sacred for all righteous and grace-assisted effort), but in His words seen in Matthew 20:25ff..

Whether then it be the nature of personality, of kinship, of kindred qualities in kindness, of the king's domain without domineering, of grace, of insight, of light, of understanding, of comprehension, of longsuffering, of free love without the shadow of selfishness, of the exercise without the limits to power which sin provides, in the grace for which power is a shepherd, the personal friendship of God, the education of all spirits on the realities that all may share in their wonder, or of many other such features, the purposes of God are clear, for the exhibit called CREATION.

They are unselfish, and abhor selfishness, they include judgment but only after the passion of pure love is complete and its unselfish gifts are dispersed, disbursed and delivered. They are selective but but discriminatory, discriminating without fault, because knowing the truth. They are gracious in their scope, amazing in their detail, but evident in their composition. It is to give to what lacks wonder, the wonder of God, to give to man the evidences of the majesty of God, to stir his mind, confront his spirit, enable his salvation, prepare a way for him to God, and to display in the interval, such a myriad of wisdom and such a galaxy of loving provisions, that only rebellion in its heart, can fail to savour, to be saved and to be a friend of God.

It is a very delightful purpose, and it is one which as to its spirit of giving and grace, unalloyed but discerning kindness, man should share in his relations, one with another. Man will not do so, of course, unless and until he is within that gracious kingdom of God, with his eyes open, his ears unwaxed and his heart softened, his spirit tempered, not tampered with by the silt of sin or the slither of the Satanic. He must be born again to inhabit this kingdom, and without that, he can neither SEE it nor ENTER it. THEN he grows (II Peter 3:18) - unless the 'birth' was nominal only!

Then you notice the Son's love of children, not only to allow them to come direct to Himself, but in looking at their play and making the trust and love of which to parents they are so readily capable, an image of that relationship to God which unsullied by sin, is natural to man as creation, though unnatural to mankind as sick.

The sharing of zeal in the delight in the real, itself His creation, this is one of the Fatherhood features of the PURPOSE of God. The delight in Himself personally, who is SPIRIT, is the personal side of the consummation of the pilgrimage which on this earth, is human life.
 
 

END-NOTE

*1 From Trust God! ... Ch. 7, we have this, in terms of Psalm 89:
 

WHO is this who swears ? It is He of whom it is declared, "Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the LORD ?" That of course in one step is the end of the Jehovah's Witness heresy, for of Christ we know He is the exact image of the Almighty (Hebrews 1), whereas it is HE who has NO ONE LIKE HIM! Nothing is in His dimension, far less exactly so. Can the finite mimic the infinite ? Is the immeasurable to be compared with the measure of man! It is only when the immeasurable takes on the format of man, that He exhibits His exact likeness! (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 13, A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 12). Forsaking this, man forsakes all there is, for when you doctor God, it is no more God, but an idol! Small wonder! Paul even in his own day, accuses some of making another Jesus, another Gospel and having another Spirit! (II Corinthians
11:4).