What is the goal of human existence? Reading through God's law, we find that God says to "be holy for I am holy." God is commanding us: "be like me! I've shown you what I am like - now be like me!"
This concept holds deep implications for our lives, particularly in how we treat others. With whatever authority you are given, whether within your family life, career, or local church, you should strive to handle your authority like God handles His authority.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Heaven, Hell, or Resurrection?
No one enjoys facing the facts when it comes to human mortality. We don't like to think about the people we love dying, and this is perhaps because of the apparent inevitability of death. Modern Christianity teaches that life continues on immediately after death - that human beings have an immortal soul that instantly becomes conscious in either heaven or hell the moment someone dies. This is not a biblical teaching - I challenge you to read the rest of this article, most importantly the scriptures, and examine what the bible says versus what you believe.
This is the clear and indisputable teaching from the Word of God:
This is the clear and indisputable teaching from the Word of God:
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Wednesday, March 2, 2011
4 Keys to Understanding God's Law
The law of God, plainly spelled out throughout His Word, is intended to teach us about what God wants us to do and who He wants us to be. God frequently admonishes us to delight in His law and to meditate on it. I encourage everyone, firstly, to read God's Words - all of them. Furthermore, when you have read what God has said, you must do your best to seek understanding of it through God's Spirit living in you.
As you read and consider God's law, there are many things that seem antiquated in our time. Don't be deceived: God has written these laws for our understanding and spiritual growth! None of it is truly "done away" or "abolished" - it is simply fulfilled in a different way. The following are 4 keys that have helped me personally in unlocking the deep spiritual significance of some of God's laws, and it is my sincere hope that they will also guide you in your personal study.
#1 Marriage between men and women typifies the coming marriage of Christ to His Church.
Just like God designed the physical Temple to mirror the Temple that He has in heaven (Revelation 8:3-5), God also designed human marriage to mirror the relationship that we are going to have with Him. The laws concerning the rights of husbands in a human marriage depict the rights of God in our marriage to Him. Likewise, the responsibilities and duties of wives in a marriage are symbolic of our responsibilities to God. God did not create human marriage in order to oppress women; on the contrary, we must ALL submit to God in the way that a wife is supposed to submit to her husband. By extension, this fact indicates that husbands should strive to be like God by not oppressing their wives. Think about how God deals with you individually: that is how a husband should treat his wife! Check out this article for an example of how to apply this principle to illuminate the meaning of a seemingly useless Old Covenant marriage law.
#2 Redemption in the Old Covenant is symbolic of the fact that Christ redeems us from sin.
This one is sort of a no-brainer - Christ is even called our Redeemer many times throughout the Prophets (Isaiah 63)! But when you are reading through the law, it is often presented in very physical circumstances that make it easy to overlook the spiritual significance. First, we must learn the physical meaning of redemption so that we can then have a fuller spiritual understanding of redemption. God declared these laws in order to teach us two important lessons: firstly, that we must be redeemed from sin and, secondly, that Christ is the one who redeems us by His perfect sacrifice. An exposition of how this parallel can help us understand the redeeming of the firstborn of animals can be found here.
#3 Sacrifices are not all referring to Christ! While Christ is symbolized in all of the sacrifices, it's also a fact that all believers are called to give sacrificial offerings in our lives.
Many people assume that the sacrificial system has no value other than to teach us that we needed Christ to be a sacrifice for our sins - WRONG! Indeed, it does teach us that. If you study the sacrifices, every single one does teach you something about the character of Christ, although most people won't even study enough to gain that benefit. In actuality, if you read through the sacrifices in the first few chapters of Leviticus, less than half of the offerings described there are for forgiveness of sin! Furthermore, there are a number of New Testament passages that urge us to offer sacrifices through our actions and how we live our lives (Hebrews 13:16, Romans 12:1). To see how this can open your understanding, here is an article where I applied this reasoning to the grain offering (Leviticus 2) to gain a better perspective of its meaning for our lives today.
#4 The concept of ceremonial cleanliness is intended to show us the imperfection and corruption of our existence as human beings.
Under the Old Covenant, God actually lived among the people of Israel in the tabernacle and, later on, in the temple. Ceremonial cleanliness was required in order to approach God's presence, or else the person approaching would die. People could become ceremonially unclean by their direct actions, such as touching a dead body. Other ways of becoming unclean were completely unavoidable, such as women's periods and certain diseases, which a person had no control over. The New Testament teaches us that our bodies are "sown in corruption," that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God," and that God will give us new bodies that are capable of inheriting eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:42-52). Just as there were ways that a person could make himself unclean by choice as well as ways that a person could become unclean by circumstances beyond their control, so also there are ways that we can consciously disqualify ourselves from God's presence as well as ways that we are inherently alienated from God because of the nature of our physical existence. I am in the process of writing a more detailed article about the significance of ceremonial cleanness, but, in the mean time, here's an article that touches on the related topic of holiness.
Hopefully these tools will help you in your own study. Also, please feel free to share any additional insights that you might have for understanding God's law!
As you read and consider God's law, there are many things that seem antiquated in our time. Don't be deceived: God has written these laws for our understanding and spiritual growth! None of it is truly "done away" or "abolished" - it is simply fulfilled in a different way. The following are 4 keys that have helped me personally in unlocking the deep spiritual significance of some of God's laws, and it is my sincere hope that they will also guide you in your personal study.
#1 Marriage between men and women typifies the coming marriage of Christ to His Church.
Just like God designed the physical Temple to mirror the Temple that He has in heaven (Revelation 8:3-5), God also designed human marriage to mirror the relationship that we are going to have with Him. The laws concerning the rights of husbands in a human marriage depict the rights of God in our marriage to Him. Likewise, the responsibilities and duties of wives in a marriage are symbolic of our responsibilities to God. God did not create human marriage in order to oppress women; on the contrary, we must ALL submit to God in the way that a wife is supposed to submit to her husband. By extension, this fact indicates that husbands should strive to be like God by not oppressing their wives. Think about how God deals with you individually: that is how a husband should treat his wife! Check out this article for an example of how to apply this principle to illuminate the meaning of a seemingly useless Old Covenant marriage law.
#2 Redemption in the Old Covenant is symbolic of the fact that Christ redeems us from sin.
This one is sort of a no-brainer - Christ is even called our Redeemer many times throughout the Prophets (Isaiah 63)! But when you are reading through the law, it is often presented in very physical circumstances that make it easy to overlook the spiritual significance. First, we must learn the physical meaning of redemption so that we can then have a fuller spiritual understanding of redemption. God declared these laws in order to teach us two important lessons: firstly, that we must be redeemed from sin and, secondly, that Christ is the one who redeems us by His perfect sacrifice. An exposition of how this parallel can help us understand the redeeming of the firstborn of animals can be found here.
#3 Sacrifices are not all referring to Christ! While Christ is symbolized in all of the sacrifices, it's also a fact that all believers are called to give sacrificial offerings in our lives.
Many people assume that the sacrificial system has no value other than to teach us that we needed Christ to be a sacrifice for our sins - WRONG! Indeed, it does teach us that. If you study the sacrifices, every single one does teach you something about the character of Christ, although most people won't even study enough to gain that benefit. In actuality, if you read through the sacrifices in the first few chapters of Leviticus, less than half of the offerings described there are for forgiveness of sin! Furthermore, there are a number of New Testament passages that urge us to offer sacrifices through our actions and how we live our lives (Hebrews 13:16, Romans 12:1). To see how this can open your understanding, here is an article where I applied this reasoning to the grain offering (Leviticus 2) to gain a better perspective of its meaning for our lives today.
#4 The concept of ceremonial cleanliness is intended to show us the imperfection and corruption of our existence as human beings.
Under the Old Covenant, God actually lived among the people of Israel in the tabernacle and, later on, in the temple. Ceremonial cleanliness was required in order to approach God's presence, or else the person approaching would die. People could become ceremonially unclean by their direct actions, such as touching a dead body. Other ways of becoming unclean were completely unavoidable, such as women's periods and certain diseases, which a person had no control over. The New Testament teaches us that our bodies are "sown in corruption," that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God," and that God will give us new bodies that are capable of inheriting eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:42-52). Just as there were ways that a person could make himself unclean by choice as well as ways that a person could become unclean by circumstances beyond their control, so also there are ways that we can consciously disqualify ourselves from God's presence as well as ways that we are inherently alienated from God because of the nature of our physical existence. I am in the process of writing a more detailed article about the significance of ceremonial cleanness, but, in the mean time, here's an article that touches on the related topic of holiness.
Hopefully these tools will help you in your own study. Also, please feel free to share any additional insights that you might have for understanding God's law!
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