Showing posts with label devil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label devil. Show all posts

Thursday 28 January 2021

Internal or external devil

 On our ecclesial contact form Anthony Buzzard wrote:

Can you please explain how the Devil can be internal when in Matthew 4 he is said to approach Jesus from the outside? How can the tempter there mean a temptation from within when he is expressly said to come from the outside? Thanks for your answer.

It seems this questioning person has, like several others, a misunderstanding of our understanding or sight on satan, devil, seduction or temptation.

The Satan is according us and the Bible not a figure from a place underneath the earth where people are terrorised or tortured for ever (in hell).

Jesus called at a certain point the apostle Peter "Satan". Peter is a living being and as such the other satans are also real existing beings. Any adversary, but in particular the adversary of God is called a Satan.

When we are confronted with a satan we are confronted by a figure outside us. For us Christadelphians, it is not like for Catholics and Muslims that a good angel would be seating at our right shoulder and a bad angel on our left shoulder. The temptations come from outside, brought to us by circumstance outside us and by people outside us. But how we react onto the temptation is something which comes from inside us. It is our own will which shall either go in or go against the temptation which comes over us. It is our own decision which shall allow the evil to go deeper into us or to weapon us against the evil around us.

The Satan can be any adversary of God, being a woman or a man. But we, too, can be a satan or adversary of God. That is stated by our attitude against God. The stipulation of our attitude to God is determinating if we can be a lover and follower of god, but at the same time it also can determine that we are going against God's Laws. When we allow our thoughts go astray and away from God it is possible that temptation can come from within when we follow our wrong thoughts. That is what is meant by "coming from within".

Do you not think that we ourselves can have different thoughts and have to choose from those thoughts which ones to follow? The right half from the brain, which designates our emotions, whilst left activates the action we undertake, and it is the relation or the strength of the bridge between those two. When you want to come closer to someone it is the right half of the brain which can put on the brakes. Emotion and behaviour have to be balanced. The behaviour is greatly designated by the function of our brain and as such is it something from within us. When the Bible speaks about demons in people it is the disease or the impossibility of the human being to control oneself. In ancient times it was a way to describe ill or mentally sick people.

Those demons and devils naturally can be people around us, and as such are being outside us and have nothing to do with something inside us, except that we shall have to react to them when we are meeting them. That interaction shall demand reactions from us, and those reactions shall be triggered by the brain function in us; It shall be us ourselves who shall have to make decisions and choices how to react.

 

Remember:

There was a lovely harmony in the Garden of Eden. Man was free to walk around and live nicely. He also was free to think and to make choices. There it went wrong. The woman let her mind wander and got tempted by her thoughts, willing to know more.
We have seen that the yielding to the tempter or man’s mind doubting God‘s honesty is treated allegorically in the Edenic covenant as the serpent in the flesh. First man was full of life but now death had come to him. Temptation had taken over and evil had entered his mind. This evil is the “devil” or diabolos of the New Testament, which term is defined as “that which has the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14), elsewhere described as “the law of sin and death”, “sin that dwelleth in me”, “sin in the flesh” (Romans 7:20; Romans 8:2-3).

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Please find also to read:

  1. A Book to trust #27 Also words from ordinary and foolish men
  2. The figure of Adam
  3. The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #4 The Fall
  4. The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #5 Temptation, assault and curse
  5. The figure of Eve
  6. The Existence of Evil
  7. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 1
  8. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 2
  9. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
  10. First mention of a solution against death 1 To divine, serpent, opposition, satan and adversary
  11. First mention of a solution against death 2 Harm or no harm and naked truth
  12. First mention of a solution against death 3 Tempter Satan and man’s problems
  13. First mention of a solution against death 5 Evil its law of death
  14.  A solution for a damaged relationship 2 Sinful nature
  15.  Messianic prophesies 1 Adversary – Root of the first prophecy
  16.  Messianic prophesies 2 Adversary – Root of the first prophecy
  17.  Has the devil got you?
  18.  Fallen Angels
  19. Satan or the Devil  
  20. Devil, Satan, Demons, Evil Spirits and Hell 
  21. Hell - Sheol or the Grave
  22. Hell fire
  23. Human Nature, Sin, and Responsibility to Judgment
  24.  Messenger of Satan
  25. New publications: Resisting the Devil
  26. Lord in place of the divine name
  27. Being Religious and Spiritual 5 Gnostic influences
  28. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
  29. People Seeking for God 2 Human interpretations
  30. Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh
  31. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 2 Summersend and mansend
  32. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 3 Black Mass, Horror spectacles and pure puritans
  33. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 4 Blasphemy and ridiculing faith in God
  34. Joseph Priestley To the Point
  35. Those willing to tarnish
  36. Literalist and non-literalist views
  37. 1st thought for today “The world may be wicked” (January 16)
  38. Christians at War? Christians using violence?
  39. To will being present in us but to do it not always evident
  40. Words Have Meaning: Devil, Diábolos, Slanderers, and False Accusers
  41. It continues to be a never ending, exhausting battle for survival.
  42. Reactions against those of the other sex
  43. The false prophets in the present world
  44. A New Year and a New Person
  45. Easter: Origins in a pagan Christ

Friday 14 February 2014

19° century London and Unitarians

 It is not like certain website may want to  believe people that the "original movement began in Poland back in the mid-1500s when a member of the Minor Reformed Church challenged the Trinity doctrine."
 Unitarians, are people wanting to keep to Only One True God have been around for ages. Though we do agree that the the church denomination which is called Unitarian Church did come into existence many years after the death of the son of God. Most people in Poland were such believers in Only One God and took Jesus as the son of God, who really died, whilst God can not die.
Those who agreed with the member of the Minor Reformed Church who challenged the Trinity doctrine were given the ultimatum to convert to Roman Catholicism or leave.
 Most of the once preferring to keep to the biblical Truth went to Transylvania, which is where they first used the name “Unitarian” to describe themselves.
 Unitarianism came to the U.S. in the 1780s; Boston’s King’s Chapel was its first church. Many Unitarians, including the ones who attended church with the family of Andrew Sullivan, the author of the Dish, refer to themselves as Universalists. The term originally meant universal salvation, opposing the idea that God would punish or not save anyone. …

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19°Century U.K.


Unitarianism has made way in England.


Newington Green Unitarian Church, London, Engl...
Newington Green Unitarian Church, London, England. Built in 1708, this is the oldest non-conformist church in London still in use as a church. (October 2005) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act became law the Unitarians in England were a small sect, and had not a single place of worship.  It was not till 1779 that it ceased to be required of Dissenting ministers that they should subscribe to the Articles of the Church of England previous to taking the benefit of the Toleration Act, and even this small boon was twice thrown out in the Upper House by the King’s friends and the Bishops.  In 1813, however, one of the most cruelly persecuting statutes which had ever disgraced the British code received its death-blow, and the Royal assent was given to an Act repealing all laws passed against those Christians who impugn the commonly received doctrine of the Trinity.  It was no easy matter to get this act of justice done; the Bishops and the Peers were obstinate.



  In 1772, we read, the Bishop of Llandaff made a most powerful speech, and produced from the writings of Dr. Priestley passages which equally excited the wonder and abhorrence of his hearers, and drew from Lord Chatham exclamations of “Monstrous! horrible! shocking!”  A few years after we find Lord North contending it to be the duty of the State to guard against authorizing persons denying the doctrine of the Trinity to teach.  Even as late as 1824, Lord Chancellor Eldon doubted (as he doubted everything that was tolerant in religion or liberal in politics) as to the validity of this Act, and hinted that the Unitarians were liable to punishment at common law for denying the doctrine of the Trinity.  Yet the Unitarians have a remote antiquity.  They can trace their descent to Apostolic times, and undoubtedly were an important element in the National Church, in the days of William and the Hanoverian succession.

Dr. Parr, says Mr. Barker,
 “spoke to me of the latitudinarian divines with approbation.  He agreed with me in thinking that the most brilliant era of the British Church since the Reformation was when it abounded with divines of that school;”
 and certainly Unitarians may claim to be represented at the present day in Broad Churchmen within the Establishment, and in divines of a similar way of thinking without.  They have been much helped by their antagonists.  No man was less of a Unitarian than the late Archbishop Whately, yet, in a letter to Blanco White, he candidly confessed,
 “Nothing in my opinion tends so much to dispose an intelligent mind towards anti-Trinitarian views as the Trinitarian works.”

As a sect, the Unitarians are a small body, and at one time were much given to a display of intelligent superiority as offensive in public bodies as in private individuals.  They were narrow and exclusive, and had little effect on the masses, who were left to go to the bad, if not with supercilious scorn, at any rate with genteel indifference.  There was in the old-fashioned Unitarian meeting-houses something eminently high and dry.  In these days, when we have ceased to regard heaven—to quote Tom Hood — as anybody’s rotten borough, we smile as a handful of people sing—
“We’re a garden walled around,
Planted and made peculiar ground;”
yet no outsider a few years ago could have entered a Unitarian chapel without feeling that such, more or less, was the abiding conviction of all present.
  “Our predominant intellectual attitude,”
 Mr. Orr confesses to be one reason of the little progress made by the denomination.  A Unitarian could no more conceal his sect than a Quaker.  Generally he wore spectacles; his hair was always arranged so as to do justice to his phrenological development; on his mouth there always played a smile, half sarcastic and half self-complacent.  Nor was such an expression much to be wondered at when you remembered that, according to his own idea, and certainly to his own satisfaction, he had solved all religious doubts, cleared up all religious mysteries, and annihilated, as far as regards himself, human infirmities, ignorance, and superstition.  It is easy to comprehend how a congregation of such would be eminently respectable and calm and self-possessed; indeed, so much so, that you felt inclined to ask why it should have condescended to come into existence at all.
  Mrs. Jarley’s waxworks, as described by that lady herself, may be taken as a very fair description of an average Unitarian congregation at a no very remote date.  Little Nell says, “I never saw any waxworks, ma’am; is it funnier than Punch?”  “Funnier?” said Mrs. Jarley, in a shrill voice, “it is not funny at all.”  “Oh,” said Nell, with all possible humility.  “It is not funny at all,” repeated Mrs. Jarley; “it’s calm, and what’s that word again—critical?  No, classical—that’s it; it’s calm and classical.  No low beatings and knockings about; no jokings and squeakings like your precious Punch’s, but always the same, with a constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility.”
  Now it was upon this coldness and gentility that the Unitarians took their stand; they eliminated enthusiasm, they ignored the passions, and they failed to get the people, who preferred, instead, the preaching of the most illiterate ranter whose heart was in the work.

In our day a wonderful change has come over Unitarianism.  It is not, and it never was, the Arianism born of the subtle school of Alexandrian philosophy, and condemned by the orthodox Bishops at Nicea; nor is it Socinianism as taught in the sixteenth century, still less is it the Materialism of Priestley.
CDV portrait of James Martineau
CDV portrait of James Martineau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
  Men of the warmest hearts and greatest intellects belonging to it actually disown the name, turn away from it as too cold and barren, and in their need of more light, and life, and love, seek in other denominations what they lack in their own.  The Rev. James Martineau, a man universally honoured in all sections of the universal church, confesses:
“I am constrained to say that neither my intellectual preference nor my moral admiration goes heartily with the Unitarian heroes, sects, or productions of any age.  Ebionites, Arians, Socinians, all seem to me to contrast unfavourably with their opponents, and to exhibit a type of thought and character far less worthy, on the whole, of the true genius of Christianity.  I am conscious that my deepest obligations, as a learner from others, are in almost every department to writers not of my own creed.  In philosophy I have had to unlearn most that I had imbibed from my early text-books and the authors in chief favour with them.  In Biblical interpretation I derive from Calvin and Whitby the help that fails me in Crell and Belsham.  In devotional literature and religious thought I find nothing of ours that does not pale before Augustine Tauler and Pascal; and in the poetry of the Church it is the Latin or the German hymns, or the lines of Charles Wesley or Keble, that fasten on my memory and heart, and make all else seem poor and cold.”
  This is the language of many beside Mr. Martineau — of all, indeed, to whom a dogmatic theology is of little import compared with a Christian life.

Let us attempt to describe Unitarianism negatively.  In one of his eloquent sermons in its defence, the late W. J. Fox said,
 “The Ebionites, Arians, is not essential to Unitarianism; Dr. Price was a Unitarian as well as Dr. Priestley, so is every worshipper of the Father only, whether he believes that Christ was created before all worlds, or first existed when born of Mary.  Philosophical necessity is no part of Unitarianism.  Materialism is no part of Unitarianism.  The denial of angels or devils is no part of Unitarianism.”
  Unitarianism has no creed, yet briefly it may be taken to be the denial of a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, or of the natural depravity of man, or that sin is the work of the devil, or that the Bible is a book every word of which was dictated by God, or that Christ is God united to a human nature, or that atonement is reconciliation of God to man.  Furthermore, the Unitarians deny that regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit, or that salvation is deliverance from the punishment of sin, or that heaven is a state of condition without change, or that the torments of hell are everlasting.

  It may be that the Broad Churchman entertains very much the same opinions, but then the Unitarian minister has this advantage over the Church clergyman, that he is free.  He has not signed articles of belief of a contrary character.  He has not to waste his time and energy in sophistications which can deceive no one, still less to preach that doctrine so perilous to the soul, and destructive of true spiritual growth, and demoralizing to the nation, that a religious, conscientious man may sign articles that can have but one sense and put upon them quite another.  Surely one of the most sickening characteristics of the age is that divorce between the written and the living faith, which, assuming to be progress, is in reality cowardice.




- p. 196 - p 202 from The Religious Life of London by J. Ewing Ritchie
Release Date: June 16, 2010  [eBook #32844]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Religious Life of London, by J. EwingRitchie 

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continues with: 19° century London, Unitarians and Evangelical Alliance
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Friday 17 January 2014

What is life?

What is life?

 Our answer to this question will, to some extent, depend on what is on our mind when we are asked.
 Life has physical, emotional, relational and spiritual aspects and each of these will have an influence on our answer. Think about it for a moment. What does it mean to you, right now, to be alive?

 Is it enough to know that you are breathing, or must there be more, and if so, what more?

 What do people mean when they say,
 ‘I’m not living, I’m just existing’.

Still-Life with a Skull, vanitas painting.
Still-Life with a Skull, vanitas painting. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As human beings, made in the image of God, our life is uniquely different from that of plants and other animals. How does this difference show in our daily lives? Surely the essence of our life is in the fact that we are made for eternity. Though eternity does not come straight unto us. When we die our life shall come to an end and everything of us shall decay or come to ashes in the incinerator.

At the moment of our death it will be to late to change anything. Than we will be to late to change direction or to take an other path. We shall be able to face death in peace when we do know we have lived according to the wishes of the Most High. Those who did not want to accept there is a God Creator of heaven and earth should in a way not be afraid either, but with many of them we notice they fear death. Why?


Those who believe in other things than described in the Bible may be taken by fear, because when they believe in false gods and in false beings like certain demons and devils and places of torture, the could have reason to be afraid.

Those who know the Bible do know that when we live it is important to treat all living organisms with respect, because they all are a creation of the Most High Elohim. And all creation of God, be it humans or animals shall come to the same end — humans die, animals die. also plants shall have there time of growing and flowering, but afterwards they will die and decay.
 We all breathe the same air. So there’s really no advantage in being human. None. Everything’s smoke. We all end up in the same place — we all came from dust, we all end up as dust. We as the living should at least know something, even if it’s only that we’re going to die. But the dead know nothing and get nothing. They’re a minus that no one remembers.
“19 after all, the same things that happen to people happen to animals, the very same thing—just as the one dies, so does the other. yes, their breath is the same; so that humans are no better than animals; since nothing matters, anyway. 20 they all go to the same place; they all come from dust, and they all return to dust.” (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 CJB)
 “for the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; there is no longer any reward for them, because all memory of them is lost.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5 CJB)
When we live it is the time to make the right choices. In life it is the time given us by the Creator to make something if our 'being' 'our soul'. The 'soul' is not something extra special in our material form, it is our total being that can breath and as soon as we stop breathing we shall be considered to be part of the dead.
Therefore we better take life as it comes our way and whatever turns up, we better grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it, For there’s neither work to do nor thoughts to think In the company of the dead, where you’re most certainly headed. When more people would read the Bible they would know that we are just mere humans who don’t have what it takes when they die, their projects die with them.
 “whatever task comes your way to do, do it with all your strength; because in sh’ol, where you will go, there is neither working nor planning, neither knowledge nor wisdom.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10 CJB)
 “when they breathe their last, they return to dust; on that very day all their plans are gone.” (Psalms 146:4 CJB)
So, why are atheists afraid when they die or why should believers be afraid when they die? the non-believer knows when he dies it shall be finished 'and that is it'. why should he worry when he knows the outcome of death?

And why should a believer worry. When he dies and becomes dust like everybody, why should he worry? By death we have paid the penalty for our sins. 

But those who believe in Christ Jesus, the son of God, who died (whilst God can not die) and was resurrected from death and taken out of the dead, they know they can find an example in what God did with Christ Jesus and can do with us. Believers in Christ also do know he was lower than angels, but was made higher by his Father, Who is, was, and shall always be the Most High. Believers trust that God took Jesus, the son of man, with Him in heaven, to sit at His right hand to become a mediator between man and God.
“he gave him no inheritance in it, not even space for one foot; yet he promised to give it to him as a possession and to his descendants after him, even though at the time he was childless.” (Acts 7:5 CJB)

 “for god is one; and there is but one mediator between god and humanity, Yeshua the Messiah, himself human,” (1 Timothy 2:5 CJB)
Yes, today we have a human preceding by God. He can talk for us and be our advocate, so that when Jesus shall return to the earth to judge the living and the dead, we would have a chance to become rightly judged and either to be placed by the living or by the dead, either to be allowed to enter the gate of the KiIngdom of God or to fall into the category for the Second death.
Than there shall come an end to death.
“he will swallow up death forever. ADONAI ELOHIM will wipe away the tears from every face, and he will remove from all the earth the disgrace his people suffer. for ADONAI has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:8 CJB)
“for what one earns from sin is death; but eternal life is what one receives as a free gift from god, in union with the Messiah Yeshua, our lord.” (Romans 6:23 CJB)
 “21 for since death came through a man, also the resurrection of the dead has come through a man. 22 for just as in connection with adam all die, so in connection with the Messiah all will be made alive. 23 but each in his own order: the Messiah is the firstfruits; then those who belong to the Messiah, at the time of his coming; 24 then the culmination, when he hands over the kingdom to god the father, after having put an end to every rulership, yes, to every authority and power. 25 for he has to rule until he puts all his enemies under his feet. 26 the last enemy to be done away with will be death,” (1 Corinthians 15:21-26 CJB)
“he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. there will no longer be any death; and there will no longer be any mourning, crying or pain; because the old order has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4 CJB)
So those who have faith in Christ do not have to worry when they die, as long as they made their best of their life.

What we become is the reality of what it means to us to be alive today. So, after all this, the question remains, what is life?

 I like the answer I read recently which twists a well known saying.
 ‘Life is doing what comes supernaturally.’ Let’s live!

Yes
Cover of Yes

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Please do read also:

  1. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  2. Choices
  3. Always a choice 
  4. We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace 
  5. A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses
  6. Science, belief, denial and visibility 1
  7. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
  8. Choose you this day whom ye will serve 
  9. It is a free will choice 
  10. For those who make other choices
  11. Dying or not
  12. What happens when we die?
  13. The Soul confronted with Death
  14. Dead and after
  15. Destination of righteous
  16. Destination of the earth
  17. Sheol or the grave
  18. Soul
  19. The Soul not a ghost
  20. Is there an Immortal soul
  21. Human Nature: What does the Bible teach?
  22. Immortality, eternality – onsterfelijkheid, eeuwigheid
  23. How are the dead?
  24. The soul has no rainbow if the eyes have no tears
  25. Let not sin reign in your mortal body
  26. We will all be changed
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Find also of interest:

Never Take Resources For Granted!
The Vital Social Status versus The Vital Social Necessities
Choose A Positive Influence In Life
Beautiful Life…


 


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Monday 13 September 2010

Join the debate about the position of fallen angels

On Facebook you can find a discussion to which we would like to invite you to debate about the matter of hell, fallen angels and the position of sinners after their death.
> http://www.facebook.com/marcus.ampe?v=wall&story_fbid=126675704046786
Jesus who was Wounded for our transgressions and died for all sinners was directed by humans to go into hell. The day Jesus died his soul was delivered in the hands of God, though an innocent man, who did not do any sin, he was placed in hell. What did the Holy man do when he was considerd by many the Messiah Jesus three days in hell? Did he not succeed to save the people who were supposed to be there to be tortured for their sins? Was his dying on the stake to pay for all sins of humankind a measure for nothing? Because when Jesus as the Lamb of God sprinkled his blood on this world for forgiveness of all sins, it looks like God not accepting this offer when He ask the sinners first to go to purgatory or to send them to hell even before Jesus can judge them at the end times, when the Messiah would return to judge the living and the death.

Please read more about the position of Jesus in hell and his relationship with so called Fallen Angels in:

Jesus three days in hell

Jesus and the fallen angels in hell

Fallen Angels

dead and after



Dutch speaking readers can also find more articles like;
Do we have to be afraid of a devil? Moeten wij bang zijn voor een duivel
Afraid for Fallen Angels > Bang voor Gevallen Engelen

Gevallen Engelen, Uitgerangeerden



You are welcome to join the debate on Facebook on the reaction about Does God Exist?
"A true story..." plus Einsteins saying concerning our own responsability about evil.

Ook Nederlandstalige lezers worden vriendelijk uitgenodigd om mee in het debat te treden op Facebook en verder in te gaan op de bovenvermelde artikelen en over wat de Bijbel zegt over engelen, duivels, demonen, vagevuur, hel en over wat Jezus hier op aarde kwam doen en nog later bij zijn terugkomst zal doen.

Thursday 3 June 2010

Heavenly creatures do they exist

We can see people around us and some of them say they have some unseen creatures on their right and left shoulder. Some people say they have a guardian angel.

What do you believe? Are there such things which are called angels, and what or whom do they present?

Are angels imaginable creations or just figments of the artist's imagination in religious paintings down the centuries? Is there really something out there we ought to know about? Is it important to know if they exist?

Several Christians believe in good and bad angels. They think devils are angels who followed the Cherub Satan who riposted against God. If devils are angels who did not follow the Will of God, you could say that it where angels who sinned, because when we do not follow the Will of God we sin. But can angels sin?

POSSIBLE ANSWERS:

- Yes. Lucifer was an angel and he sinned.
- Angels can do nothing as they are mythological creatures.
- Angel means messenger. Human messengers can sin. Heavenly ones cannot sin.
- Angels are immortal and therefore cannot sin.
- Don't know.

GO TO www.thisisyourbible.com TO SUBMIT YOUR ANSWER.

We as Christadelphians believe that for everything in life we can find the answers in the Holy Scriptures. But when taking up the Bible we do have to take inconsideration what is meant by certain words.

The English word "angel" comes from the Greek angelos, which means 'messenger'. In the Old Testament, with two exceptions, the Hebrew word for "angel" is malak, also meaning 'messenger'. The prophet Malachi took his name from this word. He was himself a messenger, and he prophesied about the coming of "the messenger of the covenant", Jesus Christ (Malachi 3:1).
Although the word "angel" in the Bible, meaning a messenger, nearly always applies to heavenly beings, it can occasionally apply to human messengers. Malachi himself said a priest was a messenger (malak) of the LORD of hosts (Malachi 2:7), and in the Book of Revelation the elders of the seven churches of Asia were called angels (1:20; 2:1 etc.). But when we meet messengers doing supernatural things, there is no doubt they are heavenly beings - God's messengers, working for Him and for the ultimate benefit of mankind.
We as Christadelphians believe that God works on man's behalf through His hosts of messenger servants.

We believe that there are forces which are God's forces. They are "his angels", "his hosts", and they are "his ministers", doing His pleasure. In other words, the Only One Creator God of gods has total control over them and all other members of His creation. Those angels which have been at work on behalf of God and man "excel" in strength and they have more than enough power to complete their commissions.

Find some further answers:

Evil in the bible

Satan or the devil

Lucifer

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Dutch version / Nederlandse versie > Bestaat er iets als engelen en kunnen die zondigen

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Christendom Astray The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being


Christendom Astray

Lecture 7

By Robert Roberts



The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being,


But The Scriptural Personification of Sin

In Its Manifestations Among Men


IN THE religion of Christendom, the devil figures almost more prominently than God. If we have found Christendom astray as to the nature of man, it will not be wonderful if we find it astray on the subject of the devil, with which, scripturally, man has so much to do.


The theology of Christendom places the devil in juxtaposition with God. As the one is presented for worship as the source and  embodiment of all good, so the other is held up for detestation and dread, as the instigator and promoter of all evil.
Practically, the one is regarded in the light of the good God, and the other as the bad god. It is the polytheism of paganism in its smallest form: and the philosophy of the ancients embodied in names and forms supplied by the Bible.



Sunday 19 April 2009

The redemption of man by Christ Jesus

"The redemption of man by Christ Jesus has been tearfully contemplated, angrily debated, reduced to mathematical equations, abandoned as incomprehensible, and, sometimes, made a matter of scorn. Some have thought that the Lord Jesus succeeded in placating a fiercely angry Deity and caused Him to turn His face toward us when hitherto He had been wrathful and unforgiving. Others have regarded redemption like a system of weights, pulleys and strings by which the redemption of man was, as it were, mechanically contrived. Yet others have taken it as a spiritual business transaction whereby the inestimable value of Christ's blood was paid to a being known as the Devil in order to secure the release of sinners from his evil grasp. Some have found it helpful to look upon Christ's death as substitutionary: that is, that Christ went to the cross instead of us, paying in this way the price for our personal sins. And some have regarded his death as a tragedy, an accident of wicked circumstances, and in no way of itself redemptive.

What is the truth? How can one find a way through this maze of speculation? As in everything else, there is only one sure way, and that is to let the Bible do the teaching and guiding, and to submit humbly to the discipline of this instruction.

Let us start by dismissing the notion that Jesus was pleading on bended knee to a God whose anger had caused Him to turn His face away from us. The secret of the cross is love, the love of God and the love of His Son. Whatever else we may have to consider, let us lay down this foundation: The motivating force for redemption is love:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

"The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

Love is the reason for redemption. Love flowed first from God, and therefore from the Son whom He sent into the world. Love cannot be and must not be reduced to law or considered in terms of rights and earnings. Love is above and beyond all considerations. Love owes nothing to any goodness or merit in us. Love comes from God who is "merciful and gracious"."
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Brother Harry Tennant
The Lord who Bought Me
The Christadelphians - What they Believe and Preach

Friday 19 December 2008

Satan the evil within

In Dutch / Nederlands > Satan het kwaad in ons & Satan of the duivel

Every human has the possibility to make choices. All creatures have an instinct, which direct them to do or not to do things. Human beings have the inner feeling of what they can do and of what can be right or wrong to do.

Satan is described as “going to and fro in the earth”. There is no implication that he was doing anything sinful. Zechariah 1:11 implies that this is a Hebraism for observing. This being is not a special person or anything. It is the evil in our selves. Our bad thinking.
Satan means adversary or accuser. (a noun or adjective, not a proper name) (sa’-tan) (saTan), adversary, from the verb saTan, to lie in wait (as adversary); Satan, Satanas, adversary, diabolos, Devil, adversary or accuser.
It is very easy for us, as we read Bible verses, to give to the terms devil and Satan the meaning which we prefer. And if that meaning is not the same as the Bible writer intended, then we are changing the true sense! In several denominations they gave the devil or Satan a real figure not a representational thing. When Bible passages are read, devil and Satan are being understood by different readers in different senses.
To find the vital key it is important to begin with the Old Testament, and not with the New. To modern ears this may sound strange, but remember that the Old Testament was written first, many centuries before the New. And since they both really form one revelation from God, the New Testament writers knew the Old Testament very well indeed. They quoted from it and they used its terms; and among the terms they used is Satan. (In fact the term “devil” occurs rarely in the Old Testament and is used differently there from the way it is used in the New.)
So we begin with Satan, the Old Testament term. What does the word “Satan” mean? It is not hard to find out. Take the case of Balaam who lived in the days when the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness. He was a prophet who had been told by God not to go on a certain hired mission to curse the Israelites. But he wanted the money offered him as a reward, so he went. Riding upon an ass, he soon found his way blocked by an angel: “The angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as his adversary” (or enemy) (Numbers 22:22, RSV).
The word for “adversary” is Satan (from which we get our “Satan”) and that is just what it means. Notice two things: Satan here is an ordinary word meaning adversary or enemy, and not the name of a person. The word occurs again only 10 verses later: the angel said to Balaam, “Behold, I am come forth to withstand you” (verse 32), literally “to be an adversary to you”.
This is the first time the word Satan appears in the Hebrew record. Notice that this Satan is a good angel, “the angel of the Lord”, who is doing what God wants, and not an evil one! If we look up in a Bible concordance the way the word Satan is used in the Old Testament, we shall find that it means an adversary and an enemy. For example: “Why,” cried David, “should you (Joab and his brothers) be adversaries (satans) unto me?” (2 Samuel 19:22). And so in half a dozen other cases, where the allusion is usually to men.
Here we have one of the most frequently quoted cases in all the Bible. The first few verses of chapter one describe Job as living in the land of Uz, a God-fearing man who had many possessions. Then, verse 6:
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.”
“There you are”, some people say, “Satan was in heaven among the angels! He must be a supernatural being!” But let us remember our vital rule: we must understand Bible terms in a Bible sense. “Sons of God”, for instance: it is true that once in Job (38:7) this term is used of the angels; but in the Bible as a whole it is often used of men and women who really worship God as contrasted with those who do not. God used it of Israel through the prophet Isaiah:
“Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name . . .” (Isaiah 43:6-7)
So in the New Testament the apostle John, referring to believers in Christ, wrote: “Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:2). So the “sons of God” among whom “Satan” came (in Job chapter 1) need not be angels in heaven; they could be people on the earth.
But how could they “present themselves before the Lord” if they were not in heaven? Again the Bible itself gives us the answer. Moses and Joshua were once told to “present themselves” in the “tent of meeting”, where God would appoint Joshua as the next leader of Israel (Deuteronomy 31:14-1 5). Many years later Joshua called together all the elders of the tribes of Israel to Shechem, where “they presented themselves before God” (Joshua 24:1). Later still, Samuel in his turn told Israel: “Present yourselves before the LORD . . .” (1 Samuel 10:19).
In the New Testament it is said that Mary, the mother of Jesus, shortly after the birth of her son, came to the temple in Jerusalem “to present him to the Lord . . . and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord” (Luke 2:22-24). The “sons of God” in Job, then, who came to “present themselves before the Lord”, had come together to worship God in the appointed place, and, of course, in the presence of the appointed priest at that time. This is a scene of worship upon the earth, not in heaven.
But what of “Satan” who came among them? Here the English translators have not really played fair with us, for all the Hebrew says is “the adversary”. The capital S in Satan is the translators’ own invention, for Hebrew makes no distinction between capital letters and others. Even in the margin the Authorized and Revised Version translators have printed “the Adversary”, suggesting by their capital A (for which they have no evidence) that this is that special Adversary, Satan. All that the Hebrew justifies us in saying is “the adversary came among them”.
But who could this adversary be? If this was a group come together to worship, he would be one of them; in other words he was a man; and he was an enemy to Job, because he was jealous of him and wished him harm. But how then could there follow a conversation between the Lord and the adversary? Again the Bible itself supplies the answer, for in Old Testament times men often received messages from God through the appointed priest at the time. David, for instance, more than once consulted the priest when he wanted to know what God’s will for him was, and the priest spoke to him on behalf of God. So this jealous enemy of Job-perhaps one who posed as his friend-said to God through the priest, “Job only serves you for what he can get. Just try bringing some trouble on him and then you will see.” And God, because He had a great purpose with Job and desired to see him perfected, allowed the adversary to carry out his envious desire upon Job. But as the book clearly tells us, the power was God’s and not the adversary’s (Job 2:4-6).
So there is in this episode no need for a supernatural satan and no proof of one. All the expressions are commonly used of men. The Old Testament word Satan means an adversary; but as the example of Job shows us, there develops a natural tendency to use it of an evil adversary.
With this valuable background understanding we now look at an example of the use of “satan” in the New Testament. Peter had just made his great declaration of belief in Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” and Jesus had pronounced a blessing upon him as a result. But Jesus then went on to speak of his own fate; he would have to go to Jerusalem and there the leaders of the Jews would seize him and he would be killed, but he would rise again the third day (Matthew 16:21). Peter could neither understand nor accept this and began to rebuke Jesus: “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” In other words, “You must not think of such a thing.” But Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan: you are a hindrance to me.”
Why was Peter a “satan”? Because he was being “an adversary” to Jesus; he was trying to persuade the Lord not to do what he knew had to be done in his obedience to the will of God. If Peter had had his way, Jesus would have rejected his Father’s will and his great sacrifice for sin upon the cross would never have taken place. So Jesus had to tell this “adversary” (satan) to “get behind me”. And then he adds a comment which is most important for our understanding: You are an adversary and a stumbling block to me, says Jesus in effect to Peter, for your mind is not on the “things of God, but the things of men” (verse 23, R.V.).
So this most important New Testament example teaches us some valuable lessons. First, this “satan” was a man; second, he rejected the will of God; third, what marked him out was that he desired to do the will of man instead-a most important clue, as we shall see later.
Let us remind ourselves what we have learned so far: a “satan” is an adversary, and nearly always an evil adversary.
If we go against something or oppose a good thing we become an adversary. If we go against the will of God, we become an evil adversary or a Satan.
The Bible uses personification: that is, something is spoken of as if it were a person when in fact it is not. We do find that when there is spoken about Satan or Lucifer in both instances sin is personified; and in both clearly it is sin that "has the power of death".
And so the Bible is telling us that the real devil is sin. And sin is the wrongdoing, or the evil actions we are able to do by our own choice.
There is no doubt then where we must look for the great enemy of God: it is in our own hearts and minds. So James tells us where we must look for the source of our temptations to do wrong. Are we led astray by some supernatural spirit whispering in our ear? Not at all; for, he says,
"Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire".
So our own "desire" is the origin of our temptations; and James tells us what is the result:
"Then the desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown brings forth death" (1:14-15).
The long history of mankind in the Bible shows how true this teaching is. The first pair of human beings preferred their own desire to obedience to God, and sinned. The human race fell away into "corruption and violence" and God had to judge it at the Flood. Israel, rescued by God from slavery in the land of Egypt and given a special opportunity to be God's people, turned away and preferred to worship idols and to behave in immoral ways like the godless peoples around them. Jesus, the Son of God, demonstrated His Father's truth and grace among men; they rejected and crucified him. And in the centuries following, men have abandoned God's teaching and perverted His ways. Yes, the great enemy of God is men and women rejecting His authority and fulfilling their own natural desires.
With textfragments from Marcus Ampe, Mark Mattison and Duncan Heaster
More reading > Satan or the devil