12/27/05 p.m. Jesus taught that we are to be one with the Father and the Son. What did He mean?

We Are to Be One With the Father and the Son

Jesus also taught

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one (John 17:20-23).

Jesus is one with God the Father as He expects His people to be one. As His people are made up of different individuals, so therefore is God. Jesus continually emphasized the family relationship between Himself as Son and the Father. Furthermore, Jesus' statement makes it clear that those called will be part of God's family as well--how else will true Christians attain the same glory as Jesus? Paul essentially reiterates this in Romans 8:28-29 (which will be quoted later).

Matthew recorded, "And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:4-6). "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). The New Testament, thus, also clearly shows that two can be one!

Interestingly, Paul brings both concepts together in Ephesians when he writes, "For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:30-32).

Thus Paul shows that two are one flesh and that the marital relationship pictures Christ being one with the Church.

Which is part of what Jesus was talking about in John 17--that there is a oneness and two-ness in the relationship between He and the Father and that there will be a oneness between Him and Church--which is composed on many (not just two) members. Paul also made this clear, "For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another" (Romans 12:4-6).

Although many have attempted to portray the English word 'one' to mean there are not multiple beings in the God Family, both the Old Testament (which was written in Hebrew) and the New Testament (which was written in Greek) show that while God is also one, the Godhead (the term 'Godhead' could probably also be translated as 'divinity') is currently shared by two, including Jesus (Colossians 2:9;Romans 1:20).

It is the lack of understanding of these concepts by the traditional unitarians and trinitarians that can blind them to the plan of God. And that we are to be one with God as the God Family (now consisting of the Father and the Son) now is one!

More information, including historical teachings, on the nature of God can be found in the article Binitarian View: One God, Two Beings from Before the Beginning.

12/26/05 p.m. WCG sent me an email wishing me a Merry Christmas and New Year last Friday. Perhaps they and others so inclined to celebrate these days should read the following articles:

What Does the Catholic Church Teach About Christmas and the Holy Days? Do you know what the Catholic Church says were the original Christian holy days? Was Christmas among them?
Is January 1st a Date for Christians Celebrate? Historical and biblical answers to this question.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: This was a bad case in the first place, and now we have a bad decision to go with it. When establishing a defense for the action of the school board, the legal team attempted to demonstrate that, scientifically, Intelligent Design was on the same par with Darwinism. They attempted to use scientific data to substantiate their strategy. But in a hostile court given to secular training and modern jurisprudence, this is like comparing the proverbial apple with an orange. You may score some verbal points with the home crowd but you will lose the court battle...
 

The school district's legal team should have invested more energy exposing Darwinism as the key tenet of a religion, namely secular Naturalism. It is this religion's worldview that is espoused every day in our nation's public education system and the vast majority of our nation's public science educators are the missionaries for this religion that appeals to a student's logic.

However, when one actually thinks about how unbelievable Darwin's theory of macro-evolution really is, it becomes increasingly illogical. Think about it -- you start with dust particles, then rocks, then through a spontaneous event, water emerges, then oceans, then over millions, perhaps billions of years there is the spontaneous concoction of atoms and molecules to form the basic trace elements like carbon and calcium. Then to top it all off, the world spontaneously experiences the formation of one-celled life forms with intelligence. After many millions and millions of years, the one-cell forms spontaneously produce multi-celled beings and, by a freak of nature, humankind arrives on the landscape with the capacity to build buildings and computers and.... For one to believe that people are the result of a random chance of nature takes a real leap of faith.

Just because many people are taught this nonsense and claim to believe it does not make it so. Nevertheless, they do believe it and because people place their faith in something, you have the formation of a religion, a worldview that filters everything they think.

"Called a "caumaro," the long forgotten head-covering dates back to the Middle Ages and figures in many famous papal portraits, including one of Julius II by Raphael. It was last worn by John XXIII, who was pontiff more than 40 years ago.

"The Temple Institute is pleased to announce the completion of the me'il techelet - the Blue Robe - of the High Priest. This robe is the culmination of over three years of research and painstaking labor. But much more so, it is the fulfillment of a positive commandment - one that until now has stood unfulfilled since the destruction of the Second Holy Temple. This is the first time in nearly two thousand years that such a garment has been created".

1) The Bible never speaks of Rome in any manner suggestion is supremacy
2) The historical evidence shows that Peter did not spend much (if any) time in Rome
3) There were several early lists of Roman bishops that disagree with each other
4) The bishop of Rome did not assume the title of Pope until towards the end of the fourth century
5) Much of what is told about the lives of the early bishops of Rome is not based upon historical fact
6) The idea that the Letter to the Corinthians proves Rome's early primacy is an assertion that does not follow from the letter itself
7) The writings of the so-called "apostolic fathers" do not indicate a Roman primacy, nor clearly mention any Roman bishops by name
8) The writings of the so-called "apostolic fathers" do indicate that Ignatius and Polycarp had leadership roles in Asia Minor
9) The early churches in Asia Minor, which claimed apostolic succession from the last living apostle John, did not accept the rule of the Roman bishops
10) Catholic sources admit that there was a succession of leaders/bishops in Asia Minor that could be traced to an original apostle.

All of this is documented in the new article What Does Rome Teach About Early Church History? This truly is a must-read article for any interested in early Christian history.

12/22/05 p.m. UCG had this in an article by John Ross Schroeder:

Although clearly sympathetic to the Catholic point of view, Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent of The Times (London) summed up the overall effect: "The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church [in Britain] has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true" (Oct. 5, 2005)...

Parts of the book of Revelation are viewed quite differently than a Bible student would understand them from a normal reading of this final book of Scripture—even taking the clearly identified symbolic portions into account. The booklet says: "Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and not be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world" (p. 48)...

Do not draw unwarranted conclusions

The views of the British Catholic Church establishment may not fully represent those of the Vatican in Rome, other national Catholic hierarchies or even lay members in Britain. So we must be cautious not to draw unwarranted conclusions about the biblical beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.

He is correct that the views of British Catholic leaders may not necessarily reflect those of the Vatican itself. However, on the Book of Revelation, the Roman Catholics officially do teach that it does not mean what it says it does. The Roman Catholic often prefer Traditions over the Bible.

Specifically, even The Catholic Encyclopedia teaches:

Apocalypse, from the verb apokalypto, to reveal, is the name given to the last book in the Bible. It is also called the Book of Revelation...

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

From this cursory perusal of the book, it is evident that the Seer was influenced by the prophecies of Daniel more than by any other book. Daniel was written with the object of comforting the Jews under the cruel persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes. The Seer in the Apocalypse had a similar purpose. The Christians were fiercely persecuted in the reign of Domitian....

It would appear, and is so held by many that the Christians of the Apostolic age expected that Christ would return during their own lifetime or generation. This seems to be the more obvious meaning of several passages both in the Epistles and Gospels (cf. John 21:21-23, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). The Christians of Asia Minor and the Seer with them, appear to have shared this fallacious expectation. Their mistaken hope, however, did not affect the soundness of their belief in the essential part of the dogma. Their views of a millennial period of corporal happiness were equally erroneous. The Church has wholly cast aside the doctrine of a millennium previous to the resurrection. St. Augustine has perhaps more than any one else helped to free the Church from all crude fancies as regards its pleasures. He explained the millennium allegorically and applied it to the Church of Christ on earth. With the foundation of the Church the millennium began. The first resurrection is the spiritual resurrection of the soul from sin (De Civ. Dei Lib. XX). Thus the number 1,000 is to be taken indefinitely.

The official Roman Catholic position is that even though this book and early Christians believed in a 1000 year reign of Christ on the earth, that this is erroneous, that Revelation contains a lot of allegories, and that even John understood it incorrectly (called the Seer in the above).

12/21/05 p.m. The January 2006 edition of The Philadelphia Trumpet has the following in an article related to outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan:

To Mr. Greenspan's credit, throughout these crises he still engineered two of the longest economic expansions in American history.

However, the U.S. economy is not as healthy as Greenspan cheerleaders believe. Mr. Greenspan's easy-money policy of slashing interest rates and thereby making massive credit available for the markets every time there is an economic slowdown has been a major cause of the erosion of America's financial strength (Financial Times, Aug. 26, 2005).

This easy-money policy may help in the short term, but as economy columnist Peter Eavis says, it does much more harm in the long run by preventing necessary restructuring of the economy, driving down savings, inhibiting future spending and endangering the long-term health of the banking system (TheStreet.com, Feb. 12, 2004).

Mr. Greenspan's policies have had other side effects as well.

One of the not-so-obvious but enormously negative consequences of Mr. Greenspan's economic policy has been the continual erosion of the dollar's value. His guiding principle of managed low inflation, not zero inflation, is one factor that has led to the colossal loss in purchasing power of the dollar. According to Barron's, the damage to the dollar's purchasing power came not in the onslaught of historically high inflation during the 1970s, but in the continuous drip-drip of compounding some inflation every year (Oct. 24, 2005).

Exacerbating the weak-dollar problem is the massive 334 percent increase in the supply of money that has occurred over Mr. Greenspan's 18 years. As the supply of dollars has grown beyond demand, its value has fallen.

There are three other major problems with the economy that Ben Bernanke will have to confront.

First, federal government debt has been skyrocketing. Last October it reached a record $8 trillion, more than triple the $2.3 trillion the U.S. owed in August 1987. Just since June 2002, the national debt has increased by a third.

Frighteningly, the percentage of U.S. Treasury securities now owned by foreigners has also increased from 17 to 50 percent since 1987.

Second, Americans no longer save money. When Mr. Greenspan took office, the personal savings rate was a comparatively healthy 7.5 percent. From June to September, the personal savings rate was actually negative.

For four months, Americans spent more than they earned by borrowing on credit cards or home equity, selling investments (stocks, bonds and other assets), or by using savings from previous months. A lack of savings does not bode well for future economic growth, since savings fuels investment and a nation's subsequent growth.

Third, the easy-money policy has helped create multiple bubbles and an economy more and more dependent on rising asset values to fund spending. In the late 1990s, people counted on the technology-stock mania to fund their retirement. Today it is the refinancing and home-equity-line-of-credit boom that is inflating the bubble...

As Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital says, Never has a changing of the monetary guard taken place with the U.S. economy in so precarious a position (Oct. 27, 2005).

Bible prophecy shows that natural disasters, terrorist attacks and violence in the cities will further weaken the U.S. As they do, asset values will collapse and the mountains of debt they support will bury the nation.

The Federal Reserve policies implemented in the last two decades have only hastened the economic Armageddon facing an unrepentant nation.

Although the outgoing Fed Chairman has a tremendous amount of economic skill, the sad truth is that the USA is set up for a major fall beyond what most Americans have ever imagined.

On a related note, in his last co-worker letter, LCG's R.C. Merdith also noted:

Our national debt is skyrocketing. In spite of repeated warnings from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and dozens of top economists, our Congress and our President keep spending money like drunken sailors. The "day of reckoning" is only a few years away!

In that same letter, he also wrote:

No wonder Jesus Christ tells us to constantly pray, "Thy Kingdom come!"

Amen.

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Volume 9, issue 21