Complimentary Story
During the past months, I have discussed the many, and by no means all the gifts of God that make up the abundance of His grace. The sum total of all creation, John 1:3; every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God ,Matthew 4:4. The gift of the Holy Spirit manifesting a number of gifts as a quickening Spirit giving wisdom, power and authority to live godly lives; bringing to our remembrance the words of God as we have need of them, both His words spoken as in the past, or written as we find them today. Why had this plan seemed to have failed with Adam and Eve? Or, was their choice to question God for an alternative to “thou shalt not eat of that one tree in the midst of the garden” expected of God as a result of a free will? Yes He did, otherwise He would not have planned His Son, the Lamb crucified before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). If it was to make one to know good and evil as gods, equating knowledge with wisdom as Eve did, would that not be a good thing? Most people today must think so, with all the emphasis put on higher education, and so many never ever using it. Choice is always ours, a gift from God, a free will of our own choice, but we cannot choose the consequences. Who does get to choose the consequences, if we don’t? The one who pays the bills not only chooses the consequences, but also sets the rules.
We often forget that if God created everything, as is stated in John 1:3, does He not have the right to set all the rules? More often than not the consequences will also limit one’s future choices. So it is always prudent to know and understand the rules with their consequences before we make our choices. Ignorance of the law is never an excuse for breaking it. If “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), why would God give us a freewill? Love is always a choice, and He wants us to “love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Having compassion on us, given the consequences of our wrong choices, (“for the wages of sin is death,”) and out of mercy, the provision was made to justify forgiving us by the death of His Son. God “is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9).
Romans 1:16-32 makes this case very clear. Verse 18 states, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (our rebellion against His rules) and unrighteousness (wrong thinking) of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness (wrong thinking).” What truth do all men hold? First of all, in verses 19 and 20 it says, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For the invisible things of His from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so we are without excuse.”
Denying the six literal days of creation as He said He did, in exchange for the theory of evolution does not change the reality of God’s eternal power and Godhead. It only makes us “as a god!” We all have the freewill to reject the God of the Scriptures, but remember we never get to choose the consequence! Secondly, we have all been given the knowledge of good along with the knowledge of evil as it was brought into the world by Adam and Eve. That we have all been given, which we call our conscience as is referred to in Romans 2:14, 15. In John 1:4-11, Jesus the Word and Creator is referred to as, “in Him was life,” and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not (to seize or contain it). There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (the baptizer). The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light (Jesus the Christ) that all men through Him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That (Jesus the Christ) was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Yes, every man from the beginning has had that light of truth put in their heart. “He was in the world (many times, known as the theophanies of Jesus in the Old Testament) and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own (His creation), and His own received Him not.” Why would this result after all God had provided man with the abundance of His grace to meet our every need?
Returning to Romans 1:21-31, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful (to a God that has supplied all our needs): but became vain in their imaginations, (not knowing good from evil), and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise (becoming like as gods, Genesis 3:5), they became fools. And changed the glory of the uncorruptable God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things, (Mother Nature and many other things only limited by their imagination). Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Who (by choice) changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped the (created) creatures more than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen.”
God has guaranteed man a free will in all matters of choice, but not the consequences. “For this cause God gave them up (leaving them no more compassion and mercy) unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use (as God created them to live) into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of women (as described in Genesis chapters one and two), burned in their lust one towards another: men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in the themselves that recompense of their error (the wages of sin being death Romans 6:23) which was meet (1163-which was necessary and binding). And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge (they seared their conscience given them), God gave them over to a reprobate mind, (one void of any shame or conscience), to do those things which are not convenient (2520 — not right, to come upon evil, contrary to what is right); Being filled with all unrighteousness (wrong thinking), fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventers of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding (the blind leading the blind), covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
In reading Genesis 19:1-15, are we any different today? We are all a part of creating this predicament! Most respond to this accusation with: “Who, me? I am not like that!” Jesus addresses the people of His time (John 10:23-26) as He “walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him, ‘How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered them, ‘I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But ye believe Me not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.’”
If these Jews are not of His sheep, what are they? Jesus describes them in John 10:10-14 as thieves and at the least they are nothing but hirelings which careth not for the sheep. In John 10:27-32 Jesus continues, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: And I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish, and neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.” Why would they want to stone Him? What did He do?
Continuing in John 10:32-39, “Jesus answered them, ‘Many good works have I shewed you from My Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?’ The Jews answered Him, saying, ‘For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy (the words of Jesus did not fit their distorted view of the law and the prophets); and because that Thou, being a man, makest thyself God.’” And Jesus answered them with a question, “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods (2316).”
Why would Jesus call them gods, the same Greek word (2316) “theos,” which they used for Him in the previous verse, as well as three more times in the next two verses? What does the Greek word mean? The Greek definition is any supreme being or deity, any god that demands recognition by worship. Who or what this god is, can only be identified by the context. “Theos,” a Greek god as a deity used 1343 times, and adapted by Christians as the supreme God used 1322 times, all determined by the context, because there is no case distinction in the Greek. Jesus continues, “If He (back in the Old Testament) called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scriptures cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent unto the world, ‘Thou blasphemest;’ because I said I am the Son of God?”
What was Jesus quoting from the Old Testament as they being gods? All the references I am quoting from the Old Testament the word translated “God” or “god,” all come from the Hebrew word (430) “elohiym” which is for any god or magistrate and again only determined by the context, because there is no case distinction with Hebrew. The first mention of man being “as gods” is in Genesis 3:5 where the serpent referred the eating of the forbidden fruit, “For God (430) doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods (430), knowing good and evil.” And that is what had changed, they became “as gods!”
In Psalms 82:1, 5-8 it is written, “God (430) standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He judgeth among the gods (430)… They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course. I have said, Ye are gods (430); and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise O God (430) judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.” Again in Isaiah 41:17-29 we read, “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongues faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God (430) of Israel will not forsake them. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shitta tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.” After all, the Mighty God of Creation has done all these work by His command. Why would men insist on being their own god, or even think to be equal to God almighty?
And man as gods, “Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob,” whom they rejected in I Samuel 8:4-8 for the man, Saul to rule over them like as the other nations. “Let them bring them forth (their strong reasons), and shew us what will happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods (430): yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold ye are of nothing, and your work of naught, an abomination is he (your father the devil John 8:38-40, 43-47) that chooseth you. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon My name: and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay. Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? And before time, that we may say, he is righteous? Yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words. The first (almighty God) shall say to you (for the whole world to hear), Behold, behold them (the hypocrites, blind fools Matthew 23): and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good things (the Christ, Isaiah 42:1-9). For I beheld, and there was no man: even among them, and there was no counselor, that when I asked of them, could answer a word. Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images (conceived in their minds) are wind and confusion.”
This is what Jesus saw when He came as the Son of man to fulfill the promise made to Adam and Eve and others since, to atone for all the sins of man, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world” John 1:29. They just wanted to argue with Jesus about His words, as He was referring to Himself as the Son of God. But His works, they had no problem with! Jesus responds (John 10:37-39) with, “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him. Therefore they sought again to take Him.”
There are many gods that still walk the face of the earth, as hypocrites with their thinking as such so as to make even their good works as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Should we believe their words, if their works are contrary to their words? According to Jesus in John 10:37-38, a person’s works speak louder than their words. One of the world’s biggest reasons for not being convinced of our message of salvation, is there is virtually no difference in how most Christians live and how they live. Our works are destroying the message that Jesus gave us in Matthew 5:13-16, “ye are the light of the world… Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
