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MAN'S MANNER OF EXISTENCE Although the people who the nation is composed of exist on the physical, the temporal/spatial plane, the plane of existence for the man who is a nation is different. The manner of existing for persons who are collectives is different. It would seem that the entities who are collectives have souls, or at least are the soul of the collective. In Revelation there is a beast that comes out of the sea, the sea are the peoples, multitudes and tongues, this Beast is the entity of a collective. Actually it is the entity of a collective of kingdoms and nations, it is more than a soul of a single collective but the essence, the spirit, the nature of a collection of evil human collectives. In Revelation chapter 19:20 this Beast is captured and thrown into hell. To go to Gehenna, that is hell, there has to be an eternal soul. (just imagine if there was no interpretation given for the imagery used- the seven headed beast, the sea, the richly attired women- how many would earnestly argue that there was a seven headed monster in the sea waiting to come out!) Isaiah chapter sixty speaking of how it will be in the end for the people of God says in verse twenty two that the least one shall become a clan and the smallest one a mighty nation. The plane of existence for those in Christ is going to be entities of collectives. Certainly they make up the entity who is Jesus. Daniel chapter ten talks of the prince of the kingdom of Persia and the prince of Greece, these princes are not princes like prince Charles is a prince of England. These princes exist on a spiritual plane and are spiritual entities. Just like the psyche is not an actual physical member of a person yet is intrinsically the person in like manner the man who is a collective exists. Its existence is real but abstract. In Ezekiel 28:12-19 the King of Tyre who was in the Garden of Eden is cast from Eden to the ground. Again the king of Tyre is not the individual man who is ruler of Tyre but used as an epitome, the representation, the spiritual essence of someone else. To take a literal interpretation of this passage causes difficulty in that the king of Tyre would not be old enough to have been in Eden and would have to have been on Noah's ark, one of eight persons of whom he is not listed. This singular identity of a particular being made of many is seen in mark 5:1-13 where Jesus commands an unclean spirit (singular) to come out of a man, this spirit gives its name as Legion as it is many unclean spirits (plural). So this devil is made of many demons. This type of existence of the spirit of a group is true for Jesus. Jesus "walks," is present among, amidst the people gathered in his name and among the churches. Revelation 1:12-13 has Jesus in the midst of the seven golden lamp-stands; the seven golden lamp-stands are the seven churches of the roman province of Asia, Rev.1:4&20. Jesus said "For where two or three are gathered in my name there I am in the midst of them." Mt.18:20. This mode of existence is of a higher order than that of flesh and blood individuals. It is interesting to note that the lamp stand signifies an actual congregation of Christian people so too in Rev.21:23 is Jesus reckoned as the lamp and the glory of God the light. Of course Jesus is an actual individual man as well who once had a flesh and blood body. When reading Genesis it must be realized that Adam was not just an individual but is the human collective as well. Genesis 1:27 spells this out "So God created man, (adam) in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." Brackets mine. Here adam is humankind and is only completed through the inclusion of both sexes. The Adam of chapter two of Genesis is treated as an individual man and is a type. Romans 5:14 speaks of the reign of death because of sin, even over those whose sins are not the same as Adam's sin because Adam was a type, and Jesus is too. We see from this verse that Adam is different to a normal individual. That is not to say that Adam was not a particular individual person like Jesus. The Garden of Eden is more than a particular location at a particular time, more than a physical existence. The Garden of Eden also serves as a type of paradise for the New Jerusalem to come. If the descriptions of Eden are looked at in Ezekiel and Genesis then the description of the New Jerusalem from heaven is viewed in Revelation this becomes plain. Chapter three of Genesis brings in the serpent, a wild creature possessing great cunning. This serpent is not a flesh and blood creature, it is known from Revelation 12:9 that the serpent is Satan our enemy. Ephesians 6:11-12 states that our adversary and his minions are not flesh and blood, they are principalities, powers, world rulers (not earthly) and the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Adam's existence is not a straight flesh and blood one and involves planes of existence higher than the physical realm. Other people also have, or will have a higher mode of existence in a corporation. In Rev.16:3 it is written that the sea became as the blood of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died. Who is this dead man but Adam? The sea is the sea of humanity who is Adam; and in Adam all die, see lCor.15: 22. Adam transgressed against God and ate the Fruit of the tree of knowledge; the knowledge of good and evil. Through Adam sin came into the world and through sin death. (The good news is that in the new man Jesus there is life. Just as in Adam all die, those in Christ have died to sin and made alive to God. See Rom.5, lCor.l5: 20-22, 45-49). When the sea becomes as the blood of a dead man and every living thing in the sea dies does not seem to mean at this point the cessation of biological life but of living to that element that makes man a living being, or at least the capacity to; the breath of life blown into man's nostrils from God. Man is now wholly corrupted toward this breath, God's spirit that makes man complete. At this stage those who bare the mark of the beast and worship its image have their flesh so ruined as to how God fashioned it, and in their spirit and soul are intrinsically damaged to even perceive and believe what is truly good. God sends upon them a strong delusion to believe what is false; they have received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. Having refused to love the truth and be saved they were deceived by what is false and believed the wicked deceptions. Mans' physical bodies are in a fallen state subject to weakness and disease yet there is a recognition of good, even when the capacity to actuate it is lacking: the denial of God begets futile thinking and leads to idol worship and serving the creature, pandering to the whims and indulgences of the flesh, even perverted desires- evil is now taken to be good. Vileness is exalted among man. Their minds are darkened; their hearts hardened, their consciences are cauterized. The worship of the beast and receiving of a mark will be the point of no return, the ineligibility for even the chance to come into God's kingdom, the inability to truly hear the gospel and repent. 2Thessalonians 2:11 says that it is God who sends upon those who are to perish a strong delusion, Romans 1:18-32 speaks of God giving them up to various psychical, behavioral, physical and relational damages according to their choices for evil. The continual participation into the spirit of evil leads to evil consequences, an evil man may come into worldly and earthly good but ultimately these pass away and he has already damaged his own being and person. These people are ripe to be led into receiving the mark of the beast; there has been much speculation as to exactly what this is. What is the mark of the beast? In extrapolating what present technology is used for and probable future application of technology it is not hard to imagine how this could be. I stress how it might be. The personal computer, the mobile phone, ones identification, medical records and monitoring, driver's licenses, passport, security clearances, finances and banking- the buying and selling of anything (or anyone), will be all integrated into one very efficient system. The individual's system permanently logged into the central master system like the other members of the beast's kingdom. The system will know where all its members are through triangulation by repeater stations and satellites, through what services that were used etc. In Nazi Germany the soldiers who burst into the homes of Jews and confiscated their belongings and sent them to the extermination camps were not doing anything illegal; likewise in the kingdom of the beast mischief will be framed in statute. Crime, or what this corrupted system will recognize as crime, will be virtually ended, the beasts mark will be the key to the car, the key to the home, the car will not be operable to anyone not authorized to use it and will alert security of any interference. If a crime occurs the system will know who was where and when so who could have done it. It is likely that someone with the beast's mark will not be able to even buck against the system. Satan is a god of fear, although advocating freedom- for licentiousness- he will not allow a true freedom of choice but is obsessively possessive; the beast will be Big Brother watching you. Because of so much crime, corruption, war and acts of terrorism this system will seem to make perfect sense and arrive at what seems to be peace and security. On the wings of evil it will come in, this evil will seem good- solves all those problems. With the advent of nano-technology, genetic engineering, computer science and the greater understanding of the brain it may be possible through this the image of the beast be made to have breath and speak, Rev.13:15. The model will be endowed with great knowledge and intelligence, technology, statistical analysis and mathematics for running the affairs of state and internal workings: a master strategist for war and oppression, causing those who do not buy into it, who do not worship it and receive its mark to be killed. Will the system become as advanced to be integrated with the receiver's brain and interface with it? Even wired into the brain and its pleasure and pain centers, able to give a euphoric rush to those with its mark upon seeing the false prophet or the image of the Beast? Even if the subject were to attempt suicide they would not be able. In Daniel the fourth beast to come was different from the others, the others were portrayed as animals having appendages of animals e.g. wings. The fourth had claws of brass and teeth of iron, will this be cyberonics and bionics, human/machine interfacing, the weakness of miry clay and the strength of iron, which is sinful flesh mixed with artificial strength? A very strong delusion to believe what is false. In many ways a wonderful and efficient system, many will be deceived and give credence to it. High praises will be given to the culmination of man's ingenuity, man's government, man's economy, man's solution to the world's problems, man's religion which is the worship of himself in his system without God. Numbers are symbols designating quantity so too do numbers in the bible have symbolic meanings, eight is new beginning, and seven denotes completion. Peter's denial of Jesus was all the more certain because he did it thrice; Jesus asked Peter if he loved him three times, three is an abundant witness. Six designates man. The famous six repeated three times, Rev. 13:18, stresses that it is man all the way, i.e. the corporate man, the individual man and the work of man (the image). Because man is in self adoration this is worship of Satan as he is behind all false gods. Also Hebrew and Greek letters have numerical equivalents, the science, gematria, is the study of the meanings codified via the use of quantities and the numerical values of letters and their sums. Superstition must be shed here and numerology which is of the occult dismissed. Revelation 13:18 says that the mark of the beast is a number of a man- 666. Nero held this position when Revelation was written, the sum of Caesar Neron, (Nero), totals 666. The mark of the beast when it comes will be tied up with an individual person, will he be first beast, perhaps the Emperor as the head of the empire, or perhaps this mantle of kingship will be carried corporatively in a senate or league, over the conglomerate of tongues, tribes and nations which make up the empire that is the first beast. In some languages King and Kingdom are the same word, in the book of Daniel some translations interpret King and others Kingdom. Whether the first beast is an individual or not, the second beast seems definitely to be an actual individual, will he be the recognized emperor, or the spokesperson for the emperor? (The exact titles used may not be emperor or King or empire). In any case the marking of people and the set up of Dragon/First Beast/Second Beast is an unholy caricature of God's economy, compare the sealing of his people with God's name, God/Christ/the prophet, and also compare God sending Moses and Aaron as the spokes person to Moses. Fruit has to do with the end result; Jesus said that you will know a tree by its fruit, referring to people and their ministries. Fruit is the culmination of people and their work, the end return. The destination of the voyage of sin is death. Man, embarked on this voyage so long ago and that day in Revelation l6:13 he arrived to death, the old man is dead so long afterward when the story in the Garden of Eden is set. God told Adam that on the day he eats the fruit of the tree of knowledge he would die. Rigid fundamentalism treating of the scriptures would turn God into a liar because Adam lived another few hundred years after. Although Adam died a type of death, his innocence, his relationship with Eve and God, he did not literally die, he has certainly been dying for a long time but it is only at Rev.16: 3 he actually dies. The fruit of the tree of knowledge has finally fully grown and ripened in man, Adam has now fully consumed the forbidden fruit. The day that it took Adam to die has spanned many earthly days, a biblical day does not mean a twenty four hour day. |
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