TL:DR: The Genesis Question part seventeen

Hi, Everybody!

THIS:

18 May 14

Hi Troy and Mia!

Okay.  The last two citations in this particular section are:

Revelation 4:11 - Worthy you are, the [Lord/YHWH] and the God of us, to receive the glory and the honour and the power, because you created the all, and through the will of you they were and they were created.

 This is addressed to "the ___ sitting upon the throne" by the "twenty-four older persons" who will "throw the crowns of them in sight of the throne, saying…"

It could be a reference to God.  "Lord" isn't all in capitals, which is usually how YHWH is translated, but then part -- to me, a major part -- of the Christian revelation is the erosion of such specificity.  The Synoptic Jesus' parables are riddled with various unnamed lords, Jesus himself is called Lord, both capitalized and uncapitalized.  Psalm 110 with its "the Lord said to my lord" is a foundational teaching of Christianity.  

Personally, I would doubt it to be a reference to God because of the reference to a throne and the crowned heads in proximity to it.  I just don't see God as either sitting on a throne or requiring twenty-four crowned heads to determine His worth and enunciate it aloud. 

I believe that God possesses "the glory and the honour and the power"  but I can't envision Him needing to "receive it".  From whom could God "receive the glory and the honour and the power" that would have any meaning for Him?  

No question in my mind, He is entitled to it by virtue of being God. I definitely believe that. 

There isn't enough glory and honour in the command of humankind that could be bestowed upon God which would come near to compensating Him for a fraction of the undeserved kindness He bestows on His creations on a daily basis. But I think it can be correctly inferred that "glory and honour" -- while they are indisputably His due -- are not things (commensurate with His irrefutable position and stature) that He ever expects to receive as it is expressed here.   

In short, this seems to me a YHWHistic construct of an eschatological scenario:  John's Revelation appears to me to be either how things will play out in the Last Days and the Last Day or how things will play out in the Last Days and the Last Day if humankind and the YHWH fail to repent.  Rather like Scrooge's imploring of the third spirit to tell him if the fate shown him was what WOULD be or what MIGHT be.

I believe John's Revelation to have been revealed by God (or by someone delegated to the task by Him) and that the irrefutable accuracy of it is what lends it its power. 

But, I think what is being documented in these particular verses are the construct which the YHWH has chosen to inhabit.  That is, that this is what the YHWH pictures to be the nature of  God's context and, consequently, in the spirit of usurpation,  this is what the YHWH has made of his/her/its own context (possibly just in the YHWH's own mind, but possibly incarnated by God's permission as part of the YHWH's on-going therapy).

If you look closely at the way that it's expressed, I think it reinforces the "therapy" model: the YHWH deriving reassurance from having the twenty-four older persons assuring him/her/it that "you created the all, and through the will of you they were and they were created."  Again, I don't see a genuinely omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being -- which God is, by definition -- requiring this. "through the will of you they were".  That seems blasphemous to me, an attempted refutation of free will as God's gift to His creations.  He willed the events that led to creation and led to each of our births, but I don't think we're expressions of His will imposed upon us (the compelled inference here).  We can CHOOSE to be closer to expressions of His will but we're never going to be perfect expressions of His will because of our own choices.  It seems to me that that's one of the central purposes of creation:  to indicate to us that our choices will always be either more flawed or less flawed, but that flaws are built in.  We're all given the opportunity to enact our rebellion against God and, thereby, to attempt to prove that our rebellion is right and God is wrong. And we all fail at this.

And that this, it seems to me, extends to higher natured beings like the YHWH just as it does to us.  All have fallen short of the glory of God.  I think the YHWH is projecting here:  accusing God of that of which the YHWH is guilty: of willing subordinate, sycophantic ___s into existence to try to establish preeminence through imposed deference. 

I don't think God does that or did that with any of his creations from the angels on down.  I think angels have the same power of free will that we have.  I think you get to be an angel by recognizing that God is right in all particulars and therefore subordinating angelic will to His will in all particulars is the best choice you can make in any situation.  And, so, you choose that without exception.

If you lack accurate perception -- as, it seems to me, the YHWH does -- it seems to them, I think, a distinction without a difference:  you create ___s who defer to you and chant your praises or you create ___s who CHOOSE to defer to you and chant your praises.  But, there's actually a world of difference.  It's Reality versus "reality".  Good versus evil and the reason that Reality will always prevail over "reality" (although it can take some time and some doing).  Choice is the point.

Revelation 10:6  -  Coincidentally (?) part of my ten chapters of Christian Scripture this noon hour.  I really think that 10:5 and 10:7 need to be included:

 [5] And the angel whom I saw having stood upon the sea and upon the earth, he lifted up the hand of him the right  [6] and he swore in the ___ living into the ages of the ages, who created the heaven and the ____s in it, and the earth and the _____s in it and the sea and the ____s in it that time not yet will be [7] but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, whenever he may be about to be trumpeting , and was finished the mystery of the God, as he declared as good news to the of Himself slaves the prophets

See, this to me seems the way that God expresses Himself.

God's angel standing with one foot upon the sea and one foot upon the earth.  The water and the dry land are fundamental and foundational to earthly creation in a way that thrones and crowns very much aren't (as I read it).  The angel swears IN God --  and does so using the Koine Greek indefinite article which seems to be God's chosen way of expressing Reality (as opposed to reality or "reality"):

"in the ___ living INTO the ages of the ages, who created the heaven the ___s IN it, and the earth and the ___s IN it "

What would actually fill the blanks, in my reading, is beyond human comprehension. 

God can't impart His nature to us or the nature of what is IN the heaven and IN the earth, precisely, so "the ____ living INTO the ages of the ages" will have to do.  Likewise with a description of what it is that heaven is, and of what the heaven is composed:  "the heaven the ____s IN it" and of what the earth is, and of what it is composed: "and the earth and the ___s IN it". 

(And, it seems to me, a great part of that -- what the earth is and of what it is composed -- is the YHWH and the YHWH's subordinate ____s, the twenty-four older persons throwing their crowns in sight of the YHWH's throne.)

 "and the sea and the ___s in it" which I infer are ___s more closely aligned with God than the ___s in the earth. Which leads to the point of this part of the narrative, as I read it:

"that time not yet will be...".  

That is, these are the end times, but the YHWH is attempting (will attempt in the Last Days) to short-circuit the process and assert dominion with his/her/its own acted-out narrative which has dominated the Revelation to that point and that this passage is God asserting -- through His angel -- that that isn't going to happen. 

The end times will unfold with the YHWH's narrative as part of it, but the actual fulfillment -- which ends with the arrival of the New Jerusalem -- takes place only according to God's agenda and timetable.  And (I'm guessing) the difference in timetables could be anywhere from days to years to decades to centuries.  We could have to endure the YHWH's enactment and the repercussions of it for years or decades or centuries before God's enactment takes over:

"….but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, whenever he may be about to be trumpeting"

Everything else takes place first, and then the seventh angel is "to be trumpeting" and:

"and was finished the mystery of the God, as he declared as good news to the of Himself slaves the prophets"

This resonates with the last word of the Johannine Jesus in John 19:30, the Koine Greek term that translates as "It is finished". 

God, it seems to me, even makes allowances for the YHWH's perceptions here in describing God's prophets as slaves -- most particularly as "the of Himself slaves". 

Did they have free will? 

Well, yes, but God in His omniscience, as I read it, knew that the way they would choose to exercise their free will would be to become His slaves.  They didn't do anything unless they were reasonably certain that it was what God wanted them to do.  Any self-examination was restricted to that: trying to first determine and second to become more closely aligned with God's will.  That's a pretty apt description of a slave and a master relationship.

You could even argue that it was based at least partly on the same master-slave construct because, once you have aligned yourself as closely with God's will as you can, the consequences of "freelancing" become more severe and practically instantaneous:  John Lennon's "Instant Karma".  So, isn't the life of a prophet at least partly based on fear of those consequences? 

Well, in a way, but, again, I see this more as deference to the way the YHWH as a rebel ____ sees things.  The further you are from being aligned with God's will, the "less free" submission to God's will appears to you to be. 

To me, what this fails to recognize is the consequences of choosing to be far from aligned with God's will:  how unhappy are you and how uncomfortable are you in your rebellion?  Rebel ___s tend to align with the "s--t happens" brigade, always keeping the awareness that "s--t" is a direct consequence of "s--tty choices" at a great remove from their conscious decision-making.  So they tend to have "ocular recti"  -- a s--tty outlook on life -- and to just assume that the resulting state of unhappiness and discomfort is a given no matter how you choose to live. 

So why be unhappy and uncomfortable AND someone -- even God's -- slave? You might just as well be unhappy and uncomfortable and ENJOY yourself! 

It's actually the equivalent of hitting yourself in the head with a hammer because it feels so good when you stop -- and then choosing not to stop.

That's why God says through his angel that he has imparted this as good news to the of Himself slaves the prophets. 

You won't regret choosing to be God's slave.  That's why it's good news, both for His prophets and for those they instruct.  Even crucifixion can't keep it from being good news.  You just have to endure crucifixion and then you get to the "good news" part.  That's how good the "good news" is.

Okay. 

I started writing my comments on each of the Biblical verses cited by Mr. Ross as supporting his contention...

The Bible teaches that God alone, not Satan or any other created being, has the power to create and to destroy what God creates.

… just over a month ago -- on April 13th, the day before Drexel's birthday -- and it's now May 18th, the day after mine.

I thought it a peculiar assertion to make when I first read it and nothing in Mr. Ross' citations has caused me to revisit that assessment.  If anything, the opposite has been the result. 

As a YHWHist -- for that's how I see people who insist that God and YHWH are the same being -- I think Mr. Ross falls prey to the YHWH in many if not most parts of his book.  I think that's part of the on-going "game" between the YHWH and God.  That is, that the YHWH views people like Mr. Ross as "useful idiots", first by compelling him to make the assertion that "The Bible teaches that God alone, not Satan or any other created being, has the power to create and to destroy what God creates" (I don't think the Bible teaches any such thing: certainly God gave His adversary permission to destroy just about everyone in proximity to Job as an example) and then to compel him to use a mixture of Scriptural citations, some referring to God and some referring to YHWH (or Satan if you prefer) to lay the foundation for his thesis.

Score one for the YHWH, I would guess. Or, at least, that would be the compelled inference in some quarters.

Of course, that was back in 1997 or 1998 when I had only been reading the Bible for a few months, a good five years before I would write my own commentaries in LATTER DAYS and THE LAST DAY and a good fourteen years before Kickstarter would cause our paths to cross.

God is not mocked. 

Instead, God uses you as his instrument, bringing THE GENESIS QUESTION into proximity to you and letting you decide whether or not you wanted to read it.  Which you did.  And then letting you decide that you wanted me to read it, since you saw it as having a certain commonality with what I had written that you had read -- and also noting that Mr. Ross is a fellow Canadian.  Which led me to read the book and to comment on it as I did with SOUL REVOLUTION, sequentially, dealing with each part as I came to it.  And causing me to go through all of Mr. Ross' citations -- which the YHWH had used to shore up the idea that God is YHWH and YHWH is God -- and to carefully separate them:  this one is about God, this one is about YHWH, this one is about YHWH, this one is about YHWH, this one is about God, and so on.

It seems to me a perfect example of "how the 'game' works":  that this is not a momentary thing.  From the time that Mr. Ross wrote his book to the time that I commented on this section is nearly two decades. 

All that can truthfully be said, I think, is that, as the Bard said, we "strut and fret our hour upon the stage" -- God's stage -- and that we only live long enough to see and comment on and act upon a very thin and very tiny slice of the total enactment of which we are a part. 

And we need to make the best of our thin and tiny slice.

Best,

Dave

Next Time: I'm not sure yet...