Definition of incarnate

Was Jesus incarnate? 

All words, just like people who exchange them, have a history. Incarnate is a word from Latin. 

The root of the word is carnal, which we know as flesh. It is a great word I've found in comprehending how Jesus, dramatically, became a man in the seen changing world of the flesh.

Mary was herself not at the beginning of Jesus, as God. It did not start with Mary, because Jesus was at the beginning as the Son of God. As an aside, her cousin was the mother of John the Baptist. of which John, the author of John, speaks of "as the Baptist," in the Gospels as the heralder of Jesus. 

Alpha and Omega

Mary is referred to by those knowledgeable in the discussion as the virgin God bearer. Jesus however was with God, as the begotten son of God, in the beginning. God did not have only a beginning, but is both beginning and ending. Maybe a mobius strip might serve as an illustration here. This would make God both the beginning and the ending, meaning to me, forever.  

Mary then, remains in her time. But by emphasizing her as the mother of God, she is easily thought, by association, to be before the beginning of the Son, or at least, in the beginning. This beginning would suggest the only beginning, even before God Himself, which of course is untenable. 

It is important not to lose the understanding that Jesus

was God, as the Son of God, before the time of Mary, who herself was the "God bearer" in the process of God becoming a Man. Did I say that correctly?

The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us 

As a child, it was presented to my understanding by association that Jesus began born of His mother Mary. This would be true, but because Jesus was God from the beginning, it was only true when Jesus became a man, from which He would return as God in the beginning. Always the emphasis was on the seen rather than on the unseen spirit.

There, I've said enough for this entry. I'll chew on this for a time, which takes me back to the beginning of this effort beginning with the introduction of the word incarnate.  

Reincarnate carries the image of us living our lives over and over in an effort to get it right, without grace. This sounds to me like someone in a prison locked in a bubble of time that is self repeating from which no one is ever free at last.

Incarnate rather is a single individual event in which God becomes Man for time. A time when He suffers stripes for our healing and dies for our sins as the last sacrifice, totally deserted by God. He then, after dying on the Cross, while still dead for three days, goes down into hell to preach to those lost in the flood, from which He returns, is seen by hundreds, and ascends to heaven. I know of no story anywhere or at any time to even come close to match anything like it. 

Between the subject and the verb

I will continue comprehending it. How does one believe it? A belief is a doctrine, inert and still, but believing, is as action, bringing it into existence just like God, who believing spoke everything into existence. That exhilarating task is my never-ending hope, all the while praising God for His Existence and the existence He has given me.

next definition

Tomorrow, I am preparing to post an entry attempting to understand the incarnation of God. How God became Man and became God again. It is my view of what I assumed or was inadvertently taught in church about the central story of the birth and resurrection of Jesus. 

It was the word incarnate that brought me to a sharper understanding. It is an example of how we put the emphasis on the flesh rather than the spirit in pulpits, at least it was in my experience. In this entry I am setting up for tomorrow I shift my emphasis. It was by forcing myself to concretely express my view that I personally came to a clearer, more precise, understanding.

When I came to a turn in the road, I took it

 

Today's entry has been misplaced...

Cannot find it

I have no set publishing routines. I enter them as they come. Then I edit them at will, indefinitely, including revising them more extensively.  

Revenge is mine says the Lord

Faith is first 
Faith is final 

The first reason I am urged to forgive anyone who hurts me, is because it does further damage to me to hold resentment, which is damaging to my mind and body.

The second reason is that if revenge belongs to God, it belongs there for a reason. The reason is very likely because if I hold resentment I am acting in the place of God. So, if that is true then I am acting as if I myself am God, and not the Holy Spirit of Existence, the great I am.

The third reason is the word itself. Resentment, as the word itself suggests, means to send back to myself the very hurt sent me by the one I should forgive. Looks to me one more indication God is simple while we are complex. Sometimes I think the truth cannot be told by those who know. 

Maybe that is the fourth reason. I should forgive whether I understand it or not. Now my thoughts have taken me right into the very core of faith.

Tendency to think one knows it all

There is a tendency to think one knows it all when one only knows everything...everything that is known so far. 

Just knowing everything so far is quite a feat. But what is known so far is so far from the full facts story it would make anyone's head spin no matter how loosely it could be screwed on.     

Just recently heard a man claim he is not a believer in God because he, himself, is a physical scientist and only believes in the facts. Apparently he thinks all the facts are already in, and are known already. He is assuming he is the only one who knows them. Probably just me jumping to conclusions again. 

It amuses me when someone tells me I am smart because they never tell me what I am smart in. I often respond, You are so right! I am so smart I've outsmarted myself, just yesterday alone, millions of times.

Working out your own salvation

My grandmother used to say, I am told, that one had to work out their own salvation.  I am working out here my own salvation. Everyone works out their own salivation, one way or the other, according to their own diligence in the matter.

All readers here are working out their own salvation. I am working out my own salvation, no one else's. No one can be persuaded by anyone else, even if they are just go alongers. 

We all persuade ourselves, just as I am doing here for myself. If anyone says anything that is to me in any way persuasive, I still am the only decision maker in the equation. No matter who it is, I am the lone decider and I take all the credit or any discredit. 

I am the only one responsible for whatever happens to me, even if it may have been my decision to go along with, for instance, a doctor. One can say the doctor was to blame if they want, and that my be true enough, but his life does not respond to the consequences. 

Only mine does.  I am the responder and I am the only one responsible who will really suffer or rejoice in the consequences. I am convinced we will all work out our own salvation, whether we wanted to or not. 

 

New addition to Expanding Horizons

Credo Magazine,  another newly discovered link I have not yet investigated, but which may be of interest to those who are attracted to God's own definition of Himself about Himself, as in this, my personal blog, Sunset Stroller. 

definition of transcendant

 My definition of transcendent is the spiritually unseen world as opposed to the physically seen world subject to time. 

It is virtually impossible to conceive of being outside our world we are in and in the world we are going too that is at the same time not subject to time. That is one over riding reason why physical science cannot agree in defining time. The unseen forces were not in their equations but now is inching into their awareness as black holes. This concept I understand was introduced first in science fiction literature. I myself recall was promptly laughed in by traditional physical science. The idea of seeing is believing is itself quietly being slipped under the rug and the black holes are incorporated as more mere physical photography. Just my view, so far at least.

in the left column

Featured Link

From Expanding Horizons: Self Existing God  is a great link focusing on the same subject of this blog, the definition of God.  It is a good idea starter in any event to go in your own direction whether one agrees with every dot and tittle one runs into or not. BTW I think aseity, means in the Latin "and self, to dwell within", or immanence. A fine distinction similar to transcendent. 

"If God is self-existent, eternal, and pure, then He is, by definition, transcendent. He’s a higher order of being. It is for that reason that God calls Himself “I AM.” When we consider the transcendence and aseity of our God, we will respond in worship and awe — just as Moses did at the burning bush."  Quoted from Moses and the Burning Bush by R.C. Sproul

edited entries

The longer a posted entry remains in evidence, the more likely that it will be edited for clarity of ideas or correction of inadvertent typing errors. For more complete explanation please notice the paragraph directly below the introduction, the painting Days End, and immediately above the list of other active sites in the Sunset Stroller.

definition of belief

 Belief is not going along with the Pastor. It is not agreeing with someone. Belief does not admit ignorance. 

Belief is accepted before it can be projected. When it is projected belief becomes known.

Do I really think I am 

one with the Holy Spirit? John 17

How do I know? Is there a Holy Spirit? 

How much faith do I have?

The mind thinks but the spirit believes. 

I deliberately do away with doubt. The spirit slips undetected into the seen world from the unseen according to the degree of belief I can exhibit. I have to believe what I am thinking. There is no physical effort because there is no effort of any kind in the spirit. 

I place these ideas into physical evidence objectifying them here. I learn whether they will survive without being propped up with wishful or any other kind of flimsy thinking. I realize results are happening to me. I wait on the Holy Spirit, having made my agonies known.

Bedrock Belief

Without Wavering

No matter what, the spirit persists. Time in the seen does not exist in the eternal unseen. Therefore the spirit of belief never gives up in the face of seeming failures until they disappear unnoticed. I do not sit across the table form God. I can never bargain with God. 

I accept what I am told. I tell what I accept. 

God believes.

This is creation 

God did not create existence. He is existence. How then are things created? He first had the thought, I suggest He did, and then He spoke it into existence, of this I am certain He did. How is all this known? 

He speaks what he believes. It now exists because He believes it and His word does not return to him void. Alongside the Bible, much of what we know spiritually about right and wrong He placed in our hearts. We are first born into the changing physical and then born spiritually... our individual decision.   

Malthus redux

 Malthus was correct in his prediction of starvation, at the time. He did not anticipate any new country could, nor would, produce more food than ever thought possible. It would be all through technical advances he could not foresee under this newly incentivized country across the pond. 

Role of the individual in the group

Sane, for the time being

Ever notice a hedge, or any unpruned tree-shrub with a shoot sticking way up beyond the rest of the shrub? People are like that too. This story has been recounted more than once in more than one country. 

In Hungry, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, after studying the matter of childbirth fever, suggested washing hands would be advantageous.

The reason for doing this was his undoing. Purpose for washing hands was because there was something dangerous on everyone's hands that was  too small to be seen. In France, I think it was, a doctor proposing there was something too small to be seen was dropped from the staff as a weirdo. Sounded sensible at the time. Do the names Pasteur or Lister of Listerine strike any bells here? 

Semmelweis however was famous for saving lives. But he was committed to an insane "asylum" with maybe the early onset of Alzheimer's where he was "beaten by the staff and died from his injuries, it has been reported. 

Time being

In their defense my memory reminds me of the coiner of the most important moral principle of the individual, self preservation,  Herbert Spencer, who maintained that the majority is not always wrong.  Only an individual can shoot beyond the group. Only the group establishes the view of sanity in the group. So if the individual shoot gets ahead of the group too far, they are seen as insane. The group thinks he is insane because they, the group are sane, at least for the time being considered so.

In the this our country, the total wording of the God based Constitution completely defends the individual from the group. This may explain why this country was the first, and to my knowledge the only, government to abolish slavery as well as avoid the "unavoidable" 1800's Malthus view of impending starvation. Correct at the time, but incorrect in time. As for slavery, unfortunately human trafficking today seems to suggest completely abolishing slavery "unavoidable". 

Poor prediction records

Myth and Motive

Our elders as helpless myth believers, 

vs many of today's scholars as full of themselves

Economists are always notoriously getting their predictions wrong, and so are too many historian scholars as well, it seems to me. Whenever someone proves an extraordinary Bible account as quite possibly true, one that no one could prove convincingly before, I am in an unfortunate conundrum. And it suggests to me a motive is in the mix.

The problem vs the premise

If a story can be proved (to one's satisfaction) then this is a blow to belief, since if something is considered proved, then the need for belief is mute. 

The prospect of the Red Sea being at one time in the position of a tidal river from both ends is an example. The tendency of scholars to disbelieve the ancients as not being as smart as themselves is not only embarrassing at the outset, with talk of interfering extra terrestrials, but with time, is repeatedly being debunked.  

I suggest questioning motives as significant in the outcome. Always check the premise is the usual motto. 

Giving no tongue to the devil

I have little patience for the reactionary view. I do not oppose for the sake of opposition either, as that also is giving tongue to whatever I do not speak to, of, or about. That is, I do not repeat or give space to views that are other than mine. For instance, I have next to nothing to say about the devil, so I do not react and by that act give recognition, acknowledgement, or space to his doings. This blog is primarily about God's own definition of Himself, not mine or anyone else's definition. I do not listen to what those who say what others are saying, rather than what they are saying, because it is a just an entanglement of hearsay. 

Still editing

Even months at a time 

Lot of heavy editing all day into this evening, for the Stroller El Speedo. It often goes on for days at a time, until things finally settle into the sunset. Speed isn't the quickest avenue to any destination. 

The strong man is also

 Taking heaven by force

If there is any doubt in anyone's heart, even those of a different pasture who are not drawn by God, then they if they want God, like Jesus says in the scriptures, can take heaven by force.

Faith is forever persistent

This was also alluded to by Jesus in the strong man parable. We know He taught in parables and for my part, I consider them His commandments. So it is the same for the strong man who can also take heaven by force. He is demonstrating his faith, his persistent faith. Everything is based on faith. God is not impressed by our transitory proofs, God wants faith. Faith is the unseen power of the spirit within to believe, most especially the unbelievable. Parables have interpretations, this is why Jesus said understanding them was withheld from those who did not believe. This is merely my view.

Other interpretations: In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which does not have the context of the Beelzebul controversy, the parable has been interpreted as merely suggesting that "shrewd planning and careful strategy" are necessary in order to accomplish one's goals.

Definition of an act of God

Everything is blamed on the Boss, that is how it is known who the boss is, as I forever fruitlessly explained to my wife. All the insurance companies also know what God has done. Certainly not them. 

Formerly, as an atheist, I fondly noticed that while  God tells us not to kill, He wipes out entire generations of people with a flood. I was just piling on, as it were, since I was already snared in unbelief by the fallacy of misplaced authority.

Wrong again boohoo boy.

Everyone picks up on this, even last night I heard it on a radio call in talk show. Some excuse God for murdering anyone He takes a shine to by saying, He has a divine right to do everything.

First of all God is Existence, Existence exists and God cannot not negate Himself. God tells us what must be done to avoid dangers in life. If we fail to do it, then it is our decision, not His, for us to suffer the consequences, since we took on free will under the apple tree. 

God knows everything that we are going to decide to do before we even do it. But even though He knows everything before hand, He does not force us to make those decisions. 

God places before us both life and death. He urges us, it says in the Bible, to chose life. God does not choose, we choose, He however knows our choices before hand. 

So God knows everything. But we, every time we learn something, we learn about new unanswered questions we did not know before, thereby learning we were more ignorant than we realized previously.

Jesus said that no one can come to God unless God draws them to Him. He lost many disciples by that saying. Jesus also said there are sheep not of His pasture. What does all this mean? Who am I to judge God? I just know what He tells me.

Predicting the future is a scale evaluating intelligence. God knows the future already while I do not know all. Therefore I cannot judge anything, even justify answers, about any matters concerning God. My only conclusion can be, knowing He gave and wants existence for me, even so as with Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust Him.

definitional logic

Charisma and Argumentum 

ad hominin 

The decline of logic in public discourse powers the current rise of invective name calling as a substitute for the reasoning of issues, and along with shrinking the numbers of words in language, all brings about the easing control of individuals who have locked themselves as fading individuals into rising power groups.

The time is coming in the, as yet, totally inconceivable future when a person will be able to charismatically attract those of lesser "mass" just as objects seen in space orbiting each other do.

Instead of the mind controlling the body, the spirit will control mind and bring about whatever it desires, including the power to control the intellect of others of lesser orbital mass. The primary point of their success will reside in the passion of their spirit to believe.

Is God our Constitution?

I think we may have lost something in time. The speech writers for David were a fantastic lot and were in a strong position to influence the leadership of the day. All because they were writing for David, speaking with God rather than temporal men, and making a very real presence for God in public affairs as the law itself. Just my view, after all, nobody's speech is free unless somebody else can disagree with it.

Power comes from true passion

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

 Frederick Douglass

From the unseen comes the seen

Believing is the first step in making things "true", which is to say seen. Once anything happens in the seen world it is difficult to absolutely "prove" it at all. Time always enters the picture in the end.

There are those with little belief...

and those with greater belief 

Remember when Jesus asked the man seeking relief for his stricken child whether he believed, and the man answered I believe, help my unbelief?

Recall also when Jesus said if one had enough belief he could move a mountain into the sea? And then He spoke of the centurion with greater belief than in all Israel and still again, when He asked the woman seeking healing whether she believed He could do it? She said yes she believed  He could do it and He responded, then it will be done according to her belief?   

All these things suggest there are those with belief, greater belief and little belief, which He also spoke of as well. So there are different intensive degrees of faith. Therefore I constantly seek to increase my belief even though I have already made my prodigal decision to believe. A decision I remade losing several years to the atheism view before regaining my initial decision finally again.

Mountain moving faith

When Jesus said we could move mountains and, now think about this, do greater things than even He had done. There are many believers who think He was speaking metaphorically. Whether yes or no I believe every thing He said was and is true for today. 

Otherwise when does one stop? Before or after the Cross? Or was the Cross fiction also? I believe in a future when it will be common for strong believers to move mountains of the inanimate world of the seen about at will justifiability. 

Reminder: As I continue, everything I write here is dated and reflects my view at those specific times. However I am  also unannounced editing my prior views for clarity and  common typos as well as increased validity at various other times.