Challenging Assumptions

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:24)

This verse has the capacity to expose and challenge a great deal of assumptions that Christians have about the meaning of some of the words used in religion. Depending on what you choose to believe about these words, your beliefs and assumptions about a great deal of other things will be strongly influenced by this text. And in turn, what you believe about other subjects will have a great bearing on how one perceives this text and the real message that Jesus is trying to convey.

I have highlighted some of the key words and phrases here that tend to be often misunderstood and that have challenged me for years to better comprehend and appreciate. I certainly do not claim to have all the answers right now, but neither will I deny that God has been leading me to explore and challenge my own assumptions and has used my study of His Word to redefine nearly all of the religious words and terms that are so easily tossed around without really stopping to see what they really mean.

In my opinion the person described here, as I wrote about previously, is the one that is also described in verse 21 as the one to whom Jesus wishes to give life. And this too brings us face to face with the very first assumption that we must be careful to examine. We tend to always think of the word life as describing our physical existence in the way in which we experience it in this fallen world. Or we might think of it in surreal terms when it comes to an eternal life that is has little or nothing to do with the kind of physical existence we now experience.

I believe that both of these approaches can be dangerous to assume. I believe that eternal life has far deeper meanings and takes on very different dimensions than the very limited sphere of existence that we presently know. But at the same time I don't believe that eternal life is totally disconnected from the kind of physical interactions and sensations and experiences that we currently are familiar with.

I don't believe it is necessary to have a full understanding of exactly what this term means fully. In fact, I believe that given our very limited mental and spiritual capacities to even comprehend reality as heaven experiences it, we cannot really know at this point. But we should be cognizant enough of the fact that there is far more to life than the physical experience that we now call life, and we should not become dogmatic and narrow in our views of what this term means as it is used in the Bible.

When the Bible talks about life and eternal life and even death, it very often is referring to a state of reality or condition different from most of our assumptions when we use those terms. When the disciples became confused after Jesus talked about death as a sleep, they were simply displaying the typical confusion that all of us share due to our severely limited perceptions of reality by growing up oblivious to the true reality that is normal outside of this world. Likewise, when Jesus talked about life and eternal life, many times He was referring to how heaven views these topics and using language from the other side of reality instead of using our confused language – which itself can often cause confusion if we fail to question our own assumptions about these terms like the disciples failed to do.

In my previous post I also noted the relationship between those who actually both hear and believe what Jesus is trying to convey to humanity about God. This too has a great deal of vital meaning and we need to really appreciate what these words truly mean if we want to be one of those to whom Jesus wishes to give life. It is not enough to just receive the physical kind of existence from God – we all have been given that in some measure, and once again everyone who has ever existed will receive it at least temporarily for the final period of judgment after the millenium. But just because people are given physical life even through the miraculous power of resurrection does not imply that they will have eternal life in any sense of the word.

This is connected to one of the most pernicious and pervasive errors of religion that has its deepest hold on many minds and hearts. To believe that sinners will be tortured forever in the flames of a physical burning hell as punishment for the sins they committed for a few years is one of the most damnable lies about God ever invented. This lie was crafted in the mind of God's worst enemy and reflects the character of Satan himself. Sadly it has taken root in nearly every religion on earth. But yet it is a lie nonetheless and it was first purported in the words of the serpent to Eve when he tempted her from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “You will not really die.”

What we choose to believe about what God is like and how He views and treats sinners is at the very core of the controversy between Christ and Satan and permeates all of the lies about God that affects humanity in the our fallen state of sin. And it is this core issue of how we perceive God that Jesus came to address but that is still our greatest obstacle to understanding what reality really looks like. Unless we are willing to truly hear Jesus for ourselves, to immerse ourselves directly in His words and allow His Spirit to impress our hearts with the real truths behind those words deep inside, we will be in constant danger of continuing to live under deceptions of Satan that sound so plausible and that are so widely accepted by billions of people around us.

It is not enough to just hear the words of God. And it is not even enough to just believe superficially or even be able to quote at great length the words of Jesus and texts from the Bible to prove and vindicate our particular brand of religion. That is far from the kind of real belief that Jesus talked about when He was here on earth. The kind of belief that is referenced here and is indeed the main topic of this whole book of John, is a far deeper, richer, more encompassing kind of belief that is mainly rooted in the right brain emotional and heart consciousness and goes even deeper yet into the subconscious regions of our makeup.

But what most people label as belief is often just a very shallow type of belief that resides primarily in the intellectual arena of our mind. Or it may be a substitute for real belief that is founded on emotional highs that may be worked up during religious exercises that make us feel spiritual for a few hours. But neither of these kinds of belief is what the book of John is talking about as I have been seeing it in my study. I agree that it can involve both of these kinds of mental exercises, but if it does not go far deeper than that – in fact, if it does not originate from places far deeper than that in our psyche, then I am coming to realize that it may not in fact be the kind of saving belief that is necessary to prepare us to live with God for eternity.

But now I come to the most fascinating part of this verse and have already used up a great deal of time dwelling on the previous parts. I think I will defer exploring this last part for when I will have more time and space to really dig into it more thoroughly and look for exciting insights and life-transforming truths that I am sure to find. It is in the last sentence where Jesus talks about judgment and life and death and the many interesting links between all of these.

Wishful Thinking

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:21,24)

I have had a question in the back of my mind for quite some time now about the phrase in verse 21 whom He wishes. I have touched on this previously as a distinction between what the Father does and what the Son does, but it still has a great deal more hidden beneath the surface that I want to uncover and appreciate.

As I sat meditating again on this passage this morning it started to emerge more clearly as I saw what seems to me to be a link between this and the people described in verse 24. Not everyone is going to receive the kind of life that the Son came to impart to this world – eternal life. And that is the difference that seems to be implied here between what the Father does and what the Son does if I am not mistaken. But I am sure that there is far more to be uncovered here than what is plain to me right now.

Part of my struggle to perceive what the real meaning is in these passages is my inability to be able to read in the original languages and catch the deeper nuances and potential implications that can be seen when that is available. When something is read in a translated language instead of the original, much of the meaning has to be deciphered more by inference sometimes than by clear statements. But even that has it hazards.

In these two verses I see a connection that links them more closely than what may first appear. What I see now in this second verse appears to answer the question I have had for a long time about just who it is that Jesus was referring to in the phrase to whom He wishes. It is people who actually hear, respond and choose to believe what Jesus came to reveal about what God is like.

As I have come to appreciate more fully the outlines of what is really going on in this great war in the universe, it has become easier to see how many things fit in more accurately into that bigger picture. As I have seen more clearly how in heaven the Father was accused of playing favoritism to the Son over Lucifer when it appeared to Lucifer that there was no distinguishable difference between himself and the Son, it makes more sense to see many statements of Jesus addressing those very accusations. And given that larger context, much of what Jesus is saying here, at least in my growing opinion, is as much being addressed directly to Satan (formerly Lucifer) as much as to the people around who were listening at that time.

The whole problem of sin all started in heaven with Lucifer when he began to agitate that the Father was not being fair or even-handed in His treatment of him in comparison to the privileges granted to the Son. Some believe, and I tend to gravitate that direction myself, that God created Lucifer in appearances so similar to Christ that Lucifer could not discern with his own capabilities of perception that the Son was any different than himself. In fact, it could well have appeared to the entire created universe of intelligent beings that the Son and Lucifer appeared to be something like twins. They at first thought so much alike, looked so much alike and both reflected God so perfectly that for all practical purposes and perceptions it could be assumed that they both indeed had the same origins and rank and capacities.

One reason that I am coming to believe this is because of what Jesus later did by coming to this earth to appear as a human. When Jesus showed up as a baby who looked totally like other babies and grew up in a poor home where He had to struggle and work and suffer right along with every other average person, the effect of that camouflage so to speak was that it became extremely difficult if not impossible for humans to discern that this man was actually God and not just a man like everyone else. In fact, this is seen in Jesus' words to Peter when Peter had just confessed that Jesus was the Son of God, He made it plain that Peter had not received that idea on his own but had received it from an outside Source, viz., a revelation from God Himself.

Given that pattern of how God chose to relate to His created beings on the human level, it stands to reason that He may well have related to angels using the very same technique even before any angels had ever fallen out of favor with God. God seems very much to be into wanting to relate to His children as much as possible on their level more than as just a superior. He somehow must have created us, and maybe the angels as well, with a desire to relate more closely to other beings that are very similar in nature and appearance to themselves better than beings of a different breed or status.

If that is true – and I don't see much evidence to refute that at this point – then it could be entirely possible that Jesus chose at some point to take on a form very much like an angel so that angels could relate to Him more intimately just as He chose later to become a human so that humans could relate to Him and to the Father more intimately. Jesus really is the great liaison between all of His intelligent created beings and the Father God who is over all.

Of course, this does not come without its risks. Just as Jesus was largely misunderstood and not appreciated for who He really was by humans when He was here on this earth, it also implies the same possibility that Lucifer himself had previously fallen into the same problem when he assumed that Jesus was not that much different than himself as he and Jesus worked together to cover the throne of God at the center of the universe. Lucifer's original job was to hover over the throne of the Almighty as a covering cherub as well as to know God more intimately than all the other created beings. He was then to convey to those other beings the real truth about what God was like and explain His will in ways they might better understand.

Both Jesus and Lucifer were positioned to reflect the true glory and essence of what and who God is to the rest of the universe. That is why the fall of Lucifer was so spectacularly devastating and had such widespread impact all throughout the universe because he had such immense credibility as a legitimate interpreter of what others should believe about God.

The final showdown and the core issue of the whole great war between Christ and Satan is the tension between what Lucifer claims is the real truth about God and what Jesus claims is the real truth about God. Humans are not the only intelligent beings aligning themselves with one side or the other. Every created intelligent being all throughout the universe is compelled to choose which side they are going to believe and how they are going to align themselves in regards to the accusations against the Father. There is no middle ground; everyone ultimately has to decide if their picture of God is going to be like what Jesus came to reveal in His life of humility, compassion, love and selfless service, or if the myriads of lies about God might have some validity that Satan has been spreading throughout the universe since long before this world was even created.

Even the issue of how to interpret these words of Jesus here are strongly influenced by our preconceived ideas about what God is really like. It is so easy to impose on these words the common assumption that God is in some regards at least a little bit arbitrary. Whenever that belief is present it is very easy to think that maybe Jesus just picks certain people to be saved and chooses to have others be lost. This kind of thinking fosters doubts about God's fairness deep in the heart even if those doubts are never allowed to surface because they might sound conflictive with religious propriety. But it is what our heart really believes about God far more than what our minds and words claim to believe that determines which side of this controversy we are going to emerge on in the end. And it is assumptions about God that are exposed when we come to statements such as this that can be viewed from more than one perspective. What we choose to believe about how God feels about us too often reflects our preconceived notions and the culture around us.

What has been emerging more and more clearly to me over the past few years is that God absolutely is not arbitrary despite all the assumed evidence to the contrary. Jesus is not here referring to some sort of fatalistic determinism arbitrarily imposed by God on humans as to who can be saved and who is to be damned. Far from that, this passage I believe is revealing that those whom Jesus wishes to save are simply those who respond to the real truth about God that He came to reveal to this world, in fact to the entire universe. All who chose to listen and respond and believe the representation of God in the life of Jesus in contradiction to the many lies about God the enemy has implanted in our hearts, those are the ones who align themselves on the side of Christ and that enables Him to give them the kind of eternal life that can only be found through a response of faith that takes hold of the real truth about God.

In this last verse I see Jesus expanding much more fully the real truth about those who enter into the wishful thinking of Jesus described in verse 21. Anyone who chooses to change their opinions about how God feels about them and what He is really like based on what Jesus revealed about Him will enter into eternal life. They will also bypass the public exposure called judgment that will embarrass and shame all who refuse to accept Jesus' version of what God is really like and instead cling to their traditions and assumptions about God that are more familiar and widely believed by most everyone around them.

Likeness Restoration

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. (John 5:19)

I am starting to see in this discourse by Jesus the outlines of the true reality as viewed by heaven but obscured nearly completely in our blindness produced by the deceptions and distortions of Satan. The longer I dwell on these words of Jesus the more clues begin to emerge about various aspects of how true reality fits together so perfectly and how the plan of salvation is designed to restore us to our proper relationship with God as far as possible.

As I pondered these words again this morning and prayed for insight and a right alignment of my own thinking and perceptions, this word like began to take on more significance. The next verse that was brought to my attention was a very similar reference that jolted me into realizing more clearly what Jesus' purpose was for coming to this earth in the first place.

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (Genesis 1:26)

As our Creator, Jesus intended for humans to have a childlike resemblance to our original parents – the Godhead itself. As we were to live in close communication and intimate fellowship with our Father (and Mother, even though that may sound to many like a scandalous statement), we would naturally and automatically reflect the characteristics of God and would grow up to be more and more like Him in many ways. This was the original intent of heaven in creating this world and placing humans on it in the first place.

But as we know now, the enemy of God full of lies and insinuations about God's intentions and feelings towards us, infected the human race with the viral infection of sin and thus blinded us to the real truths about who God is and what He is really like and how He feels about us. Our hearts were suddenly filled with fear and dread even though there was no truth behind those feelings. Humans have ever since trusted in their confused feelings instigated by lies about God most of the time more than in the truth about Him that He has revealed, and the result is that humanity by in large has reflected the character of our adopted father Satan more and more as we refuse to let go of the lies about God inherited and implanted in our hearts.

God designed into humans a fundamental principle of reflection. We are created to reflect what we dwell on in our minds and hearts. Thus, when we choose to dwell on negative things and give those more credibility than truth-filled, positive things we find ourselves reaping constantly the fruit of such thinking and our fearful assumptions become reality in our experience. When that happens it appears to reinforce our opinion that we were right all along instead of becoming aware that our own choices to discount positive truths created the very atmosphere around our lives that caused us to experience even more negative experiences.

I am starting to see this more clearly in the lives of those around me as well as in my own life as I find myself dealing head-on with this internal problem in my new business. Because this is a people business more than a physical business dealing with direct hardware or building tangible things, I am starting to see the enormous power of how our lives are strongly affected by the choices we make of how to perceive reality. I know that I have struggled for many years myself to believe that things are not as negative as my feelings often lead me to believe. Now as I seek to find ways to help others to think beyond their dark broodings about imminent disaster and financial failure even while the opposite is easily within their reach, I am starting to see more clearly this principle of self-fulfilling experience based on what we choose to believe about God and about life.

Sin is in essence trying to live life apart from complete dependence on the only Source of life there is. Whenever I try to find another source of hope, of income, of provision, of worth, of love other than implicit dependence on God I am starting to worship a false god. As I have been learning for a number of years now, a god is simply anything or anyone that I look to to feel valuable and give me a sense of hope and positive feelings. Sin has caused all of us to turn to nearly anything else but God as a source of life and uplift for ourselves and the result has been the proliferation of addictions, many of which are not even recognized as such.

We are designed by God to be dependent creatures even though we often feel very confident that we can live life at least partially on our own. That is the nature of deception itself – to keep us believing that if we just had some extra help or power from outside that we could pull this thing off ourselves. But sin runs far deeper than just making external mistakes or committing acts of hostility or violence against others or even breaking a list of rules. Sin lies at the very core of our soul and causes everything we perceive to be distorted to some degree or another. Now, the only hope we have to be restored and salvaged from the ruinous effects that sin has caused in our thinking and perceptions is to trust the arrangement that the Godhead has implemented to rescue us from this pit of fear, pain and death.

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh... (Romans 8:3 see also John 3:17)

I have observed far too many heated arguments over the true meaning of this term the likeness of sinful flesh. Members of my own family have often been at the center of this intense controversy over whether Jesus took our sinful fallen nature just like Adam had after he sinned or if Jesus simply had a nature weakened by the effects of sin but without the fatal flaws and blind spots inherent in humanity caused by Adam's fall. But one point that is seldom caught in these verses is that one of the very important reasons Jesus came to this earth was to take upon Himself the likeness of humanity itself in order to be able to have the credibility to show us what our original design and function was supposed to look like as human beings.

This all revolves around this issue of being created to be like someone else – like we sometimes are similar in many ways to our earthly parents. The laws of heredity and the many similarities caused by living in close fellowship with those around us while growing up all contribute powerfully to producing a generation of children that reflect very much the attitudes, behaviors and culture of the previous generation. Even physically children are predisposed to resemble their parents in many ways and this is simply a demonstration of the principles of reality created by God.

It is this very issue – the credibility that we give to someone based on how similar they are to us in so many ways and how much they have been immersed in our ways and our culture – it is for this very reason that God chose to send His Son to become a human and to grow up as one of us in order for us to be able to trust Him to make credible decisions when it came to the final day of judgment and the final fate of all will be revealed.

For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son. (John 5:22)

When we begin to grasp and appreciate the true meaning of what judgment is all about and even more importantly what it is not, then this passage begins to take on much more clarity. If our Judge had no experience living as a human in the midst of the experiences and temptations that we are forced to encounter in our lives, then we would consider the whole issue of Judgment as a totally unfair imposition, an arbitrary determination much like the kind of distorted 'justice' that is largely practiced here on this earth.

But Jesus is not a distant, disconnected, unaffected deity out there somewhere waiting to punish anyone who dares to deviate from His dictates and rules. And neither is God the Father like this in any way. For even though the Father did not take upon Himself the form of human flesh, He sent His clone so to speak, to participate in flesh and blood in order to elicit the credibility in our minds needed for humanity to believe that God really can relate to what we are going through on this earth.

He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. (John 5:27)

Notice that just two verses before this Jesus is referred to as the Son of God. In that context it is referring to the resurrection of the dead and in that role it involves the power inherent in Jesus as God to produce that kind of activity. But when it comes to having the credibility to make the determinations for humanity and all who are making eternal choices about their destiny, Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man. This is vitally important to believe because it lies at the very core of our willingness to believe in God and in His fairness and justice and mercy. If we don't really appreciate that Jesus entered into the very heart of our struggles as a human being and faced life in the weakened condition caused by the physical effects of sin over thousands of years, then we will find it very hard to respond to the invitations of Jesus to trust in His provision for our salvation and move outside our restricted perception of reality into the grand freedom of a life in Christ.

One of the main purposes that Jesus came to this earth was to demonstrate what it is like to live in a totally dependent way as a human reflecting the characteristics of a loving but invisible Parent. As God in heaven before He became human it would be impossible for Jesus to credibly convey to us how we were designed to live in this manner. But as a human, as a Son of Man, Jesus was able to demonstrate clearly that it really is possible, in fact vitally essential, for every human being to live in total distrust of their own perceptions of reality, their own natural tendencies to figure things out for themselves, their own natural desires to live life at least partially dependent on their own resources and to live in total dependence on God. (Prov. 3:5,6)

Even though Jesus was the only human being who had the very real ability to live life depending on His own power and resources and wisdom, He came to demonstrate as a human being weakened by 4,000 years of the effects of sin on the human body and mind how we can also live just like He did, in total distrust of our own wisdom and abilities and in total childlike dependence on a wise, loving, caring Father who is ready to provide and protect and guide in every situation and in every moment.

Because Jesus lived such a life as a human being under the conditions that He did, He is uniquely qualified to be the only being in the entire universe that can be truly trusted to be the final Judge of every being that has been created. In the final Judgment there will be no question left about the fairness or validity of what is fully exposed in the lives and hearts of every being. But this will happen, not because God will impose or force His determinations on anyone but because it will be fully revealed in very surprising ways that He has done everything in total selfless love and that Jesus indeed lived a life of complete submission and deference to His Father just as He invites us to follow in His example.

Our only safety and hope is in following the perfect example of Jesus in His demonstration of living in total dependence on a power and in relationship with a Person outside of Himself with total submission in every moment to that outside authority. As we learn to better perceive what God is showing us, just like Jesus spoke of here in these verses of His experience, we too will begin to enjoy the kind of life that will reflect the characteristics of our true Father in heaven instead of the father of lies that we all started out with. Our only hope is to allow our Redeemer to dwell in us and to submit all of our preferences and desires and fears and pain to the One who came to salvage all who will be willing to be transformed back into His likeness.

Deferring Judgment

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son. (John 5:21-22)

I am noticing a growing distinction between the roles of the Son and the Father in these verses, but not a difference in character or intentions. In this discourse Jesus is clearly laying out for us some vital inside information about what is going on in the bigger picture behind the scenes that we could not know without this revelation. I have been intrigued over the years as I have come across various clues about some of the principles behind what seems obvious to us that are so important to making sense of why certain things happen or don't happen. This is yet another one of those clues.

In these verses I see Jesus declaring a certain difference in the way the Father has chosen to respond to the problem of sin that has come up in the universe, and the role that has been assigned to the Son. While the Father participates in raising the dead and giving them life, it seems to remain true in this verse that He doesn't necessarily go past that point. This is specifically pointed out in the following verse and the rest of this passage in what the Son does that the Father abstains from doing. That part of the resolution of the great war between the Godhead and Satan's attacks against them is that the Father has deferred all judgment Himself and has given full responsibility of that into the care of the Son until everything is fully resolved.

This aspect of how the Godhead has chosen to deal with sin has a great deal of instruction and value in it if properly understood and appreciated I believe. I don't yet grasp most of the implications of this important truth but I am trying to stretch my mind to get a better hold on it and seek to have the Spirit of God reveal more to me about this. I feel that it is vital for me to grasp more intently the significance of this reality because understanding and appreciating this will radically alter the way I myself will respond to similar situations in my own experience. I will more accurately reflect the kind of character that God has in my own responses to accusations and will demonstrate the kind of response that God would do as His presence dwells in me and leads me to respond differently than I 'normally' would.

It looks to me like what God has chosen to do is to submit to the judgment of the universe instead of trying to vindicate or justify Himself in the eyes of His created beings. This may at first sound astounding, unbelievable, and maybe even heretical in the opinion of many religious people; but I have been coming to this conclusion for many years now in my study of the Word. God does not ask us to do something He is unwilling to do Himself; so when He tells us that we should not resist an evil person or try to get vengeance for ourselves, He is going to respond in the very same way Himself when attacked or accused.

God is modeling to all the universe the proper and only effective way to respond to accusations, particularly false attacks, innuendos and slander against our reputation. The Father has chosen to not only submit to the decision of all of His created beings in the final day of revelation and judgment along with everyone else, but in the largely misunderstood plan of salvation that has been crafted by the Trinity from ages before even time began, they have covenanted to have the Son be the Judge of all the universe until the point when all of these accusations have been fully resolved.

This is one of the few places in Scripture that clearly spells out this fact. Jesus says here that not even the Father judges anyone. Implied in these words is the problem that Jesus was facing right at the time He was speaking these words. The religious leaders and people who thought they had been given the authority to make determinations about others around them were judging and condemning Jesus, because in their strong opinion He had broken the laws of God and of their country and deserved to be censored at best. Their feelings about Jesus' violations of their rules ran so deep that many of them even wanted to kill Him.

As I have been learning over the past few years, our greatest temptations come in the form of wanting to react in kind to how we are being mistreated. If someone becomes angry at me I am sorely tempted to become angry in return. If someone cheats me I want to 'get even' somehow. If someone strikes me I want to strike back so they can feel at least the same amount of pain that I have felt. We call this 'getting even' mentality 'justice'. Pretty much our whole legal system is set up based on this distorted mentality and most people, even those who believe they are Christians, have come to assume that God's justice is reflective of the way we do things in our justice system. But that is far from the real truth. We need to have our eyes and understanding opened to see how heaven views things and the reality outside of our dreadfully artificial cocoon that we live in on this planet of sin.

This is precisely why we have such a very hard time accepting many of the teachings of Jesus at face value and the principles laid out in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. It is there that God is revealing more clearly the underlying principles of reality that exists plainly everywhere else but on this planet. These underlying principles are what Jesus was talking about when He repeatedly mentioned what the Kingdom of Heaven was like. But these principles are a radical departure from the way we assume things are supposed to be, and if we don't challenge our own assumptions but simply try to adapt and conform Jesus' teachings to fit our own ideas and beliefs we will continue to miss the main points of what Jesus is trying to convey to us about reality.

Justice in the true Kingdom of Heaven is so different than the kind of earthly justice we are familiar with that it seems almost unjust to us because it doesn't satisfy our deep thirst for revenge and retaliation that broods deep in the heart of every wounded person. We sometimes try to mask these deep desires for revenge by religious talk and pious platitudes to give them a religious veneer, but deep inside the Spirit will continue to challenge us with conviction that our ways really are not God's ways at all.

In this verse Jesus makes it very plain how God has chosen to respond to the accusations against Him that Lucifer birthed in the very center of the literal Kingdom of Heaven. If we refuse to pay attention to these important revelations about the true nature of God's Kingdom we will fail to enter into the kind of life that is so necessary for us to experience in order to enjoy living in that Kingdom throughout eternity.

I have only begun to scratch the surface on this and I cannot take the time right now to further develop it. But neither do I want to just stop at this point and forget to continue to pursue this thread that is opening up whole new areas of insight and awe in my growing awareness of God's true character. It is nearly stunning to try to grasp the fact that the most powerful, undisputed Being at the center of all the universe would submit to being judged by the puny, inferior creatures that came from His hands and relinquish the control of that judgment into the hands of another, even if that Other is part of the Godhead Himself. But the Father is not afraid of the outcome of this judgment but is depending on it to reveal the hidden underlying principles that even Lucifer failed to take into account in his 'new theology' during the early days of his rebellion.

Now we are deep into the after-effects of Lucifer's rebellion – the effects of his new theology – and we find ourselves immersed in the lies and deceptions and distortions of his ill-logic. Jesus was sent to this earth for a variety of reasons, not the least of to expose the falsity of Satan's lies about God, but more importantly to qualify Himself in the eyes of all involved so as to gain credibility as a human being to be considered a fair and sympathetic Judge in the final showdown that is coming very soon between God and Satan.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)