Some Observations on the Nature of Death

I make these observations knowing full well that many respected leaders in the Christian community hold views that are contrary to Messianic teaching. I venture to share the observations because the risk is too great if I didn’t. To a man, the globally renown evangelists, popular and respected apologists, telepreachers and seminary professors, confidently proclaim that the dead are not dead. They are either competent charlatans or (like the apostle Peter) believers whose interests do not include divine things (Matthew 16:21-23).
The eternal state of being is uniquely God’s. Man has both nonexistence and being. Just as it was an affront to speak of the Son of God as having a beginning at one point so now it is egregious to talk about man having absolute being. Absolute perfection gives life to the dead. It is highly irregular for life and death to have the same face. The primary characteristics of being are defined as location, time, and essence. The difference between God and man in these aspects of being settles every notion of anthropology. A Christ-centred theology best explains what life and death are under all circumstances.
We have discovered a perfect explanation of religious proclamation that makes shipwreck of the apostolic traditions. Instead of holding the New Testament’s precision as the anchor the practice of Messianic interpretation has been subjected to speculation and outright denial of Christ’s lordship.
The vast majority of Evangelical heavyweights will with total conviction tell us the following:

  • The departed saints are in heaven.
  • The dead are in hell facing eternal torments

The Saviour himself tells us that:

  • All who are in their graves will come forth when he utters his voice

We learn from this Messianic saying that:

  • graves house both the lost and the saved
  • They come forth and face respectively to the resurrection of life and the resurrection of damnation.

The immediate union with Christ is part of triumphal Christianity, equal to the obsession with miracles and power manifestations. While it is true that the Cross brings on unspeakable victories and triumph to the life of the believer there is no warrant for claiming that the dead are not dead.
The die and immediately go to heaven doctrine is pernicious and Satanic and it bears the stamp of many quasi-luminaries among whom we find Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge and 99% of the writers of our times who call themselves Evangelicals. ‎
Let the reader beware! Tin and brass can be made to look like gold. The belief that people die and immediately go to heaven or hell is cardinal among believers worldwide. We do well to steer clear of this kind of absent-mindedness and the waste of our hard-earned cash.
He that has an ear must listen to what the Holy Spirit says to the churches. Who knows the resurrection better than Christ? Let us believe him when he says, Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, (28) And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. (29) John 5‎

The Triumph of Buffoonery

Who would have thought that a public figure in modern politics in the 21st. century could advocate a ban on a religious group and get away with repeating it? Since starting to write this article at the beginning of the United States Election campaign I have learned that when Donald Trump opens his mouth it is either a cliché or mind-numbing, hateful nonsense that spills out. Of course there are many that love him, like what he says, but I do not have to listen to him unlike the increasing number of people who have not distanced themselves from his voice. When that love fades to accountability they too will likely face the mind-numbing and hateful nonsense. The GOP has not yet officially called the Trumphoon (trumpcard buffoon) on the targeting of Muslims or the greatness of America.
It will not be long before the Republicans heave him over the side and thank him for saying the kinds of things they have wanted to say for decades but could not for fear of offending an increasingly sensitive and polarized population and for fear of being exposed as the party with a hateful agenda. If an outsider like Trumphoon can speak the truth about immigration and crime using crude terms and use damaging stereotypes then the GOP has the campaign shenanigans made. Trumphoon is going to jail if he keeps up the hate speech! When someone as unhinged as the Trumphoon can win the White House then Americans will have scraped a hole in the bottom of the barrel.
How is it that the psychologists have not designed a test for racism? Or how can the news outlets not have a scale for measuring inflammatory nonsense? It’s an election, they say, meaning “anything goes”. Conscientious theologians have designed tests for legalism, racism, literacy, idolatry, capitalism, and Pharisaism. The level of nincompoopery and ignorance being spewed out by the trumphoon if found among theologians finds shelter only in backroom churches.
Will American politicians find the courage to strain out buffoonery? Unlikely. They have so perverted their way – to the extent that the term politician has become abhorrent – they obviously need to wake the founding fathers. No tycoon, governor, senator, mayor, or congressman can claim to have particular insight. The Trumphoon alone has a brain. America needs a make-over and everyone who imagines that the declaration of independence and the Constitution are perfect documents is a deluded idolater. Just watch what happens when informed people evaluate the Buffoon’s assumed success and the documented greatness of America. The leaders who are not intoxicated by either buffoonery or imaginary business acumen must call out the supreme buffoon.
Are we not seeing the same kind of meltdown that has accompanied the eclipsing of ancient Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome? These ancient world-ruling empires crashed after asserting themselves as sovereign and omnipotent. As we come to the modern era we find the likes of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain and the United States of America populating the empire-scape. All of them established great reach of their power across the globe and sometimes quietly returned to relative obscurity. The call now is for the United States and its allies to take the lead and maintain civil society in its greater forms. As noble as this initiative is so is its founding principle ignoble, and therefore destined to fail. Are not our modern nations and alliances already at the top of their game?
Which is where we run into the trumphoon. He wants to make America “great again”. America was never great! Great Britain was! So the mighty buffoon needs to speak more clearly on what America’s greatness entails. Let him just try. His lead in the polls cannot be separated from the Republican base.
Who can those Trumphoon fans be? Can he stretch the truth to deny that his audiences are Republicans just as he denies being a politician? His lead in the polls also tells us about the lust for power among Americans who strive to become leaders.
Community among humans seems to have always had, more or less, a dependence on the sage, the shaman, the expert the lawyer, the ruler, the hero, the warrior and the monarch. The king is a tycoon because he owns everything and whatever we can claim ownership of is taxable by the king. Pluralism allows us to choose any of these leader types as our anchor. Many tycoons have little in their life-ledger besides cash and business fortune. If he is really rich he is also really close to losing a chance of ever being a kingdom child: either greed or apathy hounds him, and from the Trumphoon’s repeated slurs and thin skin, it is quite obvious that he is a hateful and abominable person.
I’d rather have a sage, a shaman, an expert, a lawyer, a business major, a hero, or a warrior. Times have not changed much because people still despise a tycoon. Rich people may have the admiration and jealousy of millions but when the chips are counted rich individuals get the shaft because the loyalty of a rich person is likely to be vested in their riches and not in a principle or supreme Being.
This tycoon’s foray into politics signals one more – maybe the last – attempt by one more “professional” person to make sweeping claims about personal efficiency. George Bush and Sarah Palin are examples of persons with governor experience but what a disappointment both have been!
If Muslims can be deemed offensive and be banned from entering the United States what other group may find itself facing a ban or some other sanction? What is the trumphoon saying about Muslims born and raised in the United States? Respect for the law is paramount in the USA so somebody had better soon shake the trumphoon from his stupor and let the American people conduct their election without inflammatory, hateful, and crude terminology. If not the temple comes down with a crash and American greatness will almost instantly be visible across the globe as oppression, tyranny, prostitution, torture, and with the exception of (to quote an American president) a few “points of light” sheer buffoonery. Finally we will see the American heart rejoicing that they have a trump card, one that is as wild as wild cards come, so wild as to close the door on America’s population and community-building matrices. Sheer buffoonery has reached high places and defies evaluation.