Are YOU Submissive to the Sovereignty of God?

[Rebbe]

THE RESURRECTION MANDATE (Part Twelve)

ARE YOU SUBMISSIVE TO THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD?

Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2019 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling, Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes"
-- C.G. Jung

"As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know"
-- Carl Gustav Jung in Memories, Dreams, Reflections

"The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves"
-- C.G. Jung

"Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us"
Carl G. Jung

Certainly my sub-title must raise a question or two in the minds of IMCF students reading or listening to this lecture. After all, if our God is sovereign, and our God will eventually have His way with all humankind -- and the entirety of the universe -- then what has our submission to do with the issue of that sovereignty?

To begin with, while I wish to re-cover the Gospel claim of the Saviour's right of rule and authority and power there exists a nagging question to which many Christians are falling prey to atheistic and agnostic revilers of Christianity. And that question involves and constellates around the notion of human free will. I shall attend to this question in a minute.

In the meantime, at the conclusion of the previous lecture I noted, "Above everything else the thrust of the Gospel of God's Grace in The Resurrection Mandate is a stressed acclamation or commendation to the Christian brethren that they have been called and chosen FROM ETERNITY to share in the secret life of God " the everlasting life of God with all that this expression implies and which remains hidden to the world. And so the holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, MUST generate as the Feminine Principle the EVERLASTING ALIVENESS OF CHRIST always "coming in flesh" (2 Jn 1.7 Rotherham, NEB, Concordant, Moffatt, Jonathan Mitchell). Yeshua is coming in our flesh, incarnating in each of us, at our conversion."

I have been liberal in my quotations of Carl Gustav Jung in my lectures over a number of years. While there are no grounds whatsoever to indicate that Jung the great psychoanalyst personally accepted the prime Gospel message of salvation alone in Christ -- albeit he was the son of a Swiss Reformed pastor, and he used his Christian roots to illuminate the psychological roots of all religions  --  he certainly evidenced in his writings an intense grasp of the resolute intention of the God of the universe for humanity when it came to one of the theological mysteries of the biblical revelation. In one of his works Jung states,

"The future indwelling of the Holy Spirit amounts to a continuing incarnation of God. Christ, as the begotten Son of God and preexisting Mediator, is a firstborn and a divine paradigm which will be followed by further incarnations of the Holy Ghost in the empirical man" -- (Carl Jung, Psychology & Religion, West & East, 1938, 1958  [Trans. R.F.C. Hull], 432, para. 693).

Of course, I cannot and would not suggest that Jung had rejected the Christian church (as such) for in a letter he stated the following: "I quite understand if it should be suggested that I am no Christian. Yet I think of myself as a Christian since I am entirely based upon Christian concepts. I only try to escape their internal contradictions by introducing a more modest attitude, which takes into consideration the immense darkness of the human mind. The Christian idea proves its vitality by a continuous evolution, just like Buddhism" (emphasis mine).

In any event, when Our Lord Yeshua told his disciples that he would send the Ruach HaKodesh (the holy Spirit) and She would lead and guide and direct them into "ALL the Truth" (Jn 16.13 Gk) as the Spirit of Truth or right knowledge (same verse) the Saviour of the world was informing them that the prime manifest OBJECTIVE and PURPOSE for humankind's brief interlude on this planet was that of EDUCATION and the development of ACCURATE THINKING.

Now, I have found myself being emphatic in regard to the greatest mystery of all time which is the mystery of human mind with its THOUGHT processes. Indeed, it is well worth reflecting for some time in meditation on the absolute fact that ONLY THROUGH THOUGHT may a human being CONTROL the major portion of his or her own personal earthly destiny. The MIND is the one and only singular thing over which Infinite Intelligence and Everlasting Love has granted man the thorough and exhaustive right of control.

Remember, we have been created in the direct IMAGE of God -- the creatively FREE GOD who entirely possesses FREE WILL and yet this formidable free will is generously shared by Deity with creative human beings. We of all creatures have been given free will as a consequence of being the mirrored reflection of God. I speak of  "formidable free will" in the correct sense of "inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense or capable." Only through free human thought -- and accurate thinking, accurate thought processes -- can we MERGE WHO WE ARE with the MINDSCAPE of our Creator.

Yes we are saved by GRACE, but God the Father has exceptionally high standards of moral expectation -- God wants us to grow into THE LIKENESS OF HIS CHARACTER-IMAGE -- to which Deity requires and anticipates all His creative images to ultimately attain. God desires us to turn into the right knowledge concerning which we are being introduced through His re-educational program directed by the Spirit of God. We ought not to be inwardly dwarfed by God's expectations of His creatures. It was no less than Stephen Hawking who stated, "In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind."

Some have asked, in respect of our doctrine of the Sovereignty of God, "Do human beings REALLY have free will?" So let's face up to some hard questions about both God's sovereignty and our human free will. Firstly, we ought to again ask...

DOES CHRIST POSSESS ALL AUTHORITY?
Straight to the point, immediately after his resurrection to eternal life, Yeshua stated with crystal clarity to his disciples, "All authority in the heavens and on earth has been given to me" (Mt 28.18). "ALL" is a small word with LARGE and expansive quality in meaning. The Lord Yeshua says he has been given unrivalled cosmic Lordship. But, it is recorded by the same author of the Matthean Gospel that "some doubted." This is difficult to explain, and I have a few thoughts on this verse which I will not share at this time because of a number of factors that need not be discussed right now. Apart from this record of a very human side to the story involving discipleship, in actual fact Yeshua during his ministry demonstrated openly in three actions during one episode that he was GOD IN FLESH. Notice it now:

"When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home."

Please note that Yeshua owned his own home. It is mentioned casually throughout the Gospels but we have been so programmed by the Church view to the effect that he was always destitute and "had no where to lay his head" -- although this was said on a specific evangelistic journey where he and his disciples "toughed it out" in the rugged countryside at that specific time. To continue:

"So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Yeshua because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Yeshua saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, "Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" At once Yeshua perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, "Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven", or to say, "Stand up and take your mat and walk"? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -- he said to the paralytic -- "I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home." And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" -- (Mk 2.1-12).

Yes, "We have never seen anything like this!" And what had they actually witnessed? Look carefully at the text.

Firstly, Yeshua forgives his sin! This was long before the cross. Long prior to the shed blood through which we find that same forgiveness. This is because God exists beyond spacetime in an eternal MINDSCAPE that reflects God's GRACE -- His never-ending changeless character of love and compassion. Forgiveness of sin is something ONLY GOD can accomplish for human beings. What we are confronted with in this instance is the first SIGN of Christ's AUTHORITY. Indeed, in a sense which was not overlooked by the original apostles, Christ was crucified way back in eternity. We know this to be the case due to the fact that Christ is called a "Saviour" long prior to the creation. Judah the brother of Yeshua, and John (one of Christ's most trusted disciples) specifically testify to this revelation.

Judah: "To the only God, our Saviour, through Yeshua the Messiah our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen" (Jude 25 Greek).  

John: "And all the inhabitants of the earth will fall down in adoration and pay him homage, everyone whose name has not been recorded in the Book of Life of the Lamb that was slain [in sacrifice] from the foundation of the world" [world Gk. kosmos = universe] (Rev 13.8 AMPC cf YLT, NLT, NOG, GW, EXB, CJB).

Professor Kenneth Wuest translates Rev 13.8 as "the scroll belonging to the Lamb who has been slain (in the mind and purpose of God) since the time when the foundations of the universe were laid, and who is looked upon (by God) as the slain Lamb at present."

Secondly, Yeshua reveals to all standing in close proximity to the healing that is taking place, that he can read minds. Yeshua, like God the Father, can gaze right into the human mind -- the CONSCIOUS and the SUBCONSCIOUS -- and bring hidden things to the light of day. Yes, some people have a natural, uncanny "second" sight in the realm of the paranormal -- even a "sixth sense," "telepathic" or "precognitive mental ability" -- but what Christ was doing simply elevated his status into GODHEAD ITSELF. In plainly reading their minds, which only God can do, Yeshua gave his second SIGN of heavenly and earthly AUTHORITY.

Thirdly, as definitive PROOF of WHO HE WAS IN FACT, Yeshua finally heals the paralytic. He confronts the unbelieving scribes.

"Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk?' But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -- he said to the paralytic -- "I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home." And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

Indeed, this final sign of authority establishes the first. Yeshua, in Mark's account,  exhibits Yeshua's authority to forgive sins, to read the inmost thoughts of a rebellious humankind, and to heal the diseased, ill, sick and stressed bodies and minds of sinners. And, if he was able to accomplish this during his ministry, how MUCH MORE SO after his resurrection from the dead?!? And if Christ indwells each of us by his Spirit, WE OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH THE SAME. With regret we do not BELIEVE that we can work our own miracles. Therefore we DON'T.

Yet... when we have our own children isn't it a natural desire in us as loving and caring parents to see them eventually walk by themselves in a state of individual confidence and sense of well-being?

Don't we desire the very best for our offspring made in our image and likeness, wanting that they should grow into a respectful yet assertive adulthood without having to always rely on us as their parents to make right decisions for them and on their behalf and don't we wish to see them implement accurate ways of looking at life?

Isn't this what Our Lord Yeshua was suggesting when he stated that his disciples "would do greater things than they had seen him accomplish"? Of course!

GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY AND HUMAN FREE WILL
All my students are well versed in the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God. It has been my mainstay doctrinal emphasis for 40+ years. But some of my students have failed to read everything I have ever written on God's sovereignty in respect of human free will. Because this difficulty has surfaced recently I thought it imperative to approach the entirety of the subject in a way I have not done in the past. I trust my approach in this lecture will be greeted with overwhelming acceptance by everyone who reads and/or hears it. (I might just add that I have reposted a 1994 lecture on the IMCF Discussion Board in the Reprint section entitled The Sovereignty of God & the Lordship of Christ. Some of our older students may well recall this article, written in 1994, when it first appeared publicly on the old Tony Pirog Life of Christ website before it evolved into Freedom in Messiah Ministries.) It is a sad fact that some of our associates made this doctrine into an aberration a few years ago when one young woman who was attending our lectures (and whom I personally baptised) began espousing the view that everything we see around us is occurring by the will of God. Others became convinced by her arguments. When confronted finally by the Rebbetzin and I she retorted that "It's ALL of HaShem."

While she was quite sincere and very convicted about her new-found theology she was really more than suggesting that as God created evil originally (Isa 45.7) and is recorded in the biblical revelation as sending evil upon a rebellious humanity, God was directly determining everything that happens in this world and in the universe. The God she was worshipping -- at the very least in her own vibrant spirit -- was a God of absolute determined CONTROL. And, brethren, nothing could be further from the truth of the matter! If anything, as I have stressed strenuously over four decades, God is wanting to give away -- to share with others -- control, power, authority. Taken to its extreme such an argumentative view as this woman possessed presents humankind with pursuing sinful objectives (personal and/or otherwise) and as such claiming that they are merely enacting, re-enacting, and fulfilling God's will!

Listen! Does God deliberately ordain all the suffering and sorrow in the world? Do you see where such an idea is headed? It's utter blasphemy to suggest such a thing! A close friend at one time also insisted that God created sin. He was confusing God's creation of "evil" (Hebrew, ra) and God's attestation to be responsible concerning His plan and purpose, with "sin."

Did race wars, rape, murder, child molestation, slavery, alcoholism, divorce, even our various political systems, stem from God? That young woman I have shared as an illustration would have rejected a comment made by C.S. Lewis --  that suffering is the price that had to be paid for freedom and love to exist at all (see C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain and Mere Christianity).

God may be responsible for His plan of salvation but HUMANKIND IS ABSOLUTELY ACCOUNTABLE for what they have done within and outside the decrees of God. Indeed, a close perusal of the biblical revelation will establish that men and women can and do exercise free will -- usually negatively. As evidence concerning resistance to the will of God consider:

Luke 7.30 It is written "But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, being not baptised of him..." or as Stern more correctly translates it: "But the P'rushim and the Torah teachers, by not letting themselves be immersed by him, nullified for themselves God's plan."

SOMETIMES GOD TAKES A BACK-SEAT
We know from the Bible that there are things that happen amongst human beings that God has not ever considered to be part of His plan, intention and purpose for the human race. This is due to the fact that according to the biblical revelation God will not coerce humankind to obey Him (at least not in this present evil age) and He will not forcibly interfere with human free will because human beings are created in His image bequeathed Gracefully with that same FREE WILL. This fact may alarm some students because it appears to limit God's cognisance. Notice it now:

"This is because they have forsaken me" -- yes, they exercised their free will in disobedience to God -- "and alienated this place by burning in it incense to strange gods which neither they nor their fathers knew; and the kings of Judah have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built high places for Ba'al to immolate their sons in fire as holocausts to Ba'al: SUCH A THING AS I NEITHER COMMANDED, NOR SPOKE OF, NOR DID IT EVER ENTER MY MIND" (Jer 19.5).  

Again, recall that God was not pleased with the excesses of brutality unleashed against captive Israelites by their Assyrian conquerors back in 721/718 BCE. Why did God send the Assyrians upon Israel to destroy them, and then punish those same Assyrians for the severity with which they butchered and tortured these captives of God's chosen people? Because, as the prophets Amos and Isaiah both made plain, the Assyrians went BEYOND the will of God in their pursuit of free will in the unleashing of profound cruelty toward their enemy captives when they not only raped and pillaged the Israelites but skinned captives alive and castrated the young boys and youths to be used as sex toys for their troops.

HUMANS CAN BE ENERGISED BY GOD
It is true that believers are energised by God the Father by His Spirit. But human beings can also be energised by the Dark Side. Human beings can also be self-energised. The Greek word for "energise" is energeo and it appears in the texts below.

"The energising prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5.16).

"I also labour, struggling according to the energising of Him who energises in me in power" (Paul in Col 1.29).

"The purpose of the One who energises all things after the counsel of His will... and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the energising of the strength of His might which He energised in Christ... I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the energising of His power... according to the power that energises in us" (Eph 1.11,19-20; 3.7,20).

God, we all realise -- those of us who are "possessed" by the Spirit of our God (not "obsessed" which is, incidentally, demonic) -- DOES energise us at a level that manifests beyond physical "vigour" and which is really metaphysical and/or psychical in nature. But Satan also "energises" people. He accomplishes this with the intention of bringing about an impermanent personal power and success in the one so energised or "obsessed." The Scripture is plain on this matter.

"The lawless one (Paul is writing about the coming Antichrist)... whose coming is according to the energising of Satan, with all power, signs and marvels of delusion" (2 Thes 2.9).

And again, "....sins, in which time past you walked according to the influential fashion of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit who now constantly energises in the sons of disobedience" (Eph 2.1,2).

Please note that the following expressions, from the texts I have used, relate to God's energising power and do not in any way describe God's activity in "all events" nor "in all that happens" in this world.

energising prayer of a righteous man
the energising of Him who energises in me
He energised in Christ
the energising of the strength of His might
the energising of His power... that energises in us
the One who energises all things [GK., ta panta = the universe/all creation] after the counsel of His will

Doesn't the final reference discount my argument? Doesn't "all things" include everything that occurs? Well, it could, but we need to carefully examine the Greek expression "ta panta."

"Ta panta," and the associated texts focusing on the term energise relate specifically to what is intended by God as being "headed up in Messiah." See again Ephesians 1.10,11,19,20. Therefore, in context, the "all things" in which God is especially said to be engaged in accomplishing are those things that are in a limited sense headed up in Christ. Charging that God orders, orchestrates and determines EVERYTHING that happens here below on planet Earth would strip human beings of any free-will they might have thought that they possessed. It is for this reason I cannot speak even of a universal salvation in Ephesians by imposing the notion onto this letter of Paul. Ephesians is all about salvation of the Firstfruits IN Christ. It's the mystical Body of Christ -- the ekklesia -- that Paul is solely preoccupied with in this epistle.

I must argue that there is no indication in Ephesians (or anywhere else in the Bible, except for one qualified passage of Scripture) of anyone disobediently acting only in concert in accord with God's plans. God doesn't work this way. I did mention one qualified exception and this account is located in the Torah concerning God's intervention in the life of Abi-Melech (Genesis 20.1-6 but cf Psalm 19.13, Genesis 31.24 which infer a similar situation but without any known qualification).

As it is, any individual -- or even an entire nation -- is FREE to go against the will, plans, determinations and orchestrations of God. And people DO. This is why there are a number of alternative prophetic scenarios relating to the outcome of events predicted and scheduled to occur at the conclusion of the age. Indeed, I have majored before in previous lectures on a couple of these various "holy Spirit-inspired" "playscript premises" that we locate in the Bible. Frankly, none of us can put God into a "box" expecting Him to align with our expectations.

This is a reason we cannot be "fundamentalists," in a specialised form, in respect of prophecy because WE HAVE NO IDEA which script God is going to utilise and follow for the result He wants as He works it all out taking into consideration at each step the often-times disastrous free-will acts of men and women. God works with free will, not against free will. Certainly, God is at work in a general way with humanity, and in a specific intimate manner with each of His sons and daughters in Christ.

INCIDENTS RELATING TO GOD'S WILL FREELY DEFIED
We have all read the following: "How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, AND YOU WOULD NOT!" (Mt 23.37; Lk 13.34).

Here we find Yeshua disturbed by humankind's resistance to God's will that no man unnecessarily perish. The Romans were soon to destroy Judah and Christ could have saved them had they repented.

We could argue the toss and say that God elects, chooses who will become a "Firstfruit," justifies, sanctifies and saves those who need to be called at this time in this age. And while I admit the logic and agree with the assessment, I cannot help but wonder why it is that Christ still expected ordinary human beings to make their mind up and decide for him and thus gain a salvation. Hadn't God blinded them all so they could not come to Him? Incidentally, this is one reason WHY I believe that the salvation message can be received by others who are NOT "Firstfruits." After all, didn't Christ suggest "For WHOSOEVER shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mk 3.35).

In case you missed it, THAT'S "whosoever" -- not preselected ordained "Firstfruits" exclusively. Add to this summation the statement made in Jn 7.17: "If ANY MAN wills to do His will, he shall know of the Teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself." This is further enunciated again by John in one of his letters when he speaks of the present age passing away with its inherent lust and he adds "but he that does the will of God abides forever" (1 Jn 2.17).

This is a recognition by John the priestly apostle that not all men do God's will -- and that they can resist it in their God-given free will. Paul knew this to be a fact because he saw resistance to God's will even in the ekklesia (1 Thes 4.3; 5.17-19).

God sends His Spirit to convict the hearts of men but so often -- far too often -- these same people resist the advances of the gentle Spirit of God and reject God's plan for them. It is faithfully recorded by Luke the physician that Stephen (the first recorded martyr of the Community of Faith) in a drastic anger condemned the High priestly Sanhedrin with this caustic assertion:

"You stiffnecked people and uncircumcised in heart and ears, YOU DO ALWAYS RESIST THE HOLY SPIRIT: as your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7.51).

Does this sound like God the Father is controlling human hearts, that His will is inviolable? Many universalists proclaim that everything that occurs does so because it is God's will and that therefore the lack of repentance and the perishing of the wicked is also the will of God! But we have now seen that this contradicts God's will that NONE perish. God's will is definitely that He desires humankind to OBEY Him.

Whatever the plan, purpose and strategic intention of God is for the ultimate "salvation of all" -- which we hold to be the authentic message of Christ that was early and finally rejected by the Church in the 6th century -- it will be through a marvellous outworking of the will of God in His awesome Sovereignty in conjunction WITH the free will of human beings made in His Image. In no way does God want automatons or robots acting as a herd or string of horses or mules without any exercise of free will being involved (Ps 32. See especially verses 8 & 9!!!).

As such, this understanding ought to encourage all of us to be motivated to freely worship and praise God all the more for His Gracious Salvific nature toward fallen humanity. And to worship and praise God with open-hearted thanksgiving for the salvation we have freely, and already, received by Grace. What God desires more than anything else is for humankind with free will to willingly enter into a FREE love-relationship with Himself.

Somehow, in some mysterious way, God will ultimately save ALL humanity by working with their free will.

May God haste the Day when this will of God shall be freely consummated.

[Sharon]

Awesome! Thank you dear Brother.