Jun 10
13
An Irrational Thought …According to Whom?
Part II
Brad Cullen
Without further adieu, here’s the “simple” question: To which God do you prefer I make reference? To Jehovah, the God of the Watchtower Society, which insists that particular name (Jehovah), is the only proper name for God? To Yahweh, the God of Evangelical Christians who resist Jehovah as being the proper translation of the Hebrew symbol (here in English characters) of YHWH, which is not supposed to be spoken because it is too holy to pronounce …and which, therefore, renders the argument, as to whether YHWH translates into Yahweh or Jehovah, as being totally ridiculous!
Would you be more comfortable with the Arabic, Allah? The God which Muslims declare is the one and only God …partly and possibly because Jews use Elohiym, a plural word which can only be translated into English as God(s); which won’t do either culturally or linguistically, within Islam or Christianity. Now then, do we begin to see a pattern emerging here …a pattern of human contrivance which has nothing to do with anything?
Perhaps you would prefer the God, “as we understand Him,” of the Alcoholics and other anonymous groups …that is, the twelve-step “Higher Power” God. This is the God that takes over when you admit that you are powerless over gambling, narcotics, sex, alcohol, and all kinds of new addictions thought up almost daily.
Am I being critical here? Yes, and with good reason – ONLY to help anyone who has the desire to access the SOURCE for healing power to use for others and/or spiritual healing for him/herself. I shall be pointed here …has the God you created served you well? Millions can and do attest to marvelous changes that the “Higher-Power-as-we-understand-Him-God,” has wrought in overcoming addictions …so why be critical at all?
Well, what if there is a more powerful way, a next step in our spiritual growth? Critical does not mean anything is wrong with the God that brought you to this point. Now, that’s a different way of looking at things, isn’t it?
I’m not trying to get anyone to be disloyal to the God that has served them well. What I am suggesting, and trying to draw attention to it, by doing a little shaking up of entrenched and limiting beliefs, is that the SOURCE of everything wants you to grow to the next plateau – and you cannot do it until you open your mind to a profound truth. Please pay attention, here it is:
When you insist upon, argue for and proclaim your powerlessness, as the twelve step program encourages, it is a wonderful first (baby, if you will) step to come out and be free of your addiction. Only you know if it is time to move on, is it? The profound truth waiting to dawn upon anyone open to it is, that arguing for, insisting upon, and proclaiming powerlessness, breeds it!
Let’s back up: Until and unless you stop denying you have an addiction, especially when it is obvious to everyone else, the best God for you is the “higher power” one of the twelve-steps. Now then, and again, is it time to move on into healing power and spiritual healing?
When Seeking Your Higher Power Should You Look Up?
Now, before you discard all of this on the basis that it is just more frivolous, religious argument, please consider something carefully and consider the source and the source of the earliest example of a total lack of communication among the human race… read carefully:
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11: 1-4)
Okay, up to this point we can see that the people had it together …no obstacle to communicating well with one another and they were unified, right? Now enters the Lord, please note my highlights:
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” (Genesis 11:5-7)
Let’s stop here for just a second… Let US… the plurality we referenced earlier. This is from the first several verses in the 11th chapter of Genesis. We found this strange proof-reference of plurality back in the first chapter of Genesis …but wait a minute, look WHO put an obstacle up to impede communication and for what purpose? Which God? …The Lord! Who, if we are not going to be irrational, can surely be thought of as them …(“let US go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Which God, therefore, decided/decreed that communication between groups of “formed” mankind may not be such a good idea? Please tell me we’ve got you thinking outside the religious box just a little.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Two points I want to make here: This (immediately foregoing) paragraph is from the 26th verse of chapter one in Genesis. The first point: A Rabbi with the Jews for Jesus organization in San Francisco, reputed to be a Scholar of Old Testament Hebrew, assured me that, indeed, Elohiym means “the many Spirit Being facets of the Godhead” and while he basically did believe in the Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) since his realization that Jesus was the Messiah, he also asserted that in no way is the plural meaning of Elohiym met sufficiently by the Trinity.
Do you need an image for God?
He pointed out to me with typical (to me) Jewish emphasis, that you could easily make the argument from the Bible for the Trinity, but you could also just as easily make an argument against the Trinitarian view using the Bible…
The second point: Also made by the same Rabbi… that the man in chapter 1, verse 26, of Genesis, “Let US make man” almost certainly is not making reference to human beings, but rather spirit beings that were given behind-the- scenes dominion and authority to rule over the physical earth.
This opened the door to all kinds of understanding about things which I knew to be true, and made them compatible with what had previously seemed so inexplicable in the Bible. For example:
Job 1:6, 7 One day the angels [a] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan [b] also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”
According to the above referenced rabbi, there is a difference between “created” man in Genesis 1:26 and “formed” man in Genesis 2:7 the latter for which he gave convincing argument was Adam and the former, again, were spirit-beings who were given dominion and authority over the earth, led by none other than Satan, according to the foregoing reference in Job.
There are as many different opinions about what to me are intertwined passages which include some things Jesus clearly taught as there are people, but the reasons why this Rabbi’s teaching made so much sense to me, is revealed very clearly and succinctly in Treasure Chest …a free copy will be sent to you as an attachment simply by emailing ryan@spiritualhealingsource.com DO IT NOW! If you want to obtain a printed and bound copy later, that will be made available through a publisher and will be announced on the website.
Back to the importance of distinguishing between “Which God?” Let’s end with this from the 11th chapter of Genesis:
So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
That’s all folks, would love to get your e-mail comments. Brad@spiritualhealing.com
In Freedom,
Brad
If you would like to listen a dialogue between Brad and Ryan about Which God click here.