SS Lesson 28 June 2014

1.       In Eden, did Adam live in the Kingdom of Heaven?

2.       How did Christ describe dominion or rule in the Kingdom of Heaven?  (Matthew 20:25-28, Luke 22:24-27)

3.       Therefore, in Eden what does dominion mean?

4.       When Adam asserted to be like God what kind of dominion did he assert?

5.       Who maintained sovereignty of Eden?  Who was cast out?  Who else was cast out of the kingdom of heaven?

6.       What is the difference between the land of Eden and the land outside Eden?

7.       What is the difference between the source of life in Eden and the source of life outside Eden?

8.       Which provides eternal life?

9.       What does the Tree of Life symbolize?

10.   Where did the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil lead Adam and Eve?

11.   With which of the two trees would Grace be associated?

12.   With which of the two trees would Law be associated?

13.   In reference to Corinthians 4:3-4 who does Paul identify as being veiled? (2 Cor 3:7, 13-15)

14.   What does Paul refer to as the ministry of death?  (2 Cor 3:7-11)

15.   Paul uses a contrasting parallel in 1 Cor 3:5-6.  What has God made us adequate for, by what means, and unto what end?  What source of adequacy is denied, what means to adequacy is denied, and what is the result for those who pursue such a deluded course?

16.   How does Paul contrast those who are veiled to those with unveiled faces (2 Cor 3:2-3)

17.   What is revealed behind the veil? (2 Cor 3:16-18)

18.   How does understanding the contrast between dominion in the Kingdom of Earth and the Kingdom of Heaven help us understand Matthew 4:1-11?

19.   How is the Gospel revealed in Eden, 2 Cor 3, and the temptations of Christ?

20.   In regards to holding allegiance, what is the difference between submission and surrender?

21.   How does Christ describe how we show where our citizenship resides? (John 13:35)

22.   By what means is this citizenship revealed? (2 Cor 3:5-6)

Sabbath School 20 JUN 2014

1.      What is the new ἐντολή Christ gives us? (John 13)

2.      Where does love come from?  Can it come from somewhere else? (1 John 4)

3.      Can the Law of sin and death make us righteous? (Romans 8, Galatians 2:21, 3:21)

4.      What is righteousness? (Romans 3)

5.      In the transition from the Old Covenant to the New how has the understanding of the word ἐντολή changed? (Hebrews 8)

6.      Who is the agency of righteousness?   Who alone is good? (Luke 18:19)

7.      Can righteousness originate from man?  (Romans 3)

8.      When did the Law γεγονὼς [come to be]? (Galatians 3:17)

9.      Until when is the Law utilized? (Matthew 5:18)

10.  When was the Lamb slain? (Revelation 13:8)

11.  What or who does the slain Lamb and the Tree of Life symbolize?

12.  What is Grace? (2 Cor: 9:8, 12:9, Eph 2:8)

13.  How long does Grace exist? (Romans 5:21)

14.  When did Grace begin? (Gen 1)

15.  What happens when we define righteousness as the keeping of the Law? (Gal 5:4)

16.  What are the two dominating metaphysics inherited from Greek philosophy that dominate the theological paradigms of Western Christianity?

17.  What is the difference between Platonism and Aristotelianism?

18.  How do these interpretations of truth and reality influence our understanding of Salvation by Grace through Faith? (Galatians 4:1-11)

19.  How does this understanding cause the difference in finding Grace resistible or irresistible?

20.  How does Platonism and Aristotelianism influence our perspective of human will?

21.  What major theological paradigms establish positions on free will?  Do those positions address the permanence of human free will?

22.  What do Platonism and Aristotelianism have in common for defining truth and reality?

23.  If both philosophies presuppose the dualism of Law (good and evil) how does each approach the means to keep the law?

24.  Do either philosophy’s means to righteousness agree with scripture?

25.  Is righteousness and salvation controlled by the human capability of choice based on the human knowledge of good and evil? (Romans 6:1-7)

26.  If the knowledge of good and evil leads to death how can it be used to save?

27.  What then is the basis of salvation?

28.  How does Christ reveal what righteousness is?  By whose will?

29.  If righteousness, grace, and salvation is by the will of God then is man in control of its determination?  (Romans 10:1-10)

30.  Does this mean we have no free will?

31.  What changed when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? (Genesis 3:4-13, 22-24)

32.  Why does Satan say that we would be like gods? (Genesis 3:5)

33.  If by the knowledge of good and evil sin came into the world then by whose will did it emerge?

34.  If our righteousness is not attainable by an independent, sovereign, and free human will; and sin did not come by God’s will then is either philosophy of human free will valid?

35.  What must occur in the transition from righteousness to sin for man to live by the knowledge of good and evil?

36.  What did Satan offer man?

37.  What must occur for man to return to the original state in which the knowledge of good and evil is obsolete? (Matthew 16:24-26)

38.  How did the Lamb of God achieve this? (Philippians 2:5-11)

39.  How does Christ say the truth is revealed to us John (Matt 16:16-18)?

40.  Upon what does Christ build His church?

41.  What happens when we assert that His church is built on free will? (Matt 21:42-44)

42.  If true love is only by free will, then is love of man?

43.  Is salvation earned by submission of the will or received through surrender of the will?

The Incorruptible Gospel

I have just watched a Star Trek: Voyager episode and discovered a theme I had never seen before; a theme influenced by our western culture of which the writers would certainly be unaware.  It is a theme the writers may openly deny yet are unwittingly influenced by, a theme forgotten by those who should know it best.  This literary theme has been lost to those it was intended for but none the less been made manifest, as if the rocks were crying it out.  The two-part episode entitled “The Year of Hell” begins with Captain Annorax, the commander of a ship that can alter history by annihilating entire civilizations; a power used to restore the glory of an empire lost.  The ship and crew of Voyager are ravaged by the effects of this ship that has restored 98% of its empire.  Yet 98% is not enough for its captain who has lost his wife as a result of his incursions into the rewriting of history.  He is a desperate and obsessed man who believes if he can calculate precisely enough he can restore his wife and his empire.  In the end, the captain of Voyager sacrifices herself as she tells her forces to lower the shields of their ships that protect them from the time-altering weapon of Annorax’ ship.  They cry out that they will be defenseless, but she responds that if the ship that began the year of hell and has warped history is destroyed, so will the altered universe be destroyed-- restoring the original state.

How is it that the writers of Star Trek, who clearly subscribe to a macro-evolutionary interpretation of origins, can create an insight into the archetype of the Gospel of Surrender?  The power that Annorax employed was the power that kept him from his wife and brought destruction to his sector of the galaxy.  The destruction of the power to control time and space, combined with the vulnerable state of the allied ships, restored them to their original state while the corrupted universe was annihilated.  The episode ends where it began, with the critical alteration that Annorax was reunited with his wife; his plans for the ship that would corrupt the fabric of space unfinished. 

The Star Trek writers would deny it but they are influenced by a theme that is innately embedded in our western minds, unless we purposefully purge it by our efforts to be good.  It is the theme of the Gospel of Surrender.  Satan who presumed to make the universe better, brought upon it corruption.  By his asserted will Satan deceived man to think by a free will he too could control his destiny and sustain his life.  We have bought into the lie that God made us with free and independent wills, but Christ revealed the original state of the universe as beings surrendered to His will.  In sovereignty there is death, but in surrender there is life; the mystery of the stumbling stone of contradiction that can only be revealed by Grace.  Given to the rocks to cry out, and they don’t even know it.