Eternal life refers to the quality or character of our new existence in Christ as well as the unending character of this life. A person's new and redeemed existence in the Lord Jesus Christ which is granted by God as a gift to all believers.
The phrase, everlasting life, is found in the Old Testament.

Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace. - Dan. 12:2 -

The idea of eternal life is implied by the prophets in their pictures of the glorious future promised to God's people. The majority of references to eternal life in the New testament are oriented to the future. The emphasis, however, is upon the blessed character of the life that will be enjoyed endlessly in the future.
Jesus made it clear that eternal life comes only to those who make a total commitment to Him.

A member of one of the leading families put this question to him, 'Good Master, what have I to do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments; You must not commit adultery; You must not kill; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; Honour your father and mother. He replied, 'I have kept all these from my earliest days till now'. And when Jesus heard this he said,'There is still one thing you lack, Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me'. But when he heard this he was filled with sadness, for he was very rich. - Luke 18:18-23 -

St. Paul's letters refer to eternal life relatively seldom, and again primarily with a future rather than a present orientation.

Don't delude yourself into thinking God can be cheated: where a man sows, there he reaps: if he sows in the field of self-indulgence he will get a harvest of corruption out of it; if he sows in the field of the Spirit he will get from it a harvest of eternal life. - Gal. 6:7-8 -

The phrase, eternal life, appears most often in the Gospel of John and the Epistle of 1John. St. John emphasizes eternal life as the present reality and the present possession of the Christian.

Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life,
but anyone who refuses to believe in the Son will never see life:
the anger of God stays on him. - John 3:36 -

I tell you most solemnly,
whoever listens to my words,
and believes in the one who sent me,
has eternal life;
without being brought to judgment
he has passed from death to life. - John 5:24 -

I have written all this to you
so that you who believe in the name of the Son of God
may be sure that you have eternal life. - 1John 5:13 -

St. John declares that the Christian believer has already begun to experience the blessings of the future even before their fullest expressions:
"And eternal life is this:
to know you,
the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. - John 17:3 -

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

SOUL -- The Greek word for soul is translated as life. The best example of this usage are those passages in the New Testament.

For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. What, then, will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life? Or what has a man to offer in exchange for his life? - Matt. 16:25-26 -

For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of my gospel, will save it. What gain, then, is it for man to win the whole world and ruin his life? And indeed what can a man offer in exchange for his life? For if anyone in this adulterous and sinful generation is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in glory of his Father with the holy angels. - Mark 8:35-38 - Luke 9:23-26 -

Anyone who loves his life loses it;
anyone who hates his life in this world
will keep it for the eternal life. - John 12:25 -

This idea is also present in the Old Testament. For example, the soul of a dying person departed at death. - Gen. 35:18 -

The prophet Elijah brought a child back to life by stretching himself upon the child three times and praying that God would let the child's soul come back into him. - 1King 17:19-24 -
This means more than being given physical life; the Sacred Scripture declares that man became a "living soul" or a person, a human being, one distinct from all other animals.

The soul is described as the seat of many emotions and desires: the desire for food. - Deut. 12:20-21 - love - Song 1:7 longing for God - Psalms 63:1 - rejoicing - Psalms 86:4 - knowing - Psalms 139:14 - memory - Lam. 3:20 -

In the New Testament, Jesus spoke of his soul as being 'exceedingly sorrowful,'
My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. - Matt. 26:38 - John 12:27 -

Mary, the mother of Jesus, proclaimed that her soul 'magnifies the Lord.' - Luke 1:46 -

John prayed that Gaius would 'prosper in all things and be in good health and spiritually and as your soul prospers. - 3John 2-3 -

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

Because "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", all men are spiritually dead - separated from God who is the Source of spiritual life. Sin makes a person hate the light and despise the truth; it causes one to break God's laws and to become insensitive to holy things. Everyone who has not been redeemed by Christ is spiritually dead.

And you were dead, through the crimes and the sins in which you used to live when you were following the way of this world, obeying the ruler who governs the air, the spirit who is at work in the rebellious. We all were among them too in the past, living sensual lives, ruled entirely by our own physical desires and our own ideas; so that by nature we were as much under God's anger as the rest of the world. But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ - it is through grace that you have been saved - and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.

This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, how infinitely rich he is in grace. Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it. - Eph. 2:1-10 -

Both Jew and pagan sinned and forfeited God's glory, and both are justified through the free gift of his grace by being redeemed in Christ Jesus who was appointed by God to sacrifice his life so as to win reconciliation through faith. - Rom. 3: 23-24 -

The Bible also speaks of "the second death" which is eternal death. The "second death" is equated with "the lake which burns with fire and brimstone...is the second death."

Then I saw a great white throne and the One who was sitting on it. In his presence, earth and sky vanished, leaving no trace. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing in front of his throne, while the book of life was opened, and other books opened which were the record of what they had done in their lives, by which the dead were judged.

The sea gave up all the dead who were in it; Death and Hades were emptied of the dead that were in them; and every one was judged according to the way in which he had lived. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the burning lake. This burning lake is the second death; and anybody whose name could not found written in the book of life was thrown into the burning lake. - Rev. 20: 11-15 -

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the well of life free to anybody who is thirsty; it is the rightful inheritance of the one proves victorious; and I will be his God and he a son to me. But the legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or worship obscenities, for murderers and fornicators, and for fortune-tellers, idolaters or any other sort of liars, is the second death in the burning lake of sulphur. - Rev. 21:6-8 -

The apostle Paul speaks of death as an enemy: "The last enemy that will be destroyed is death." In His resurrection, Jesus conquered death - physical, spiritual and eternal. Through fear of death, men are subject to bondage but "our Saviour Jesus Christ...has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

Since all children share the same blood and flesh, he too shared equally in it, so that by his death he could take away all the power of the devil, who had power over death, and set free all those who had been held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. - Heb. 2:14-15 -

He abolished death, and he has proclaimed life and immortality through the Good News; and I have been named its herald, its apostle and its teacher. - 2Tim. 1:10 -

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible speaks of death in a threefold way: physical, spiritual and eternal. And teaches that man is more than a physical creature; he is also a spiritual being. For man, therefore, physical death does not mean the end of existence but the end of earthly life as we know it and the transition to another dimension in which our conscious existence continues. The first physical death of a human being recorded in the Bible is that of Abel, who was murdered by his brother Cain. - Gen. 4:8 - However, death itself, in both the physical and spiritual sense, is first mentioned by God Himself.

Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die. - Gen. 2:17 -

In the Genesis account of the FALL both physical and spiritual death come as a result of sin.

Well then, sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned. Sin existed in the world long before the Law was given. There was no law and so no one could be accused of the sin of 'law-breaking', yet death reigned over all from Adam to Moses, even though their sin, unlike that of Adam, was not a matter of breaking a law. Adam prefigured the One to come, but the gift itself considerably outweighed the fall. If it is certain that through one man's fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift.

The results of the gift also outweigh the results of one man's sin: for after one single fall came judgment with a verdict of condemnation, now after many falls comes grace with its verdict of acquittal. If it is certain that death reigned over everyone as the consequence of one man's fall. it is even more certain that one man, Jesus Christ, will cause everyone to reign in life who receives the free gift that he does not deserve, of being made righteous.

Again, as one man's fall brought condemnation on everyone, so the good act of one man brings everyone life and makes them justified. As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. When law came, it was to multiply the opportunities of falling, but however great the number of sins committed, grace was even greater; and so, just as sin reigned wherever there was death, so grace will reign to bring eternal life to the righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. - Romans 5:12-21 -

Because "all have sinned and fall.................

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

WILL - a word with two distinct meanings in the Sacred Scripture/Bible:

1. Wishing, desiring or choosing especially in reference to the will of God. In the gospels, primarily in John. Jesus is said to be acting not according to His own will, but according to the will of the heavenly Father.

I can do nothing by myself;
I can only judge as I am told to judge,
and my judgment is just,
because my aim is to do not my own will,
but the will of him who sent me. - John 5:30 -

I shall not turn him away;
because I have come from heaven,
not to do my own will,
but to do the will of the one who sent me. - John 6:38 -

Indeed, doing the will of the Father is Jesus' nourishment and Jesus does nothing apart from the Father's will.

But Jesus said:
My food
is to do the will of the one who sent me,
and to complete his work. - John 4:34 -

To this accusation Jesus replied:
I tell you most solemnly,
the Son can do nothing by himself;
he can do only what he sees the Father doing:
and whatever the Father does the Son does too. - John 5:19 -

Gospel of Matthew and Luke confirms this when he quotes Jesus' statement: "Father, if it is Your will, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done."

Then he withdrew from them, about a stone's throw away and knelt down and prayed. "Father, he said if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine." Then an angel appeared to him, coming from heaven to give him strength. - Luke 22:41-43 -

So you should pray like this:
Our Father in heaven,
may your name be held holy,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven. - Matt. 6:9-10 -

2. A legal declaration of how a person wishes his possessions to be disposed after his death. No written Israelite wills existed until the first century B.C. They were unnecessary because of the strict inheritance customs of the Hebrew people. Land belonged to the family and it was passed on to the sons, the oldest receiving a double portion. If there were no sons, the land passed in the following order - daughters, brothers, father's brothers and next of kin.

Then say this to the sons of Israel, "If a man dies without sons, his inheritance is to pass to his daughter. If he has no daughter, the inheritance is to go to his brothers. If he has no brothers, it is to go to his father's brothers. If his father has no brothers, it is to go to the members of his clan who is most nearly related: he is to take possession. This shall be a statutory ordinance for the sons of Israel, as Yahweh has ordered Moses." - Numbers 27:8-11 -

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

Humanity is made up of two kinds of people: the "once-born" and the "twice-born" - the once-born who left a tomb of flesh with a cry, and the twice-born who are "born of God" and made partakers not only of the nature of their parents, but of the nature of God. Physical birth is the coming into a natural environment.

But a person cannot be coerced into spiritual relationship; it demands consent and must be self-determined. This second birth is more flesh-shattering and catastrophic that the first, and more umbilical cords are broken than in seeing the light of the day. If a block of marble bloomed, that would be something beyond its nature and capacity, and if the man of flesh becomes a spiritual man, this is the kind of birth that demands not only the services of the Divine Obstetrician, but also the will to "die" on the part of the fetus.

First is the dying to self in union with the Cross, then the Easter of an inner peace nothing can shatter. But before I can attain that birth, I must hear: "If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; he must take up his cross and come with me." - Mat. 16:24 - But the Cross is no self-mutilation or masochism. It is plucking off of dead buds so that the new buds may blossom; it is the pruning of a tree for a richer harvest; it is the dull rehearsal for the triumph of a concert. God is not the God of dead things, but of renewed things. He does not change the ideal to fit the way people live; but he changes the way people live to give them the ideal. Only the person who elects to live for himself remains in the tomb. No self-denial is ever without a resurrection of the spirit; in each newborn soul there is verified: "Now at the place where he had been crucified, there was a garden." - John 19:41 -

The last womb through which we pass is the womb of time to give birth to eternity. Death is the penalty for sin; it is the Golgotha that individualizes us, regardless of how conformist we were in life. Here we step out of the ranks as our name is called; a line is drawn beneath the sum of days, and that is the computer slip we carry to judgment. During life many of our decisions were imperfect because flesh, time and a momentary advantage confused the issue. But when the bird is released from the cage, it flies; so at death the wings of the spirit of man in the light of his previous graces makes the ultimate and final decision of being for or against Christ.

"I believe in the resurrection of the body" is a Easter that the person looks forward to after his last breath on the Cross of life. In 1Corinthians 15:35-50 Saint Paul resorts to the Lord's analogy of the seed. The seed that is planted in the ground does not rise with the same body that was buried. The new one is quite different, though definitely related to it. The Easter of the divinized person is not just the reward of an immortal soul. The Resurrection is not soul-salvation, but person-salvation. Since Christ the Head of a regenerated Body rose, then the members are ontologically bound up with his Resurrection: "But the truth is Christ was raised to life - the first fruits of the harvest of the dead." - 1Cor 15:20 -

The ancient Jewish law obliged the farmer to bring the first fruit of the harvest and "wave it before the Lord" as a token that the whole field and the farmer himself belonged to God. Christ is that "first fruit" of our humanity. With all our failings, we are dedicated to him in our prayers, our works, our sickness and our joys. Our resurrection is assured, though it does require the last configuration. Christ, sharing in his death to share in his glory. As we might have shrunk from breaking the umbilical cord, so we shrink from shattering the cords of time. Christ came not to negate life, but to give it more abundantly. Anyone who ever denied himself a theft or an adultery has already placed death in the middle of his or her life as the condition of peace of conscience. All such acts stem not from our instinct of life, but from our wisdom of death. Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he has gone before.

When a person is raised up from his own dead past to a goodness which in terms of the past cannot be accounted for, he is face to face with the miracle of the Creed: "I believe in the Resurrection." Or when a person is able to take the worst the world can give, and make it contribute to his spiritual growth, he has modernized the miracle of the seed "which is the Word." As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his prison, "Who am I? They mock me, these lovely questions of mind. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine."

The only ones who suffer from the problem of identity are those who have no goal, no destiny, no eternal shore. How do we know the identity of New York State? By its boundaries. How do we know the identity of a baseball diamond? By its foul lines. How do we know our identity? By limits, by laws, by destinies, by God. Once the Good Friday/Easter Sunday syndrome is made the rule of life, then one sees that only the Christ-fettered are free.

I am not my own; I am his. What person anyway has not in his own personal life a thousand falls, a thousand resurrections? Into what open graves has he walked, and ere the dust was piled the winding sheets of the old self were left behind? Every time one's knee bends in confession, he admits to the crucifixion of his Lord, and when his wiggling feet, like worms, stick out from under the veil, he rises from the dead.

BY ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN (1895-1979)

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

THE RESURRECTION of Christ, like the Incarnation and Passion, is a continuing process. Nothing new is in the world. Only the same old things are happening to new people, as is proven by the "news on the hour." What plane will be sky-jacked tomorrow? Who will be murdered? Hidden in the media's love of the tragic is not only a hidden death wish, but also an unconscious concern with the ultimate: death. Accidents. muggings, assassinations are interesting as penultimates because they avoid facing the ultimate. The same is true of the passion for revolution and the despisal of the past. One would almost think to hear revolutionaries speak that they were born without navels - having no debt or bond or cord to the past. For the first time they no longer think about history, so as to avoid old errors with new labels; rather, they seek consciously to create history as a "now."

But this forgets that what Easter did was to create the "new." The Church became the "new" Israel, and each person a "new creature." "When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world. The old order has gone, and a new order has already begun." - 2Cor. 5:17 -

the Resurrection, if regarded so exclusively as past, finds its vision is limited to the empty tomb, if directed exclusively to the future, it zeroes in on judgment and the final resurrection. But if the Resurrection is progressive, and based on Christ's victory over death, then it affects me now. The Resurrection is not just hope in the sense of futurity, as Ernest Bloch would have us believe. Oscar Wilde's remark is here apropos: that a world map which fails to display the land of Utopia hardly deserves a glance.

Nor is credence to be put in Bultmann's view which ignores the historical part of the Resurrection and makes it only mythological or subjective. According to this view what matters is the "now," not whether Christ really rose from the dead. Nor may one so eliminate the future and the transcendent as does Feuerbach, who would "transform theologians into anthropologists, lovers of God into lovers of man, candidates for the next world into students of this world, religious and earthly monarchs and lords into free, self-reliant citizen of earth."

Nowhere in Scripture does belief in the Resurrection as a fact and as a hope militate against responsibility to earth, but rather "bring healing for all mankind" and demands "living a life of temperance, honesty and godliness in the present age." - Titus 2:12 - The Christian is one who simultaneously rejoices in hope and endures affliction: "Let hope keep you joyful; in trouble stand firm; persist in prayer."

The Resurrection is not just something that happened; it is something still happening. And it continues because it happened once, like a great cosmic explosion that sent the planets spinning and in constant motion.
The perfect person goes to a triple crucifixion in order to attain a corresponding triple resurrection:

1. Death to the womb and birth to human life.
2. Death to human nature and birth to participation in the Divine nature.
3. Death to death and birth to the Glorious Resurrection.

If we were conscious in the darkness of the womb, would we not have shrunk to have left its security for an unknown life? If some agnostic could have addressed us he might have said: "Do you really believe there is another life than prenatal life? What evidence have you who live in darkness that there is such a thing as light? Why barter away the security of nourishment without effort for the insecurity of 'pie in the sky'? You may have faith that there is another world than the one you experience, but your faith is subjective and so void of any scientific certitude of another life."

But would we not have answered that person: "Listen! See these arms of mine laid across my breast, with fingers at their tips? Would I have ever formed them, unless I could touch something and hold somebody like myself? My eyes have a capacity for seeing, my ears for hearing, though I never saw or heard a symphony. My legs! Useless they are now, but were they not made for playing, for walking, for running? I am made for another world, even though my senses have never seen it. Someday the particle of flesh that entombs me will burst with a momentary cry of Calvary's agony of birth, and then will come the joy of light and music and friendship."

Humanity is made up of two................

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -