God +

The Messianic appearance of Jesus as the God appointed religious leader, reformer and savior of the Jewish believer was surely foreshadowed in the Old Testament Scriptures.  This is, however, not the same as saying that Jesus was or is the earthly presence of our eternal God disguised in human flesh.  It is not the same as saying that the Jesus Man-God was on the cross.  It is not the same as saying that this Jesus Man-God is the new hand of God in our world.  Why is all this God + theology necessary?

The assumption that some have made equating Jesus with God is a fabrication from a time and place that routinely gave God status to mere men.  Jesus was not a mere man but he was not equal with God. Such an understanding is not cosmologically necessary even though the writers of the New Testament in some places make such a claim.  On a few occasions we all have been wrong, could the writers be wrong or is the Bible also our God?

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA   

   

 

Truism

God seems to delight in busting our bubbles!  We humans work very hard to fence God in and by doing so, attempt to control God.  Forget it! God will pop your bubble. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Maybe!

Some of us find the Jesus God in the Old Testament. This is wrong headed; it is a mental assumption added to scripture in order to enhance a long held Trinitarian Christian Doctrine. Case in point, some folk identify the Jesus God in the burning bush, on the mountaintop, that gave Moses a message to go to Egypt and free his people.  Who spoke to Moses from the burning bush that was not consumed?  Was the “angel of the Lord (God)” of Exodus 3: 2, the Jesus God?

Maybe we can so assume, or maybe not. Maybe, he was just an angel, being the long arm of God into our world, that much is huge.  Chapter 3 of Exodus identifies the angel of God as the God 19 times.  Maybe it is enough to leave it there.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

Absolute?

Every God thinker has two heads …. a got it head and a missed it head.   

Dualism's God thinkers such as St. Augustine and Martin Luther missed it with their understanding of the Cosmic God and Satan duel. That much is poppycock.  gg

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA

Alive?

Living our lives to please the supposed Cosmic Disciplinarian God is like swatting flies in the out of doors. There will always be another fly in the ointment. Few of us can live that way and if we could, would we really be alive in the biblical sense of nephesh?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Double Check

The writer of Deuteronomy also told his people of the God above our Gods.  Deuteronomy 10: 14 through 22.  Verse 17 says, “For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes (TNIV).” Check it out, if you are interested?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

Oneness

If one could take a time out from the rigors of this world to solely focus on the doings, the commands, in the Bible, would that please God and usher God’s joy into our lives?  When the writer of Deuteronomy says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut. 6: 4)”, practically, what did he mean to say? 

Are we to become spiritual hermits who withdraw from life’s complications and retire from the rigors of this life?  May it be suggested that such a life style throughout history has never resulted in visible, discernable God blessings, those blessings promised. Our only conclusion must be that either no one has lived out this commandment or the commandment itself is duplicitous or deceptive.

Maybe, there is a third alternative. Could it be that there is no Cosmic Disciplinarian God? Maybe the God above our Gods is above our meager human understandings of God likeness. Maybe, all that God expects of us is to, in faith, open our spiritual ears. When one hears from the God above our Gods, the joy of God is overflowing and the world in which one lives will change.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca 

 

 

 

Pipedream

There can be Republican unity without the Republican deep staters, who know how their pockets are lined. There are those Republican politicians who momentarily errored and carried water for the deep staters.  Ron DeSantis for one has come home, others have given reluctant endorsements.  Politicians like Paul Ryan will go down with the old guard ship, at least he is honest. Total unity is a pipedream but what has to happen is a working unity, a unity that is committed to working for the citizens of the USA.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.  

Gospel of God

The Gospel (Good News) of God from the life of Abram on through the Old Testament seems to point or expect Jesus as a further visible picture of the heart of God. However, to equate the messianic Jesus as sharing a being with God is at least questionable.  Can anyone show us why this leap is necessary?

There are those of us who say, what difference does it make whether it is the Gospel of God or the Gospel of Jesus?  At least some would say the difference is huge. Jesus Christ as a co-equal with God gives greater breathing room for those who demand the Cosmic Disciplinarian God, which is a cloak and dagger dualism; God will get you and/or Jesus will save you.  

In the light of the total speaking of scripture, beginning with the message to Abram, is this understanding of God really necessary?                             

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

 

Fool

Paul Ryan (R), the failed and to this point silent, Speaker of the House of Representatives (2015-2019), is suddenly fessing up. So, you, sir, do admit the deed.  Paul Ryan and his suburban Republican Wisconsin lady friends, took the high road in 2020 and refused to vote for Donald Trump, thereby making Joe Biden president. Thank you for making your role in the 2020 presidential election perfectly clear. 

After four years of democrat and radical left terror, after intending and succeeding to destroy the success of the Trump years, you are now on TV bragging about your influence in the political arena?  Are we the people, who have paid the price for your influence peddling, supposed to thank you? Sounds like it. Sorry, our lives are much more difficult and at times heartbreaking because of you and your self-righteous ladies.

You will go down in history as one of those politicians who, along with the democrat cabal, betrayed the people of America with devastating consequences.  You sir, will go down in history as the self righteous fool that you are.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

 

Mindbender

The Triune God of Christianity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a temporary understanding of God.  It is a snapshot in time within our present reality. However, God is bigger yet quite simple.  In eternity, all peoples (souls, spirits, persons, individuals) are melting toward total Unity (God). It is like when two hydrogen molecules and our one oxygen molecule unite, there appears, at some point, water, a different form of the same reality. Eternity is the uniting of individual persons until there appears a constantly changing, ever inclusive God of Unity.     

This is the “we” of eternity, yet God is a unity of One.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.      

   

 

Eco friendly God

If God be God, there is no waste in eternity.

"All" in the New Testament; John 12: 32, Romans 11. 32, I Corinthians 15. 22 & 28, I Timothy 2: 4-6.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Christian Universalism

“But in one thing I will go beyond strict orthodoxy – I am a convinced universalist.  I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God.”  William Barclay, “A Spiritual Autobiography”, 1975, p. 58.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA

change

“Unless a Church speaks to men and to God in contemporary language, and with a full realization of its contemporary background of science and culture, no one will listen to it.  True, there is an unchanging gospel, but that gospel has to be interpreted to meet the need of each and every age.”  William Barclay, “A Spiritual Autobiography”, 1975. P. 120.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

our gods

A substitutionary atonement is a crank.  The cosmic disciplinarian God of Sunday School is a lie.  The dualism of an angry hateful God who will punish us eternally for our supposed sin, while being at the same time a God of love, is a description of God that is beyond redemption. Substituting the death of Jesus as a sacrifice to the angry Gods is a pagan belief system that has been around as long as we humans have walked this planet.  When are we to grow up?  The substitutionary Jesus factor is a slander against God.

Why, then, Jesus? To exhibit to all humanity, the heart of the real God, the God above our Gods.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Biblical Universalism

There are only two kinds of people, those who are saved and those who are yet to be saved.  

Chew on that one!

My summary of:  "The Universalist Book of Reference", Rev. E. E. Guild, 1853.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

All Hands on Deck

All hands-on deck!  Battle stations! All hands-on deck, the sirens are blaring.  Drop what you’re doing, leave your stations, your half-eaten meals, your sleepy time bunks, your daily routines and unite to face the impending danger.  The radar has lit up with the coming danger and it is upon us. Grab your life jackets and put on your helmets, all hands-on deck, America, the enemy is here!

The enemy is the big lie and one lie follows another from this enemy. This enemy has no honor, truth is just an inconvenient past time of a failed America, so they say.  Has America failed?  Many of our past enemies have so believed but just in the nick of time, we Americans rose up on those occasions to unite and face the enemy without concern for life or limb. Will our moment, America, be so remembered?

In this our moment the enemy is among us.  Will America be the historic land of a free people or will we melt in the face of the radical left conspiracy to destroy our freedoms?  Will we let America sink into the oblivion of mediocracy and a tyranny that will destroy all hope for our future generations, your kids and mine, even if they, at present, don’t understand the danger. We know what the rest of the world is living through when the political bosses are in control.  We must unite all freedom loving Americas.

The lies are only lies; they have no power. The danger is not Donald Trump, the Supreme Court is not the enemy, the Constitution is not the enemy, our churches are not the enemy, the danger is the radical left of the now deceased Democrat political establishment.  The Democrat party of old is no more, it has been bought and now that old party is devoid of honor.  Our bosses in Washington are killing the people with their policies, putting in jail all opposition and lie, lie and lie some more, whatever seems politically to their advantage.  We the people are paying the price daily for their lies and power grab. How does it feel America?

Will we be duped by their lies? Is America dead?  Are we crazy or are they crazy?  

For all our sakes, we must unite and be freedom loving Americans. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.          

      

    

 

Just a Taste

The Rev. John Murray (1741-1815)

After he and his wife listened to Rev. Relly and took a fresh look at the scriptures, Rev. Murray said the following in his book, “The Life of John Murray, Preacher of Universal Salvation”. 

“We began to feed upon the truth as it is in Jesus, and every discovery we made filled us with unutterable transport.  I regarded my friends with increasing affection and conceived if I had an opportunity of conversing with the whole world, the whole world would be convinced. It might truly be said, that we had a taste of heaven below.”  (p. 161, 162)

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Embarrassed by Eternity

Part of the joy of life is to play the “what if” game, what if I was young again, rich or famous. What if I had not been born at this or that time. We all play this game.  My “what ifs” include crossing the west in a wagon train, throwing the winning touchdown pass in the Superbowl or being a fighter pilot in WW II.  Fantasies, yes, but it is almost as fun and engaging as 4 cell solitaire. Please laugh! What if we carry it over and apply this game to reading and understanding the Bible.

Who are we as humans and how do we figure into the plan of God for our time in this world?  Traditional Christianity has preached a “them and us” mentality; sinners and saints, believers and pagans, saved and the not saved, the right living and the wrong doers. While such an understanding has value in some circles over the short term, “what if” the Bible has more than these cops and robbers’ stories to say to us?

The Rev. James Relly (1722-1778) preached a universalist message. For him, the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross was the salvation of all mankind, sinner and saint. Relly was an English contemporary of John Wesley (1703-1791) who preached that the cross was for believers and only potentially for the lost ones, when and if they believed. This was a monumental distinction in their world as it is today in ours.

Being relatively familiar with John Wesley, I am intrigued by the new universalist message that, come to find out, is really very old. Rev. Relly preached that the universalist message so I purchased his book, “Union: or, A treatise of the consanguinity and affinity between Christ and his Church”, reproduced by ECCO. It is a slow read with the Old English but his understanding of universalism at first reading is very Christocentric, being the very definition of the “Union”.

There is a huge cavoite in his thinking.  Quoting Hebrews 13: 8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”. Relly understood that the Union of Jesus as the Christ unites the ever-present God, revealing God’s timeless, overwhelming love and concern for his created order. The God of love was and is independent of our decision to believe or not believe.  God, the God above religion is unchangeable. 

“From all which appears, that the Union of Christ and his Church hath been of old, before faith, before time, and remains to be in dissolvable and unchangeable.” (p. 32)

This is a Christ definition I can live with. The only conclusion that can be drawn from Rev. Relly’s understanding is that all peoples of all times are covered over with the robes of God’s eternal love. We are human but our nakedness will be no more.

What then, will the unbeliever experience in eternity?  Could it be a fate worse than death, embarrassment?   Embarrassment at having missed it! 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca 

    

 

 

Community of One

Thank you, Rev. Sams for your teaching message this June day.  God as the community of one.  This language is new to me but does it ever work!  Unity and diversity, yes.  One question, why only three, why only a Triune God? That interpretation makes sense and it is biblical but what if we really don’t phantom the gravity of unity?  Are we not all sons of God? Like it or not.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Secret

This amateur theologian was under the impression as to being a lone voice out there about God.  No longer.  It would seem that the 19^th century had universalism as a respectable Biblical and church theme. It’s all in the Bible, so they say. For instance, the Rev. James Relly (1722-1778), then in America the Rev. John Murry (1741-1815) and then the Rev. Hosea Ballou (1771-1852). Most of these folk were preacher’s kids, each touting a God who has a plan for the eventual salvation of everyone.

My research is ongoing but the secret is out. Then the 20^th century, the Billy Graham century happened and salvation, as a limited atonement, was again only for the few.

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca.