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_{by Trent - posted July 16, 2006}

The highest revelation in scripture is that God is one. He is the Most High, ... the One without another. How does eternity grow, or shrink? Can it expand and increase? How long would infinity have to diminish and how would you know? The realm of God's Spirit is infinite and eternal. There is just God and He fills all and is all. He is not one of ... He is ONE.

So how can we exist? Where is the cosmos, and how is it not consumed by the eternal nature of God. Can infinity stand next to finite, or can eternity mingle with time without effacing it? This is all explained in Genesis, where God creates a void and then moves upon it (as opposed to within it.) The Jewish explanation is basically that God separates His being, and compresses to form a bubble or void of eternity, so that temporal universe may exist within. This gap is the lack of infinity, where all things that are finite may dwell. But, God's Spirit surrounds the universe, keeping Himself separate, for His being would immediately consume the entire creation. As it is written, "our God is a consuming fire."

The conclusion of the universe is what is repeatedly called "The Last Day." After the last day, there is not another day. Time ceases to exist and the heavens and earth pass away. Peter's apocalyptic version of this event demonstrates that fire consumes all matter, lays it bare and breaks it down to the elements of creation. This is the end of time - the undoing of everything that has been brought into existence. But, for now and until that day, God has kept His being separate. ... almost.

The only begotten of the Father is Jesus the Christ, who descends from above to redeem those that are from below. We pierce Him with our iniquity and unholiness, and by His stripes we are healed. The infinite is reconciled with the finite, and eternity is made available in the now. The temple curtain was torn from top to bottom, and the Spirit was poured forth for man to partake.

Those that partake of the Spirit are born from above, and have eternal life (eternal is a quality, not quantity.) What is true about the life of God is true about His children. All things are made new.

So, what is "in-it" for God? Why bother? In a word the point is ... "harvest."

God can increase, but not in the infinite realm. God's increase is the sowing of the seed of the Spirit within the cosmos. God enters the hearts of men, and then (on the last day) man will persist in the heart of God. Eternity enters us, and then we can enter eternity for His life makes us fit for heaven, as His life makes us fit for earth.

The only delay, is so that the fruit may ripen. God wants to express His nature here through us. He wants what is true for Him to be demonstrated in us. God is love, and when God loves through the organism of His Body - that is the expansion within this realm. Thus it is important to let our behavior tell the truth about God, instead of lies, and the Spirit makes this possible. We don't love our enemies to get the Spirit; we love because we already have the Spirit. The commands are not to change what we are, but to reveal what we are. We are forever and eternally part of the family of God.

Without this increase, and without the harvest ... then the creation would simply be God's fu tile miscarriage. But there is a harvest, and there is an increase, and those that are born of the Spirit are part of it.

Marvel not that I say, you must be born again!

:-)

Judgment is not God's discovery of reality, but ours. God learns nothing through judgement, but we learn everything. When the world is judged and then consumed in the fire, they are exposed to be temporal and finite, unable to stand in the eternal fire without being consumed.

But, those that posses eternal life will find that the eternal fire does not consume the life within them, for how can one be greater then the other? Rather eternity merges into oneness like grapes in a winepress. The pulp is discarded, and there are not many, but one flowing substance - the wine. There isn't any nations anymore, but only one city - where indwells righteousness for the glory of the nations have been brought into it, as their glory was wrought in God.

Show me to the fire. Bring on the wine press, for the life within me cries for the Father with the spirit of adoption. Eternal life wants to merge with the infinite. The bride and the bridegroom say, "Come!" ... and we come to consummate and become one!

If you belong to Him, I'll see you at the wedding feast! Save room for desert! (and fear not the fire.)

[the above was slightly adapted from a post I made in another discussion. This has been sitting around as a "DRAFT" since Jan 16th of 2006 ... finally published today.]