Monday, April 3, 2017

Ps 128 2You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours."
Let me discuss the biblical teaching on receiving life and avoiding death. We are taught that salvation is receiving eternal life by the implanted word of God. The bible calls this regeneration. It is re-inception, recreation, or inspiration...which is the breathing of new life. So the result of regeneration is that we are given eternal life through the word by the Spirit.
The Psalms describe the germination of new life as the entire reality of the kingdom of God. So the gospels teach that we have a kingdom living inside of us. We are the kingdom of God. The Psalms use the words for the senses as being exercised under the boundaries of the kingdom. In other words the word that was implanted in us cannot be separated. The entire revelation is tied together by a string. Here in 128 the Psalmist is comparing eating to the blessing. You will find that Solomon also compares the senses to the curses. Pr 1 31 they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes." So we see that being regenerated is receiving eternal life which is the same thing as saying that we are shielded from death. Being without eternal life is receiving death and being prevented from eternal life.
So the Psalmist is saying there are only two realities...the reality of blessing and being regenerated as well as being infused with more eternal life unto rewards, or being cursed and receiving death and destruction unto eternal punishment. We must understand that eternal life is not just enjoying one time regeneration but it is also receiving new life in recreation. The reformers call this an infusion of more life.We must understand that in regeneration God must unite His purposes with mans will. God must do all the work in order to provide the blessing of man desiring what God desires. If God left any thing undone then we must be cursed. So the blessing involves the whole man. This means that our human desires are interrelated with our new desires. This means that all of our senses are under the rubric of blessing. The reason that we are not divided is because enjoying eternal life does not just involve our spiritual senses. .
This is why we believe that all things are obligated to die before they can be renewed. So everything that we go through rises to the level of life and death or blessing and cursing. If we divide the spiritual senses from the physical then we would divide ourselves. So we in essence would curse ourselves. This is why we focus so much on inability. Because every person is not the same in the way that eternal life is applied. Because every person has different desires and different boundaries. We must always look at the entire man in order to promote renewal.
The Psalmist teaches that we must know God and know ourselves. Because every person confronts the opposition to eternal life like Superman was in danger of the kriptonite. When we are talking about life and death we are saying that the blessing and cursing are defined in the experience of enjoying the fruits of life and death through our senses. So a threat to one man may not be a danger to another. This is why we do not stop in just knowing God. But the total self of the new man is his goals and his likes and dislikes united with His desire for God. So we must step back and acknowledge that the Psalms are vital in this whole teaching of the blessing and cursing. You see because every situation demands a completely unbiased approach. We are terribly dependent upon the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

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