Sunday, November 11, 2012

Barack Obama, Conservatives and the 2012 Election



Barack Obama, Conservatives and the 2012 Election

By M.L. Wilson

All contents copyright © 2012 by M.L. Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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This commentary is a bit off the typical topic that I place here, but I feel strongly about the events of last night (Election day, November 6th) so I decided to relate my thoughts as to what happened. I spent most of last evening contemplating just exactly what happened with the re-election of Barack Obama; a sleepless, restless night asking God what it is supposed to mean. There are too many unknowns with respect to God and His will that make watching such a man like Obama be re-elected to go down easy for me.

There are many of you out there reading this that believe that I am overwrought and making much ado about nothing. I respect that, but I would also point out that were the outcome to have been differently, many Obama supporters promised to riot, create mayhem and one pro-Obama campaign ad even had a sweet looking ninety-seven year old lady threaten to, “Burn this Motherf***ker down” should he lose. Given this toxic atmosphere, I do not find it at all out of line to point out my disappointment at the outcome, but also why I believe we had this outcome.

 It is without a doubt that the present state of the economy of the United States is in tatters. Unemployment remains high and prospects for a positive change just evaporated with Obama’s unskilled hand guiding our ship of state. Notwithstanding the constant reconfiguring of unemployment figures by the Administration, actual unemployment in this country is near Depression era figures of 21%  The reason for such a dramatic variance from what the Administration reports and what actually exists is simple: We do not track unemployment the same way as we did in years past. We now place those out of work in sub-categories – or simply do not count them at all. I presently fall into that latter group. So while I am out of work and still looking, there is no official record of that fact; I don’t exist for this administration.

Now with Obama’s re-election, we see one of the first reactions taking place with a dramatic Stock Exchange crash of over 300 points. Additionally we see business after business, both large and small, indicating that they are implementing hiring freezes and perhaps contemplating having to close altogether. Since these are the people who actually run businesses and do not operate on the theoretical plane, one needs to ask what it is that they know which the majority of the voting public most evidently does not? I would say that in a word: finances. As a people, the majority of United States citizens – evidenced by this election - are financially illiterate. We cannot continue to borrow and spend and not expect a day of reckoning.

But let us step outside of the realm of the economy for a moment and look at other factors which I believe are certain to lead a good number of the people who voted for Barack Obama on Tuesday, November 6th to soon rue that choice. Despite his claims of desiring unity, Barack Obama has instead succeeded in dividing this country more than it has been since the Civil War. Not even the era of Civil Rights in the 1950’s and 1960’s saw such division. This president won re-election by running the most divisive, dirty campaign in modern history. He lied about conditions in this country and fomented anger and hatred amongst his most likely voters. There was never a “War on Women” by the Conservatives; there is no institutionalized racism on the part of Conservatives; there are no moves by Conservatives to put “Granny out on the street”; nor are there any plans to ship jobs to China. All of these were straw-men  arguments designed to  distract from the fact that Barack Obama had failed on every objective he had set out to accomplish. Even his heralded “Obamacare” is not what he really wanted (single payer), yet despite controlling the House, Senate and Executive branch, he blamed all of his deficiencies on his predecessor and Republicans which enabled him to successfully got a slim majority to agree and hand him another term in office.

Most obscenely, Barack Obama lied about the character of his opponent worse than he lied about the qualities of himself. Mitt Romney was portrayed as having murdered a woman, abusing animals, being raised in a family dripping with multiple wives engaged in orgiastic ecstasy with oppressive husbands. As over-the-top as these lies were, a willing people sopped it up like a dry sponge. In the end it really didn’t matter if any of it was true; it did the job in painting Romney as something different; something alien. That was Obama’s real tactic and it unfortunately succeeded on an ill-informed, pliable public.

By contrast, Conservatives were pilloried by asking legitimate questions about Obama as though to even think about making such inquiries was un-American. But never-the-less, one must ask if any of these question honestly answered would have altered the outcome of the election. I contend that given the present ignorant siege-mentality of the American Public that it would not have; Obama could have disclosed all and not lost a single vote. Some of those questions yet to be answered are:  Is Obama’s father really Barack Obama Sr. of Kenya or is it Frank Marshal Davis of Chicago? Does this somehow play into why he will not release his birth certificate? Did Obama enter Occidental College under a foreign student grant? How did he get into Harvard when it has been hinted that he did not do well academically and clearly had no money to pay for tuition? Why won’t he release his college transcripts? At the end of the day, Obama distracted his followers with enough rumor and innuendo that he didn’t have to answer any of these legitimate questions. He knew that his constituency did not have the intellect to understand the ramifications in any event. Instead of answering his critics, Obama rested on the old tried and true Roman tactic of Bread and Circuses. MTV, “Honey Boo Boo” and “The Jersey Shore” are thrown out to mask the truth and a more than gullible electorate accepted it.

Despite all of these patently transparent moves to hide who and what he is, more people in this country voted to continue with Barack Obama rather than demand true change. Now do I believe that Mitt Romney would have “fixed” everything had he been elected? No and no thinking person ever did. The real question that need be asked is: Would Mitt Romney have rescued us from the fiscal mire we find ourselves in and begun to steer the ship of state in a better direction? To that question I give an overwhelming yes. Romney has actually created and run multiple businesses all over the world. This gives him financial experience as well as foreign policy experience. When you are negotiating across the table from some Chinese or Middle Eastern leader in business, you learn how to negotiate anything. Romney has shown far greater character as a husband and a father than Barack Obama has. To Romney, grandchildren are not a punishment. This was an opportunity that Romney did not take advantage of. Still I see his loss as a result of even more than than these lost opportunities.

I believe that there were two essential factors in play which has led us to a second Obama term. The first is that the Democratic Party has for decades been carefully cultivating a populous that is by its very nature, dependent and ignorant. These are people who are told from birth that they are victims and are entitled. When a child is taught from their earliest moments that they are owed everything based upon inequities from “those people”, they will grow into adults expecting just that and they will expect it from “those people”. For another person to come alongside them later in their life and attempt to explain that the world doesn’t quite work that way simply does not register with these people; it is a foreign language to them and they do not understand. As such, these conditioned people have no capacity of discernment. They do not believe when they are told for example that all Unions are not good and can be easily corrupted. A Union must work with the employer for the relationship to work to everyone’s best interest; they do not understand the very basics of finance and insist that there are large stashes of money hidden by “those people” because they have been conditioned to live on a government stipend. Endless borrowing and spending by the government has no impact on them because they have been told since birth that the government will “fix it” when it gets too bad. These are people who cannot correlate the intact family structure with the health of our country because once again, from birth they have been taught that family is essentially ancillary. 

Sadly during this period of cultivation which begun in earnest with FDR, opportunists within the Democratic Party took advantage of the struggles of families due to the tough economy to plant the seeds of familial disconnect and discord. By the time of LBJ and his “Great Society”, the final nail had been driven into the family coffin. For individuals struggling to support their families, the government made it monetarily advantageous to have a broken family rather than one that remained intact. This move on behalf of the Johnson Administration succeeded in creating the dependency constituency that the Democratic Party so desired and all it cost them was a small taxpayer supplied subsistence check once a month. A pretty sweet deal to ensure their place of power considering the monies for these subsistence checks were from taxpayers and not their own pockets. Once the family bonds were broken by such fiscal policies, the children of those families were conditioned to always look towards the government to fulfill their needs - both financial and social. Of course the Democratic leaders were more than happy to oblige – providing that the votes of this dependency class continued to be for solely for Democrats. The threats of the money flow being cut off could now be used as an effective weapon for voting against the Progressive Liberals movement.

As obscene and horrific as this one side of the equation is, it is balanced by an equal obscenity on the other side. That part of the equation is just as inured with false teaching and belief as is the dependent Progressive Liberal constituency. The other half has more to do with how religious Conservatives view themselves and their principles. Unlike the Democrats, religious Conservatives tend to “cut off their nose to spite their face” time and time again. The great failing of religious Conservatives is their inability to be shrewd when dealing with their opponents. The essential problem with these religious Conservatives is that they tend to equate a compromise on any level with an opponent as an offense against God.

I will take this moment to point out a passage in the Gospel of Luke chapter 16.  In it, Jesus recounts the tale of a manager of a rich man who was accused of wasting the rich man’s possessions. The rich man was upset and demanded an accounting from the manager before he was fired. The manager realizing that he was too old to go back to a manual labor position went out and collected what debt that he could to not only repay the rich man, but engender good will amongst those people to whom money had been lent. The manager cut many of the debts in half to the delight of the debtors and returned enough money to the rich man that the rich man commended him. On the surface, this seems to be something of a slight of hand on the part of the manager; he was the one who gave the loans, he was the one who did not administer those loans properly. It seems as though this manager stuck his boss with the bill while securing for himself a cushion of goodwill with the debtors.

Christ goes on to point out that the people of the world are shrewder in dealing with their own kind than with the people of the light (read Christians).  Money lending in those days was such that even with the truncated payments, the rich man made money on his loans and lost nothing. Despite the rigidity of the loan contract, the manager made a smarter choice that benefited all.

I point this out because the other factor that led to the loss of Mitt Romney in this election had to do with some Christian Conservatives refusing to vote at all because Mitt Romney identifies himself as a Mormon. Since Mormonism has been identified as a cult, too many Christians regarded a vote for Mitt Romney as a vote for Satan. These people truly believed that God would gaze down upon them at the Great White Throne judgment and cast them into the Lake of Fire for their “compromise vote.” I will not go into the gross theological errors rife with such thinking here; it is a debate without end. Such thinking on the part of well intentioned Christians is as much a result of ideological cultivation and conditioning as is the tragically infantile Progressive Liberal mindset. Both sides reacted to the teaching they had been given from infancy and their unwillingness to look at any other view has resulted in the split that now exists in this country.

As God is God, I realize that He is in complete control over this situation. “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” The Apostle Paul pointed out in Romans 8:28. It should also be pointed out, however, that that “good” does not necessarily translate into “good” as we might be familiar. The Apostle Paul thought it would be good for him to go home to be with Christ, but remained because that was better for the rest of us. The passage in Romans above concerns our battles in this world as Christians. We, as Christians – as Lights to the world – are going to undergo struggles, persecutions, slanders, etc. The “good” is what is eventually born from such work. Too many Evangelicals misconstrue Paul’s words and errantly believe that “good” will manifest now, here in this realm. While we are to be hopeful of such an outcome, the promise we are to hope for is in Christ and the world to come; not this one.

As a Christian, I am also well aware that it will become dark in this world before the end. But I also know that as a Christian, I am not to court such an outcome nor hasten its arrival. I am to be a Light to those within my sphere of influence; I am to reflect Christ. Additionally, I am to be a good steward to that which I have been given. As a result of my fellow Christian’s holding to some misplaced rigid ideology and opting to sit out this election, a man who will most likely appoint three (or more) Supreme Court judges, many Superior and Appellate Court judges has been re-elected. This same man will also continue his march upon our rights and freedoms – freedoms of worship which will result in the hastening the darkness that is to come. 

If there was some unspoken strategy on the part of Christians to hasten the end of the age by abstaining from voting and thereby allowing Barack Obama to be re-elected, these folks need to understand that they have not exemplified good stewardship. They have instead placed their Light under the peck-measure. Similarly, these same Christians, believing that we AS Christians are not to engage in any matters political, fail to recognize one very salient point: God put each and every one of us here in this realm, in this country, at this point in time.  He gave each and every one of us the opportunity to have an effect upon our government and when we ignore that responsibility, we are in effect telling Almighty God that we do not care about anything He has given to us; that we know better. The Old saying of one being so Heavenly minded that they are no Earthly good comes to mind. Again, we are to be a Light to the world without getting caught up in the things of the world. These Christians don’t vote citing all manner of “spiritual” reasons, but the truth of the matter is that most of them are more afraid of being held accountable to their choice and winding up in Hell. This bespeaks a level of selfishness that is not of God. I’ll point out once again that God judges the intents of the heart. Mitt Romney – as will Barack Obama – will both have to account for their choices.

To buttress this claim of mine, I would direct such Conservatives to learn history. If one is not familiar with history, I eagerly encourage learning how we came to be where we are as a country. Our Founding Fathers also identified themselves as Christians despite what the secular press might try to get you to believe. In an age before modern Evangelicalism, however, what they believed and how they understood God was somewhat different than what we’re familiar with. They despite their theological differences, the end result was too important to not come together and create a bastion of freedom for all.

Understanding history frees one up to see the blatant errors that are promulgated by both ends of the ideological spectrum. For either side, I would recommend reading “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” to get a feel for just how bad government can be towards its people. Read about a world that has fallen into darkness and just what those people had to endure. Move on towards the persecutions of Christians and Jews under not only Nero, but later emperors such as Diocletian. This isn’t the “flowery” stuff you’ll find in the pages of Dr. Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” series; this is a harsh, brutal persecution of the type you’ll find in the Holocaust or the Killing Fields. How many of you Christians believe you could endure such brutality at the hands of your former friends and neighbors – in some cases, even family? When you work to hasten the end, there are consequences. In an example in Foxe’s Martyrs, that resulted in a mother watching her 7 year old boy roasted alive on the Hot Iron Seat. If you are unfamiliar with that method of execution, look it up. Part of the consequences of hastening the coming darkness is to also hasten the coming of such despicable acts as outlined in that book.

Do I believe that Barack Obama is capable of such brutality against his own people? I'll answer that question this way: Barack Obama is a man in power and as Lord Acton once famously stated, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” History has proved Lord Acton’s words to be deadly accurate. From my observation, Barack Obama is not guided by Jesus Christ any more than my Christians friends believe that Mitt Romney is guided by who they believe to be Jesus Christ. That leaves us with the character of each man. Barack Obama has encouraged revenge against his opponents while Romney sought to heal the nation. The individual will have to be the judge of who is the more trustworthy based upon character. I don’t believe that this election satisfied that question based upon the aforementioned chicanery employed by Mr. Obama.

 At best, the next four years will be a standstill for our country. There is a Republican controlled House of Representatives that Obama has been unwilling to compromise with during his first term and he has cultivated much enmity there by his sheer arrogance. I see no reason to believe that the relationship will change with a second term as he will simply appoint czars to do the work he wants done and ignore congress altogether. The House will hopefully do the job it was elected to do and stop this president’s attempts to subvert the Constitution. None of those Supreme, Superior and Appellate court judges can make it to the bench without the consent of the House. These are the people that have to now be held to account.

Now at worst, the entitlement mindset on the Left and the unyielding mindset on the Right will result in the Democrats fomenting enough added criticism towards Conservatives that they will reclaim the House in 2014. Should that happen, there will be no way to make up the lost ground and you will see the end of our once great Republic. This is not hyperbole; it is a historical fact.

Keep Christ in the forefront of your thoughts and do all things to His glory, but do not turn a blind eye when a brother is being abused. Be shrewd in your approach towards your opponents. Most of all, however, do not let your dogma and doctrine rule over you to the detriment of this great, grand country. The United States of America is the last great hope on the face of this earth and rigidity and ignorance are not going to help it to survive. Once it is gone, there will be nothing else to replace it until Christ. Unless some of you know something I don’t, Christ may not return for another thousand years. Be good and shrewd stewards, people. Start now. 


Thursday, November 1, 2012


The Christian Left and the Redefinition of Christianity.

By M.L. Wilson

All contents copyright © 2012 by M.L. Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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The Christian Left is an organization that is doing its utmost to redefine Christianity so as to allow the behaviors that do not align themselves with the Christian walk. This is not the first time people have attempted to do this in history and it will not be the last. This commentary is in response to the article link posted below.


Without a doubt, one of the biggest hurdles the Christian Left has to overcome in its teaching is the act of abortion. Progressive Liberals claim to hold all life as precious unless said life is preborn, unwanted post-born, aged, infirm, or different" (quality of life is deemed not worth living). In these cases, life can be extinguished for the sake of the poor wretch who would otherwise have to live in such deplorable conditions. and seen as an act of mercy rather than the act of absolute selfishness it truly is.

The reason for this is simple. The Christian Left had to figure out how to rationalize killing preborn children to fall in line with the Christian ethic of living a SELFLESS life when the statistics clearly show that such method of killing is due to the convenience of the parents. (not always the mother, by the way.) Without such rationalization, the essential tenets of the Christian Left are anything but - Christian. To accomplish this rationalization, the Christian Left attempts to delve into the cultural world of the ancient Jews without really taking the time to understand Jewish culture or even their history. Let me explain.

I'll begin with the last line of this article in question which seeks to place the responsibility for abortion squarely on Christ's shoulders. The rationale of the Christian Left as outlined is that since God omitted the specific mention of the act of abortion throughout Christ's ministry, it must be okay. I'll hasten to add that there was much else that Christ also failed to mention with specificity such as rape. Could I extrapolate from this omission that Christ also sanctions rape?  That logic wouldn't work in any court of law much less a traditional church today.  What we're being told to accept from the Progressive Liberal Christian Left, however,  is that this specific omission on abortion is the way Jesus gives his tacit approval of killing another human being. I believe Christ once also said something about houses being built upon sand

This errant conclusion by the author is prefaced by a torturous explanation utilizing Old Testament quotes to signify when life begins. I'll also add that the author dismisses those Old Testament quotes which do not fall in line with his rationale. Perhaps if the author understood exactly the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, he would see just how far short his rationale falls. Let's start with the obvious which the author hints at, but then retreats from: That God is omnipotent and omniscient, and God is a purposeful creator. Juxtaposed with: We are created randomly at best, and by mistake at worst. How can one hold both views and still assert they are Christian?

Again, exactly what does it mean to be a Christian? The answer which for the purpose of this commentary I direct squarely at the Christian Left is that to be a Christian is to be Christ-like. We human beings in this era are to be the face of God to our fellow man. Let me be clear on the concept so there is no confusion. When one accepts Christ into their lives, it is NOT about salvation; Christ took care of salvation for us Himself. Rather being a Christian is about relationship. When one decides that the killing of another is somehow sanctioned by God Almighty, it becomes evident that one is not clear on just who God Almighty really is. I am well aware that the Old Testament is full of violence against people supposedly spoken by God Almighty, but if you understood the Bible if you understood just who Christ is, you'd see that this is not at all what is really being communicated. (For a definitive explanation on this seeming conundrum, please read my commentary on Matthew 27:46 which can be found here: http://thegodprinciplebook.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-biblical-commentary-on-gospel-of.html)

The Christian Left seems to be more interested in usurping the works of Christ for their own selfish end than doing any true study of the scriptures. This is a shame because if they believe any of what it is they claim that there is, in fact, an Almighty God, then they must understand that at some point in their future, they will meet Christ face to face and will have to explain their rationale to Him. I would predict that such will be an awkward meeting.

Getting back to the "When does life begin?" aspect of the article, science is actually pretty clear. Upon conception, there is an immediate change in the DNA structure of the new being making these newly created cells within the womb genetically different than that of their host or of the disparate component parts, the sperm, and the egg. Uninterrupted, these cells will continue to grow as the DNA contained within directs. The host's only role at this point is one of food and shelter; the cells will take care of everything else with respect to development and growth up to and including the sex of the individual. I'll hasten to add that were we to find a similar collection of cells on Mars, for example, we'd all be jumping up and down over the discovery of LIFE!

So the author really isn't talking about when life begins, per se, rather the author is talking about when the spirit or the soul enters this life. Well since the author used Christ to buttress his claim, Ill use Christ to buttress mine. (I'll get back to why Christ failed to specifically mention abortion later on.) In the Gospel of Luke, there are two occasions whereupon women became pregnant and the preborn were described as cognizant. The first occurrence is with Zechariah and Elizabeth. Their son was John the Baptist who while still in his mother's womb, leapt when he was in proximity of the newly pregnant Mary. (Luke 1:39-45)  The second occurrence is that of Christ Himself.  Both of these babies, while in the womb, are depicted as being alive in every sense, but The Christian Left conveniently ignores this. Why might that be?

The answer to that question is found in the opening line of this commentary: they are seeking to redefine Christianity. This is a tactic as old as the hills and has been used with varying degrees of success over thousands of years. The early Christian church was just so assaulted when a Roman Emperor named Constantine usurped the movement and refashioned it as he saw fit. While Constantine the Great is seen by a great many Christians as something as a savior of Christianity; saving those early Christians from the brutal persecutions they faced, the simple fact of the matter remains that the Christianity that emerged out of the Ecumenical Counsels scarcely resembled the Gospel of Christ. Constantine had succeeded in redefining Christianity so he could utilize it as a tool for his own ends; specifically the unification of the Roman Empire under his command.  This tactic succeeded for Constantine for only another 150 years; the Roman Empire eventually crumbled as their foundation was built upon man and not upon Christ.

Can one look upon the efforts of the Christian Left any differently than those of Constantine? Why are human beings here in this realm to begin with? What is the purpose of any life? The answers to those questions can be found throughout the Gospels and the Epistles. The Apostle Paul correctly points out that at the end of the day our battle is not against one another, but against those spiritual forces that seek to turn us against one another. (Ephesians 6:12). The question one need ask themselves is why would Christ sanction the death of the innocent? If Christ does indeed sanction such death, how is that any different than the Catholic doctrine of indulgences?

 Indulgences were essentially a means by which those with money could secure a place for themselves in Heaven. In this doctrine, the poor were lost as they had no money. Where abortion is concerned, the unborn do not have access to the same rights as do the born and the established. They are in effect at the mercy of such people as were the poor of centuries ago.  It took Martin Luther to pull back the fraud that was indulgences taught by the Catholic Church for that practice to eventually be dropped and repudiated. Still, a contract was put upon his head by the Pope and Luther had to flee the Christians for fear of his life. Sound familiar?

When we accept the relationship offered to us by Christ, we accept that we will no longer live our lives for ourselves, but rather we choose to live our lives for Him. Teachers, pastors, and theologians who teach that Christ is little more than allegory and that He represented merely a guideline to follow fail to understand what they are actually saying. I realize that such a claim may sound arrogant of me, but it remains the truth. You either believe that Jesus Christ is also God Almighty or you do not. If this is all merely quaint stories to you with sometimes a good point or message that is made, this commentary will make no sense to you whatsoever. If, however, you subscribe to the idea that Jesus Christ IS God Almighty, then seeking His face; seeking that perfect relationship with Him means giving up the selfishness that exists within you. This is not an easy task as the Apostle Paul pointed out in Romans 7:18-25. Here he points out the dichotomy existent between the pull of the flesh and the pull of the spirit within.

Let me be clear on this point. As human beings, we are all spirit; that is our true nature. The human body is but a conveyance which is used while we exist here in this realm. Upon our death, this body will break down and return to its component parts. The spirit, however, returns to its creator. (2nd Corinthians 5:1-10) Again, you can believe that this is what it is to be a Christian or you can decide otherwise; that choice is up to the individual. But if one is to choose otherwise, would it not be honest to define for oneself a separate movement rather than co-opt Christianity? Would such co-opting not be analogues to spiritual squatting?

Let me conclude with this: These words were given by the Apostle Paul to the Church at Corinth and they are as true today as they were then.

Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts always hopes. Always perseveres. Love never fails.       -  1st Corinthians 13:4-8.

If as a Christian, you can rationalize the killing of the unborn with the words that Paul spoke to the Corinthians, then, by all means, continue in your quest. You will have an opportunity to give a full account of your actions to the Creator one day and it may well be that your perspective on this matter is correct. But if at all you find yourself cringing at the words spoken by Paul and are struggling to justify the killing of the unborn in light of the meaning of love, then maybe The Christian Left isn't for you.

Christ does so want a relationship with each and every one of us. In the flesh, we are on this earth for such a brief period of time that to squander it on ourselves exclusively is an anathema to what it is to be a Christian. Start by realizing that as a Christian, YOU may be the only face of God that those around you ever see.








Sunday, September 16, 2012

A Biblical Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 27:46

Did God Really Reject Christ on the Cross?

All contents copyright © 2012 by M.L. Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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“About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, ama sabachthani?”  - which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
 - Matthew 27:46 NIV
Based largely upon the above passage of scripture an entire doctrinal theology has been created and disseminated throughout the world which teaches that God Most High turned his back on His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, while he hung on the cross claiming he had literally become sin. What I find interesting about this, is that everyone so easily embraces this concept. No questions are asked, no thought is given as to the “why” of such a situation. We simply accept it as fact.
But let’s assume someone does ask that “why” question. Maybe some of the questions raised because of that particular theological interpretation would follow along the lines of:
1. If God can turn His back on Jesus, what chance does the average person have? Jesus was sinless and was only doing what was necessary to save mankind.
2. How did Christ actually become sin? Is sin some sort of independent element that can be put on someone—even without their consent? If that’s the case, then wouldn’t God be aware of such a condition and not hold Jesus to blame but recognize His selfless act for what it was?
3. Is God so distant and remote that He can’t see that Jesus was only doing what God Himself wanted to be done? Why is it that Jesus should be made to suffer—not just physically, but also through spiritual separation from God the Father?
4. Lastly—and in my opinion the most important—since Jesus went to great pains to assert the fact that He is God, how can He turn his back on Himself ? This is nothing to dismiss blithely. The very reason that Christ was hanging on the cross was because of the crime of blasphemy.
There are far more questions that come to mind, but the main points are covered in the four questions above. To be fair, it is reasonable to assume that these questions had already been asked and answered by various church pastors, teachers and followers of Christ of many stripes over the years. Of course the disconnect between question and answer seems to appear in the answers. Despite the implications of a Living God turning His back upon Jesus Christ, it has been my observation that too many in positions of leadership within the Christian faith remained resolute,  held to the orthodox view they had been taught and simply could not be swayed. Still others seemed to be hesitant—weighing the implications of agreeing with the orthodox viewpoint. It was as almost as though they understood that there were errors with the orthodox view, but had no better answer. This reduced them into a position of trying to convince others of the correctness of the orthodox answer they had been taught, but deep down held their own nagging feelings as to what the real answer to those questions might be.
Just to be clear, this is not a commentary designed to bash any pastors or teachers for the answers they have been given to such vexing questions. Despite the difficulty of the question, it remains clear that these people are sincere in the answers they give in response to the questions presented and that such answers were correct to the best of their understanding. It remains my belief that most in the church are dedicated, honest, hardworking people who love God and are doing what they are told to do by Jesus as outlined in Matthew 28:19.
So how did it come to pass that a piece of scripture could wind up being so mangled as to lead to a whole different meaning? Well that’s a rather long story and it took several hundred years to accomplish. It has taken even longer to solidify into the error it has become in the minds of Christians the world over. Once a particular teaching falls into the realm of “tradition”, it becomes like a horrible addiction that you cannot shake no matter how hard you try. If you think overcoming an addiction to cigarettes or heroin is tough, try bucking a tradition sometime. People will come out with torches and pitchforks to chase you down.
That brings us to another difficult question. When evidence is revealed which clearly indicates that there has been an error in interpretation of Scripture, should we really continue to hold on to a traditional view of scripture simply because its, well, tradition? Would it not be far wiser to find out just what the scripture actually says and then push forward with those findings?
In the Gospel of Matthew, 27:46, Christ is near the end of His earthly existence, having hung on the cross now for nine hours. Suddenly he cries out in His native Aramaic, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which translated means, “My God, My God why have your forsaken me?”
Now on its face, that verse seems to be pretty clear. Jesus has been hanging in a very uncomfortable position for several hours after having been beaten, humiliated and abandoned by His friends. It would seem by all accounts, an ignoble end to what had started out as a promising week. Why shouldn’t Jesus cry out in despair and pain to the one who ultimately put Him in that position to begin with? After all, didn’t He pray to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane to allow for “...this cup to pass” if it was His will? That would certainly seem to indicate that Jesus was not all that enthusiastic about what was about to befall Him.
It is at this point that emotions coupled with the “hearing with fleshly ears and seeing with fleshly eyes” sidetrack us from the reality of the situation. I will reiterate: Jesus is God; He was then and He is now. It is important to remain clear on the concept that while He was here amongst us, His Spirit was locked into a fleshly body just as ours are. As a Christian, we must be cognizant of the fact that our bodies are merely containers for our spirits. When our bodies die, our spirits are freed from those bodies. If we do not concede that point, then nothing else in this commentary will make sense. Having accepted the spiritual reality of our existence, we can return to the construct of God Almighty and His relationship with Jesus Christ.
One of the many differences between Jesus and human beings was not so much that He was also God while he was here on this earth in the flesh; one of the salient differences was that Christ was not of Adam’s seed. Why is this important and what does it have to do with Christ crying out while near death hanging on the cross? All mankind since Adam and Eve, have been born of a “sin nature”; that is, they have been born of parents who transgressed an established line of demarcation set forth by their god.
At this juncture it is necessary to point out that the word Sin means, “To miss the mark”. It is also necessary to draw a contrast between Sin and Evil in order to understand the magnitude of Christ’s work on the cross. Too often these two terms are conflated or used interchangeably. This is an error. Sin, Het in the Hebrew, is not the same as Evil, ra in the Hebrew. Both have very different and distinct meanings. To place this dichotomy into understandable terms it would be helpful to understand the following: Due to a type of covenantal agreement between god and his creation, all humans born of that first creation fall under Sin, but not all of these people are evil. Those who are Evil cannot be such without also being in Sin. That may sound convoluted, but it is a concept and a truth which Jesus understood quite well. Sin and Evil and their differences played a large role in the scripture verse we’re exploring. 
So to bring us back to the Garden, it is well known to most all within the Western world that two human beings, Adam and Eve, chanced upon an spiritual entity in the Garden who had camouflaged himself in the form of a serpent. This angel first discussed the plight of the human and the nature of god with the woman and then succeeded in tempting Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. We then see that Adam was not seduced to eat, but rather made a conscience decision to join Eve in eating this particular prohibited fruit. But why; why give up all of that perfection just because some other creature in the garden said it was alright to do so? To delve into that answer would be its own commentary. Regardless, the answer does have some bearing on the reason Christ winds up hanging on the cross several thousand years later.
Getting back to those words Christ spoke as he hung upon the cross, it is important to understand just why He had to be on that cross to begin with. I have always been left with less than satisfactory answers whenever I had asked why Jesus had to die on the cross for us. The standard answer I was given is that he died in our place because we’re all sinners. “For the wages of sin is death”, the Bible tells us, but I still didn’t get it. Who is paying this wage and why does it have to be paid to us? Since this wage we’re being paid is our very lives, who is it that ultimately benefits from the remittance of this type of wage? Is it God Himself? Why would God demand such a wage? What’s He supposed to do with it? After all, He created us. If he wanted a bunch of human beings stacked like cordwood, it is reasonable to presume that He could have just created us that way to begin with.
To understand why such a wage is paid, one needs to understand a bit more about the relationship between God, Man and His spiritual messengers generically referred to as Angels. The Bible talks about spiritual or angelic entities far more than some people might realize. Despite such mentions in the scriptures, we have still come away with a very different understanding of just who and what these beings are. The reasons for this confusion are multi-fold and stretches back almost as long as there have been human beings on the earth. Suffice to say that this confusion, whether intentional or not, was created and then solidified in the minds of people through…tradition. More recent traditions play a role in buttressing this image of spiritual entities more than anything else. Even those who are not students of history are somewhat familiar with the works of Homer, Dante or Milton. They are hard to miss as much of the literary world and Hollywood live off such stories and traditions.
Going back in time to ancient Greece, one would become familiar with the Greek tales of monsters, of hells, of other worlds which Homer recounted in his poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. These poems and the concepts which were introduced found their way into the works of later authors such as Dante in his epic work, “The Divine Comedy” and still later, John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. It is through these works that much of the imagery and mythos which makes up our understanding of heaven and hell, angels and demons and lastly, God and Satan are birthed. The Satan with the red suit and the horns and pitchfork is connoted through these writings as well as such hellish localities as the River Styx. That Dante in his poem was trying to make what essentially amounted to a political statement and invoked TONS of irony. (For example, Dante is given a tour of hell by Virgil, a first century BC Roman poet who was essentially an atheist.) To a people who couldn’t read a Bible that was hard to find and then when found, existed only in the Latin language, Dante and Milton provided the much sought after imagery of the after-life and the spiritual world which they craved. Interestingly enough, though today we now have the Bible in the English language, the myths which these and other men created of heaven and hell and the beings that inhabit them continue to thrive.
The truth is that such spiritual entities are not exactly as Dante or Milton portrayed them—not even close; neither are there ever increasing levels of hell for those who are more wicked than others. These are concepts which were made up; it is simple fiction. This begs the question of whether there is a hell and where it might be located. Where exactly was it that Christ went when he died on the cross? Wasn’t that hell? Good questions all. The answer is that upon His death, Christ’s Spirit descended to a place which in Hebrew is referred to as Sheol. It is also variously referred to as the grave and as hell, though those last two designations can be somewhat misunderstood. The answer to the question as to whether there is a hell is to quote from the Bible:
“…He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, through whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.”
1st Peter 3:19-20
“I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
Revelation 1:18
In the first quote, the Apostle Peter is explaining just where Jesus went when He breathed his last on the cross. If you were unaware that Christ actually descended into this abode of the dead upon his earthly death, now you know that His Spirit did in fact go there—just as all spirits did upon earthly death. Additionally you have scripture reference to aid you in your own study. Christ went to the abode of the dead as prescribed covenantally; a place called Sheol in Hebrew, Hades in Latin or Hell in the English. While He was there, He explained to those spirits imprisoned there exactly who He was and that due to a particular sacrificial act on His part, He now possessed authority over the whole world covenantally and offered them their freedom. Here is another scriptural quote:
“But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. That is why it says:
When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’
What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?
Ephesians 4:7-9
What Paul is saying here is that Christ has extended to us all His grace by freeing us from the bonds of damnation. By dying and descending to Sheol, He pointed out the angel’s error. Christ wasn’t a sinner, yet the angels conspired to kill Him as though He were. Those angels had no right covenantally to kill Christ; He had transgressed no covenantal agreement with them. Yet when Christ was murdered and His Spirit descended down into the abode of the dead, Paul says that, “…He made a public spectacle of them…” (Colossians 2:15), referring to those angels who had had sought to expel God from their earthly midst. It was at that moment that the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel finally came true. The era of angelic rule over mankind ended and the Kingdom of God now began. That is what Christ meant when he said, “It is finished.”
Of course it is reasonable to ask that if, “It is finished.” why it is then—since Christ now has the keys to death and hell—that we are still here? Why do we continue in this obviously fallen world rife with pain, death, injustice and all manner of bad things? To answer that question, we need to still understand the role of angels just a bit more. Their importance in this matter is without a doubt. The death wages as a result of sin is essentially paid to them as a result of a covenant agreement.
One might be inclined to question the existence of such a covenant between God and angels as it is not clearly delineated within the Canon of scripture. In fact there is a covenant—actually referred to as an oath—which spells out what God promises and the limitations which are placed upon the angels as a result. This oath is found in the Deuterocanonical Book of Enoch. This book was once a part of the Hebrew texts, but was finally excised from what would become the known Canon of scripture by the Nicene Council early in the 4th century AD.  Regardless the removal of this book from our Bible, there are still bits and pieces of its affect within the cannon of scripture. Consider this from the Book of Daniel:
...But the prince of the Persian Kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.” and 10:20-21, “...So he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? Soon I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go, the prince of Greece will come; but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth.  (No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince.”
Daniel 10:13
Here we have an angel talking to the prophet Daniel about at least two angelic rulers over two geographical locations which are still identifiable on the globe today. This angel also identifies Michael as the prince over Israel during this time, approximately 606 BC. Why a prince for Israel and not a ruler as are the other angles who are mentioned? Additionally, who made these angels rulers over anyone to begin with? Consider further what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians:
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Ephesians 3:10 -11.
Paul calls these beings Rulers and Authorities in the Heavenly realms. This is an interesting way to phrase the job given to an angel if in fact an angel is merely a messenger with no authority but that which is given by Almighty God. Would such angels have the temerity to seize such authority on their own despite Christ’s words that, “...All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18) So the question as to the identities of these Rulers and Authorities which Paul mentions remains. Further, where would Paul learn about such beings and why would he give them such a high designation if they do not actually exist. Would that then leave all of Paul’s writings in doubt? Paul’s provocative teachings go even further by asserting that it is through humans that these angels will be taught about the true nature of God Most High. How is it that a human can teach an angel anything? That answer is rooted in the nature of the relationship between God and man and God and angels. Consider that difference as you consider the nature of the Mosaic Law.
What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The Law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.
Galatians 3:19
Here Paul hits us with another provocative statement. Through primarily tradition, it is thought that God gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. Deeper study of the scriptures reveals that in fact it was an angel of the Lord with whom Moses spoke. This is not only made clear in the Old Testament (Exodus 3:2-4), but it is reiterated in the New Testament as well. (Acts 7:30 and Acts 7:35). So be it the Old Testament or the New Testament, it is clear that it was not God Most High which brought us the Mosaic Law, rather it was angels—specifically Celestial entities. Unto itself, this should not be terribly alarming. God uses angels to do His work all the time. It would be short duty for Him to send one of them down give Moses a few instructions by which to keep the rabble at bay.
The problem is that Paul also seems to think that there are Rulers and Authorities in the heavenly realms. Do we know if these Rulers and Authorities follow God and do His will or do not follow God and work against Him. Paul cautions us about these Rulers and Authorities and urges us to take upon us the Full Armor of God to protect ourselves from them. That would lead one to believe that these Rulers and Authorities stand against the desires and will of Almighty God. If these are the same entities which gave us the Law, then is the Law a good thing? That would mean taking a look at the Law from a completely different perspective.
There is little doubt that the Ten Commandments are good for all concerned. Most people are at least familiar with some of the Ten Commandments. Yet the Ten Commandments are only a small part of the whole Law. There are six hundred and thirteen Levitical Laws on top of the Ten Commandments. Few outside of the Jewish Rabbinical line know what these laws encompass, yet this is what is referred to when talking about the Law. These six hundred, twenty three total laws and commands paint a very severe picture of a god that is not easy to satisfy or to please. It is these Laws which Christ countermanded in His Sermon on the Mount. The full implication of the Law and its effect upon man is illustrated by Paul in Ephesians:
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Ephesians 6:12
Why is it that Paul is so insistent that we need to use Christ to protect ourselves from these angels. Why do we need protection from angels if they are messengers of God’s? That doesn’t seem to make much sense. One might presume that these are the fallen angels who are talked about, but fallen angels would hardly be placed in positions as Rulers and Authorities. Certainly such a fallen angel could not rightfully give all of the kingdoms of the earth to Christ. Further it would have been folly for them to attempt to lie about their rights to Christ. These Rulers and Authorities knew quite well who Christ was as He wandered in the desert. Lying to God Most High about ownership is ridiculous. Christ was tempted by that which could have been legally given to Him by these Rulers and Authorities. So if these angels do not fall into the traditional mold that has been created for them then just exactly what are they?
In the 2nd century AD, around the year140, a man named Marcion of Sinope (modern-day Turkey) arrived in Rome. He met with and became a student of a Gnostic leader named Cerdo. Cerdo had arrived at a rather unorthodox conclusion with respect to the identity of God and Jesus Christ which Marcion found fascinating. Cerdo taught that the God of the Old Testament was a different God than the one manifest in the New Testament through Christ. In his argument, he raised some interesting points:
1. The god of the Old Testament was unknowable. With the exception of just a handful of people throughout history, this god really had no direct relationship with his creation, leaving them to their own devices.
2. Christ, by contrast, was approachable to all within proximity and had been very well known by all around him. Further His Spirit continued with His people after His death and resurrection.
3. The Old Testament God was sheer justice. He was replete with laws and edicts that were very strict. To violate some of these laws meant death.
4. Christ took some of these very laws and turned them on their head, in one case dismissing an Old Testament violation punishable by death via stoning with a simple admonition to, “...Go and sin no more.” In fact, in teaching basic principles, Jesus seemed to contradict aspects of Levitical law. “An eye for an eye” became “Turn the other cheek.”
5. He exemplified an intimate relationship with his creation through his love and graciousness whereas the Old Testament God was more imperious and demanding.
Within the last century and a half, a theology called “Dispensationalism” has been created that partly answers the stark contrast respecting the two different aspects of God’s character. The reason he was such a distant, remote, stern disciplinarian in the Old Testament times was because that was what He was supposed to be for that period of time. The Dispensation of the Law more or less guided God’s behavior just as the Dispensation of Grace guides Jesus’. There were four dispensations before the Law dispensation stretching back to Adam and Eve, but god essentially acted the same way towards man throughout all of them.
Marcion and Cerdo didn’t have to wade through any of that convoluted thinking as it hadn’t been conceived during their lifetimes. No, that prevailing theology in the church today came out of the teachings of French theologian and Pastor, John Calvin (1509 – 1564) and then was modified by the inventive mind of John Nelson Darby (1800 – 1882), who regarded Dispensationalism as the answer to the question of why God and Christ do not act alike.
The salient point in all of this is that all of these people: Marcion, Cerdo, Calvin, Darby, et al, stretching out over a period of almost two thousand years, came to recognize that the god of the Old Testament and Jesus didn’t seem to act the same. When Christ says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the father,” and “I and the Father are One.” It is a clear indicator that both incarnations should act pretty much in one accord. Yet is it clear that even with a cursory read of the Old Testament, one will leave with the impression of an angry, aloof God that doesn’t suffer fools gladly—or at all; not exactly the image of Christ which is described so eloquently by Paul in 1st Corinthians 13.
So then, what is the truth? Well Marcion took what Cerdo had taught him and expounded upon it. His thought was that there were actually two Gods at work. The Old Testament God was called Yahweh. This god was basically vengeful and the author of all evil. This god was concerned only for his people—the Jewish people—and he’d happily kill any and all of the others that got in his way. By contrast, the New Testament God was full of grace and love for all mankind, being a respecter of no one people in particular, and promising life to all. This God disclosed himself in the personage of Jesus Christ.
Marcion’s views could be seen as convoluted and errant as those of John Nelson Darby’s, but unlike today where dispensationalism is still eagerly taught as absolute truth in seminaries and in church pulpits, Marcion’s supposed errors were quickly brought to light and stamped out—primarily through an early church father named Augustine. The reason I say “supposed” is that there are no writings of Marcion which remain. All we do know of him and his teachings are through the jaundiced eyes of Augustine who made something of a career out of pointing out Marcion’s errors. In the end, most people decided that Marcion was too controversial and with the Orthodox Church having branded him a heretic, Marcionism soon died out.
What is of note, however, is that the disparity of God’s behavior as seen between the Old and New Testaments never went away. Here is an example of two different people separated by about sixteen hundred years—Marcion and Darby, confronting the same problem and arriving at two conclusions which wound up having the effect of rewriting who God really is and thus our understanding of Him.
Marcion was partly correct in his conclusions as was John Nelson Darby. You need to understand this in order to understand what Christ said as he hung on the cross in the ninth hour. Here we enter a concept that can be somewhat provocative, but it needs to be researched and understood before it is dismissed. There is and has only ever been one God. No one knows his name as God is simply a title. Therefore Marcion was correct in that there are two different gods at work here: The god that he referred to as Yahweh is in all probability, one of several mighty angels—one of these Rulers and Authorities which were cited in various scripture verses earlier.
You see it is mere presumption to think that Jesus or Paul was referring to Satan when he mentioned those particular angels. Firstly, contemporary theology teaches that there is but one Satan. (And Satan in this context is used as a name even though it is merely an adjective. Satan simply means adversary or accuser. It isn’t a name like Fred Satan.) Additionally, if there were but one Satan, then why do both Jesus and Paul talk as though there are a multitude of these angelic beings in positions of authority? Why did the angel in Daniel chapter 10 refer to at least two other angelic rulers?
The conclusion which is so provocative is that the god(s) of the Old Testament are in actuality angels of the Most High God. In the beginning, they were created to act as liaisons between God Most High and this human creation. God always had a relationship between Himself and man but it was a relationship from a distance; it was a relationship through proxy, a position filled by these angels. This wasn’t an accident or an oversight; this was by design. God related to us solely through His angels.
How is it that such a conclusion can be reached? Well Jesus Himself said it first. In John 5:37, Jesus says quite plainly that no one has ever seen God or heard his voice. 1st John 4:12 mirrors the same statement. No one has ever seen God.”  1st Timothy 6:15-16 is more expansive, “...God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, which no one has seen or can see.”  
We in the flesh cannot behold what God is in His essence anymore than we could survive in the sun. God in His essence is so far beyond us that the two cannot mix. It has nothing to do with the allegation that we are sinful and fallen; rather it has everything to do with simple physics. Consider that if there is all of these repeated statements which insist that man has never seen God, then exactly who has mankind been interacting with throughout the Old Testament? Enter the angels; beings created that can traverse the two realms. They can be spectral and they can be corporeal. They can be wind and rain and they can be fire. Essentially an angel can assume whatever shape and function that can be created with matter. That is how God created them. 
Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines angel as:
One of a class of spiritual beings; a celestial attendant of God. In medieval angelology, angels constituted the lowest of the nine celestial orders (seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations or dominions, virtues, powers, principalities or princedoms, archangels, and angels)
A conventional representation of such a being, in human form, with wings, usually in white robes
A messenger, esp. of God
A person who performs a mission of God or acts as if sent by God: an angel of mercy
A person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, or kindliness.
A person whose actions and thoughts are consistently virtuous
An attendant or guardian spirit.
As a contemporary definition, this is somewhat satisfactory, but of more importance would be how angels were regarded by the ancients. The Jews regarded angels primarily as messengers or workers of the Most High God. (Hebrew: “Melakha” meaning work and “Mal’achut” meaning message.) However, Jews also tended to use the term to describe others as well such as “kruv” which describes young children (and is where we get the term Cherub from.) as well as “Gil-Gaulim” meaning revolving (Most likely alluding to the entity(s) in Ezekiel 1:24).
Paul’s views on angels are a bit more stark. To reiterate Ephesians chapter 6, Paul exhorts us to put on the “Full armor of God” so that we are protected from these spiritual entities. In Colossians 2:17, he warns us to not be seduced by the religion of angels. (Not something to dismiss casually; such religions are more pervasive in our society than we’re willing to acknowledge or admit.) And then of course there is Job 4:18 to wit:
If God places no trust in his servants,
If He charges His angels with error,
How much more those who live in houses of clay,
Whose foundations are in the dust,
who are crushed more readily than a moth!
It would appear that the Most High God himself would caution us human beings to be wary of angels. In fact we’re told by John the Apostle to “test the spirits” to see whether they are from God. (1st John 4:1) Why should one test a spirit if all of these angels are regarded as good with only one malevolent Satan running loose? The answer becomes obvious. In the biblical context by which angels are most frequently used, it is clear that they are a creation of the Most High God, that they are spiritual in construct, but have the ability to take on many disparate forms depending upon the circumstances and their own desires. It is these angels which Paul warns us about.
But how can we go from knowing there are angels to suddenly having to come to grips with the fact that they acted as surrogate gods to us here on earth? Surely the Most High God would have prevented such behavior. Well it is important to consider the fact that God placed those angels into those positions as Rulers and Authorities. Once in place, these beings were free to administrate over us as they saw fit. If God Most High would have prevented them from acting out the way they did, it would be the same as Him preventing anyone of us from doing the good or bad things we do every day.
We were created in God’s image. Obviously that doesn’t mean a physical image as much as it is a Spiritual one. Human beings come to know God through faith. Angels know God on a different level altogether. As a human, it would be difficult to comprehend the communication between God Almighty and an angel. Suffice to say there is a level of communication and of intimacy between them which at present, is beyond us. Therefore angels do not have to operate on the same level of faith in God that human beings must. Their faith is a different construct. It is due to this relationship they enjoy with God Almighty which has led them to rely on the strength of the oaths and covenants. They believe God implicitly when He says He’ll do something. They know to the very core of their beings that God is truth and will always be truthful.
The errant theological teaching which asserts that Satan acts as he does because he believes that he is really God is beyond absurd as taught by orthodoxy. The truth is that Satan knows quite well who God Almighty is and is under no allusions to the contrary. Regardless, the enemy does believe that he is god to a portion of humanity and it is this which has plunged him and his brethren into the War in Heaven outlined in Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 and Revelation 12. Christ’s death on the cross and His subsequent journey into Sheol legally wrested control of this realm from the hands of these Rulers and Authorities. The covenant which these angels enjoyed under the Old Testament was declared null and void upon Christ’s death.
Orthodoxy has unwittingly given the enemy what they need in order to keep people ignorant of this War in Heaven: Disinformation. It is one of the oldest battle tactics in warfare and the Bible tells us that it will be a great deception in the last days which the enemy will use to their advantage. So great will this deception be that “...if possible, even the elect will be deceived.” (Matthew 24:24) To deceive humans is not terribly difficult for an angel. We do not see the world as they do and our brief lives upon this planet keep us from being as effective against their lies and deceit. The enemy has only to perpetuate a lie for one or two generations until those that know the truth die off. At that point, the lie has become the truth as no one can recall what came before. Again, think back to Dante and Milton and contrast with Marcion.
So that brings us back to the cross with Christ about to give up His spirit, but before He does, He cries out those words. So the question remains; if He is not crying out to God not to forsake Him, what is he crying out? To understand that, one has to understand the culture and methodologies employed by the 1st century world, specifically the world of Israel under Roman occupation. If one were to a enter a synagogue or temple sometime before the Common Era and wanted to read Psalm 119, how would one know how to locate Psalm 119? Were one to ask the rabbi to reference Psalm 119, the rabbi would reply with a blank stare; he would have no idea what Psalm 119 is. This would at first seem puzzling. Why wouldn’t a Jewish rabbi know how to find Psalm 119? Most anyone can find the Psalms in the Bible—it is located between the Book of Job and Proverbs. True enough, but today we enjoy the benefit of years of difficult and tedious work to arrange and catalog the Bible, separating it into chapter and verse. However back in the 1st Century AD and earlier, the Bible as we know it today did not exist. The Bible comprised only the Old Testament writings and was a series of scrolls written on a reedy material called Papayas. To reference a particular book, passage or Psalm, one would use its incipit. Incipit? What’s an incipit? Why have we never heard of this before? The following is from Wikipedia:
The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song or book, is its first few words or opening line. Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits. Incipit comes from the Latin for "it begins". In the medieval period, incipits were often written in a different script or color from the rest of the work of which they were a part. Though incipit is Latin, the practice of the incipit predates classical antiquity by several millennia, and can be found in various parts of the world. Although not always called by the name of "incipit" today, they remain popular and commonplace.
Many books in the Hebrew Bible are named in Hebrew using incipits. For instance, the first book is called Bereshit ("In the beginning ...") and Lamentations, which begins "How lonely sits the city ..." is called Eykhah ("How"). In the first case, the incipit has passed into English, "Genesis" being derived from the Greek translation of Bereshit. This is not the case, however, with other books; the second, for example, is called "Lamentations" in English.
It was in this manner which rabbis from ancient times were able to recall passages of scripture. It is of note to point out the fact that it wasn’t just rabbis who could do this; it was a typical method of reference for a host of writings. Jesus, who knew his way around the scriptures, would have been well familiar with this method as it was the only one used to recall scripture. That is the reason that Jesus didn’t cite the Old Testament passage of Exodus 12:24 when he referred “an eye for an eye” but rather simply said, “...You have heard that it was said...” Christ didn’t cite a numerical reference because there wasn’t one. That didn’t happen until several hundred years later when the Bible was first compiled into the Vulgate, a Codex (or book) of the then known cannon that was translated into Latin by Jerome of Stridonium. (modern-day Croatia) Then later beginning in the 13th Century when it was broken down into chapters by Italian Dominican biblical scholar Santi Pagnini, and then even later in the 16th Century when numerical verse was added by William Whittingham.
Now it is clear to see that what Christ was actually doing as he was about to give up his Spirit. While hanging on the cross, He had employed an incipit. The incipit was for what we now refer to as Psalm 22. The question now becomes one of why Psalm 22 was so important that He would cry it out as he was taking in the last few moments here on this earthly plain? To answer that question, we must look at Psalm 22.
Not surprisingly, Psalm 22’s incipit is: “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”  The Psalm goes on to essentially recount the very events that Jesus had just endured, down to the casting of lots for his clothes. Psalm 22 was written several hundred years before Jesus even came to earth making the mention of the casting of lots for his clothing curious. Coincidence, or did Christ understand that he was fulfilling the prophecy of that Psalm? The Psalm then concludes with something surprising for all of those who are of the belief that God turned His back on Jesus because he had become sin and He couldn’t stand to look at him. Psalm 22:24 says, “For He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”
The Psalm continues to point out how Jesus will rule over the earth and generally has good news for Him—and us—all around. So why would Jesus reference this Psalm as he was dying on the cross? The answer to that becomes obvious when the parties witnessing His execution are identified. All of the Pharisees who were milling about on the periphery while Christ was being executed knew exactly what the Psalm in which Christ referenced had to say; Jesus only needed to cite the incipit. It is of some curiosity to know whether these Pharisees experienced a chill down their collective spines as they recalled from memory the content of that Psalm and saw how accurate it was—down to the Roman guards casting lots for Christ’s clothing. Despite his present situation; nailed to a cross after having been scourged and beaten so severely that his face was an unrecognizable mass of bloody flesh, Jesus got his message across to not only the Pharisees, but to those in the Spiritual realm who were also watching the events anxiously. Psalm 22 outlined the fact that Christ was not dying a broken man; He was merely fulfilling prophesy and was on His way to fulfill yet another one.
What Christ did as He spoke the Incipit of Psalm 22 on the cross should be a source of reassurance to anyone, but especially a Christian. Instead, orthodoxy perverts this passage so as to use it as a club, pummeling hapless Christians in an attempt to keep them “in line”. This perversion of the scriptures first began in earnest with the Nicene Councils, but there are many who can assume their share of the blame from the early Gnostics to the latter day Prosperity Gospel preachers whose desire for money far outstrips their desire for a right relationship with Christ or the legalistic Christians whose refusal to acknowledge the fulfillment of the covenant by Christ results only in nailing Him back on the cross. Still that does not excuse those in positions of leadership, teaching in seminaries or churches today who are shown this error, but because of tradition or ego—or perhaps both, ignore it and return to the warmth and familiarity of their perverse doctrine.
It has been no end of curiosity to me as to why those who are shown the truth of scriptural interpretations such as Matthew 27:46 persist in their error. The implications of the God they worship are horrific for humanity, yet they continue. I am well aware that this has come about as a result of the teaching which they have received, but at some point in one’s walk, a decision has to be made as to who God is in one’s life. A god whose heart is so far removed from compassion that his feelings and sense of moral decorum are regarded as more important than the very life of his creation, is really no god at all. Such was the situation which drove an early Greek philosopher named Epicurus to pen his famous riddle:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?”
Orthodoxy was molded into another version of the truth long ago to fulfill the needs of political leaders, miscreants and other power seekers who held God in little regard. Epicurus lived nearly three hundred years before Christ and did not have the benefit of seeing these prophecies fulfilled, yet his trilemma is legitimate. Orthodoxy will stumble to answer such a seemingly vexing question which will utilize much rationalization, but still not provide the answer sufficiently. Orthodoxy, under present design, cannot answer the Epicurean riddle. If teachers of the Gospel were to step away from orthodoxy long enough to assess it critically, they would see the corruption which has infected the truth. Something as simple as this passage in Hebrews would have nullified the perversion of the orthodox interpretation of Matthew 27:46:
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
- Hebrews 4:13.
To further exacerbate the perversion, theologians rationalize that God looked away from Christ because while Christ took on the sins of the world; He literally died Spiritually. Anyone understanding the nature of Christ would know that that is an impossibility. If Christ died Spiritually, then God is dead Spiritually—they are one and the same. Again, orthodoxy maintains that such is possible because through it all, Christ is not really God, but a mere subset of God. Therefore God can allow Him to die and then simply bring Him back to life again. This rationalization goes to the nature of a concept called the Trinity or the Triune Godhead. (I will leave that to a future commentary which can be found here: http://thegodprinciplebook.blogspot.com/2014/03/theholy-trinity-when-did-we-split-god.html ) This rationalization of a Christ subset shows a stunning dearth of Spiritual discernment, but it allows the errors of orthodoxy to flourish.
In Hebrews 9:14, Christ is called an eternal Spirit. It says that, “... he offered himself unblemished to God”. Such a statement flies in the face of the theology which insists that Christ became sin and was so repulsive to God that God had to look away. An additional point to consider in this orthodox rationalization: As an eternal Spirit, if Christ were to die Spiritually for even a nano-second, He isn’t actually eternal unless you are willing to redefine the meaning of eternal. If Christ is not eternal, then his resurrection is a lie and his entire ministry is a cruel hoax.
Just to be clear, to “become sin” or as some translations say that “sin was imputed upon Him” is merely a misunderstanding of the translation. 2nd Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin (or be a sin offering) for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This is from the Random House Unabridged Dictionary:
Impute. (Theology). To attribute (righteousness, guilt, etc.) to a person or persons vicariously; ascribe as derived from another.
In short, Christ took our place. There was no mechanism which altered the bio-chemical construct of Christ whereupon he was suddenly imbued with all of the sins (read transgressions) of everyone who ever lived or who would be born. There was no like Spiritual alteration either. To be made a sin offering simply meant that rather than our being put to death to satisfy those wages, Christ allowed Himself to be put to death physically in our stead. It is instructive to point out that one should not read into the scriptures what isn’t there. More importantly, however, is to learn who God is, learn his character. He showed us what he is like in Christ, thus if you can’t imagine Christ doing something, then don’t imagine God would do it either. They’re one and the same.
One last thought. We may be the last generation before Christ returns or it may be several more generations; there is no way to know for certain and that is not supposed to be our focus in any event. Attempting to pin down a time when Christ returns to this earth is not part of the great commission He gave to us. We are to be watching the signs, but not get so bogged down in them that all else falls by the wayside. There is one truth that is immutable: For each one of us alive today, this is the last generation. At some point we will draw our last breath and we will go to Christ, or we’ll remain alive to see Him return. Either way, our time here is precious—and so very short.