God is love
The Bible says that God is love and this is what I believe. But in the OT, we read about a God who described himself as "a manly person of war" and sometimes “God” called for the slaughter of whole nations, not sparing man, woman, or even child. Can we imagine Jesus who always did the will of his Father doing such things? What kind of God murders people including blameless babies and children?
Jesus said that we should put away the sword and forgive our enemies. In Bible times his true followers didn't wage physical warfare, nor do true followers of Christ wage physical warfare today. So how can we reconcile this contradiction? Have you noticed this? We are told that God does not change, yet it’s as if there are (at least) two Gods.
Angels and demons fly in the sky, not God
I’m not suggesting for a moment, that Baal is the true God but did you know that the name Baal means “Lord”? Bare this in mind as its relevance will become clearer.
There’s something about those who flit and fly in the sky at http://www.mt.net/~watcher/
" [The] ancient deity Baal was lord of war and of the sky. Many titles were given to Baal by adding endings to his name. Some examples found in scripture are Baalhazor "Lord of the Fortresses", Baalbamoth = Lord of the high places, Baalzebub = Lord of those who fly, or, flit.
Zebub is a Hebrew verb which means to flit from place to place, having been popularly translated as "Lord of the Flies" it is more properly rendered "Lord of Those Things that Fly." Baal is identified as Satan by Jesus himself, Matt 10:25 Mark 3:22 Luke 11:15.
Paul says we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with spirits in high places, literally, "in the heavens" "in the aerial regions" Eph.6:12. Hence Satan is called "the prince of the Power of the Air" "the prince of the aerial host" Eph.2:2.
Imagine the confederation of rebellious angels seated in the atmospheric heaven in the spaces above and around our planet. This fundamental of scripture contradicts many traditional concepts of "hell" as the domain of the devil and his minions... the popular notion of "satan ruling the underworld" is not found in the Bible. King David realized the "sons of the mighty" inhabited the sky:
For who in the sky (the atmosphere),
shall be ranked with Jehovah,
who among the sons of the mighty
is like Jehovah? Psalm 89:6 "
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Heavens above!
Of course, I like to think there is life after death but believe it or not, a ‘spirit realm’ where people go after death does not come from the Bible! When reading the word “heaven” people assume it means a “spirit realm” but the Bible does not say such a thing.
As with many things, even if the Bible appears to say a certain thing, it can be because certain religious ideas and assumptions have slanted translation, so it can be interpreted in ways that was not intended when we read it. The question is, what does the Bible really say about Heaven? Is there such a place? Well, yes in a way there is a "place" that the Bible calls heaven but this isn’t the same as what we have been led to believe by religious preconceptions.
The Real NT Heaven
In the NT "heaven" means authority and there are reasons why people go to “heaven” - for example, as shown at Rev 1:6
"And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father….."
The the word "heaven" in the NT has a symbolic use because heaven is over us.
The Bible says that even Satan has authority over this world though obviously, Satan does not reside in the invisible place where God is, beyond the stars.
Eph 6:12 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" – the translation “high places“ means the same as heaven in the Greek. The OT Heaven In the OT heaven literally means the sky, so when "God" appeared it was in the form of angels who came down from the sky. God does not literally live in any physical building or
anywhere on earth. In the Bible it says that the "heavens of the heavens" cannot
contain God and what this is saying is that even the sky of the sky (i.e. outer space) cannot contain God, let alone anywhere on this tiny planet.
In other words, what was and still is
taken as "God" is visible angels (who are extra-terrestrial beings) who may (or may not) represent the true God, because in a literal sense God
dwells beyond the "heavens of the heavens," beyond the universe - hence God is
invisible. Now with that in mind, let's read Psalm 89:6 from several
translations. http://bible.cc/psalms/89-6.htm
For who in the skies can
be compared to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the heavenly beings is like
Yahweh, (WEB) For who in the skies can be compared unto Jehovah? Who among the sons of the mighty is like unto Jehovah, (ASV) For who in the heaven can be compared to Jehovah? who among the sons of the mighty shall be likened to Jehovah? (DBY) For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD? (KJV) For who in the heaven can be compared to the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the LORD? (WBS) Anyone see what I see? Was the person who called himself Yahweh the invisible God,
or was he one of these "heavenly beings"? People presume the former yet over and over the Bible tells us about angel creatures from "heaven" – from the
sky - and the Bible shows that people called these Lord and even Yahweh or Jehovah. Who did Moses get the Commandments from? The first thing that comes to most people's mind is that Moses received the law from God Himself. Yet how could he if God is invisible? The Bible clearly gives us answers to this apparent contradiction: Acts 7:53 "you who have received the law that was put
into effect through angels…"
Similar at Gal 3:19 "The law was put into effect through angels by a
mediator." Then note Gal 3:20 "A mediator however, [which] does not represent just one; but
God is one. Although the Bible is about God, the above and other things in the Bible, show that this is also about extra-terrestrial creatures who came from the sky, commonly known as angels. It's when referring to those beings that we often get translations to “God” or “Lord” – why? Because these are, or claim to represent or speak for, the true God – they are messengers. Many churches say that Hebrew words such as Elohim are plural because of a Trinity Godhead but Jews and some sects say that the plurality is to do with God's greatness or majesty, so which is it? Could it be both, or does it mean something so obvious that people cannot (or dare not) see it? Of course, religion will tell us otherwise but the truth is that the original meaning was the obvious and literal meaning of more than one being. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s take a look. Good And Evil We are told that God is good; yet what does it say at Genesis 3:22? "And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." What this means is that those who are translated as God, "know" (have experience with) good and also "know" (have experience with) evil and that there are more than one of them, as shown by "like one of us," so clearly, these are not God Himself, who is One.
So what do we see in the OT? A mixture of things; on the one hand, there are laws which are based on love and fairness, yet there are also
things that appear to be unjust and very cruel from a warlike God or gods. Yet in contrast to this, Jesus taught us not to be warlike and told us about a
merciful and compassionate God of love and forgiveness. So the following causes problems not only for the Jewish religion but also for Trinitarians who believe
that Jesus is literally God Himself… John 5:37,38
However, because over the ages certain Hebrew words have been translated as "God" or "Lord" those words came to be understood as "God" or "Lord" literally; so it looks like God Himself, in person, has literally appeared to people and this has also allowed for many contradictions to develop in doctrine and in the Bible. In effect, what religion has done is hide the true identity of God and it has confused who He is and what He is and even where He is!
The word "knowing" in Gen 3:22, rather than simply being about knowing that good and evil exists, has a meaning of experience - so how can this plurality be referring to one God who is understood to be good?
Those two verses alone contradict religion but make perfect sense to me…
