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Ha Erwin,
I am happy with your answer. As a comparison a puzzle: the pieces have come into place and the picture is very nice! After your response, I am also beginning to like the packaging. This was not easy for me, but now looking back, it is fascinating!
Isn't it wonderful that we will not lose our personality, that which makes us unique, even later in heaven. By both of us our reactions were thought about, searched for the intention, intent. I was thus allowed to be the person Erwin get to know a little better. And perhaps vice versa. Every human being is a universe in miniature! Isn't it unspeakably great and wonderful that our Creator is going to totally renew this "small" and the big universe?
But never separate, detached, from Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Man, in whom God and through whom He is going to make all things new. Yes, we too will be renewed by the Lord according to His promise. And the first thing I think of then is that it will be made transparent! Nothing verbose, no ambiguity, no double bottoms. For we will be all "light" because God, who is Light and in Him is no darkness, will dwell in us (permanently). I don't know about you but I can hardly wait!!!
Beautiful what you said about that ending. And coming full circle again. Now I think of that Bible word: For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
Having written the above, I muse a bit more in the shower (apparently that goes well together). I think of 'universe', 'heaven within us'; God SO near. And the text: 'God will be all and in all for those who love Him'. And now it comes: it is written 'the heavens cannot even contain You'. I can't take it anymore!!!
In this context I once read: the love of God is so immeasurably great, it is like a little boy wanting to encompass the ocean with his arms. Well, that's pretty much how I experience what I wrote above (where the heart is full.........).
To this God and His promises I commend you and your family! To Him be all the glory!
Greetings, Rob.
Afterword
Church history is bursting with polemics (discussion, struggle over conflicting views). A history of believers agreeing and disagreeing to varying degrees. And sometimes history seems yourself reflect a polemic through time. Believers in different times, periods and cultures, differ in words, expression, teachings, walk of life.
A polemic is nothing but a picture of church history. Sometimes in the strict sense; a dismantling of an error, the cutting off of a growth. This is paradoxical; it is like the doctor who must first do harm to keep the patient healthy. In many cases in a broader sense: like two opposite sides. Literally; two sides, just as a coin has two sides - and also no other way than to have these.
Not a bad side versus a good side, but two sides of the same coin. Without one, there is no other. It is empowering to see both sides; only then do you see the full coin. But unless you throw it up this is not possible; you see only one side.
One side of a coin represents value: that represents truth. There are the dogmas, teachings, orthodoxy, structuring, systematics, understanding, knowledge, the ethics. This side is founded on obviousness, but without intuition it produces radicalism. Ending with an iconoclasm. The baby too often appears to be thrown out with the bathwater.
The other side of the coin contains an effigy: that represents expression. There sits the walk of life, art, mysticism, imagination, visions, experience, the aesthetic. This side is founded on its intuition, but without obviousness* it produces error. Ending with a stake. All too often there appears to be no baby left to throw away.
One is just the root, without tree or fruit. The other the tree, but hollowed out. There is no life left in it. Together it is a tree, rooted and bearing fruit.
If God is real, you don't have to be afraid to shake the tree. You don't have to be afraid of revelation and you may flip the coin to see all sides. We need each other for that; that is the Church. And then discovery together turns out to be cumulative; it turns out to be self-reinforcing through the uncertainty of the unknown.
* Evidence: meant here as the solid ground or basis of doctrines (dogmas). This is God's Word.
