Discourse 154 – Aspects of God’s Creation.

God.

Man.

Rebirth – Resurrection as a non‒tangible spiritual being.

God’s Justice..

The "Final Check" ’ the Last Judgment.

The Bible.

A Sign in the Cosmos.

The Signs of the Biblical End Times.

The Great Tribulation ’ classified by events.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[1] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
(2Cor 3:17-18;)

God.

God is Spirit. If you contemplate creation – and that’s the whole of creation, the cosmos, with its gigantic dimensions, the countless galaxies, with the billions of stars, the black holes and the quasars. Then the Earth, with its flora and fauna, and finally also man, in all his complexity, with his skills and capabilities. And if you have the ability to contemplate your environment in an intellectually honest way, then you simply have to ask yourself: Where does it all come from?

For such objectively thinking people, "nature" is the author of all these things (in which case you would actually have to award all the Nobel Prizes in the world to this "nature"); this "nature" has thus long been exposed as a concept of convenience among scientists. The term "nature" lets you describe everything that cannot be explained scientifically. And first and foremost simply the answer to this question: Who "generated" all of this? Because somehow it must at some point have been made, produced, generated or indeed created, otherwise it would just not be there.

And this brings us – as with all questions about the beginnings – to the question: Who or what was in the beginning? And since we live in a spatiotemporal universe, that means looking back to zero hour. Since it is scientifically proven that the universe is almost 14 billion years old, it is evident that it can’t have been one of us, a man. So it was something or somebody unknown.

And now, as an aid to analysis, we are going to try to imagine an experiment. Let us imagine that cell phones are living, thinking beings with the capacity to multiply. And there is a clever little cell phone boy who asks his cell phone mother who it was who actually created the cell phone race. The mother ponders for a moment and then says: "Well, you know, I don’t really know offhand, but it was certainly something or somebody". But because the boy is tenacious, the next day he asks his cell phone teacher: "Who actually created the cell phone race?"

And the teacher is better informed. He teaches the boy: "The cell phone race developed out of a little chip. The chip multiplied, and so there were more and more of them, until the cell phone race emerged from this". But, like we said, the boy was tenacious, so he went on asking: "And who created this first chip, sir?" To which the teacher replied: "That, my boy, that was cell phone nature!"

Although this is also a fitting example of the situation in our human environment, I would like to pick out just one aspect. If this fictitious teacher had been told that it was a man who had invented the cell phone, he would probably have said: "A man? Who or what is a man? Anything which doesn’t have on an operating system inside it would be incapable of inventing a cell phone!"

And this is also perfectly normal with men, and in particular among scientists. They too say: "God? Who or what is God? Anything which is not scientifically proven does not exist". Or, as a farmer explained to me following the nuclear reactor explosion in Chernobyl, in anticipation of the radioactive cloud that was heading towards Austria: "What I can’t see, hear, smell or touch doesn’t exist for me". – Fortunately the radioactive cloud spared us.

Man.

Physical-biological man.

In his first phase of existence, man found himself in a material spatiotemporal universe, in the form of a physical and biological being, but already equipped with that still neutral and unprejudiced spirit with which he will experience eternal life in his ultimate form of existence, in the spiritual dimension, as an immortal spiritual being.

The creator of man is himself a spirit, and embodies the original substance of justice. Every new-born man receives from the creator that fertile yet still virginal spirit which is endowed with a free will and open to any information. With this God-given absolute freedom of choice, man now decides in his life on earth which information he supplies to his spirit with the five senses of his physical being in order to fertilize it. The originally absolute free will of this spirit now determines, according to the individual preferences of the man, the relevance of this information for the individual, and decides whether it should be pursued or not.

It is now man ’ s task, in his physical-biological life here on Earth, to supply, in his free will, this fertile but as yet unfertilized spirit with the information that is relevant to his ultimate, eternal form of existence and to prepare it for the future life. At the end of his life, the biological body dies, but the immortal spirit of every man is stored, with all its information, in the "cloud" until the end of the First Creation.

Rebirth – Resurrection as a non-tangible spiritual being.

At the end of the world – in some cases even somewhat sooner – all human spirits will be downloaded again from the "cloud". This is the actual process of spiritual birth, that is man ’ s "rebirth in the resurrection from the spirit", and his metamorphosis into a spiritual being, man ’ s ultimate spiritual form of existence. After that, the creator will carry out a final test on all men to assess who, in their physical form of existence, in their life on Earth, could qualify to pass into the ultimate spiritual form of existence.

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’

Jn 3,3 Jesus replied, ‘ Very truly I tell you, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ 3,4 ‘ How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘ Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’ 3,5 Jesus answered, ‘ Very truly I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 3,6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 3,7 You should not be surprised at my saying, "You must be born again." 3,8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’ Jn 3,3-8;

Rebirth is the resurrection before the Last Judgment.

Mt 19,28 And Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the rebirth when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.



Resurrection and Last Judgment.

Mt 25,31"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 25,32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;  

God ’ s Justice.

I think this must convince even the greatest skeptic – if he believes in the Bible. But we can take this opportunity to clarify another connection which reveals itself in the above text from Mt 19,28. Apart from the fact of rebirth in resurrection, this text also refers to the fact that here the Lord sits upon his glorious throne at the Last Judgment to judge the resurrected peoples. But here he charges the disciples with judging their compatriots from the tribes of Israel. Why?

The reason is God ’ s justice. We have – I would almost say: "Thank God", if it weren ’ t God himself who we are talking about – we have a God whose justice is absolute. Indeed, I would say he is justice personified. In almost all the books of the Old Testament it says that "God is always just, his ways are right, he does not follow a crooked path, etc., etc.".

Incidentally, this world has been ruled by the devil for two thousand years, and will be so to the end of the end times according to the Bible. Just imagine if that was what it was like in heaven! Then I ’ d say "terrible, dreadful". That is why I am thankful that we have a God of righteousness. A God who allows nothing else but justice. Indeed, justice at the end, when all is said and done. Evil and good – e.g. understanding, conversion and forgiveness, but also stubbornness, crime and damnation.

In connection with the righteousness of our God, there are even Biblical reports which confirm indirectly that "God ’ s ways are always right". God has visited this planet many times already. As is (almost) generally known, he wandered for 40 years with the Israelites through the wilderness, and then, together with two angels, he visited Abraham. The two angels were supposed to rescue Abraham ’ s nephew Lot, who lived with his family in Sodom, by leading him from the city before its destruction. And God took this opportunity to promise Abraham that he would become a father at the age of a hundred and that his infertile ninety-year-old wife Sarah would bear him a son, Isaac.

And then we have two reports by Ezekiel, who saw God in his "vehicle", once on the Kebar River and a second time in Jerusalem. This "vehicle" was four cherubim (angels) in a square-in-diamond formation with their right and left outstretched wings touching each other, marching or flying forward, and with their hands they carried God ’ s throne above their heads on a sort of support – Ezekiel refers to it as "like a vault".

"As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced; the wheels did not turn about as the cherubim went. The cherubim went in whatever direction the head faced, without turning as they went" Eze 10,11;

Ezekiel also calls these four cherubim a "living creature", because they always moved together and at the same time, as if they were a single being. But this effect occurs if all four are being steered by God ’ s spirit. And since Ezekiel also established that the spirit of the cherubim was in the wheels, which were full of eyes all around and which rolled along next to the cherubim without any visible connection, it is fairly certain that it was indeed the spirit of God which was steering the cherubim, and with them the wheels, and setting the direction.

"Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels." Eze 1:20;

On their heads the cherubim had four faces, one on each side of the head. On one side the face of a lion, then that of an eagle, a man and a cherub. At the Kebar River Ezekiel thought the cherub face was an ox face, but when he was able to observe the vehicle more precisely in Jerusalem from closer up, he realized that it was not an ox but a cherub face.

When interpreting these four faces, I could identify them as the representatives of God ’ s creation, as previously recognized by Carl von Linné (1707-1778) in his "Systema Naturae ", – although with a worldly slant and with logical errors. But the angels ’ movement remained puzzling; they always only moved in a straight line: forwards or backwards, to the right or to the left, always in the direction of one of their four faces. (Interested readers can find more details in Excursus 11: "The throne of God.".)

Once I had realized that, with such a form of movement, any destination diagonally situated from the starting point could only be reached by taking a "zig-zag route" (Ezekiel confirms this as well in Eze 1:14: "The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning") I remembered the statements in the Old Testament that "God ’ s ways are always straight, and it became clear to me that:

God does not follow any slanting ways, and does not travel crooked routes – not even when He himself is transported.

However, the greatest example of our God ’ s justice is the Son of God. Because God ’ s justice, his "feeling of justice" we would say, did not allow man to be ruled in the eternal "kingdom" by an almighty God who, on his glorious throne, has no idea of the worries and hardships of mankind, God had his Son, who will rule the Kingdom for eternity, born as a man, and had him experience the most important years of a human life.

And Jesus Christ really did experience in his life few of the highs but pretty much all of the lows that a man can experience. And yet at the end of his life, when he knew due to the omniscience of his Father what tortuous death was awaiting him, he simply asked his Father: Is it your will, my Father? And when the Father affirmed that it was, the Son simply said "Your will be done", and resigned himself to his fate.

And here we now finally also recognize why God at the Last Judgement has the 12 progenitors of the Israelites judge the Israeli people: They are also Israelites, and they know the commandments prescribed to the Israelites. They can therefore judge who has abided by these commandments from God for the Israelites, and who has not. And then the Jews cannot say: "He understands nothing of the life of a Jew".

"Final Check" – the Last Judgment.

Now, two thousand years later, the Father has given him all the power in heaven and on Earth, and at the Last Judgment he will sit on his glorious throne and judge the resurrected people of all times on this Earth. And nobody can say "He doesn ’ t know what a difficult time people have". Not so, he knows, he experienced it first-hand himself.

And then among others the Catholic clergy – from the Popes to the millions of priests – will be surprised when the "little child in the crib" sits as judge over the world on his glorious throne, the judgment throne, and calls out to them: "Depart from me, you cursed people, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels".

And it is tempting to add to the reasons cited by the Lord to those cursed: You have compelled your people to renounce God ’ s order to men: "Be fruitful and multiply", and not to touch a woman. As a result of this, hundreds of thousands of your priests have abused millions of children and damaged them for life. For that alone you deserve to go to hell.

Those people who do not pass this test will not have eternal life beside and with God, but will spend their eternal existence in the lake of fire (can perhaps be imagined as a magma chamber at the core of the planet). The material spatiotemporal universe will then be dissolved by the creator, and he will create a new living space for all the people who are now his children and to whom he is now father.

The Bible.

The Exegesis.

As already touched on above, science usually reacts negatively when confronted with "God". These people simply can ’ t manage to (or don ’ t want to) think beyond themselves and their dogma when it comes to this subject. It is of course clear: Scientific work needs evidence and facts. Well, these exist, you would just have to recognize them as such. I myself worked for a long time as an analyst in IT companies, and I know what I ’ m talking about when it comes to verifying the veracity of documents.

And around fifty years ago, when the Jehovah ’ s Witnesses were getting on my nerves because they constantly wanted to discuss God with me, I bought a Bible one day and began to check these people ’ s statements. Over time, I discovered all the things these people had invented and reinterpreted – often themselves completely unknowingly, because they were no longer proclaiming the Bible but the teachings of the "Watchtower" from Brooklyn (which seems to have taken the Catholic church as a model).

However, while carrying out this analysis, undertaken more out of annoyance, I discovered some interesting connections, which I then followed up on bit by bit. I continued to study the Bible, and found out that much of what is officially known as "contents of the Bible" is plain and simply publicity lies put out by the Catholic church, used to obtain money and false recognition (power) under false pretenses from their gullible church-goers.

And because I have been asked to provide an example of this, here is one of many:

But there are sometimes also problems with the Biblical texts themselves. Thus you can find in Paul, in his first letter to Timothy – which incidentally contains really comprehensive principles of conduct for the Christian community –, in 1Tim 6, 11-16 two totally contradictory statements. While at the beginning of this text he indicates that the man of God should take hold of "eternal life", he explains at the end of this paragraph that the King of all Kings – thus our Lord Jesus Christ – "alone is immortal".

And this naturally then gives rise to the question: If Jesus Christ alone is immortal, how is the man of God supposed to grasp "eternal life"? Since I have checked the translation against the original Greek text and been unable to find a mistake, perhaps that is a transcription error in the original Greek text. Because it is not credible to me that Paul, of all people, should have formulated it thus.

But you, man of God, (…) hold of the eternal life (aiwniou zwhz); (…) the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal (adanasion).

1Tim 6,6,11 But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 6,2 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life(aiwniou zwhz)to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. ,13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 6,14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 6,15 which God will bring about in his own time – God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 6,16 who alone is immortal (adanasion) and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no-one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might for ever. Amen. 1Tim 6,11-16;

What I want to say with this is that you should always check documents relevant to decision-making yourself, in order not to be taken in by fraudsters. I have studied the Bible, and can confirm it to be fundamental reading matter with plenty of evidence. However, to recognize this you must have a willingness to read the text truly objectively and free of all preconceptions. Biblical teaching (as it says in the Bible!) should actually in my view be a subject area at every university ("Biblical Studies", not fraudulent Catholic "Theology").

One of the most important discoveries that I made during my Bible study was the realization that the course of events of the history of salvation up until the end of the world is completely different than that told by the worldly Christian religions – if they say anything at all about it. As people on this planet, we are in an "intermediate stopover" of our existence. And to all those who are now thinking: "Yes, yes, the old fairy tale about eternal life", I would like to say I once thought similar.

I was – and still am – an absolute realist. I have also not been "indoctrinated" by anyone – apart from the Bible. I am not a member of any church, any free church, congregation or any religion of this world. That is also why I can speak and write freely and openly. How many visitors do you think have already attacked me because I openly declared that man is a spiritual being in his ultimate form of existence?

To explain this using a graphic example, you can compare it with the development of a butterfly. At present, here on Earth, man is in a developmental stage similar to the "caterpillar stage" of a butterfly. And just as the life of a caterpillar, with its means of movement, food intake and of course appearance, cannot be compared with the butterfly emerging after pupation, you cannot compare the earthly phase of man with his final existence as a spiritual being.

These are not fairy tales, but Biblical facts. Now of course I have asked myself why then these Biblical facts have not already long been used by all the worldly Christian religions – in fact for almost two thousand years – to give people even greater incentive, with such fantastic prospects, to become Christians.

But that is precisely the reason, then as now: It is too fantastic, it has been difficult enough to convey in a reasonably credible manner all the other principles of the Christian world view. If people had been told that as well, they would have just been completely confused and would have walked away. But because over the centuries monetary donations have been collected from people to finance the work-free clergy, it was preferred not to tell them this, and in the course of the centuries it has gradually become forgotten.

It must however be admitted that there is nowhere in the Bible itself where it is expressed specifically. And where it is addressed, the meaning is ambiguous – perhaps also due to a tendentious translation. The intention was to "protect" the church from being discredited among the people as a "church of spirits" (particularly at the beginning, when people were sometimes still possessed by demons).

Nowadays, I don ’ t have all these problems, and can therefore speak and write in accordance with the original text – and its logical interpretation, which anyone can follow. I do not have to earn anything from this – on the contrary, I have been financing all the costs of this website for 30 years. And also because I think the time has come to reveal these hidden connections, a detailed summary of all relevant Bible passages can be found above, in the section about rebirth.

Biblical Christianity.

Therefore I have not the slightest benefit from whether you believe me or not. It ’ s entirely up to you. And in case you were not yet aware, unlike the worldly Christian religions, Biblical Christianity is not a religion but a relation, a relationship or connection with God and his Son.

In this Biblical-Christian faith community, there are no churches, temples or mosques. It is man himself, the Biblical Christian, who as a child of God is the temple of God and who performs his worship in his spirit, in a private conversation with God, alone in a quiet room. And God, to whom the spirits of all men are open, will come and make his home with him.

For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘ ‘ I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, ‘ Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’ And, ‘ I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.
(2Cor 6:16-18;)

And each man must also decide on his own whether to accept this Biblical-Christian faith. Here there is – apart from baptism – no further initiation rite for new brethren in faith, and this baptism can also be carried out in private, so just the person to be baptized and the baptist – both are only answerable to their Father, our Lord and God.

The exchange of ideas between the brethren takes place perfectly normally and informally wherever they meet, or also on social occasions, as quite precisely described by Paul in his letters to Timothy. If God is a topic of discussion, he is talked about, regardless of who is present. If not, then not. Always in line with the principle set out by Paul:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
(2Cor 3,17;)

Why and with what aim did God create the universe, our solar system, the Earth, and finally man? The unbelieving world doesn ’ t give this a thought, and worldly Christianity tears down the pillars holding up Christianity one after the other: In the Catholic church, they have allowed the "blessing" of homosexuals; in the Protestant church they have even introduced homosexual marriage and elected gay superintendents.

There they are obviously only concerned about themselves. In Biblical Christianity a much better overview is possible:

o   God created creation for man.

o   God created man because he wants to have beside him and his Son children who love him, whom he also loves, and whom he can trust.

o   To this end, he vested men with a spirit with which they can acknowledge God in their lives on Earth, and can decide whether they want to be with him or not.

o   All men will be resurrected after death and – just like the angels – will be reborn as sexless immortal spiritual beings.

o   Those men who have chosen to love God and his Son, and to live with God, will enter into a new second creation of God, eternal life.

o   Those men who have decided against remaining with God and who have ended their life on Earth without receiving forgiveness will spend their eternal existence in the lake of fire.

However, we do have one more statement by Paul about creation in his Letter to the Romans 8,18-23, which it has so far not been possible to contextualize correctly. It can perhaps be assumed that with "creation", Paul had in mind the animal world or part of the animal world on the planet, when he writes that "creation" is waiting for the children of God to be revealed – in other words the rebirth of man.

And when he writes that "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.", would that mean, if indeed it is intended to refer to the animal world, that this remaining part of creation, after the resurrection of the children of God, should also attain eternal life (for the freedom and glory of the children of God)?

In this case, however, in my view, a choice must also be made here, just as with man. It could not be in relation to the work of the animals themselves that they will be judged, but instead there must be a connection with the children of God who have already been saved – so with those among them who have a special, perhaps affectionate relationship with this animal or these animals. – An open question which can perhaps be answered by younger brethren while remaining true to the Bible.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

Rom 8,18 8,18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 8,19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 8,20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 8,21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 8,22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 8,23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, (they are newly begotten on earth) groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. Rom 8,18-23;

Do we also know why God created creation? Some of the brethren may think in this regard that this does not matter, the fact is that God created it. Although that is correct, and has also been the opinion of almost all Christians in the past centuries, this is not because it could not be found in the Bible, but because they had to be concerned about other things. However, they were still saved by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, just as we are today.

But in the present times, we have completely different options, and we have also been taught completely differently, so that we are nowadays better able to "process" and thus also understand the Bible than previously. And to a certain extent, this also obliges us to apply this knowledge and understanding, and to pass it on to other interested brethren as well.

As I have already explained, and proved on the basis of Biblical statements, in my article "The foundations of biblical Christianity.", in his existence on this planet man is in the prenatal phase of his – intrinsically eternal – life.

Man is in a prenatal phase in his life as an intelligent mammal on Earth. The rebirth takes place after his physical death and the resurrection of the spirit in the timeless heavenly dimension, as an immortal, sexless spiritual being.

(God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (1Tim 2:3-4;)

The conclusion that I draw from this, that therefore the rebirth can only occur after the death of man, in the "resurrection from the spirit" (Jn 3:6-7;), is understandably seen differently in many communities, and is fiercely debated, to the point where members of a community who are spreading the interpretation documented from the Bible here at Immanuel.at are threatened with exclusion from the community, as I have learnt from visitors.

Yet the Biblical evidence is unambiguous. The Lord tells us in Mt 19,28 when the rebirth will happen: namely, when he will sit on his glorious throne.

In the rebirth when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne

Mt 19,28 And Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the rebirth when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Mt 19,28;

So at the rebirth, the disciples will also sit on 12 thrones, to judge the 12 tribes of Israel – so it is the Last Judgment, which will take place after the General Resurrection of "the gathered nations". And this is yet again confirmed in Mt 25,31, where the Lord also mentions that he will sit on "his glorious throne" for this occasion. So: The rebirth of the children of God takes place as spiritual beings, in the resurrection from the spirit, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne

 He will sit on his glorious throne and will judge the gathered nations.

Mt 25,31 ‘ When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 25,32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 25,33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Mt 25,31-33;

For this they simply had to read carefully the explanation of the Lord, which he gave to Nicodemus, when after the Lord stated: "If someone is not born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God", he asked him in Jn 3,4:

How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘ Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born.

Jn 3,3 Jesus replied, ‘ Very truly I tell you, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ 3,4 ‘ How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘ Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’ 3,5 Jesus answered, ‘ Very truly I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 3,6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 3,7 You should not be surprised at my saying, "You must be born again."

3,8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. (A "born again" person in physical life must first demonstrate that to me!!) Jn 3,3-8;

The Son of God explains to the scribe Nicodemus:

Very truly I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water (amniotic fluid with biological birth in flesh) ) and the Spirit (spiritual birth). Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. Jn 3,5-6;

Both births are therefore necessary: first you have to be born as man, otherwise you cannot find faith, and just as we experienced at the first birth, the birth from water, a new "dimension", we will also experience a new heavenly dimension after our death, on our rebirth in the resurrection from the spirit.

When a woman is in labor, the birth in flesh from water brings a life in flesh into the world, a human child.

On the resurrection of the dead from the spirit – the rebirth – a spiritual life enters the Kingdom of God, the child of God.

There has been a lot of discussion here about what the Lord could have meant by "water" in Jn 3,5 "no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit." The birth of a baby was probably considered, but then "you would have to talk about ‘ amniotic fluid ’ and the like – terrible, dreadful!".
So it was decided to think of "water" in relation to baptism, and in order to prevent any questions being asked about the "birth from the spirit" subsequently mentioned by the Lord, the Catholic church around a thousand years ago invented "confirmation", and maintained that this was the "gift of the power of the Holy Spirit" to believers, and that both baptism and confirmation were the initiation rites of a child of God.

And thus the "birth from water" and the "birth from the spirit" were both seen to take place, and the child of God was (re)born anew.  So it is also completely understandable that members of the various other worldly Christian religions also resist the concept of rebirth only after death, since they have always boasted about being "reborn" themselves. All this false glory would then be gone.

From a Biblical Christian standpoint, we should in fact present these people with the challenge, if they are actually reborn, and so "born of the Spirit", as the Lord Jesus says in Jn 3,8:

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

that one of them should simply prove it, and step into our midst and out again in such a way that we do not know where he comes from and where he is going!

It is in principle similar to the death of the Lord. The Sanhedrin was at that time the highest authority in Israel – both religiously and politically, because there was no king in Israel at that time. The scribes in the Sanhedrin were thus the "power in the state". And then suddenly someone came along and maintained that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. And from the Torah they knew of the Messiah that when he comes he will assume all power. So when he comes he will rule, but they will become meaningless.

They would therefore lose all their power, no longer be addressed as "councilors", "a disgrace to all relations and acquaintances – no, we ’ d rather have him killed by the Romans. Only a few of his followers know him anyway, it will soon be forgotten, and in the end we didn ’ t kill him, it was the Romans", thus or similar is what some of the thoughts of the scribes at that time (and up to the present day in Israel!!) could have been. Not all of them, e.g. the aforementioned Nicodemus (Jn 3,4;), and of course Joseph of Arimathea (Jn 19,38;) as well, who laid the Lord in his own new grave, certainly did not think like this.

Today the community leaders might think: "We have taught for decades that we have been reborn; there will be an outcry from all those "reborn" people; there will be people leaving the church, arguments, questions, why we didn ’ t know that, as community leaders or elders – no, we would rather deny that this is in the Bible, people don ’ t read the Bible that closely anyway, and then it will be forgotten and life goes on.

I have tried to describe a little of this path, from the birth in flesh from water to the resurrection from the spirit, the rebirth, because it is so important for a complete understanding of the connections, in my work "The foundations of biblical Christianity" in the chapter "From a child of man to a child of God". And as I was able to prove there with reference to the Bible, the procreation of a child of God occurs through reading the Bible (Jam 1:18;). God ’ s word is the seed (Lk 8:11; 1Pet 1:3; ^¹), which achieves this fertilization in the spirit of man (1Ptr 1,23;).

And it is the spirit of this reCREATED man, who goes through life "pregnant", while the child of God develops in the spirit of the man, similar to the human child in the womb. On the death of this man, the material flesh part, in other words the body, dies, while the spirit, which has been given to him by God, who is Spirit (Jn 4:24;), remains existent, since spirit – like energy – cannot be destroyed or generated and – like God, who is Spirit – is eternal.

The man created by God on this Earth is therefore, if you will, a spiritual being at the pre-birth stage, thus as already mentioned above, similar to a butterfly at the caterpillar stage. However, the living environment of the man – where he could move – is somewhat bigger: It is the whole universe. This entire cosmos, with all its galaxies and solar systems, its billions and billions of stars, all that was created by God in order then to create man in precisely this galaxy, in precisely this solar system, on precisely this planet.

This cosmos is a dimension in which three things prevail: space, time and gravity. Three things which – if you study the Bible – clearly do not exist in God ’ s dimension – "the heavens".

-   Space, because Jesus showed after his resurrection that he can pass through closed doors with his spirit body (Jn 20:19.26;). But from this it can be concluded that in God ’ s dimension, from which he came, space would be meaningless, because nobody would observe it.

-   Time, because Jesus told us that after his resurrection man would be sexless, like all angels (Mt 22:30;). Therefore, since reproduction is not possible and the angels exist to this day, it can be concluded that all those who live in God ’ s dimension – such as God himself and also men after their resurrection – have an eternal existence (quite apart from the many references in the Scriptures to the "eternal life" of believers).

-   And finally gravity, because many of his disciples saw the Lord on his "ascension", floating on a cloud up to heaven (Acts 1:9;). So if Jesus as a spiritual being can nullify gravity here on Earth, gravity would also make no sense in heaven.

Incidentally, this statement by the Lord in Mt 22,30:

"At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."

documents that man is eternal after resurrection. Because if they neither marry (men) nor be given in marriage (women), then no reproduction can take place, but since they still live on, they must be immortal. And then this statement of course also indicates that they will be sexless – there are no longer women and men, there are simply sexless immortal spiritual beings – like the angels in heaven. Those who then also correctly interpret the relevant statements of the Lord, e.g. Jn 10,30:

"I and the Father are one."

or in Jn 14,23:

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them (in their spirit).."

recognize that spiritual beings can integrate themselves in each other – and in the spirit of men. (Thus also the angels of Satan, who after the battle in heaven and their expulsion were cast down upon the Earth and entered into men as demons but were then driven out by the Son of God!).

And thus the long and fiercely debated problem of the Trinity is also solved. Not only the Son, but also the Holy Spirit lives in the Father, and the three are one. It is like when, on a material level, you have two glasses of water, each half full, and empty one into the other and the two waters become one.

And on Earth we have a further comparable example of such a "union": the Lord explained it thus to a Pharisee:

So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Mt 19,3 19,3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, ‘ Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’ 19,4 ‘ Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘ that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female," 19,5 and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh"? 19,6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no-one separate.’. Mt 19,3-6;

So when a man and a woman (unfortunately you have to state that extra nowadays) marry, they become "one flesh". Similar to the example above, with the water: Water to water and the two waters become one water, and so "flesh to flesh" on the wedding night also becomes one single flesh, as the Lord says: "So they are no longer two, but one flesh." But for the woman this is actually just a return to her "skeleton". For of course God created her from Adam ’ s rib. – However, whether they are then in fact one flesh will be shown for Christians with the rapture.

For all deceased children of God – and only they – will be awakened (not resurrected!) in the rapture, with the return of the Lord, and together with the Christian brethren still living, who become "clothed over", will be carried away into heaven, as Paul writes (who clearly hoped for the return of the Lord in his own lifetime – like possibly many Christians).

We are clothed over so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

2Cor 5,1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 5,2 Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, 5,3 so that by putting it on we may not be found naked.

5,4 For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 2Cor 5,1-4;

All the other deceased, including those men who will die in the millennium, the thousand-year kingdom of peace of the Son of God on Earth, will only be resurrected from the spirit after these thousand years, at the end of the world, on the General Resurrection of all men, and then – after the Last Judgment – the faithful will be accepted into the new creation with a new Earth and a new heaven, while the godless will spend their eternal life in the lake of fire.

The whole of creation is what you might call the "mother" of man. It nourishes him, and permits him to grow and develop. Spirit and body are formed and taught, and when he is wise enough he begins to read the Bible. And it is here that his spirit can then be fertilized by the word of God, and he is recreated as a child of God, albeit still a spiritual embryo in his spirit, the "womb" of the child of God, yet still the child of God. But as with human children too, in this stage of the "pregnancy", in the life of man here on Earth, the potential still exists for all sorts of problems to arise – up to and including stillbirth (Hebr 6:4-6;!!)

On death, the spirit of man enters the kingdom of the dead. This is now perhaps also comparable with the cocoon of a butterfly, where it too is waiting for a rebirth – after being born as a caterpillar. From the earlier "flesh being" man, with the resurrection from the spirit in rebirth there then blossoms a wonderful, immortal and blessed child of God as a spiritual being.

A Sign in the Cosmos.

My assertion above that God created the entire cosmos for man implies that God is the Lord of this universe and has formed it according to his will. And although this is of course also documented in the Scriptures, right at the beginning in Gen 1,1:

– this is not believed by the overwhelming majority of men. People simply cannot – do not want to? – imagine it. Scientists in particular will laugh at you if you maintain this in their presence. But this year – at least for the astronomers – the laughter stopped and a feeling of broad bewilderment spread. But here are the facts:

A while ago, on 11 January 2024, to be precise at 3:15 p.m., Alexia Lopez, an aspiring astronomer at the British University of Central Lancashire, couldn ’ t believe her eyes when she came across – completely by chance as she says – an unbelievable structure in the cosmos while analyzing the light from distant quasars: an almost perfect, large ring of galaxies and galaxy clusters nine billion light years away, measuring 1.3 billion light years in diameter:

"It is truly surreal. I have to pinch myself, because I made these discoveries by chance, they were chance discoveries. But it is a big deal and I can ’ t believe it." – "Neither of these two ultra-large structures is easy to explain in our current understanding of the universe," she said. "And their ultra-large sizes, distinctive shapes, and cosmological proximity must surely be telling us something important – but what exactly?" said Alexia Lopez.

The Great Ring was discovered by Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan),
who also discovered the Giant Arc - a structure that stretches across 3.3 billion light years in space.
Photo: University of Central Lancashire

But this was not the first time she found herself in such a situation. Three years ago, she discovered, also 9.3 billion light years away – so in cosmological terms quite nearby – an almost symmetrical giant galaxy arc (Giant Arc) in the constellation of "Bootes the Herdsman". The new discovery of the "Big Ring" is thus for scientists the second formation in the sky which just a few years ago they would have deemed completely impossible. These are the two largest structures in the universe discovered to date.

An artist’s impression highlighting the positions of the Big Ring
(in blue)and Giant Arc (shown in red) in the sky.
BBC report

A view from the Hubble space telescope shows that galaxies are
evenly distributed in the Universe Hubble picture of the Universe
IMAGE SOURCE NASA (Image caption)

If you also read other reports of this discovery, you realize that for days and weeks after the phenomenon became known disbelief prevailed among scientists. After all, this went against scientists ’ long-accepted, standard model of the universe. It was as if someone had claimed to have seen two suns in the sky.

And this reminded me of an event from the Bible. It was around two thousand years ago, at about the same time. Nowadays, on 6 January, Christianity celebrates "Epiphany". And two thousand years ago there were these three men, renamed "kings" by the Catholic church, but they were probably also astronomers of the time, who observed stars and had noticed that a brightly lit star had suddenly appeared in the sky and begun to wander.

The three men were probably from different parts of the country, and in the beginning were just as astonished as our astronomers today, but then each decided independently – for whatever reason – to get to the bottom of the matter and to follow this star. I think everyone in the Christian Occident already knows the rest of the story: They found the newly born Son of God in Bethlehem.

And just as at that time the three men probably asked themselves what this star could possibly mean, Alexia Lopez the astronomer asked herself this question:

"And their ultra-large sizes, distinctive shapes, and cosmological proximity must surely be telling us something important – but what exactly?"

Then when the rest of the scientific community had also become convinced that the sighting was real and could no longer be denied, general astonishment and speculation set in. According to one of the guiding principles of astronomy, known as the "Cosmological Principle", such large structures should not exist. This principle states that all matter is evenly distributed across the universe (see picture top right from the Hubble space telescope).

(See also Discourse 151: "A sign in the cosmos?)

Clearly this calls into question the whole of astronomical science, and they need to completely reinvent it. But now back to our comparison – about which these scientists of course have no idea, and where they would never make the connection. Is this "sign from the cosmos" also an indication from God, similar to the star of Bethlehem? And if so, what is he pointing us towards?

And the strange shape of these two celestial bodies can be of help to us here. But first a short temporal orientation to help us understand. Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not: We are living near to or even already at the beginning of the Biblical end times.

The Signs of the Biblical End Times.

The problematic political and economic situation in the world, the end of peace on Earth with the wars in Ukraine and in Palestine, the increasingly aggressive and ruthless state of mind of men all around the world, this could have been what Paul meant when he described the situation in the end times:

While they are saying, "Peace and safety!"

1The 5,1 Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 5,2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.

5,3 While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child,

and they will not escape. 5,4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; 1The 5,1-4;

And the Lord also speaks of "the beginning of birth pangs" in his Discourse on the End Times:   

But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

Mt 24,6 "You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. 24,7 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.

24,8 "But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Mt 24,6-8;;

In the Book of Revelation, which contains a complete description of all the events in this time of the Great Tribulation (see towards the end of this article), this beginning is described thus:

I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow.

Rev 6,1 I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, ‘ Come!’

6,2 I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown,

and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

6,3 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘ Come!’6,6,4 And another, a red horse, went out;

and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth,

and that men should slaughter one another,

and a great sword was given to him. Rev 6,4;

If you have looked at the first picture with the two celestial formations and you had to describe it, you could describe it as a "bow" held by a man (the circle seen as the head). Although on the one hand that seems somewhat vague, on the other hand it should be borne in mind that such gigantic structures in space have previously been considered impossible from a scientific standpoint.

Not only because with all the research into and studies of space it has not yet ever been possible to identify such a concentration of matter, but also and precisely because these are giant galaxies which are "strung together" in the cosmos 9.3 billion light years away (!!). Nobody has ever experienced that. Who or what made, or indeed could have made, such a thing? It looks like a child has been playing with building blocks, whereby these "building blocks" are entire galaxies, like our Milky Way.

So if you take into consideration this manifest impossibility of a natural provenance for these unbelievably gigantic formations, you can interpret them as a sign from God which is meant to announce to us – just as with the birth of the Son of God, Christ – that the Antichrist, this first rider with the bow, has now been born.

What is also striking about this text is the statement about the second rider, that he takes peace from the Earth so that men should slaughter one another.  That he takes peace from the Earth of course means that previously there was peace, and that then corresponds to the text cited above from 1The 5,3: "While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety’, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.".

And that would again be completely applicable to our times, where we have been able to live in peace for 30 years in Europe, and now have war. But the final statement in this verse from Rev 6,4: "that men should slaughter one another" is also telling. Previously the typical murder weapon was more usually the pistol, whereas in the end times it seems a knife is preferable for dispatching our neighbor into the afterlife.

One final argument for the interpretation of these signs in the cosmos as the first rider in Revelations and the beginning of the end times can be found in the Gospel of Luke. I had to laugh when I read it. Not only are "signs from heaven" prophesied, but they are also "great signs". This "great" has until now been interpreted in the sense of "important", and it is unlikely that it would have occurred to any exegete that these should be actual big signs, with a diameter of 1.3 light years at a distance of 9.3 light years.

And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Lk 21,9 "When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately." 21,10 Then He continued by saying to them, "Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, 21,11 and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven." Lk 21, 9-11;

WHOEVER WANTS TO SHAPE THE FUTURE MUST RECOGNIZE THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES,

AND THESE SIGNS ARE "TURNING".

IT IS TIME TO RECOGNIZE AND WORSHIP THE CREATOR OF ALL!

And while we are talking about "great signs", here is another. Not at a distance of 9 billion light years, but, so to speak, just around the corner, in Great Britain. If you happen to be sitting at a PC which isn ’ t using Firefox as the browser: The picture can be enlarged to fill the whole screen and then looks even more magnificent.

People in Whitley Bay, UK, snap photos on 10 May of the aurora borealis,
which became visible at lower latitudes than usual owing
to the most severe geomagnetic storm since 2003.
(Ian Forsyth/Getty)

^¹) As e.g. the Greek word"anagegennēmenoi" =as regenerated,– spiritually regenerated after fertilization by the word of God, not translated as reborn. So e.g. in Lk 8:11; 1Pet 1:3; 1Pet 1:23;), (See also Discourse 85: True and false Rebirth.)

The Great Tribulation – classified by events. (LANDSCAPE)