"Following the suggestions of Holy Scripture, we have learned that God’s nature cannot be named and is ineffable."
Recently, I've been pondering God in relation to time. My father always used to say, "God lives in an eternal now," however, I find it much more complex than that. God exists in every moment equally. Although I'm certain that He understands sequence of events, it is due to divine understanding, not the limitation that we find it to be.
Perhaps this timelessness is why we shouldn't be preoccupied with justification, sanctification, and glorification as though they are distinct events and processes.
Bionic, I've also run across a historical note that makes me wonder about "perseverance" as we think of it on a timeline. Daryl Cooper's podcast about the anti-humans—the Soviet Stalinists—concludes with details of the torturous "unmasking" that was done in Romania. Those who were broken easily were sent to labor camps. The tough nuts—those devoted to family, faith, and country—were subjected to "experimentation" that broke 100% of the victims. This included Christian priests. Thus, at the end of their days, they renounced their faith. Thinking of this breaks my heart. How does our God measure perseverance in cases like these?
"The Beatitudes are arranged in order like so many steps, so as to facilitate the ascent from one to another."
In his letter for Christmas 1995, the late and much missed Patriarch Pavle (Stojčević) of Serbia made the same point when considering the tyrants who called themselves peacemakers during the West's war on his country:
"Our Savior praised the peacemakers in the seventh place in the Beatitudes. Who can open his mouth and preach peace— and not only peace to a particular house or person, but to the whole world— if he has not first experienced poverty of spirit? If he has not mourned his own sins and tamed the savage nature within himself? If he has not felt hunger and thirst for God's righteousness? If he has not conquered the selfishness within himself with mercy? And if he has not achieved such purity of heart that he can see God?
"And so only after progressing to this sixth level, after persistent exercise in transforming the inhuman to the human, can one step up to the seventh level and become a true peacemaker, a child of the God of peace, of righteousness and of love."
In my study on the Sermon on the Mount (you can find all of my posts on this topic at the bibliography tab at the top of the home page), I covered in detail this exact point and this Beatitude in general.
I agree fully with the comment by the Patriarch, demonstrating the futility of the idea of achieving "peace" in a world where the so-called peacemakers have not even met step one: to recognize themselves as being poor in spirit.
"Following the suggestions of Holy Scripture, we have learned that God’s nature cannot be named and is ineffable."
Recently, I've been pondering God in relation to time. My father always used to say, "God lives in an eternal now," however, I find it much more complex than that. God exists in every moment equally. Although I'm certain that He understands sequence of events, it is due to divine understanding, not the limitation that we find it to be.
Perhaps this timelessness is why we shouldn't be preoccupied with justification, sanctification, and glorification as though they are distinct events and processes.
Bionic, I've also run across a historical note that makes me wonder about "perseverance" as we think of it on a timeline. Daryl Cooper's podcast about the anti-humans—the Soviet Stalinists—concludes with details of the torturous "unmasking" that was done in Romania. Those who were broken easily were sent to labor camps. The tough nuts—those devoted to family, faith, and country—were subjected to "experimentation" that broke 100% of the victims. This included Christian priests. Thus, at the end of their days, they renounced their faith. Thinking of this breaks my heart. How does our God measure perseverance in cases like these?
We are so finite.
"How does our God measure perseverance in cases like these?"
It isn't my place to speak for God, but from everything I understand: with love and mercy.
"The Beatitudes are arranged in order like so many steps, so as to facilitate the ascent from one to another."
In his letter for Christmas 1995, the late and much missed Patriarch Pavle (Stojčević) of Serbia made the same point when considering the tyrants who called themselves peacemakers during the West's war on his country:
"Our Savior praised the peacemakers in the seventh place in the Beatitudes. Who can open his mouth and preach peace— and not only peace to a particular house or person, but to the whole world— if he has not first experienced poverty of spirit? If he has not mourned his own sins and tamed the savage nature within himself? If he has not felt hunger and thirst for God's righteousness? If he has not conquered the selfishness within himself with mercy? And if he has not achieved such purity of heart that he can see God?
"And so only after progressing to this sixth level, after persistent exercise in transforming the inhuman to the human, can one step up to the seventh level and become a true peacemaker, a child of the God of peace, of righteousness and of love."
In my study on the Sermon on the Mount (you can find all of my posts on this topic at the bibliography tab at the top of the home page), I covered in detail this exact point and this Beatitude in general.
I agree fully with the comment by the Patriarch, demonstrating the futility of the idea of achieving "peace" in a world where the so-called peacemakers have not even met step one: to recognize themselves as being poor in spirit.
https://bionicmosquito.substack.com/p/blessed-are-the-peacemakers