Whatever it is that is believed determines the destiny of the person. In effect, everyone is the master of their own fate. With that said, your own thoughts may be your own worst enemy or your best friends.
People argue about grace and works; however, they are not opposites but complementary.
Nobody deserves anything for even death is sure. Neither theology nor science espouses the idea that you are deserving; only you and other humanists believe that you deserve things just because you exist, and that you deserve preservation although for atheists there is no “Life Preserver” and no Haven of safety in which to be preserved.
For those unschooled in theology, grace is the reception of undeserved favor and works are the energy required from the person for the favor. Works makes grace irrational because in that fiction, each person deserve eternal life because of what he or she does.
The textus receptus (Greek manuscripts) distinguish between two types of “work”: (1) ergo that requires effort and expenditure of physical energy, and (2) katergazomai, to apply reason, or to think rationally. The former expends energy, and the latter burns no calories. Essentially, katergazomai is entirely ergonomic because it is “working” out salvation (Phil 2:12) with no physical effort!
That what anyone thinks determines their destiny is critical — a matter of eternal life and eternal death. The repentant thief on the cross alongside Jesus is the best example of that. He was nailed to a “tree” and the point that he was restrained has much significance. He was prevented from physical activity. His nails kept him from striking the centurions to save himself, or even from touching the garment of Jesus for Divine Virtue to deliver him.
The thief, Dismas (his name, according to external sources), had to be crucified for a specific reason! It was not because he took from Caesar what was Caesar’s but because he needed nothing that he could steal but only free grace. Him and his fellow malefactor took what did not belong to them because they felt deserving. The Jews in the Greek and Roman world were the oppressed and had the same attitude that BLM does in modern times. Before experiencing Jesus, Dismas thought that he deserved things. Soon he received the ultimate gift that he did not deserve. All he needed to do is observe Truth and decide in whom to trust!
There were only two choices on that occasion: (1) beg for mercy from Pilate and the Jews or (2) trust that Jesus was who He claimed to be — and that is God in the flesh.
The former was more logical. After all, the Jews had just persuaded Pilate to grant unmerited favor to Barabbas, and that malefactor received grace that he had not deserved. Would Dismas trust others or world he trust God for deliverance? He only needed to see the truth to be set free — that Jesus is God. After all, that is what the trial and crucifixion was all about, was it not?
However, on the cross to the left of Jesus was another thief (Gestas). He too took things that he did not deserve. He was also eligible for the free gift of eternal life; a gift that neither did he deserve. When it was finished, both Dismas and Gestas saw the same thing but came to different conclusions: (1) Gestas failed to see that Jesus was God who could redeem his life, but (2) somehow Dismas saw that Jesus was God in the flesh. Because they witnessed the same things but came to different conclusions, Gestas resides in Hell to this day and Dismas in Paradise in heaven since that day!
What was the “some thing” that Dismas saw? He saw the “Gracious Thing”! He saw Jesus give up the Ghost. He saw the evidence of things unseen! He saw God in the Flesh and God in the Spirit “both” on the Cross. (Both is in italics not because God was too beings but because His “Substances” were three).
Gestas saw God as the “Accursed Thing” (Jos 6:18). Ironically, Gestas, if he saw the Holy Ghost, saw that “Thing” as his curse. However, Dismas saw the “Thing” as a blessing!
But Dismas only saw the physical and spiritual with his eyes. How did he “see” God. His mind understood that only the Man Jesus, and the Spirit Jesus IS God. Just as Jesus had said to Philip, “Believe Me that I AM in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:11). Dismas saw that in his mind’s eye!
Jesus was transfigured on Mount Hermon, as many believe, and three apostles saw that Jesus is the Father. They saw the Spirit of God encompass Jesus. There on Calvary was another “transfiguration” as Jesus showed that “The Word” from ancient times IS the very Flesh of God.
Dismas’s mind was not constrained; he saw through the seen unto the unseen. Jesus manifesting the Holy Ghost was, “the evidence of things not seen” that “is the substance of things hoped for.” Dismas had found “faith” (Heb 11:1).
Dismas hoped for rescue. Jesus did that! He took Dismas to Paradise that day (Luke 23:43). Faith got him there! His body remained dead on the Cross while his soul was transported to Paradise because if Jesus could do it, so could he!
Where does the notion that things not seen are “substances”? Right there in that passage. Jesus showed his two substances: His Body and His Spirit. The former was His seen substance and the latter His unseen substance. Both were real and he saw them both. He saw unto the “heavens,” and it was Jesus all the time which the patriarchs had worshipped. He saw what John claimed (John 1:1-14). Because he saw the invisible substance of God and the visible substance at the same time, Dismas saw all three substances of God. Yes, God was on the Cross as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. “The Father too?” you ask. Yes, as Jesus had sensed that the Father had abandoned Him (Mark 15:34).
Dismas did not see that but understood it; and probably you had not! Jesus felt that and cried out.
Dismas has empathy for Jesus because he understood that the substances of God — all three — were on the Cross and crucifiers “split” them into three. Death was defined there on the Cross. It is isolation of things seen, things unseen, and things understood.
On the left side, to make it simple, Gestas saw only the flesh of Jesus. If he had seen the Holy Ghost, he failed to see it as reality (or perhaps a curse), and he failed to perceive that God was tried, convicted, and crucified unfairly. He did not complain about himself because he knew that he deserved death, but his problem is that unlike Dismas, he had no goodwill for Jesus.
Literally, agape love is “goodwill.” Rather than concerned with himself the evidence was that Dismas was more concerned for Jesus and was rewarded for it. He too became the heir to God and received his gain in Paradise that day.
Where am I heading with this thread? That just as Dismas saw things unseen, anyone with enough faith can as well, working the faith that is given.
However, God provides that faith. Jesus manifested faith as reality when he showed Himself in all His Substances. All the while, Gestas ignored what was happening over there on the other cross, but Dismas worked the faith that he was shown.
What type of work did Dismas perform? Constrained from doing anything, Dismas “worked” (katergazomai) in his mind. Dismas was persuaded that Jesus is God, and that was enough to inherit his mansion in God’s House in Paradise (John 4:2).
Dismas was saved from forever dying because he saw the unseen in what he was seeing and understood that Father God was sacrificing His only Son.
Paul perhaps writing of the crucifixion wrote:
20 For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (Rom 1:20-21)
Dismas understood the Godhead — the Holy Trinity of God’s three Substances — because he saw Jesus that the Father had made. “Made” not in the sense that Jesus did not previously exist but that He was manifested so that God could be seen. Dismas saw God manifest Himself, not only in material substance, but also in spiritual substance. On the other hand, Gestas mostly saw the material substance and failed to see what Dismas saw in Jesus. What is salvation? Looking for God and seeing Jesus all the while sensing the presence of the Holy Ghost. That is because Jesus cannot be separated any longer from the Godhead, to wit: “Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God” (Luke 22:69).
Jesus does not sit to the right of God for God cannot be separated. That happened only one time for His purpose. Jesus is the right hand “man” of God, according to the Power that He has. That “Power” is the Holy Ghost. Sitting on the throne of God is God in all three of His Substances: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; together again that no man can put asunder!
Flavius Josephus adequately explained in The Antiquities of the Jews that the “right hand” is a sharing of power as if multiple people have the authority as if they are one; that Domitian and Titus, the sons of Caesar Vespasian, were as Caesars in authority. They are antitypes of the Godhead; Vespasian the King of kings (the Father), Titus the warrior “king” who would endeavor to save the Jews from themselves, and Domitian the distant “king” who had legal authority albeit he was far removed from Judea. As such, the earthly “godhead” was Vespasian (the Father), Titus (the son), and Domitian (the “ghost”) who seemed far removed from the Roman estates. The Romans saw that!
I have never heard of anyone else understanding that the Roman “godhead” (Caesar’s considered themselves as gods) other than myself. Likewise, few likely understood the Godhead like Dismas, Longinus the centurion, and Pontius Pilate who finally realized by whose true authority it was all happening!
It is imperative to understand what others cannot see that you can see. As an engineer whose understanding is scientific, I look at what I see and see God in all things. Not that God is all matter, but that God is the Creator of all things, just as scripture indicates.
Next on the agenda is to show you that God IS the “Scientist” that is behind all things. (To be continued.)
(picture credit: "Making Sense of the Transfiguration;" Marg Mowcsko)
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