ABOUT THE HEART OF THE BEAST

Christians are “new creatures” based on “You must be born again” (John 3:7). The “old creature” walks in darkness and the “new creature” in the light. Thus, the nature of the “beast” has been improved upon. Jesus commented about light and darkness: 

KEY VERSE: ²² The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. ²³ But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Mat 6:22-23)

 “Eye” therein is not the eyeball but the mind’s one eye. If it was the eyes, then blind men would receive no light. Bartimaeus saw Jesus as a “Tree walking” even though he had been blind since birth. Bartimaeus somehow sensed the arrival of Jesus, not by vision, but spiritual acuity. Perhaps he could sense the goodness, or virtue, of Jesus that he released when he was around those who required healing. It makes sense that when Jesus approached Bartimaeus, He lost virtue and Bartimaeus received it (Mark 10).

On the other hand, Saul saw the light when he was blinded by the glorified Jesus. 

³ As he (Saul) journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven… ⁸ And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. ⁹ And he was three days without sight… (Acts 9:3, 8-9)

 Unlike Bartimaeus who was already blind, Saul had vision but the Light (Shekinah) from the glory of Jesus blinded him. The clue therein is the Light of God, “(God) commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). The Light revealed the glorious face of Jesus!

When Jesus approached Bartimaeus, he required no vision for God commanded the Light to shine out of darkness. Bartimaeus “saw” God shining in his heart. He felt the Presence of God in front of himself.

Paul was the same, but first, God made him as blind as Bartimaeus, not to shine in his eyes, but to shine where? In his heart. For three days, the Light of God shined in the heart of Paul, and for Bartimaeus it shined thereafter. The implication is that after Saul could see, he was a new creature because the Light of God continued to shine even though he was no longer alone with the mental Image of Jesus but in the world.

God made a new creature of Saul and renamed him “Paul.” He went from “Doubter” to “Humbled.” He went from a ravaging beast (Acts 9:1) to a servant of Christ (Acts 9:20). The people were amazed that Saul was the same fellow (Acts 9:21). Saul had become a new creature in Christ —  no longer a beast but a tamed man.

The Light of God did that. He did not see Jesus with his eyes for he was blinded, but with his heart. Of course, the heart is a blind organ with no vision, how did he see with his heart?

Sure enough, light shined in the “kardia” of Bartimaeus and Saul to make them new creatures. Kardia has many definitions but the most fitting for the context is “of the middle or central or inmost part of anything” (Strong 2006). Thus, the “heart” is the essence of mankind or the “human nature.”

The Light of God shined onto the nature of Saul and transformed him to humble Paul. The essence of mankind is what? Who he is. In modern times, it has been found that the human genome describes everything about a person. Where am I heading with this? Saul was born again, or literally, engendered from above by Jesus.

Saul was healed of his “blood issue” just like Jesus had healed the woman (Mat 9:20). What is in the blood? In every nuclear cell of the blood is the DNA of the person. Jesus, from another realm (“above”), made Saul a new person by shining His Light upon him… not in his eyes but in his heart. That means that the innermost nature of Saul was changed. He became a new creature in Christ, suggesting that Jesus had edited the genes of Saul with Light (Phos in the Greek).

Light is one form of electromagnetic radiation. It is the medium for exchanging energy from one place to another. As such, Jesus “operated” on Saul from afar as the Great Physician. He edited the genes of Saul, removing the genome of the Beast in him and replacing them with the most mild and docile Genes ever produced — the nature of Jesus!

If someone had sampled the blood of Saul and compared it to Paul’s, would it have the same DNA? That would be an interesting test. Does the DNA of the creature change when he or she is born again? Who knows? However, it is known that the innermost person does change. That has been demonstrated time after time, and if the nature has not changed, did the Light of Jesus really shine in the heart?

The nature of mankind changed with original sin. After sin, Adam and Eve were repentant and “they strengthened their hearts in God” (1A&E 7:1). The heart did not change in form, but it became stronger. In other words, their wills became more powerful over their fleshes. 

¹ THEN Adam wept and said, "O God, when we dwelt in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we do not see as we were used to do; nay, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us." ² Then God the Lord said unto Adam, "When thou wast under subjection to Me, thou hadst a bright nature within thee, and for that reason couldst thou see things afar off. But after thy transgression thy bright nature was withdrawn from thee; and it was not left to thee to see things afar off, but only near at hand; after the ability of the flesh; for it is brutish." (1A&E 8:1-2)

 Sin mutated Adam. Before, the two could see the heavens in their hearts. For them, their vision changed as well; no longer could they see unto the realm of God but only things near, or in this realm.

Sin mutated their genomes — their bright nature, or Enlightened hearts were removed from them. God dimmed the Light that had been given to them when they were created. Their genome was changed from a bright nature to a dark one. Their flesh, before glorious in the Image of God, became brutish in the image of the Serpent.

The “Serpent” is not a beast as it is thought, but that brutish nature of Lucifer that was imbedded in their genomes. Did their DNA change? Again, who knows, but their human natures certainly did! Eve went from “woman” (“Of Adam”) to “Eve” — in symbiosis with the “image” (“The Serpent”).

She lost her glory and her nature changed to be like the innermost nature of Lucifer. Did her DNA change? Perhaps so! Eve became the “mother of all living” (Gen 3:20), and by implication, Adam was not the father of all living. What did Eve have that Adam did not? The capacity to pass along mitochondrial DNA. Men receive that set of genetic instructions from the women.

Something happened to Eve when she transgressed, and it seems to have bene genetic. We all have the genes of Eve within us but maybe not totally from Adam. Why is that? Our “father,” or progenitor, is the Devil (John 8:44), not Adam. Eve passed down the genetics of that other “image,” but Adam remained in the Image of God. With that said, mankind is not totally depraved but humane enough for now to still be worth saving. Eve thereafter had the dominant genome. As time progresses, the nature of man becomes more brutish; totally brutish is a sign of the end of times, as in the days of Noah.

There is much conjecture within this commentary, however it is known that the DNA differs between the genders. Adam and Eve were made one kind and one flesh but after sin, they were of two kinds and two fleshes.

It is known that only the female transmits mitochondrial DNA, and that the paternal DNA comes from the chromosomes of the male. The genders have different vessels for the transmission of genetics. Surgery has not been able to change that, but with CRISPR technology, that capability is on the horizon. (I believe that will be a fatal sin for mankind!)

Christians and their families testify that conversion changes the nature of the converts. Paul called rebirth “conversion” (Acts 15:3), referring to the Gentiles. The Greek word for that is epistrophe, literally a “reversion” (ibid) to the original image. In other words, rebirth is a return to the glorious state which God intended for his upright walking creatures without tails (humans). (Gentiles are a genetic “family” of a kind that contrasts with Hebrew-kind, of the gens of Abraham.)

Now for some more on the Light (Phos). God is the true bringer of Light, not Lucifer. He is the “Bringer of Darkness.” God separates the light from the darkness and Satan confuses it.

Jesus fixes the blood issue. The blood type remains unchanged but the nature of the beast that cannot be measured with instruments does change. How can nature be measured? By willingness to please God. If you have no desire to follow the precepts of God, chances are that your heart remains unconverted.

“Light” is the knowledge of God and is truth. What is truth? That there are two persons in symbiosis in everyone. One is seen and the other hidden, but a real fragment of the first. Again, that recalls the “Allegory of the Cave” wherein the shadow, or nature, of the man is a fragment or part of the objective being.

Symbiosis is “the living together in more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms.” (Merriam-Webster 2023). Within mankind through the genetics of Eve, their resides in everyone two dissimilar organisms, one is real in nature — the person — and the other is the “nature of man.” One is the persona and the other the shadow within in Jungian terminology.

So, what has been learned? That our “hearts” are our innermost being, our human nature. That sin is genetic and in everyone there lies a brutish nature that must be tamed. That it is so instinctive that you have no power to alter your own nature, but God does because it is genetic from “sins that are past” (Rom 3:25).  So, what must you do? “Marvel not; you must be born again” (John 3:7).

(picture credit: Etsy; "Half Beast")