God and Humanity

This is the story of the god, Yahweh, and humanity. The god Yahweh? Is there then more than one god? That depends how you define the word "god". But ultimately, when the chips are down, according to Jesus, about whom nearly everybody knows, there is just one god, and He is called God in the New Testament.

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God...

To use the same word for referring to the Creator of the universe and what man regards as gods - imaginary creatures half human half animal, statues made for praying to, etc. etc. - will lead to misunderstandings and ambiguities. Not only that, it is very sloppy. Any rational and ordered mind will object to that.

In the beginning Yahweh created the universe, time, which is but an attribute of the universe and Earth, which is part of the universe.

Yahweh can look into his creation from the outside. This gives Him a different way of looking at things not available to us humans. This, in part, may help to explain why we often cannot understand why things are as they are and criticise the Creator of everything for what we perceive as injustices and wrongs.

Yahweh also created what we call angels. According to the Bible there are a great many of them. According to Psalms we are slightly less than the angels. From the Bible we know the names of at least three of the angels: Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer.

Yahweh created these angels with freedom of choice; they could either obey Him or disobey Him, the choice was theirs.

Lucifer looked at himself, was very pleased with what he saw, and decided to seek a higher position for himself than that appointed to him by Yahweh.

Isa 14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.

But things didn't work out for Lucifer, even though he had persuaded a third of all angels to follow him.

Rev 12:7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought,
12:8 but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
12:9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world--he was thrown down to the Earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Humankind now enters. Yahweh made the first man, Adam. Yahweh also made a wife for Adam, Eve. In keeping with His nature, Yahweh also allowed Adam and Eve freedom of choice; they could obey or disobey Yahweh, the choice was theirs.

But if disobedience was not physically possible, they could not really disobey Yahweh. Yahweh told them they could eat of everything in the garden of Eden (their home) except the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. Should they eat of that, they would die.

Lucifer, who we saw had been cast down to Earth, was vengeful, spiteful and full of hate. He would do anything to get at Yahweh and the loyal angels under Michael. Using the snake, Lucifer (now called Satan) found Eve alone.
"Is it true", he said, "that you may eat of none of the fruit in the garden?"
"No", Eve said, "we may eat of everything exept the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. We'll die if we eat of that."
"Not so", said Satan, "you will not die. All that will happen is that you will become like Yahweh and be able to tell right from wrong."

And Eve fell for this mixture of truth and falsehood. She got her husband, Adam, to eat as well. Immediately they saw themselves as naked. When Yahweh came around they tried to hide from Him.

Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. Hardship and death took posession of Earth. Satan claimed it as his own because its inhabitants obeyed him. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Yahweh still had an interest in Adam and Eve and their descendants - after all, they still were part of His creation. Yahweh could not just forget about their disobedience - that would make him unjust. A price had to be paid. Yahweh did not insist that Adam and Eve suffer eternal death. Unlike Satan, He is not vengeful. But a price had to be paid.

Jesus offered to pay the price. Many say Jesus and Michael are one and the same. Jesus had no sin, so He did not have to pay any price on his own behalf. And out of His own free will He offered to save all of humanity by dying for them.

That, too, is history. It is not only in the Bible that Jesus was killed about 2000 years ago. Again, even this gift was not forced upon humanity - each and everyone of us has to choose whether we accept it, or not. If someone knows about this gift and either does nothing about it or not accept it, he rejects it by default. But nobody is excluded. Everyone has the right to make his own choice or just ignore this gift.

Acceptance is active. To accept the gift of eternal life each and everyone of us has to individually:

confess that we are sinners in need of a saviour
ask Yahweh to forgive our sins since Jesus paid the price for them
live a new life dedicated to following the way Jesus indicated - it's in the Bible

It is more than just a question of lip service.

This then is the story of the spectacle of the universe. Here we all are caught in the war between good and evil. How it is going to end for each one of us is up to each one of us. The angels and whole universe are looking on.