Coming to Terms

There are certain terms which some of us would prefer to others as closer fidelity to truth. "Justification", for example, as widely used in translation, has some disturbing overtones to sensitive ears. "Declared righteous" comes much nearer to the inspired original.

Cecil J. Blay

http://www.geocities.com/tws490/zTTial.html

Giants in the Land

Tom Ballinger very rightly disputes a widely accepted yet mistaken interpretation of this passage as if it, means that those called "Sons of God" were the sons of Seth, and as if the incident recorded concerns the breakdown of a previously preserved separation between the godly line of Seth and the godless line of Cain, which we agree is NOT Scriptural. He defines the meaning of "sons of God" which he reminds us is a term set in contrast to "the daughters of men", but if the "sons of God" had been really sons of Seth there would have been no contrast, for "the daughters of men" included also daughters of Seth, and we are nowhere told that the sons of Cain saw the daughters of Seth "that they were fair". It is only natural that the sons of men are attracted to the daughters of men. What we are told here in Genesis is quite different; that the sons of God as one kind of beings were attracted to the daughters of men from a separate kind of beings. The sons of God did something NOT natural in taking the daughters of men as their wives and the progeny of that misalliance became giants, resulting in great wickedness on earth, so that God was grieved at His heart.

Cecil J. Blay

http://www.geocities.com/tws490/zTTgl.html

More Real

When an individual is called by God (and it is necessary to remember that He chooses us, and not we Him) and is joined to the body of those whom Paul refers to as "called saints", a process comes into operation which is as real and definite as anything which may take place in a physical sense although it may have no physical manifestation whatever. In fact, it is true to say that this process is MORE REAL than anything physical, because such manifestations are mortal and therefore temporary, while this is of a spiritual nature and therefore permanent. The things that are seen are temporary, while the things that are not seen are age-enduring, eonian.

Cecil J. Blay

http://www.geocities.com/tws490/zTTvt.html

John Wyclif

John Wyclif was probably the first person to translate the whole Bible into the English tongue. He was born about 1320, when the language of England was in process of formation. He commenced by translating the Revelation in 1356, and with help finished the entire Bible by 1382. He certainly lived up to his saying, "Christian men ought to travail night and day about holy writ". In his day the Greek originals of the New Testament Scriptures were almost forgotten in Europe, for the Latin Vulgate version had dominated the continent for a thousand years. In translating from the Vulgate, Wyclif never once used the expression "for ever" or "for ever and ever", and though he used "everlasting" he never used "eternal". Had the Authorized Version followed immediately after Wyclif, we should never have received the word "eternal" either, nor would the mass of false theology have been built upon it.

Cecil J. Blay

One Person, One God

Yet Stephen declared that "the God of the glory was seen by our father Abraham" (Acts 7:2). So He Who customarily dwelt in unapproachable glory must have condescended to appear to Abraham in lowly human form. But it is extremely doubtful if from these admitted facts anyone would be foolish enough to reason that the Hebrew Scriptures revealed two "Persons," One visible and One invisible. The obvious truth is that visibility and invisibility were two aspects of God, and that He assumed either characteristic at such times as one or the other was the most suited to His immediate purpose. This, of course, is what all true Hebrews believed; they did not argue about the existence of God, for from Genesis onwards their Scriptures had taken God for granted, and in addition their tradition taught that God had spoken to Adam and Eve, face to face. It is understandable that none of the great Hebrew writers of Scripture made any attempt to discriminate between two Gods, one visible and the other invisible, nor is there in all of their writings the slightest hint that these aspects of God indicated "Two Persons."

Cecil Blay