跳到主要內容

How God Testifies through His Word?

'The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him' (Psalm 52).

The differentiation between the God-depending and God-non-depending in this psalm is typically clear. The former exhibits the disdain for the latter, which would be characterised as  Nietzschean 'slave ethics'. Christians boast their relationship with God and laugh at non-Christians. Counter-criticism against Christians has become commonplace, and this is seen as a sign of modernity. 
The question, however, is what was actually said in the Scripture. It was psalms, so written before Christ. The differentiation was therefore between God-lovers and God-non-lovers. They are actually entitled 'the righteous' and 'the self-prides'. Their deeds were summarised in the text. Therefore, their relations with God is defined by their deeds. So their deeds separate them. 
The text put the two groups in contact only through the words the righteous said onto the self-pride. One might wonder: what if the latter had said and done something before? What is the latter differentiates the righteous from them first? Is it what we see in Hong Kong, in the US today? Is it not God testifying in his words in this psalm?

留言

這個網誌中的熱門文章

Penance and Grace

"Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee" (Psalm 51:13) The prayer David offered after being told off by Nathan the prophet revealed a specific aspect between Man and God. In this occasion, Man sins, and only sin Man actively commit. The penance was provoked or necessitated by the prophet's delivery of witness, who was God. We could not know whether David would repent without the knowledge of God's knowledge of his transgression. With the knowledge of God's knowledge of his transgression, however, David repented. His penance reflected its own precondition, namely the existence and action of God. David's request for cleansing and renewal depends on God's re-action. David promised to offer sacrifice, which could only be a product of God's renewal of him - make me a new heart and I will offer it to you. In this sense, David did not really give anything of himself, but only acknowledges the authorship of his offer...

Salvation or Condemnation?

"Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation" (Psalm 50:23) God speaks through this psalm. The speech is about salvation and condemnation. He began by declaring the arrival of his words. The declaration is made on high and low, to all his creature, and to judge. The speech first set right the relation with Man, which is that of a judge indifferent to Man's offering and sacrifice. He is judge, and he judges, based on Man's offering of thanks to him, and action to others.  In accepting this speech, one accepts that God will judge, deciding on saving or condemning a person. The lacunae here is what if a person gives thanks to God for having the chance to slaughter his neighbour? As ratio ultima , God can continue to expose the malice in this person, and stop listening, instead of stop talking. However, this does not deny the fact that the condemned believed in the relation between his salvation and his a...

Wealth does not redeem my soul

Psalm 49: 'But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; for he shall receive me'. Wealth redeems not. God does. The psalm announces the authority of God over Death. The ultimate forces. Interestingly their realms seems to have only the grave as border. Death takes all alive, to grave. God takes from Grave. We the living face only Death, or nothing. In this sense, wealth is enjoyable only when we face nothing. The pleasure of wealth belongs to those under the illusion of eternal life. Yet it started with God taking one from the grave. In this sense, one does not know eternal life unless seeing death. Eternal, therefore, does not reach to the past, and eternal life actually means not really temporal unlimitedness, but the overcoming of Death.  The realisation of the meaningless of wealth, or the might of Death, renders sorrow to all that lives. The joy in God is therefore not so much joy, but the power that sustains us through this life, with an understanding of the s...