Do you remember how it says, “…and on earth peace, good will toward men”? Luke 2:14
Do you remember how it also says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end”? Jeremiah 29:11
Do you remember how it again says, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you”? Isaiah 66:13
We know or remember how the Bible says these things, but it’s kind of trippy when actually thinking about how they are to be fulfilled. Holding John 4:24 and Luke 24:39 to be true, that God is a Spirit and that a spirit does not have flesh and blood, perceiving the fulfillment of these verses becomes tricky, and also a bit "funny."
Because, how is comfort supposed to be given from what can't physically comfort? What “good will” to mankind is supposed to come from what isn't a member of mankind? What kind of peace is supposed to come from what cannot know the feeling of a natural form of peace? What kind of thoughts can something that isn't flesh and blood have for what is flesh and blood?
See, we don't think about the actual reality of what the Bible is saying, but associate its words with what we have heard or have been taught. Because, as I'm looking at these verses, should I be unfamiliar with the context of the Bible's language, I don't understand the “peace” a spirit has for me. Should I apply what I "know" to this concern, I find myself going off in thought and imagining an understanding of what "peace" or "good will" is given by a spirit. Who knows, then, where my thoughts will end up, or what belief I will generate, when forcing an ideology from what I associate with the Bible's words.
I'm bringing this up because I'd like to draw attention to a particular question: How should a spirit comfort? Having no flesh and blood, what kind of "peace," "comfort," "expectation," and "good will" can the living God give? The answer cannot be natural, or flesh-based; where is the natural or flesh-based body of God? Why should something having no natural body think to naturally comfort? Inserting general or popular traditional theology into the issue, the issue has many solutions, but when drawing only on the Bible, there is only one answer.
The answer to the question is "righteousness." Only "righteousness" solves the issue of "peace" and "comfort" coming from that Spirit. This "righteousness" is "the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man," Titus 3:4. This "kindness" is "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but...by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost," Titus 3:5.
Paul is schooling his reader on the living God's will. My blog post on November 16, 2022 quoted a passage from the book of Matthew, where the author's main character advised his hearer's faith to transcend the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Their righteousness is found in their continued service to handwritten religious tradition, which the author's main character cites as being a false manner of devotion. I'm stepping back into that past blog post, and into what was covered, because "righteousness," as a concept within the Bible, is not what we think.
“Righteousness” appears in two forms: the first, a service to handwritten religious routine; the second, the "kindness" offered by the living God.
The first type of righteousness, according to the Bible, is false. It is false because the conversation receives its understanding from a conscience outside of its experience, becoming a slave to that outside conscience. The living God's righteousness is contrary to this position, giving to the conversation its lost liberty in thought, in feeling, in action, and in behavior. This is why it says, "To proclaim liberty to the captives,” Isaiah 61:1.
The gospel, or the good news, is not one's hope on a dying and reviving demigod to share, whether present or in the future, the same nature as that dying and reviving demigod; to the Bible this makes no sense. To the Bible, the "good news" is the living God's "good will," which "will" is a "kindness" not to the individual person, but to the individual conversation. The conversation is to be liberated from a false manner of devotion; this is the kingdom and the righteousness of God, and when hearing or learning it from the Bible, due to our institutionalized understanding, it is most definitely trippy.
I'm saying all of this so that you, my reader, can put "spirit" into perspective, and in putting "spirit" into perspective, you can then pursue the "peace," the "comfort," and the "good will" that the Bible intends. There is more to our experience than what we have been taught and what we think we know. Truth be told, there is no knowledge or understanding on Bible; religious "ology" is our natural spiritual foundation. The promised "expectation" is liberation from the shackles of "ology" to claim a devotional conversation similar to the living God's devotional character. This, when studying the Bible, should be our only concern.