The Sons of Men

What would you do if you came across an important secret? What if this secret could change the way you think about your self? What if this secret could offset the weather of your energy? What if you learned that, what you thought was for you, actually wasn’t? What would you do?

There are many secrets within the Bible: secrets that have to be searched out, translated, examined, and refined for understanding. But then there are secrets that are hidden in plain sight, secrets that if unconscious to, we will pass by them as if they aren’t there. I guess, then, such a secret, if passing by what is plainly in front of us, isn’t honestly a secret, but is a mistake on our part. 

The Bible tells us the secret exercise of theologians and scientists within the religious world. This secret really isn’t a secret, but because we may not give enough care to language and context within the Bible, we pass over two very telling verses:

“I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end,” Ecclesiastes 3:10,11.

The author of the book of Ecclesiastes put their self to the test, exercising themselves in the lifestyle of the sons of men. Who are the “sons of men”? The phrase is revealing, because these are men that are born from or conceived by men. This idea is put together from how it says, “For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God,” Hebrews 5:1. 

“Son,” to the Bible’s mind, doesn’t actually mean a biological son to a father. “Son” is a term understood from how it says, “To Titus, mine own son after the common faith,” Titus 1:4, and, “Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith,” 1 Timothy 1:2. 

When the Bible mentions “son,” in its truest context, the Bible is mentioning no literal or biological child, but a priest or a minister that has become the priest or the minister of a priest or minister, these two bound together by the passing down of doctrine or philosophy. This idea is again understood from how it says, “He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length,” Proverbs 29:21. 

The “sons of men” are a category of individuals within the Bible. The “sons of men” are priests born from priests; said in present terms, these are priests and ministers graduated from universities and seminaries with the “seed” of men within their mission and understanding. 

The Bible tells us a secret about this group. The author of Ecclesiastes spent time living the lifestyle of the “sons of men” and wrote a report on the experience; Ecclesiastes is that report. The author found out that the “sons of men” are given a curse from God. This “curse” is as its says:

“I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith,” Ecclesiastes 1:13.

The “sons of men” are plagued with a desire to only know what is within “the world” of religion and nothing more. Said again in present terms, the mind of the “sons of men” cannot extend beyond their philosophy or theology. It is not I that is making this report, but the Bible, and we do well, if our concern is inward growth and development, to take knowledge of what the Bible is saying. 

Why is this important? Why is the Bible saying this? Why is the Bible “hating” on “the sons of men”? There is a dislike for the “sons of men” because this group dislikes the actual philosophy within the Bible. Instead of understanding what the Bible is articulating, they meander through handwritten philosophy and theology. The Bible speaks ill of them because they speak ill of the Bible, even while professing to speak from it. 

This is important to know because the exercise of the “sons of men” is not our exercise. After living the delusion of the “sons of men,” the author of Ecclesiastes concluded that their religious or doctrinal lifestyle and habits were vanity. Taking their experience into consideration, the author writes:

“I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts,” Ecclesiastes 3:18. 

The exercise of the “sons of men” should be left to the “sons of men.” We spend our mind, time, and energy in the realm of the “sons of men,” peddling their theories, maintaining their approach, and consenting to their frame of mind. Our conversation does not know its self because the “sons of men” have control of it. True justification is resurrecting from the threshold of the “sons of men”; we have to know this. 

The Reality

You’re in a car. You’re in a car that you love. You’re enjoying your drive. Your thoughts are free, you feel one with the road; every journey in this car is the hallmark of your day. But there’s an issue. The car, from under the hood, is making all kinds of violent rattling noises. The car, when it shouldn’t be driven, is driving, and you are ignoring every sign that it needs to be fixed. 

Who would do this? Why would anyone do this? Having a car that is, at any time, clearly about to break down, who would risk further damaging their car, ignoring the fact that it needs to be taken to a shop? 

We have our reasons. One reason could be that we love our car and want to, until it kicks the bucket, get every last moment with it. Another reason could be that we don’t have the money to get it fixed, and are therefore, until the car decides to stop working, forced to carry on. Yet another reason could be that we just don’t care, or that we have too much going on in our life to worry about it. 

This is how we naturally treat our devotional conversation. To us, our conversation is divine. To us, our conversation is naturally entitled. And, when you think about the belief our conversation either adopts or inherits when conceived within the religious world, this is the only condition our conversation can have. Herein a, “Thus saith the living God,” is needed:

“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream,” Amos 5:21-24. 

Notice that what is quoted is in present tense. That means the voice and the mind that is speaking is not ultimately sectioning out a particular or a specific group of people, but is calling out every group and individual fulfilling the saying, “O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel,” Isaiah 48:1. 

The Bible isn’t a book commending worship and service. The Bible isn’t a book coddling the ego of one’s religious conversation. Once passed the lore of the scriptures and are found beneath its surface, one will understand the Bible to be a book giving counsel, correction, and advice to the personal devotional conversation.  

Our belief is birthed out of the religious world. While birthed out of the religious world, our belief is first conceived, although not by any act of self, within our self, where there is no trace of the philosophy within the religious world. Once we take what is conceived within us and bring it into the religious world, our belief becomes a violent vehicle. Because we are too lazy to either notice or care, or are too attached to what it has become within the religious world, we ignore the fact that our conversation is sick. 

The Bible is a book whose philosophy informs its careful student of the condition of their conversation. It doesn’t matter what we denominate our conversation to be, if we are saying the “God” of Israel is our “God,” then we naturally possess a damaged and a damaging conversation. Maybe we don’t know this, but the Bible is not shy to tell us. 

Why is our conversation damaged and damaging?  Religious theory keeps our spiritual thoughts flesh-based or confined to the “box” of religion and theology. We don’t know it, but this “box” of religion and of theology is the “curse” or “plague” given to the religious world. The book of Ecclesiastes, chapter three and verses ten and eleven make this quite plain, which is why it is so hard to truly hear how and why it says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven,” Psalm 119:89. 

The philosophy within the Bible is about our conversation’s justification. If something must be justified, or cleansed, or purified, that means its natural or original condition is filthy and broken. The sooner we accept that justification is firstly for the conversation, the sooner we can begin to correctly understand what to spiritually or philosophical revere. 

Death

It is impossible to reference the movement of the living God’s chief apostle without mentioning how it says, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.”

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, written after the destruction of Jerusalem is, in one context, written from the perspective of a mind taking those events, and their then underlying philosophical and prophetic stance, into consideration. In another context, their narratives, built upon many other narrative manuscripts, are written to support the traditional belief of those former manuscripts. In yet another context, underneath all of their prevailing contexts, rests the original structure of their tale, a structure built upon philosophy.  

Historically, prior to the gospels having a narrative, no narrative existed. The story of a resurrection and an ascension, the stories of healings, the stories concerning the birth of the main character, did not exist within the writings of the movement’s original assembly. What did exist were lines of sayings, or a record of wisdom, explaining an understanding that later writers of the narrative styled, “The kingdom of God.” 

What is the “kingdom of God”? It says, “It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened,” Luke 13.21. What does this mean? It says, ”The kingdom of God is within you,” Luke 17:21. What is ‘leaven’? It says, “… he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,” Matthew 16:12. 

Before all of the stories connected to the narrative within the gospels existed, only parables and wise sayings existed. These sayings explained the definition of the “kingdom of God.” Because a parable must be understood according to the illustration rehearsed, “leaven,” for example, according to the scriptures, is but “doctrine.” “The kingdom of God” is, in reality, an inward experience where the living God’s doctrine is rising up inside of the conversation. 

The living God’s chief apostle preached the rising up of the living God’s doctrine within the conversation. This “rising up,” or “resurrection,” is the regeneration taught by the new covenant promise. It says, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people,” Jeremiah 31:33.

Strip the narrative from the “saying” within them and we have what the man taught. The man taught a saying that, when observed, didn’t lead to “death.” What is this “death”? Because the “kingdom” is not literal, but is an experience occurring within, it is fair to conclude that the “death” referenced also isn’t literal, but is an experience occurring within. 

I’ve spent time, in past blog posts, writing about the definition of “righteousness,” because there is a righteousness that is defined as “death.” This “death” is found in the saying, “That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 5:20. 

The righteousness referenced is highlighted in the saying, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition,” Mark 7:9. The righteousness mentioned is the “death” that is referenced; the “death” referenced is traditional religion, or is traditional religious law. Said plainly, “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law,” 1 Corinthians 15:56. 

To the Bible, “sin” and “death” is defined as the philosophy of the religious law. Why is this important to know? It is important to know because it says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,” Galatians 3:13. 

The narrative of a demigod dying and rising for the sins of humanity is, according to the Bible, a false narrative. This is not, according to Bible language and context, what the Bible teaches. What the Bible teaches is that “sin” is the traditional religious law, and that if taking confidence on the crucifixion, then the conversation takes confidence on the fact of an illustration highlighting the traditional religious law as “sin” and as “death.”

If attentive to the “kingdom of God,” the conversation will not know “death” because it will learn to refrain from it. The “saying” encouraging the conversation to refrain from “death” is the doctrine of “the kingdom of God,” which doctrine, when found within the heart of the conversation, will cause a great resurrection in devotional thought and feeling.