About this ebook
We are judged by God. We are punished or rewarded. For this reason, all religions believe that the world was created as a test, but the world is far too unfair to be a test. God could have designed a much better test. Life is a journey. The world was created so that God could go with us on this journey. God feels what we feel. By knowing sorrow and loneliness through us, God knows what love is.
God created angels, demons, and humans, outside of Himself, allowing them to cause suffering. Satan became evil, and Satan hates God, but Satan can do no harm to God. God loves the humans, so Satan destroys the humans by causing them to violate the Law of God. This is how God has humans who go on a journey of good and evil. Satan does exactly what God expected, but Satan is not stupid. He keeps his hatred of God to himself. He stays within the Law of God, and he is still in Heaven.
Jesus is at the "Right Hand" of God which transcends Heaven. When God looked away from the crucifixion, the devil openly cursed God. To this day, the devil does not know that Jesus transcends Heaven and is a witness against him. This could not be revealed until the time of the end because this revelation causes the end. This revelation causes the war (debate) between Satan and Michael.
This book explains the Bible.
Don Herston
Don Herston grew up attending a small Primitive Baptist church. The church taught a compassionate version of predestination where good people are going to Heaven, but good people are good because God made them that way. He struggled with the question of people who never heard of Christ, an issue his church avoided. At sixteen he realized that since Jesus is perfect and overcame the Law, Jesus could simply discard His flesh and justify discarding the flesh of all good people. If would be twenty-four years later, while working as a bookkeeper for a small company with a lot of free time, Don decided to write a book about his inspiration. The book was tedious as it took that one little idea, threw in a lot of Bible passages, and rambled on for a hundred pages. When writing the book, and in the years that followed, he did get some things wrong. Not being a Biblical scholar was essential in Don’s ability to look at the Bible less influenced by previous interpretations. This meant the process was a learning experience, but it led to some amazing discoveries. If Christ redeems us by discarding His flesh, there must be some other reason for Him to die on the cross. This allowed Don to see the numerous clues scattered throughout the Bible that Satan spiritually attacked Christ when Jesus was dying on the cross. Don would later realize that this explains the Trinity. There can be God outside of time and God inside time, but why is there a third God? There is a second consciousness of God moving in time because the Son of God is at a level of reality that transcends Heaven. This explains why the devil did not know and still does not know that Jesus is Lord. This explains why everything had to be kept secret until the end. This revelation is what causes the end.
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The Apocalypse - Don Herston
Chapter 1– The Real Satan of the Bible
For almost two thousand years, Christians have viewed the Trinity as a three in one God in eternity, and by eternity they usually mean an endless future on the present timeline. This view of the Trinity is believed to be supported by the Bible.
1 John 5:7-8 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
There are other passages of support for the Trinity, but this is the only occasion where the Trinity is presented as a three in one God in Heaven. The Trinity as a three in one God in Heaven is a view that has dominated Christianity largely because of this passage in the First Epistle of John.
But this passage is translated differently in many modern versions of the Bible.
1 John 5:7-8 (English Standard Version) For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.
The part about a three in one God in Heaven has been eliminated because it is not found in the earlier manuscripts.
Could God have allowed the Bible to be altered? This is one of the very few occasions where there appears to have been a change in the Biblical text. In this case the alteration helped to conceal the true explanation for the Trinity, and the error was exposed centuries ago, so that the true word of God has been preserved. The inerrancy of the Bible does not require that every translation of the Bible be inerrant.
Many Christians still believe in the erroneous text that was not found in the earlier manuscripts. All Christians seem to believe in the idea of a three in one God in Heaven that was supported by this error.
There is no Biblical support for the idea that the Trinity is a three in one God in Heaven. There is an explanation for the Trinity that involves a completely different structure.
Today, with the confirmation of the Big Bang, we can understand God as the uncaused cause outside of time and space. This view seems more likely since it means that God transcends time and not the other way around, but it is improbable that such a timeless God would be divided into parts. A timeless God would almost certainly have the simplest structure possible which would be one supernatural Almighty I AM. This would be God the Father.
The God of the Bible is outside of time, but in some Biblical stories God seems to move in time. This is completely reasonable if both are true. God the Father can be outside of time, while God the Son exists in time. This is a better explanation for the Trinity since the uncaused cause would be outside of time, but we know Jesus exists in time. He came into the world and lived as a human.
Mark 13:32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Jesus said that only the Father knows the time of the end, but it makes no sense that God the Father would be keeping a secret from God the Son. Christians focus entirely on the end-time aspect of this statement which distracts them from what Jesus is saying. Only God the Father transcends time. God the Father knows, or is one with, all moments on the timeline while Jesus is God moving through time. This view of the relationship between the Father and the Son explains how Jesus can be God while there is only one God.
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
There is one God, the Father, outside of time.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.
Jesus was begotten
of the Father, from the same substance, before all ages so there was never a time
when Jesus did not exist. All of this is best explained by Christ being a consciousness of God that came into time and space the moment God the Father created time and space. Constructing the universe and the other levels of reality would be executed over time, so it would be the Son of God managing the creation of all things. The Son of God moves in time, but He has power over time by which He would almost certainly have knowledge of the day and hour of His return.
The mind or consciousness of God is far beyond our ability to comprehend, but there would have to be a significant degree of separation between God the Father, outside of time, and God the Son, inside time and space. Yet still, it is one God who exists outside of time, and He moves though the time He created.
God the Father outside of time and God the Son moving in time would be a good explanation for the Trinity, but there is a third member of the Trinity. Only God the Father is outside of time, so there must be a way and a reason for God to have more than one consciousness moving through time.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The Son of God is begotten, but the Holy Spirit proceeds from God. Both words suggest coming from God. The Holy Spirit would have to exist in time like the Son of God but would be a different consciousness if the Holy Spirit exists at a different level of reality. Since the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, the Son exists at a higher level of reality than the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is in Heaven, while the Son of God is at a level of reality that transcends Heaven referred to as the Right Hand of God. This transcending level of Heaven has been kept secret even from the inhabitants of Heaven. The Son of God came down to a lower level of reality when He was born as a human, but He continued to exist at the Right Hand of God, and He returned fully to the Right Hand of God after His resurrection.
The Right Hand of God is a transcending level of Heaven. This is not to say that every time the Bible mentions the right hand of God it is talking about this transcending dimension. This does not deny that Jesus came from Heaven and returned to Heaven. Jesus is in a place that transcends the angels and all the inhabitants of Heaven. It has been kept secret. It is the highest level of Heaven. It transcends the rest of Heaven just as Heaven transcends the Earth.
As far as Heaven with angels and the throne of God, John described a vision of Heaven in the book of Revelation and there is no mention of a Lamb.
Revelation 4:4-5 And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
In the fifth chapter we learn of a book sealed with seven seals that no man could open.
Revelation 5:3 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.
Jesus ascended in His body, so He is still fully God and fully human. Jesus was not in this level of Heaven described by John because no man in Heaven could open the book. In the previous chapter when John described the throne and the elders, there was no mention of a Lamb.
After being told there was someone who could open the book, John looks again at the throne. Only this time, there is a Lamb.
Revelation 5:6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
John looked at the throne and the elders, the same scene he described in the fourth chapter. In the fifth chapter a Lamb seems to suddenly appear. Previously no man in Heaven could open the book, because previously there was no Lamb. Christ came from a transcending level of Heaven. He came into this level of Heaven where there is the throne and the elders.
It is a bit confusing since the passage calls Christ a Lion, and later He is called a Lamb. This is a remarkably effective distraction as the text is clearly referring to Jesus who is fully God and fully human. As will be shown later, it is this monumental event when Christ comes into this level of Heaven that the devil is cast out of Heaven.
It is the revelation of the Son of God in Heaven that causes the devil to be cast out of Heaven.
Since He is the Lord, it should not be revolutionary to say that Jesus transcends Heaven. If Jesus has not yet revealed Himself in Heaven, the inhabitants of Heaven would only know Jesus as a human who died a long time ago.
The devil is still in Heaven because the devil is not at war with God, the devil is at war with us. For the devil to be at war with God would be like a character in a novel doing battle with the author. God has all power, and the only power Satan has is what God allows him to have. Perhaps the devil is stupid enough to be openly hostile to God, but it seems unlikely that the devil would be that stupid.
It is odd that so many people for so many centuries would believe without question that the devil is at war with God. God has all power, and the devil has no power. Somehow there is such a struggle that the devil is cast out of Heaven, and he still battles with God for possession of souls. This is not to question the Bible since this view is not supported by the Bible.
Other than some clues that he will be cast out of Heaven, the Old Testament does not present the devil as openly evil. The devil may have misled Eve to destroy her, but nothing he said was false.
God transcends time. God knew that all humans would sin, that they would be overcome by the devil and would experience death. What God told Adam and Eve was completely true.
Genesis 3:4-5 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Satan does not transcend time, so he is not a witness to the future. The devil did not bear false witness. The devil pointed out that it is entirely up to us to overcome his influence. Whether or not we sin is entirely up to us. Whether or not we die is entirely up to us.
The devil said that Adam and Eve would be like the gods
; they would be like the spirits of Heaven as Adam and Eve would be