22 January 2024
In Pageau's The Language of Creation, the author is at pains to establish the duality of above and below. It can be expressed as heaven and earth, or seed and soil, enlightenment and obedience, or any number of other pairs. This is consistent with the Radix Fidem teaching of Two Realms, or Heiser's Unseen Realm and how it acts on earth.
While the Hebrew language symbolizes this via the imagery of Heaven and Earth (proper nouns for the physical items), that's only because the skies were wholly out of reach for the Hebrew people. The real issue is that we are trapped in a space-time continuum as dependents, while the Unseen Realm rules over space-time.
This is basic to Hebrew cosmology. What is above must be acknowledged; we must account for it in all our reckoning and actions. It is the ultimate source of all we have here below. While it's possible you might see echoes of Yin and Yang, this is not at all the same thing. Those two forces of Asian mythology are equal; the Hebrew above and below are not. They are not even in the same category. There is a distinctly feudal relationship that is fundamental to all of Creation. There is always a lord and a servant; there is generally no place for equality. One must always yield to the other.
Thus, we instinctively expect that God would play favorites. Paul goes to some trouble to explain this in Romans 8 & 9. There are some in this world God favors for no reason we could possibly grasp. Thus, God favored Jacob over Esau before either was born; Jacob represented the heavenly, and Esau was earthy. How they acted as boys and men was dependent on this a priori favor. We dare not question God on it. It's all we can do to embrace what He has provided for each of us. The risen Jesus told Peter not to worry about what would happen to John.
It is what it is, what He has made it to be. No amount of theorizing or action on our end can change anything. The only thing we can change is our commitment to what God has said and done. It should be quite obvious that our American society is very uncomfortable with that. Our heritage is the insistence that we can change the situation, because our culture assumes there is no God who cares enough to be involved. Just declaring the truth about His revelation can get you into serious social and even legal trouble.
Our world is deeply pagan. The mythology of Yin-Yang is symbolic of how Americans read back into the Creation accounts that woman is man's equal, built from his side. An ancient Hebrew would condemn that instantly. Man is most certainly head over woman in the Bible. Women in general are weaker flesh in many ways, to symbolize the blunt statement Paul made that women are morally weaker (1 Timothy 2:14). In the Bible, the only male subject to a woman's authority is a child or a foreign-born slave.
And it's not as if women aren't of critical importance in men's lives. Should a man find a fitting wife, she becomes his greatest treasure in this life. Nothing he could possibly hold would ever be half so valuable to him. This is part of the Hebrew thinking Pageau exposes in his book. God set the pattern in caring very much about His Creation, carefully revealing His will (the Flaming Sword and the Cross) in order to redeem that which He valued most in Creation. Men are supposed to manifest that attitude with their women.
Right now, our part in the sacrifice of the Cross is to bear with grace the awful burden of living in a mad world where everything is backwards or upside down. It is not in our power to change the situation, only the very limited domain God has placed in our hands. Drink from your own well and eat from your own vines and fields. And if He has given you little, then your burden is light.
The implications of above and below deserve a serious study.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
We have a hard time giving up things that weren't in our control in the first place. I wonder if that's a way of avoiding accountability.
CatRez
Of course it is, Jay. If we insist that it's ours to control, we deny that we are accountable to anyone else.
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