The WORD of God is pretty remarkable really. It has lasted in tact right through the Generations to This Day, and we hold in our hands “His Words that were Written not by the impulse of Man – they were Moved by His Spirit” to pen those Words. However, the Translators were Human and they made a few Errors that cast a Shadow on God’s Nature. And in This Day, we Need to be Sure of The Lord’s Goodness and Merciful Nature to Sustain us through such difficult times.
May I present these to you? I’m sure you will feel a lot better – more confident – once having read them.
Is He a God of LIGHT or Darkness?
2 Corinthians 1:8-11The Message (MSG)
“We don’t want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us. It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength to get out of it, we were made to trust God totally — He is the God who raises the dead! And he did it, He rescued us. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God’s deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part.”
THE FOLLOWING VERSE NEEDS CORRECTING, I WILL SHOW YOU WHYAND A FEW OTHER VERSES ACCORDING TO THE ORIGINAL. MANY CHRISTIANS ARE TRIPPING OVER THEM.
Isaiah 45:7Living Bible (TLB)
I form the light and make the dark. I send good times and bad. I am he who does these things.
Isaiah 45:7King James Version (KJV)
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
To create simply means to make or bring into existence. Bakers create cakes, ants create problems at picnics, and you probably created a few imaginary friends when you were little.
Create is a word that often implies a little bit of imagination. In fact, it takes a lot of creativity to create something spectacular; that is, unless you’re a robot, and then your creations occur automatically. Or Mother Nature, where creation just happens naturally: Birds create nests, the tides create waves, and snowstorms create days off from school.
Many Christians have read this verse in their Bible (KJV) and been disturbed.
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”
These words were spoken in an era when God recompensed His people by bringing calamities on their foes. This verse actually contrasts opposites. Darkness is the opposite of light. However, evil is not the opposite of peace. The Hebrew word translated “peace” is Shâlôm, which has many meanings, mostly related to the well-being of individuals. Râ‛âh, the Hebrew word translated “evil” in the KJV often refers to adversity or calamity. There are two forms of the word. Strong’s H7451a most often refers to moral evil, whereas Strong’s H7451b (the form used here) most often refers to calamity or distress. Obviously, “calamity” is a better antonym of “peace” than “evil.”
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/evil.html
The Lord most certainly does not deal with His Children that way.
Generational Sins or God’s Mercy?
From Voice Of One Crying.com
There is a teaching prominent in religious circles based mostly on a shamefully ignorant view of a phrase found in Exodus 34:7 and repeated in Numbers 14:18. The phrase goes something like this: “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.“ The teaching is that some people are the victims of “generational curses” placed on them through no fault of their own, but by the wrong actions of preceding generations.
To fully understand the phrase quoted above, we’ll need to look at Exodus 34:5-9 in some detail. But first the context of this passage must be established. God had just given Moses the ten commandments; while Moses was up on the mountain with God the people were worshipping a golden calf; Moses got angry and smashed the tablets; God told him to hew two more out of stone and meet Him back on the mountain; this brings us to verse 5.
To fully understand what happens in verse 7 (the verse most likely used to promote the misconception of generational sins) take a close look at what happens in verses 5 and 6. In verse 5 the Lord descends in a cloud and stands with Moses on the mountain and proclaims His name. In verse 6 we see what names He proclaims for Himself. They are “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.”
This brings us to verse 7 where the Lord continues to describe Himself, “Keeping mercy for thousands”. “Keeping” is natsar, meaning to guard, maintain or protect out of a sense of responsibility. “Mercy” is checed, meaning kindness or benevolence (coming to the aid of those in need). Checed always emphasizes the idea of covenant relationship. And when checed and natsar are used together it is always to illustrate the principle of covenant responsibility! This is God’s own description of His attitude towards His people – He has obligated Himself to be merciful (see Micah 7:18 which says that God “delights” in being merciful). He continues: “forgiving iniquity (avown – immorality) and transgression (pesha – rebellion) and sin” (chattah – habitual sin, committed over and over again).
Then comes the all-important phrase “and that will by no means clear the guilty”. Notice “the guilty” is in italics in the King James Version, indicating that these words are not found in the original text (and indeed should not be). The translators added these supposedly to clarify the meaning. The word “clear” in this sentence is naqah, and means, “to be clear of an obligation or responsibility”. By removing “the guilty” from the text, the meaning becomes evident: “God will by no means ever clear or release Himself from His covenant responsibility to maintain His mercy by continuing to forgive immorality, rebellion and habitual sins that are repeated over and over again!” This is one of the many verses in scripture that illustrate the principle regarding God’s mercy. The principle is this: God’s character demands that His mercy always outweigh His justice. In other words, God is always willing to give us what we need, instead of what we deserve. And I’m glad of that are you?
Verse 7 continues, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” The word “visiting” is paqad, meaning to visit, to look after, or to care for. Because the words “the guilty” were added to this text, it is assumed that paqad has a negative meaning; but, get this, it is actually intended to be a positive promise. Spiros Zodiates in his Lexicon of Old Testament words says of paqad, “it’s true meaning is an action taken on the part of God which produces a beneficial result for His people.” Compare Ruth 1:6;
I Samuel 2:21; and Jeremiah 29:10.
As for the phrase “children, and children’s children, unto the third to the fourth generation”, this is an idiom or word picture used several times in scripture to illustrate how long a parent’s wrong example will affect the family. Here, God is actually promising to forgive iniquity in each succeeding generation. He knows that every generation is going to have problems with sin and His promise is that His mercy will be available for all generations (Luke 1:50).
To further confirm the fact that God was actually offering His mercy to Israel, look at Moses’ response in verses 8 and 9. In verse 8 he hurried to bow his head down towards the ground and worship the Lord in thanksgiving when he recognized the Lord’s heart of compassion. In verse 9 Moses responds to the Lord’s offer of mercy by saying: “since I have found favor and loving-kindness in Your sight, please Lord, be our God and dwell in the midst of us, even though we are a stubborn people: forgive us of our rebellion and iniquity and allow us to be Your possession forever.”
It was established in the Law that children would not be punished for the sins of their father (Deuteronomy 24:16, comp. II Kings 14:6). The idea of generational sin does not come from a scriptural foundation, but from a world viewpoint.
Colossians 2:8 describes the process by which the world develops wrong ideas with these three terms: philosophy (a wrong idea that has no basis in truth), vain deceit (false reasoning to support the idea) and traditions of men (wide acceptance of the wrong idea and false reasoning to support it). This process has only one purpose:
to take away personal responsibility, create bondage to sin and deceive people regarding the nature of God.
Copyright 2001 © Community Fellowship.
The reproduction and non-commercial use of this material is permitted.
http://www.voiceofonecrying.com/generational_sins_or_god.htm
We are told in Scripture that He can “strike terror in the hearts of His Foes”
Not His Children. And the verse mostly speaks about Unseen Enemies (Powers of Darkness). This is a Grace Dispensation (towards people) since Calvary.
At the same time, the Cross of Jesus should not be trodden under foot by wilful repetitive sin.
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It is my personal belief that the curses mentioned in Genesis 2 after
Adam and Eve sinned and those mentioned in Deuteronomy where The Lord says
“This day, I set before you Blessings and Curses. Choose who you will serve.”
That He was prophesying on both of those occasions – how Adam (and the human race) would be affected by the wrong decision and Israel as well – God being the author of Goodness and Blessings……..and the Enemy is the author of Evil.
I’m not sure how to establish this however most of us know that early in Christian history, the Church went through a stage of apostasy where error came in and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church had sole custody of the Bible. It was translated into the Latin Vulgate before it was eventually released to Christians.
I do know that a prophetic teacher, made a discovery about 30 years ago that the original translation of the Bible said “Brothers and Sisters” where translations say “Brethren” and there were a few other things she discovered in relation to women in scripture. We do need to remember that the Latin Vulgate was written by priests who had sworn an oath of celibacy not to marry women and that the Enemy has targeted women in different ways since Eve in the Garden. We see a classic example in the Middle East.
We must remember that the priests were not Born Again – to have spiritual understanding of what they were reading to interpret some verses where the Holy Spirit is needed to interpret correctly.
I have also been informed that the Greek Orthodox Church has practised much care in their interpretation of Scripture. And also that the Original language Greeks used is very different to the Greek that has been in use for some centuries.
Most translations show that the Word of God has been kept well through the centuries.
If you go to a site called www.biblehub.com multi-translations validate that we can trust in the authenticity of certain translations we read. Most Scripture is intact, however there are certain errors which have been made. They are a minority but they are so important!
For example, in Mathew 24:28 where Christ is speaking in relation to His Coming, most translations have ‘vultures’ etc in that verse, however this is a correct translation of that verse:
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Wherever the (His) body will be, there will the eagles be gathered.
If you read the previous verse, it will establish that:
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
For just as lightning goes out from The East and appears unto The West, so will the coming of The Son of Man be.
What am I saying here? I do think it is possible that some ‘human errors’ by men who did not have the Holy Spirit resident in them for spiritual understanding, definitely seem to be so. And I also think it is very likely that the Enemy who hates our God and His Children has sought to plant doubts in our hearts and minds (through interpretation of certain verses) about the Nature of God: HIS TRUE NATURE.
For instance, how do you account for the horrendous difference brought to light through the original Hebrew for Exodus 34:7 and repeated in Numbers 14:18 expounded above?
There is a pressing need for True Translations in this Day and Age that rightly present ALL Scripture to us……..especially when it comes to God’s Holy Nature.
And in fact, I heard it explained once that God’s Holiness speaks of Wholeness, not only what we understand to be Holy.
This is most certainly true with the Hebrew word for PEACE in the OT (old testament) which is SHALOM. That means Wholeness; nothing missing, nothing broken.
Yes, Scripture tells us that our God is a GOOD GOD. Even to the extent that one of the Psalms repeats in most of it’s verses “The Steadfast Love of The Lord Endures Forever” and another one says “The Lord is GOOD and Steadfast is HIS LOVE. Let the Redeemed Say SO”
In Matthew 10:29 where it says “What is the price of two sparrows–one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.” (NLT)
A preacher/Teacher of God’s Word said once that according to the Original Greek, (not the language that Greeks have been speaking for centuries now) that particular verse is actually referring to something totally different. He said that it is speaking in reference to sparrows alighting on the ground: hopping happily upon it.
Sounds so different, doesn’t it? Just picture this: The same God who knows the number of hairs we have on our head (daily) takes Joy in His Creation from moment to moment.
Reminds me of Psalm 139:17 where The Lord says
New American Standard 1977 How precious also are Thy thoughts to me,
O God! How vast is the sum of them!
Contemporary English Version Your thoughts are far beyond my understanding,
much more than I could ever imagine.
A Christian man prayed prophetically over me years ago when I was very disturbed on one occasion:”……………You are interested in the activities of our day…………..” He knew nothing about the situation I was concerned about and this started to introduce a new way of thinking to me I was in much need of at that time.
PEACE dear Friends, Peace to You. Shalom!