IT IS THE LORD

    “For what is unseen of Him yet is clearly seen, being understood by the creation of the world, by what has been made, even His eternal power and deity” (Romans 1:20). Now surely design implies a designer, as an effect requires a cause. And so is empirical witness borne today of the emergence from the primeval void, from a nonuniformitarian zone of unstructured randomness, of disassembled parts in the form of electrons, protons, hydrogen nuclei, which then fuse together — their likeness being that of a device to be assembled whose parts materialize as in a crate or box and then assemble themselves — into a system of programmed law, purpose, design, and balanced complexity prepared in its own terms as a background for the far greater and likely unique atomic and molecular complexity of this slight razoredge of possibility which is our earth; followed by the implantation here, as it cannot arise of itself, of life and, for those who do not hide knowledge of the actual characteristics of so many real species, being impossible to emerge by stages or without the guidance of external genius (mutations plus natural selection plus aeons of time or not), its manifest programming from on high; and the ultimate emergence of evolved matter-generated mind. Truly the likeness of all the world is a bird that is born, a peacock that develops; and as per the main thrust of Genesis 1:1-2:3, analyzed elsewhere. Thus there is a spiritual or psychical undergirding of all matter-energy quanta, that is, of all being, and even as our Scripture affirms, that “He is before everything, and in Him everything holds together” (Colossians 1:17). And indeed an ultimate subatomic zone of contact with, zone of emanation from, the mind of the dreaming God is to be inferred from the following points of demonstrable open contact with the spiritual or psychical, of manifest nonuniformitarian discontinuity — 1) that underlying DNA at all times; 2) that shown by the reprogramming of life for new species, and as above; 3) that shown by the initial historic emergence of life; 4) that undergirding the subatomic level at all times; and 5) that shown by the initial historic emergence of matter-energy quanta.

    “I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world” (Matthew 13:35). And Daniel 10:1-5 describes how the prophet fasted day by day for “three weeks of days” until his fast was interrupted by the appearance of an angel. There being such a great wealth of detail having evident symbolic meaning in the book of Daniel as a whole, we are surely justified in searching for the significance of the interruption of the fast of Daniel after exactly three weeks of twenty-one days. In the context of the prophecies of the book as a whole, the number three, if symbolic, must certainly refer to the three remaining Kingdoms of the Four Kingdoms, namely, the contemporary Kingdom of Persia, as in verse 1, the Kingdom of Greece, and that of Rome to follow at the end. The rule of these empires involved humiliation and distress for the Judean people, and so they are symbolized by periods of fasting and mourning. Now it is quite obviously significant that from the time of Cyrus the Great until that of Antiochus IV, who is referred to so prominently in the predictions of chapter 11 (verses 21-30), chapters 10 through 12 forming one unit, exactly twenty-one kings ruled over Jerusalem and Judea, those being: Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius I, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, Xerxes II, Darius II, Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III, Arses, Darius III, Alexander the Great, Ptolemy I, Antigonus I, Ptolemy I again, Ptolemy II, Ptolemy III, Ptolemy IV, Ptolemy V, Antiochus III, Seleucus IV, and Antiochus IV Theos Epiphanes. Furthermore, from Judas Maccabaeus, who succeeded in essence in freeing Judea from foreign domination (though the first truly independent ruler was Simon) and in founding the Hasmonean dynasty until the Roman Emperor Vespasian, in whose days Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed — viewing the reign of Archelaus (Matthew 2:22) as subsumed within that of Augustus, he having been an utter vassal and proxy of Rome to a degree that Herod never was — exactly twenty-one additional kings ruled over Judah and Jerusalem, these being: Judas Maccabaeus, Jonathan, Simon, John Hyrcanus I, Aristobulus I, Alexander Janneus, Alexandra, Aristobulus II, Pompey, Hyrcanus II, Antigonus, Herod the Great, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. Thus we see the double grief of the rule of the Three Kingdoms of Persia, Greece and Rome over Judea symbolized by three full weeks of twenty-one days of fasting and mourning, for twenty-one kings ruled over Judea before the false dawn of the restoration of Judean independence under Judas Maccabaeus, and twenty-one additional kings from Judas on then followed each other until the city and the sanctuary were destroyed. Furthermore, if the twenty-first day of the prophet’s fast was the twenty-fourth day of the first month, then the first day of his fast was the fourth day, and the Passover, the Feast of Liberation, beginning on the fifteenth day of the first month (Leviticus 23:6), fell on the twelfth day of his fast (the number twelve, of course, being intentionally evocative), and so the twelfth fast day represents the twelfth king from Cyrus, then the Passover began for the prophet on the day symbolizing the reign of Alexander the Great, who broke the power of Persia. What can one say to the realization that the birth of our Lord, who has bequeathed to us the true Liberation, occurred during the reign of Herod the Great, the twelfth ruler from Judas Maccabaeus?

    But should one ask, “Perhaps God has worked through all religions,” then “Be filled with awe and sin not; speak in your heart upon your bed, and be silent. Selah” (Psalm 4:4), for are the Eastern systems a thing distinct from philosophical speculation — or rather from the obscurantist pretense and posturing of rulers intended first and foremost to stanch lower class social inquiry and activism? And surely their “nirvana” concept can be nothing but a projection of the worldsorrow and death-wish of the later Indo-Aryans onto the metaphysical plane. And what a grotesque and abhorrent form of racial and class oppression rises from their apartheid code called “caste” all the world may plainly see. And the Book of Mormon and the Koran are mere imitations of the Scripture of truth, and as such lack authentic social relevancy and the demonstrably supernatural — and see how no work like them exists where this Christian Bible of ours was not first known. But behold now a God who is real, and a Scripture from Him that is actually true!

    What then is the doctrine of God, who destroyed the dinosaurs, likeness of Babylon, and called a nation of slaves His own? “Blessed are the poor people,” He said, “because the Kingdom of God belongs to you; but woe to you who are rich, because you have received your consolation” (Luke 6:20, 24); and, “Hasn’t God chosen the poor people out of the world, those being rich in faith?” (James 2:5). And what is this perfect love of “Love your comrade like yourself,” but sharing all things with him in the love and light of Christ, and this is called Christian communalism, and taking counsel with him in all things, and this is called democracy? And so the Scripture witnesses in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed by the Spirit are the poor people, because the Kingdom of the Heavens belongs to them.” Religionist, communalistic, democratic — such was the life of the ancients, and such is the life restored for us through the Gospel.

                                                                                                              — Barry I. Hyman
                                                                                                                                              CHRISTIAN REVOLUTIONARY BROTHERHOOD