Daubed with Bitumen and Pitch: The clinging of the Old Will, the Old Church, and Hell

Isaac writes of the disturbances brought on by evil spirits who attach themselves to his unregenerate will. Within this chaos, he finds that the Lord keeps him in freedom to rebuke those spirits with the truth and act from love. This is only possible because the Lord is protecting the good within him, keeping it hidden from abuse on all sides. -Editor.

When the mother of Moses could no longer hide him, she did a remarkable and risky thing. She sent him to float on the slow-moving side-waters of the Nile among the tall grass in a tar-covered ark! In Exodus Chapter 2 we read:

And she took an ark of rush, and daubed it with bitumen and with pitch. And she put the child therein. And she laid him in the sedge at the bank of the river Exodus 2:4

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Moses, even as a baby, represents the Word. The Lord has amazing ways to keep His Word safe in us.

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The Culture of Heaven: An Explication of the Wine-making Process as Corresponding to Spiritual Reformation and Rebirth

Johanan likes to think about the process of making wine. He shares ideas ranging from the factual process of fermenting grape juice to its spiritual implications and meanings. This article delightfully balances the tangible and the philosophical as it unpacks one of the key spiritual images in the Word.

Heaven is not as far away as we often think it is. Heaven on earth is a state of mind, available to those who are willing to live their lives in such a way as to be receptive of what God offers all people: the opportunity to find happiness through serving others. By believing in God, a person accepts that all of creation is designed to serve God’s ultimate purpose: establishing heaven from the human race (Divine Love and Wisdom 330; Divine Providence 323). Since everything serves this purpose, everything in the natural world must have relation to spiritual things. Knowing how the natural world relates to the spiritual world is the prerogative of a heavenly mind because having an understanding of this relationship is angelic knowledge itself, and is the means of communication with heaven (Heaven and Hell 87). Thinking in terms of correspondences between the natural and spiritual worlds requires a mindset that is practiced in recognizing and discerning how spiritual principles are reflected in natural events. A fully integrated mindset is the same as a way of life, and a collection of individuals (such as a family or community) with this heaven-oriented mindset can be said to be an example of heavenly society, or heavenly culture. In this paper we explore the idea of a heavenly culture and correspondence in the process of wine-making, which we relate to the process by which the Lord introduces us as individuals into heavenly culture.

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