Page 79 - THE REVELATION OF THE THIRD HEAVEN and THE MEAT OF THE WORD

norms of natural literality must therefore apply throughout the Word (John 1:1, 2
Pet 1:20, Rev 22:18-19).

When John the Baptist says that God could by the stones have children in Matthew
3:9 he is not uttering a figure of speech although by any rule of natural literary
sense he is. The same applies to Luke 19:40 which is a literal statement, namely
that the stones would immediately cry out in worship of God, although impossible
to distinguish from a ‘figure of speech’ or ‘idiom’ by any rule of human
understanding and logic. The physical creation does have a personal relationship
with God that is mysterious (Mat 8:26) and it is itself judged with only some of the
matter being saved (Eph 1: 9-10, Col 1:23, Rev 19:18, 21:1). Also the whole Word
is required to understand any verse (John 1:1, Rev 22:18-19) so that for example it
is not literally true that every man sins as stated in 1 Kings 8:46, as Christ, the
Man, never has or will (1 Tim 2:5, 1 Pet 2:22). Likewise the words ‘all the earth’
are used in a non-literal sense, for example when referring to only a part of the
world’s population that ‘sought to Solomon’ to hear his wisdom (1 Kings 10:24).

Creation Praises

The Creation praises the Lord (Psalm 19:1, 148:3-6, Isaiah 49:13, 55:12).

Teaching

The Holy Ghost will teach Christians all things (John 14:26, 16:13, 1 John 2:27).

Evil

God is shown deceiving (Jer 4:10, 20:7, 2 Thes 2:11) although he can not lie (Tit
1:2, Heb 6:18) and is truth (John 14:6). God is shown as responsible for evil as a
secondary will (2 sam 12:11, Job 2:6, John 12:40, Rom 1:24, 26, 28). This is
entirely to be expected and compatible with His being Love as this is an inevitable
corollary of the loving Prime Principle (Rom 8:28). The end result, after all, is that
all are saved (Rom 11:32, 1 Cor 4:5, 12:3, Phil 2:11). All God's secondary wills
form a sub-set of his one Primary Will (Rom 12:2).

Interpretation

There can only be one valid interpretation of the Word (Dan 2:45, 5:16-17, 7:16, 1
Cor 12:10, 2 Pet 1:20). The Word must be interpreted and interpreted by the Holy
Ghost (1 Cor 2:11-14, 2 Pet 1:20) within the Christian. The interpretation of any
passage in the Word begins in that passage and then ramifies outwards by