Title: The Polarization of Faith
“It has been granted to you to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not.
In Korea, the polarization between the rich and the poor, in which the gap between the haves and the have-nots widens too sharply, has emerged as the most serious problem. The rich are making it easier to make money like a snowball, while the poor are structurally more difficult to get out of poverty.
Now, Jesus says that the same thing happens in faith. It is said that those who know the secret of heaven and have faith will have more abundantly, and those who do not have even what they have will be taken away. At first glance, it seems that God favors believers and treats unbelievers too harshly. It is good to love and bless believers, but I think it is right not to take away even what non-believers have, but rather to give greater love to them so that they can enter into the grace of salvation.
This is not the primary meaning of God's intentional polarization of rewards and punishments depending on whether they have faith or not. It is about how the spiritual truths of good and evil work and the secrets of the kingdom of heaven are recognized in the soul and what are the results.
Good and evil always tend to multiply. When we do good deeds and alms, there is nothing in the world that overflows with so much joy and worth. On the other hand, if you start committing even a small sin, just like a needle thief becomes a cow thief, you will fall into a bigger sin without realizing it, and you will not be able to get out of it, you will even enjoy it.
This is because human beings have the nature of good and evil before they have a personality that likes good or pursues evil. It means that human beings cannot be regarded as good and some as evil, and the essence of human beings cannot be treated with the theory of gender and evil. This does not mean that good and evil are living things, but that behind them lies the good guidance of God and the insidious manipulation of Satan.
Thus, this principle is not limited to ethical good and evil, but also applies to the secrets of heaven, and the text speaks of them. When God chooses and bestows grace and power, the believer automatically desires to taste it more deeply. On the other hand, those who are bound by Satan not only do not know God from the beginning, but Satan blocks their ears and eyes even more. Believers like the living water God gives them so they want to drink more even if they drink it, but unbelievers drink the rotten water that Satan gives them, so no matter how much they drink, their thirst cannot be quenched.
The prophecy of Isaiah, quoted by Jesus to explain and explain these words, points out precisely this principle. “You will hear, but you will not understand, and you will see, but you will not understand. The heart of this people has become hardened, and their ears are dull to hear, and their eyes are closed, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn and I may heal them. "(Matthew 13:14,15)
To be sure, we have to figure out who is afraid of being healed. It means Satan or those who are possessed by him, because God cannot fear that unbelievers will be healed. But isn't it a bit strange? No matter how unbeliever, there is no reason to be afraid to know the secret of heaven and be freed from sin, right? It means that Satan, who fears God, is tying up unbelievers like that.
Therefore, Satan's evil that is operating on unbelievers is expanding and reproducing, so no matter how much you hear or see the gospel, you will not understand it and become more stubborn. The outward ethical result of that stubbornness is that a needle thief becomes a cow thief, and the spiritual result is, "What does Jesus have to do with my sins, who were but a death row in Rome two thousand years ago? I am confident enough to look up to heaven!" shouting and protesting.
But still, if God ultimately controls everything, I wonder why he allows this polarization even in the spiritual sense. The answer is already in this spiritual principle. It is to make those who have come to know God naturally come to know Him more deeply. So, does this mean that unbelievers are bound by Satan and are afraid that they will fall deeper into it and cannot break free? On the contrary, it means to have more pity on them.
There is nothing difficult and complicated to think about. Knowing God is so good, but how bad it is to be bound by Satan. Only when you know the difference clearly can a believer be able to hold onto the soul of an unbeliever, pray with tears, and serve with true love. If there is no difference between believing in Jesus and not believing in Jesus, who would be willing to preach the gospel and serve poor neighbors?
God did not deliberately seek to polarize spiritually to further punish unbelievers. Of course, such a spiritual principle arises because God and Satan are at opposite ends. The absence of evil is good, and the absence of good is evil. The two never meet and cannot coexist in one place. Sin and righteousness, darkness and light, death and life, judgment and salvation are absolute polarities.
Therefore, the gap between the two cannot be filled by human good deeds, repentance, morals, ideas, philosophy, and religion. Only God who has allowed that polarization can fill it. That is the cross of Jesus, and the mystery of the kingdom of heaven revealed in the gospel is, of course, and must contain polarization.
I am not talking about profound and grand spiritual truths now. It means that every believer has gone through this very process of polarization. Before getting to know Jesus, he was a complete failure, with no hope of dying and barely living.
However, this spiritual polarization in no way means that God is Satan's eternal rival. The principle of spiritual polarization applies only to the extent that human beings can perceive and result in it. Simply put, God is not standing on the opposite side of Satan, but looking down from above that transcends all that, rather, it means that believers stand on the opposite side of Satan for eternity.
In short, a believer who has passed through the cross and has already been victorious in God can fight Satan for the rest of his life and save those who are his servants, and this is the essence and purpose of the principle of spiritual polarization. where do you stand now? Isn't it possible that you're not standing on the pole of the light side, but standing in the middle of the pole? This is not to say that you should go out and evangelize on the street right now. You are asking whether you can't feel the difference even if you stop believing in Jesus or not.
3/4/2006