The Illusion Delusion
By John Gavazzoni

It's a quite remarkable phenomenon to observe: That is, as the brain is slowly turning to mush, it imagines that it has found the answer to all that afflicts humanity. It is all the more remarkable, in that, with the particular phenomenon I'm addressing in this article, that brain imagines it has found the cure for an affliction that doesn't really exist. Though we might think that we've hit the top of the scale of remarkable mush-headedness, the line heads higher adding more mush-inclined brains to the phenomenon, oohing and aahing at the supposed preciseness of this "revelation." You see (note please, my unapologetic sarcasm) contrary to Paul the apostle's observation, creation is not actually suffering from decay, it's just that it thinks it's decaying, and the answer is that the sons of God need to quit agreeing with creation's illusion and to deny that it's happening, and then---poof, the decay (that doesn't really exist after all) will disappear.

Add an element of truth to that delusion and it becomes very effective, for we as believers know that we ought not to disrespect what God has accomplished in the death and resurrection of Christ, so when someone bases the delusion upon "the finished work of Christ," it becomes very, VERY seductive. I'll have to go over the ground again: When the One WITHIN WHOM all things were created, and WITHIN WHOM all things are held together, came into the whole of all things as One Individual Man, that Man, by virtue of His Personhood being the containment field and constitution of the whole, AS the DNA of the whole, transformed the whole at its DNA level. He took all mankind, and all creation through death into resurrection-glory within Himself. Then He, by His Spirit, inserted that new DNA into the whole body of creaturehood at the entrance point of the spirits of His elect, from there to spread to the whole body of humanity with the victory of the new DNA swallowing up death (the end result of decay) finally and unequivocally.

That's why it's recorded in the Book of Revelation that John heard the resurrected, glorified Jesus say, "Behold, I am MAKING all things new." He didn't tell John that He had already made all things new, and that John should proclaim anything to the contrary as illusion. John saw and heard what Jesus was continuing to do, OUT FROM, and BY VIRTUE OF what God had already done in and by Him. Sin, disease, and death are still an existential fact in this world. If it were not so, the message of the whole of the New Testament would be a jumble of contradictory nonsense. Taking the whole of the New Testament revelation, we find the perfect balance of the indicative and the imperative, that is, what still needs to be done, will be done, FROM what has been done in Christ.

It's in this regard that I also have a problem with the ever growing popularity of, but too-grandiose claims of, Preterism, that the resolution of the above completely occurred in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70. I love the fact that Preterism has challenged the arrogant presumptions of Futurism. That's good. That needed to happen. But my caution to believers is that they not swallow Preterism hook, line, and sinker, as they once did with Futurism. God made a point quite dramatically and visually in the LOCAL events of A.D. 70, that He had struck a mighty blow against flesh-based religion in a local display which was archetypical of what He would continue to do until all things have, without qualification, BEEN MADE NEW. Must I point out that the essential structures of religion as a shadow of reality are still very much extant universally.

Dear Lord, how we love our theological boxes. We discard one inadequate box only to replace it with another. It's like a love-sick teen-ager who is blind to the faults of the one he/she thinks is the answer to all his/her dreams. Amazingly, when he/she can no longer avoid admitting the character flaws, he/she ditches his/her dream, only to fall for another dream which turns out to be a nightmare relationship. When we call living in denial the cutting edge of revelation, we have a serious problem. My dear friend, Jan Antonsson, at this point, would be quick to faithfully insist that it is finally God's "problem." Amen to that, and thank God. But in the process of His resolution, He does press upon some of us to point out the obvious.