Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

NOT A TRINITY BUT A QUARTET?

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Matthew 24: 36.      

I am mystified by this text, which is contrary to Jesus’ words when he said: The Father and I are one (John 10:30): there appears to be a split in the divine relationship. What’s going on here? God knows the score, but Jesus does not?

Allow me to pursue this mystery: in that (in)famous chapter, Matthew 24, Jesus tells us about ‘The End of the World’ – a topic that fascinates me – but confesses ignorance about its exact time, while God knows it. Why the split between Father and Son?

From my, so human perspective, I can grasp the reason, because it would entail predictions of such magnitude – think the H bomb, think AI, think Climate Change, think 9 billion people, think WWW, think 2,000 years of development – that an explanation would be impossible to grasp for his contemporaries. I also realize that all these developments are necessary for us to experience, in order to avoid their negative aspects once we live in the new creation, which has to last forever. Even so….

May I go where Jesus refused to go, or cannot go? I believe that the Bible tells me so.

To do that, I have to think ‘outside the box’, which forces me mention marriage again – or the lack thereof.

Jesus did say something about marriage, and our sexual orientation. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Matthew 22:30. I can see the wisdom of this new arrangement between male and female: it guarantees full equality, and does away with the different sexual orientations.

Yet, there still will be marriage: Humanity will marry creation. Revelation 21: 9: “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

So, marriage will not disappear: Obviously, here the Bible speaks of marriage between a woman, the bride – personifying Creation, God’s work of Art – and the Lamb, the groom – representing the human race, the Redeemed of the Lord. In other words, “We, the chosen by the Lord, will become one, united in marriage, with Creation!

Where do my thoughts go? They imagine something controversial. I believe that I don’t know what I am thinking, until I have read what I have written.

And what did I write?

I allowed my fingers to do the talking, and wrote: “why not describe creation as God’s female personality, God’s woman-like expression, a character that has assumed a will of her own, and a path in life, so distinct, that she acts independently: that’s why Jesus does not know when her expiry due date is, even though, through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, creation is totally renewed.

Could that be the ultimate explanation of John 3: 16? Jesus, her brother, God’s Son, gives his life for his sister, God’s Creation-daughter, about to be married!

Just as Jesus is God’s son, Creation could be seen as God’s daughter.

Isn’t that a beautiful thought?

Obviously, the Bride is the New Creation, fertile, innovative, a personality all of her own.

I tend to believe that Creation, God’s maternal expression, knows the Limits to Growth, is aware of its finality, so to say, and, just as her brother Jesus, sacrifices her life – which we are busy doing – in order to be reinstated and resurrected as the Mother of all things.

Once again: But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

That text contains a mystery, and, I believe, that in the End, all will be revealed. The word ‘reciprocity’ has been in my mind for a time, meaning that two parties provide the same help or advantage to each other. Does this mean that, while I explore the Scriptures daily, the Scriptures reveal their secrets to me? Perhaps.

The matter of creation being female, is quite plain. That she has a divine origin, thus holy, is also truly acceptable. That she, God’s Creation, like Jesus, has been given to us for our use and care, our trust and stewardship, is also clearly established. That the current situation, has an expiry date, and knows exactly her exterminating date, is also guaranteed.

So, my hesitant conclusion?

Creation is God’s female expression, has a personality all of her own, just as Jesus has, and thus, there is not a Trinity, but a Quartet, a four-sided expression of the Holiness of God: Father, Son, Daughter, Spirit.

Well, I will throw this out, as a possibility, trusting that, sometime in the future, “All will be revealed”.  Maranatha, Come Speedily.

BE ADVENT-UROUS

I am not a theologian, and therefore must look at matters religious from a non-theological point of view. By observing, what we commonly call, the Church, I have concluded that organized religion is stuck in a certain modus operandi, that has remained the same since the Reformation in 1517, while the world has changed immensely.

When Martin Luther affixed his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31 of that year, he set into motion a revolution, culminating in the Thirty Years‘ War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, that became one of the most destructive conflicts in human history.

But the Ecclesiastical Reformation did not change a great deal in the way the church operated. True, the Lutheran movement abolished the papacy. True, the money racket which the church had become, was abolished. True, the Rome church organization was simplified, but, basically, God’s WRITTEN WORD, the Bible, remained the central vocal point in the Christian movement, prompting Guido de Brès to write a concise confession, the so-called ‘Belgic Confession’, composed in 1565 in Antwerp, Belgium, with a dual emphasis: Creation and the Bible.

In it the young Guido asked: “By What Means is God Made Known?”

Here are his answers.
First:

We know Him by two means: first, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, His eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul saith: For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse. All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse.

Secondly, He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word; that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to His glory and our salvation.

Please note the priority:

What comes first? What did he see as the church’s priority? Creation. What did the church do? It saw the Bible as the only source of divine knowledge.

Advent is coming: Not the arrival – advent – of the baby in Bethlehem, but the grown-up Jesus in his Second Coming. And he will take with him not an updated version of the Bible, but a ‘renewed’ Creation. And, says the last chapter of the Bible, I am coming soon. Repeatedly I should add, taking with him a New Creation!

Trees!!

This world today has a rapidly decreasing number of trees, and an increasing number of church-denominations. But the new creation is described as “And there was no temple there”, no church, no Bible. But trees galore: trees, miraculous trees.

The Bible starts with The Tree of Life. In the centre of history stands, The Tree of the Cross. Into that tree, symbol of all trees, Jesus’ flesh was pounded, from which Jesus’ blood dripped into the earth, making it too, forever holy.

Trees. Ever heard a sermon on trees? Ever gone, as congregation, to a forest, and wonder and wander there, and soak up the aroma of The Trees. Yet the Bible starts with a Tree, the Tree of Life, has at its centre the Tree on Calvary, and ends with the Tree that feeds the new creation.

ADVENT-URE

We must more see ADVENT as an ADVENTURE into the new world to come, in the wonderous world of TREES, those marvelous miracles of the ecosystem that regulates the natural world, the creator of clouds, the master of the atmosphere, the maker of rain, the organizer of organic compounds and the miner of minerals, ‘the leaves – the leaves! are for the healing of the nations’ – and…. the list goes on.

The Bible and the church will disappear, never to be resurrected again. Creation, God-made creation, will last from eternity to eternity: it is God’s Primary Word, now and always. That is the world – and the Word! – we will inherit.

That’s the reason why our emphasis in life and on religious assemblies must change, fitting more and more into a mode that is God-ordained. That calls for deep reflection and constant reorientation. Perhaps large gatherings, filling the parking lots, should be fitted with small house assemblies, where neighbours and secular friends can meet and discuss.  Now the carbon-age dominates the church.

To become ready for the New Creation -now rapidly approaching, as the Old World is digging its grave – we need a new orientation, from advent to adventure, imagining and daring to think outside the box, the four walls of a church, and orient ourselves to prepare for the New World to come.

That is our future: START LIVING IT NOW. Be ADVENT-UROUS

 “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”

Luke 17:37                  

The greater majority in the Christian Church believes in two heresies: either in Rapture, the belief that, at a certain point in history, God fetches his people to directly fly to heaven, wherever they are. This is mostly a Southern Baptist notion, based on Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, and the “Left Behind” Series. Or, a close cousin, is the almost universal belief that believers go to heaven upon death, forever leaving that wicked earth. Both cater more to Greek Paganism than Christianity. No wonder that the late Dr. Harold Bloom, a secular Jew, called America a “religion-soaked country that has ceased to be Christian”.

Jesus: listen to him!

Jesus disputes this notion repeatedly, pointing to Sodom and Gomorra, where Lot and his family were saved, and the sinners destroyed, or, in Matthew 24, mentioning the Flood, the sinners were drowned and the Noah clan survived. Nevertheless, the HEAVEN HERESY remains deeply ingrained in the Christian Religion. This antibiblical stance, allows Trump to follow his flagrant Anti-Christ = Anti-Creation policies, the complete opposite of the Cosmos-loving stance of God’s Son.

Why then have I singled out this gruesome text, a repeat of Matthew 24: 28, where the footnote says: “The coming of Christ will be as obvious as the presence of vultures around a dead body”. Why does Christ use this example?

As is often the case when Jesus speaks, the Kingdom, God’s precious cosmos, is on Jesus’ mind. His plaintive cry, ‘Will I find faith on earth when I return” – Luke 18: 8 – bears that out. Jesus always gives priority to the Kingdom, always, always, no exception. This also applies to the text quoted as my topic. A church without Kingdom ‘faith’ is dead: dead like a corps, dead as a carcass, dead as in devoid of all life, while its officials benefit from its organization and structure, like vultures devouring a corps.

This is totally in line with Matthew 23, where Jesus vehemently agitates against the then church officials, the scribes and Pharisees.

Why is this heresy so universal?

It is so much easier to go to heaven, and leave the earth behind, with its mandate to ‘love’ all that God has created. I know, I know: in almost every one of my blogs, I quote John 3: 16: “God so loved this cosmos”, and by loving it we get eternal life there. Where? Here, here, here.

The anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by Hitler’s henchmen shortly before his concentration camp was liberated, often said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Bonhoeffer calls this cosmos-despising stance: Pious Secularism.

I believe that the dead body in this text is the church, and the vultures are its office bearers, the paid staff, the legions of clergies in all denominations, about which James 3 warns: “They who teach will be judged more strictly”.

Fortunately, there still are churches proclaiming “LIFE”, and that to the full – Jesus’ message – John 10: 10.

And the deceived?

And the deceived are the widows with their penny donations, the innocent mass, who are still among the faithful, who want to be told the truth, and long to hear it. They would gladly accept it, but the Truth is not being told, and that Truth is the Good News of the Kingdom, is the New Earth to come.

The author of ‘Against the Machine’, Paul Kingsnorth, was interviewed by Don Douthat in the NYT, confessing that he was a Christian, but failed to spell it out in Kingdom terms, and there too is where the entire church is failing miserably, in the process becoming a dead body.

And I am still a member of this body, am still supporting it with my presence and money. Well, that’s life, but not the life Jesus wants us to live. So, life goes on, while awaiting LIFE in capital letters.

How then do I see Christianity?  

Christianity is not a religion. Religion excludes – it did Jesus! Christianity includes: Christianity is a way of LIFE. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. That line concludes Psalm 139.

Christianity is the continuous struggle to live in the way everlasting on God’s Holy Earth.That is our future. Live it today and every day.

Since today ‘living without polluting God’s beloved earth’ has virtually become impossible, is the reason why the Parousia, Christ’s return, is imminent.

DOES TRUMP HAVE A ROLE IN GOD’S PLAN?

Trump’s rant on the climate crisis – a “green scam”, “the greatest con job ever perpetrated”, “predictions made by stupid people” – was a God – defying challenge, an atrocious attack on science and global action from the major world leader. It also was a direct assault on God’s Created Word, spelled out in Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”. Trump  certainly wants COP30 to fail.

Here is my view why COP30 will fail – a singing version.

COP 3 and 0

Is now a go

Meeting close to the jungle

The world looks on                                                                 

Suppress’ a yawn

Expecting one more bungle.

COP 3 and 0

Is now a go

Gone past the 1.5 limit

Will fail again,

Not if but when

We’re right to exclaim: ‘dammit’.

COP 3 and 0

Is now a go.

US and China missing

They are the worst

For dough their thirst

We can us goodbye kissing.

(There is a tune to that).

“Everything is connected to everything else”, says the first law of ecology.

Is Trump’s action, foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2: 3? Here is the text:

Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.

I believe that the lawless one, Trump, has come, a person who ranks high in what a psychologist calls ‘the dark triad’: a psychopath, callous, a lack of empathy, and remorse; he is a narcissist, an inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance; he manipulates others for personal gain.

I also believe that, as a recent essay in the New York Times, suggests, an economic depression, analogous to the Dirty Thirties, awaits us, and will destroy the global economy, and prove Revelation 18: 11, to be true: “And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because there is no one left to buy their cargo.”

Am I reading too much in these texts?

I believe how Paul, writing to the church of all ages, foresees how a Trump, in his arrogance and false pride, in his god/creation-denying acts, will be the instrument in God’s hand, to speed up Christ’ return in all his glory.

Back to Climate Change in the days of COP 30.

The thinking about climate change, has undergone a phase change of its own. It is now suggested that climate change will become the spark that ignites cascades of interlocking crises. Together, they put the whole earth in a state of poly-crisis — where self-reinforcing events like the melting of the polar ice caps and the destruction of the Amazon, two giant regulators of the earth’s temperature, will propel us toward higher and higher temperatures, even without human fossil-fuel burning. This will trigger more droughts, floods, wildfires, crop failures and sea-level rise, which in turn will unleash economic shocks, mass migration, the collapse of fragile states and the breakdown of trust worldwide.

This is exactly in line with Paul’s statement – prophecy – when questioned by his church in Thessalonica about Christ’s return. To refresh your memory: Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.

It is generally recognized that Climate Change is the greatest danger now facing the world. In July 2025, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands, delivered a landmark decision that clarified that all states were bound under international law to tackle the human-made climate crisis, which the judges unanimously concluded posed an “urgent and existential threat” to the planet’s life-sustaining systems and therefore humanity itself.

Ugo Bardi, emeritus professor of Chemistry in Florence, Italy, has discovered that excess CO2 – the normal is 280ppm, now 426 – affects the entire person. Here is his quote in part:

In this moment of total madness, when humankind seems to have lost all reference points and even its very humanity, we must not forget that all human beings of this planet are victims of our destructive folly, just as all of its living creatures.

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary General, at the opening of COP30, said, “The failure to limit global heating to 1.5C is a “moral failure and deadly negligence. Even a temporary overshoot could unleash far greater destruction and costs for every nation. It could push ecosystems past catastrophic and irreversible tipping points, expose billions to unliveable conditions, and amplify threats to peace and security. At every climate conference, we hear many promises but see too few real commitments. The era of declarations of good intentions has ended: the time for action plans has arrived. That is why today we begin the “Cop of truth”

God uses ‘the Trump Tragedy’ to advance his kingdom. The Noah Flood required God’s initiative. This time we, you and I, are the agents of destruction. Pray for Grace.

CAN WE BE PERFECT?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5: 48

Can we be perfect? I agree that God in heaven is. But can we? “Not yet”, is my answer, “not yet”, because the Greek word translated as ‘perfect’, also has a different meaning, so, actually, we don’t have to be perfect. ‘Teleios’, the word used there, is the adverb of ‘telos’. A search in Google shows that: “The telos of a person’s life is the ultimate end they aim for”. I don’t know about you, but my aim isGod’s kingdom, his New Creation, where ‘perfection’ is the standard.

However. There always is a ‘however’. We don’t just, without preparation, transfer to God’s Kingdom. Our pursuit of perfection must begin now, in our sinful stage.

What does it entail?

That means that now, Anno Domini 2025, we must start that process, probe problems: “Explore everything and hold fast to what is good”, as Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 25. That truth, that eternal searching, is our life’s task, now and forever.

The plus side of this process is, that it gives rise to a state of mind in which our thoughts can wander and wonder; it encourages curiosity, is quite an interesting process, and fosters feelings, and out of those feelings can arise new ideas, so that we can dream and test out the new, and explore further.

Is that how Christians must live?

Yes, that is our task, our never-ending assignment, now and forever. There are only three certainties: God created, we uncreated, and Christ recreated, the rest is commentary.

Here is where we are today.

One of the mysteries I often explore are the Arctic temperatures. It is well known that Global Heat there has been rising faster than the global average, a feature known as polar amplification. Faster warming and fresher surface waters can change how gases move and how microbes work.

COP 30 is gathering in Brazil. Take note. Methane plays an outsized role in heating because of its radiative forcing, a measure of how something changes Earth’s energy balance, which IPCC assessments  rank second only to carbon dioxide among human driven greenhouse gases. That ranking makes any methane system shift more than a curiosity.

Researchers noted that modern Arctic warming and freshening could trigger sudden immense methane explosions, raising world’s heating to unprecedented heights.

Already now: “Every minute somebody in the world dies, due to Global Heating”, claims a recent report. That translates into more than 500,000 of God’s creatures each year, mostly in the poorer sections of the world, where the responsible ingredients that cause Climate Change are least used.

In other words: We wealthy, automobile owners, living in climate-regulated dwellings, are causing millions of deaths in our life-times. That is Sinful. That dwarfs any other human action.

We await the new.

Antonio Gramsci observed during another period of upheaval, “The old is dead, but the new has not yet been born: In the interregnum, the most varied morbid phenomena occur.”

We now live in such a time frame, where everything is being challenged: truly a revolutionary era, which will end in the sudden appearance of the Lord.

In “Vrede op Aarde”, Peace of Earth, Dr. Stefan Paas – professor of Missions at the Amsterdam Free University – writes, (and I translate):

“Belief is no theoretical conviction, but a heart-felt and authentic phenomenon. It is not based on pure authority, but it is stimulated by life experiences. It is not mere participation in a movement or reliance on an institution, but it is a matter of personal choice. It does not lead to silent contemplation, but to responsible discussion. It does not result in passivity, but acts as a stimulant for a disciplined life.” 

That calls for clarification. How can we become God’s children and inherit eternal life, not as zombies, but as inquiring, challenging, probing humans, worthy to be Christ’s companions. To be ready to diligently, ambitiously, leisurely -we have all eternity – explore God’s infinite creation, we must start that process now.

That requires a certain frame of mind, an attitude of faithful felicity, of openness to all and any possibilities, but mainly one of perfection.

Adam and Eve failed, because they were totally innocent, inexperienced, let’s face it: they bungled it. That can not happen again, even though everything today conspires to rob us of our full humanity: we, by and large, have become THE machine, which we so adore. Neil Postman, long ago, wrote “Amusing ourselves to Death”. Goliath’s Curse warns us today not to succumb to AI, while Paul Kingsnorth cautions us that THE MACHINE is unmaking our Humanity.

The obstacles are immense. The process to become ready for ETERNITY, starts now, means reorientation from ‘the spirit of this age’, to truly be immersed in the Spirit of holiness. Jesus told us: “Be perfect, as I am perfect”. To repeat: the Greek word used for ‘perfect’ is ‘teleios’, which is the adverb of ‘telos’, which means ‘end’ or ‘goal’. Our goal in life is the New Creation. Therefore: live accordingly.

REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH.

I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe not those who speak unto you of super-earthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.

Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the dread-fullest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!

                                                               Nietzsche.

Beware of the word ‘Christian.’ If there is no mention of an ‘earth’ connection, it probably is pure pietism. Jesus warns in Matthew 24: 24 that “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles”. Anything associating Christian Truth with AI is false from the start. For us, in the boring 2020’s, (where THE Machine dominates) any claim of the Message that omits our intimate connection, our indispensable earthly origin and ultimate cosmic destination, is categorically false.

For Christians now and beyond, John 3 pinpoints our personal plight and our perpetual planetary destination: EARTH. In that famous chapter Jesus gives a fundamental faith formula, directly aimed at a gospel teacher, Nicodemus, a leading theologian of his day. Jesus’ words, such as verses 10 – 17 of that chapter, are now through Nicodemus, equally directed to all Biblical Teachers: “Nicodemus, You personify ‘the world’s’ teacher, to whom Jesus then and now, strait from the gut, tells: “No one has ever gone to heaven except the One- Jesus – who came from there, the Son of Man”. That plainly puts paid to the outspoken Greek Heresy, pure pagan propaganda, that we will somehow end up in heaven, a place of which Paul, the eminent emissary, who had a peek there, tells his protégé Timothy, (see 1 Timothy 6): 16: that “God lives in inapproachable Light, who nobody has seen or can see.” And nobody put it better than Friedrich Nietzsche, who father and both grandfathers were preachers.

A deceiving example.

Here is what a Trump’s lackey proclaimed at the funeral of Charlie Kirk: “To our enemies: You have nothing to give. You have nothing to offer. You have nothing to share but bitterness. We have beauty, we have light, we have goodness, we have determination, we have vision, we have strength. We built the world that we inhabit now, generation by generation, and we will defend this world. We will defend goodness. We will defend light, we will defend virtue. You cannot terrify us. You cannot frighten us. You cannot threaten us, because we are on the side of goodness. We are on the side of God”. How ungodly! Sincere Christians do not boast and condemn.

Compare this to Jesus’ words: “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”  (Luke 6: 35) Trump pursues his perceived opponents, expressing hatred for them. Beware of false religions, so rampant today.

The point of no return.

Late November, COP 30 opens in the newly built Brazilian Capital, carved out from the ever-shrinking Amazon region. It seems to me, that the UN has given up stopping and reversing Climate Change. Trump and the US certainly have. Its government has scrapped all environmental protection measures, and ceased to support all renewable energy resources, now giving priority to climate-changing carbon fuels. The use of black coal, the most polluting energy source, has reached records, while solar and wind energy sources are abandoned upon Trump’s direction.

There is a theology behind this: It’s the ‘heaven-bound’ – Satan inspired – falsehood. It’s damning the world, the ancient ‘gnostic’ heresy so revered by the church.

Genesis 3: 19 plainly says, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Daniel concludes his writing (Daniel 12: 13): “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”

God took us from the earth, as we are earthlings through and through: that’s why we will spend eternity there, this time, without The Machine, and without any sweat, as the last Bible chapter attests: “On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22: 2)

Pray for Collapse of the Machine that now dominates our world, and constantly tries us to rob us of our humanity, endeavouring endlessly to re-make us in its image, rather than in God’s likeness.

“Lord, I want to be a Christian, not only in my heart, but with my entire being, body, soul and spirit, 24/7, as I eagerly await the promised New World, where everything, without exception, honors its Maker, where even ‘the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.”