[wastoute]

God DOES manifest himself here on earth in very real and tangible ways. It is called "General Revelation". As you say, if one wishes to deny Him, one may. He gives us that option.

I have to admit to being astonished a bit at "Bible Codes". What language do they decode English, Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic? One would think that in decoding a translation the result would be a bit more questionable. As for myself, I would tend to look at such efforts in a very similar light as Saul's seeking the counsel of a soothsayer. The Bible doesn't tell us that such efforts are fruitless, it tells us not to do it. Not because the counsel is untrue (curiously) but because the source is not Him but "he who is in the world". God hasn't made his message difficult to understand or cloaked in mystery. He has revealed Himself in a way that, as Jesus said, even the simpleminded can receive Him. It is frequently those who "have wisdom" who have the most difficulty and He said it would be thus, "for I have placed a block of offense in Zion". Those who feel that it requires some special gift of intellect to understand God's message are stumbling over this block. God is so gracious that He has not reserved place at the Feast of The Bride for only those select but He has thrown the doors open wide for any who would come in and receive Him. Only the most generous personality in the Universe would do that, and He did it a a great price, as one can see in Mel Gibson's movie.

Praise God!

[ovrtaxt]

That about sums it up for me too. I hear His voice everyday through prayer and reading His Word in my own language. I don't see what the big deal is about some codes, even though I think they're real.

[Quix]

There's NOTHING akin to soothsaying about the Codes. Numerology that's proscribed by Scripture has to do with imputing to numbers magical satanic powers. There's NOTHING about the Codes ANYWHERE CLOSE to that--though a lot of garbage is ont he net by well meaning Christians pontificating otherwise.

I don't personally think the Codes are greatly more than God having fun with man's arrogance--revealing His timeless majesty with His 'foolilshness' to confound man's wisdom.

It also boggles my mind that anyone could consider ANYTHING SO INTIMATELY, PART AND PARCEL OF THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT AND WHICH BIBLICALLY AFFIRMS THAT CHRIST CAME IN THE FLESH ETC. . . . HOW COULD ANYONE CONSTRUE ANYTHING SO INTIMATELY, INHERENTLY PART OF SCRIPTURE'S VERY TEXT [HEBREW] be anything else THAN FROM HOLY SPIRIT WHO DICTATED THAT TEXT????

There have been some noises about some Codes in the Greek NT but I haven't seen anything of great substance about it.

Genesis is evidently the most unique book from a number of straight forward statistical counts of letters and their combinations etc. Incredibly unique. That one fact alone seems to indicate design for a purpose.