The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is God’s jealousy.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of January 7, 2012
continued from December 31, 2011
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance." And he said, "Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal. You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end. Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
And the LORD said to Moses, "Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."
So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him. (Ex 34:8–35)
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4.
Black marks on white paper, or darkened pixels on a white computer screen can only metaphorically possess structure. Printed letters on a page can only metaphorically function as foundation, floor joist, toe-plate, studs, top-plate, ceiling joist, rafters, the framework of a house. Therefore, the structure of a text refers not to the letters on the page, but to the organization and presentation of thoughts by words. And again, the structure of Holy Writ is represented by the metaphor that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, with the shape of these Greek letters conveying information as well as the position of these letters in the Greek alphabet conveying additional information. Thus, first, what can be said of these two uncials [capital letters] that seem to appear as a man and a woman …
The Greek uncial A, which appears as an English <A> has an enclosed portion supported by two legs whereas the uncial omega has no enclosed portion although what is open appears at a glance to be closed … the position of the opening between two feet is suggestive of the woman being saved through childbirth—and this is indeed the case: in the beginning, Israel was offered long life and physical peace for obedience to the Lord. There was no offer of spiritual salvation made to outwardly circumcised Israel. In fact, because of what happened at Mount Sinai when Moses was initially in the cloud atop the mountain [i.e., the golden calf incident], Israel was prohibited from receiving indwelling eternal life through the command not to kindle a fire on the Sabbath (Ex 35:3); for the Lord would not forgive rebellion:
So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." (Ex 34:4–7 emphasis added)
What does it mean to forgive iniquity and sin but by no means clear the guilty except that the iniquity and sin that is forgiven come from unintentional transgressions of the Law and not from deliberate transgression? And this is the case: the intentions of the heart determine whether sin would be or will be forgiven. The person who unintentionally sins will not have his or her transgression of the commands of God remembered whereas the person who knows to do right and who does not do so—the hypocrite—shall not have his or her transgressions forgiven, but will have them remembered generationally, with the golden calf rebellion forming the touchstone for when guilt is retained.
Outwardly circumcised Israel cannot be saved spiritually through childbirth, but this is not the case for the greater Christian Church that will, following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, be filled-with and empowered by baptism in the divine breath of God, with the present Christian Church thereby giving birth to two sons, a spiritual Abel and a spiritual Cain, with Abel being saved and Cain lost, and with a third son, a spiritual Seth, born when the spirit of God is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man 1260 days after the Second Passover.
In the two Greek uncials can be seen the reality that salvation was not offered to outwardly circumcised Israel but was offered to inwardly circumcised [circumcised-of-heart] Israel through childbirth; through being born of spirit via receipt of a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma theon] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christos]. The indwelling of Christ in the form of His breath causes Christ to be the Head of the person’s inner self, which in turn is the head of the person’s fleshly body. And with the breath of the Father being in the breath of Christ will have God the Father being the Head of Christ in a physically invisible form of boxes inside of boxes—
A person’s fleshly body can be seen by eyes because it reflects sunlight, not full-spectrum light but a portion of the spectrum. When God is light, and when Christ is light, and when the Christian’s inner self is light, there is no reflection of light and there is nothing to be seen. There is no shadow cast; there are no light-absorbing or light-reflecting surfaces. There is nothing for eyes to see.
To make visible what is invisible, the barrier that the human person’s fleshly body represents must be rendered invisible—and this is what the Second Passover liberation of Israel is about. By initially filling every Christian with the divine breath of God, sin and death are flushed from the fleshly body of the person. And now, the head of the person can be seen, with the head being the invisible inner self that the fleshly body obeys. Whatever the person’s head desires or thinks to do, the person’s fleshly body will do as an obedient wife obeys her husband, fulfilling his wishes [not the state of modern human marriages].
The invisible inner self of the spirit-filled Christian also has a Head, Christ Jesus. If the invisible inner self will not obey its Head, this inner self is as a rebellious wife, not someone a man would want to marry; not someone the Bridegroom will marry at the Wedding Feast. For the Son, the Bridegroom, will give life to whom He will (John 5:21) as the Father has given life without qualifications to all Christians at the Second Passover liberation of Israel … in this pre-Second-Passover era, the Father only gives life to those human persons whom He foreknows and draws from this world as His own (John 6:44). And the person whom the Father foreknows is also predestined, called, justified, and glorified in heaven while the person still lives physically, the reality of which was seen by the prophet Zechariah:
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to him he said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments." And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by. And the angel of the LORD solemnly assured Joshua, "Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree." (Zech 3:1–10 emphasis added)
Joshua in the above passage is not Christ Jesus, who was never a brand [a stick already burning] plucked from the fire, nor ever needed to have sins forgiven. Yet this Joshua as high priest of Israel is in heaven but still lives here on earth where he is to walk in the ways of the Lord, which if he does so here on earth will be given (along with his friends) the right of access to the throne of God. So the fate of the friends of this Joshua is tied to whether this Joshua walks in the ways of the Lord, keeping the Lord’s charge here on earth.
It isn’t salvation that is being offered to this Joshua in the above passage, but rule of the house of the Lord. Salvation came with plucking this Joshua from the fire, to which this Joshua had already condemned himself. The Adversary doesn’t bring unjustified accusations against this Joshua, but accusations of what it was that caused this Joshua to be condemned to the lake of fire. Hence, the angel [messenger] of the Lord chose as Israel’s high priest someone who was already condemned to do the job of ruling His house if this Joshua would walk in the ways of the Lord, with this Joshua able to also bring his friends into the presence of God.
The iniquity of the land has not yet been removed, and will not be removed until the single kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18).
If a human person realizes that he or she can be likened to a brand, a stick taken from the fire and its flames smothered, then that person cannot hold a high opinion of him or herself even when chosen to rule the household of the Lord: the person didn’t pluck him or herself from the fire, and the person would have been utterly consumed by the fire if he or she had not been plucked from it. Thus, in walking in the ways of the Lord, the person would, most likely, be uncompromising in his or her zeal for righteousness. This person would, most likely, be someone like the Apostle Paul, which isn’t to claim that Paul is this Joshua. This person would realize more than anyone else other than Christ Jesus just how close the person was to not making it into the kingdom in any position. Then for this person to have friends who sit before this Joshua—
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In the beginning, Elohim [singular in usage] made Adam on the dark portion of the day when He made the earth and the heavens (Gen 2:4, 7). He made Adam before there was bush or plant; before there was tree or beast … the historical narrative of Scripture as told in the Law and the Prophets is fully contained in the dark portion of Day One of the Genesis “P” creation account; for the light of Day One (Gen 1:3) is Christ Jesus (2 Cor 4:6) as the only Son of o logos entering His creation, that is the Logos’ creation.
John writes,
In him [o logos] was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word [o logos] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:4–18 emphasis added)
There are two men named John [Ioannou] who bear witness about the light that is the life of men, the first being the greatest of all men who have been born of women (Matt 11:11), and the second being the disciple Jesus loved, an identifying phrase that does not, on its surface, seem remarkable—for did Jesus not love all of His disciples? But this identifying phrase—(the disciple whom loved the Jesus)—contains imbedded significance that is not fully manifested in English translations; for the direction of the love being expressed seems to be from the disciple toward Jesus rather than reversed as seen in translations.
John loved Jesus to a degree greater than the other disciples for John stood by Jesus when Jesus was crucified. It was to John whom Jesus, on the stake, commended the care of Mary, His mother (John 19:26–27).
John the Baptist and John the Apostle, the Revelator, together, function as the first Adam and the last Adam function together; i.e., two forming one narrative couplet that has a physical and a spiritual portion. Thus, what is written about John the Baptist also pertains to John’s mirror image [chiral image], John the Apostle. And as John the Baptist was the greatest of all men born of women, the one who loves Christ Jesus enough to keep the commandments and teach them to others will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens (Matt 5:19), which introduces within the first disciples a degree of separation based upon whether the disciple relaxed or held fast to the commandments, with the one holding fast to the commandments and to their belief in Jesus being great—and with all being greater than John the Baptist.
Joshua as the high priest of Israel was to walk in the ways of the Lord and to keep His charge, which would cause this Joshua to be great in the kingdom of the heavens [yes, plural] … walking in the ways of the Lord is, however, more than simply keeping the commandments of God: it is also having love for born and unborn sons of God, each the brother of the person who would be great in the kingdom. And having love for born of spirit and still unborn of spirit sons of God fosters a certain jealousy in disciples, a protective sort of jealousy, a jealousy that doesn’t want to see any potential son of God lost to the lake of fire.
Because there are Arian Sabbatarians actively stalking anyone who is of Philadelphia (actually, anyone who is a Binitarian), with these Arians seeking to slay disciples through promulgating denial of Christ Jesus being the beginning (again, Rev 22:13), there is a need for enhanced basic understanding of things spiritual … the earliest surviving copies of the Gospels are written in uncials—all capital letters—for use of Greek lower case letters does not appear until the Byzantine period, roughly four centuries after the Gospels were written. Hence, in John’s name, omega preceeds alpha, but is not separated from A by the nasal consonant N in Jonah]. It is this separation—this movement of breath from the nose to the heart—that forms the basis for Christian discipleship and the assembly the Jesus built.
Why mention this? Why introduce a subject that seems unrelated to narrative structure?
In recent correspondence with an Arian Christian who seeks to teach others, the Arian stated that O Logos translated as the Word in John 1:1 shouldn’t be capitalized for in other uses of o logos translators have not capitalized the word … prior to the Byzantine period, every use of o logos would have been in uncials, something this Arian apparently doesn’t know.
Proper names are capitalized in English whereas in German, nouns are capitalized, iconographic conventions that have nothing to do with divine inspiration.
The Arian who contacted Philadelphia and others of his mindset have deceived acquaintances by paraphrasing John 1:1, causing the sentence to read in some version of what follows: “In original was the thought and the thought was toward the God and God was [doing] the thinking" — which turns a nominative case masculine singular noun into a gerund, with gerunds and gerund phrases functioning as nouns. … to turn a nominative-case noun into a gerund as in the illogical word, Homering, or in the equally illogical word, Wording, simply doesn’t work. All such translations of John 1:1 are intellectually dishonest and must be rejected.
The Greek word o logos is masculine singular in the nominative case as
shown by its <os> case ending and by its <o> definite article, and o logos was
[pros — with/of] ton theon [the God], kai [and] theos [God] was o logos [the Logos] (John 1:1). Because in Koine Greek a definite noun requires a definite
article in the same number, gender, and case, and because because it is the object of the preposition pros] [masculine,
singular, accusative case because it is the object of the preposition both have definite articles with the nouns, both are “definite” or separate
entities. But because theos in the third clause of the sentence does not have a
definite article, but shares the masculine singular article
In Koine Greek, even a personal name such as Jesus has a definite article. To not have a definite article causes the noun to, again, borrow the article of the noun that also names the thing; hence the Logos was God, not the thoughts of the God or the message of the God or the breath of the God. And the Logos as God was with the God in the beginning when the Logos created all things that have been created. So the Logos as God was with the God, and these two are seen in the Tetragrammaton YHWH that is Israel’s Elohim [Gods]. But Israel, other than possibly King David, never knew the Father, the God [ton theon]; thus, for Israel that had no life but that which comes from physical breath, God was one, numerically singular. Israel had no one other than John the Baptist making straight the way to the Lord. Israel (i.e., the outwardly circumcised nation) rejected the second Adam, the second John, the second breath of life, and the second deity of the Tetragrammaton YHWH. So Israel that was to have been first becomes last, and the last [Gentiles] become first, but there is a caveat: Christians who were to be first have also rejected Christ Jesus and shall become last, with the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9) comprising the vast majority of the firstfruits of God.
Translators choose not to capitalize theo, the genitive case of o theos, in Acts 17:23; for in the passage, the signifier refers to the altar for the Unknown god that Paul, through the use of equivocation, identifies as O Logos and ton theon.
Now, consider the following, the citation at the beginning of this Reading:
And he [the Lord] said, Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of [YHWH], for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for [YHWH], whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God [El]), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods [elohim] and sacrifice to their gods [elohim] and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods [elohim] and make your sons whore after their gods [elohim]. You shall not make for yourself any gods [elohim] of cast metal. …
Three times in the year shall all your males appear before [Adoni YHWH], the God [Elohim] of Israel. For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before [YHWH] your God [Elohim] three times in the year. …
The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of [YHWH] your [Elohim]. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
And [YHWH] said to Moses, Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.
So he [Moses] was there with [YHWH] forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. (Ex 34:10–28)
As Israel had YHWH as its Elohim, the people whom Israel was dispossessing had their elohim (Strong’s #H430), same word, but a word taking singular verbs for the people of Israel whereas this word takes plural verbs for the people of Canaan; for the people of Israel never knew the Father, the God of the dead. They only knew Yah, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of the living, not of the dead (Matt 22:32) according to Jesus.
However, King David understood that Yah was the physical face of the conjoined Elohim named by the Tetragrammaton YHWH as revealed in his late poetry (see Ps 146:1; 148:1; 149:1 in Hebrew).
When O Logos as Yah told Moses that He was a jealous God [El — Strong’s #H410] (Ex 34:14), that neither Moses nor Israel were to worship any other God but YHWH, Israel’s Elohim [again, Strong’s #H430], which was the conjoined deity of O Logos and ton theon, two deities that functioned as one entity, the O Logos as Yah introduced in a spiritual or eternal covenant that reality that worship of a Jesus different from the one who was the only Son of O Logos (again, who was theos, the God of John 3:16), or worship of a Father different from ton theon/the God was a transgression of the covenant by which Sabbatarian Christians in this era enter into the presence of God through the indwelling of Christ Jesus. … The preceding is convoluted and difficult to understand, but intelligible. However, the preceding isn’t for the dead or for spiritual infants. And the preceding introduces the jealousy that is felt by Philadelphians for Philadelphians who will be accosted by Arian Christians. This jealousy demands that war is waged against the heresies of Arians and Trinitarians, now and in the Affliction.
For the person born of God, to not worship the Father and the Son is to transgress the first commandment.
There is a common adage that one loves the sinner, not the sin of the sinner, and so it is with Arians and Trinitarians: Philadelphians will have love for the person, but not for the person’s heresy that must be fought and defeated—not fought with arms but with ideas, with arguments, with reason, and with the works that will be done in the Affliction by the two witnesses, those works coming through the present writings of Philadelphians that keep the word [ton logon] of Jesus (Rev 3:8), the word [ho logos] that Jesus spoke when with His disciples, the word [ho logos] that will judge unbelieving Christians (John 12:48).
The vast majority of those Sabbatarian Christians that have succumbed to the Sacred Names Heresy are now Arians, who teach and preach a Jesus different from the man who was the only Son of O Logos, the God of the living who entered His creation, thereby ceasing to exist—by extension, dying—in the heavenly realm. But Christ Jesus shall not twice die for Christians. So the glory that as Yah, the God of the living, had before He entered His creation as His only Son was returned to Him by the Father, the God of the dead, as Jesus requested: “‘And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed’” (John 17:5).
The pleasant sounding Christian platitudes that reduce to the question, can’t we all get along, are not utterances of a jealous God, one who will slay idolaters at the Second Advent. No, we cannot all get along for there can be no compromise with sin, no tacit approval of idolatry, no winking at transgressions of the commandments, no approval of marriages between believers and non-believers, no substituting a thigh bone or a chicken neck for the paschal Lamb of God, no keeping of spring high Sabbaths in the autumn of the year, which that Arian pastor from Australia does each year.
Not everyone is able to worship a jealous God …
There are men and women who accept the repeated adulteries of spouses, of their spouses, who take back into their beds wives or husbands who have been in another’s bed—
Christian forgiveness is broad, but is too often misapplied or applied before the fruit of repentance is made evident in the sinner: worship of a deity other than the Father and the Son is spiritual adultery that a jealous God will not quickly forgive or forget, and will not forgive until the fruit of repentance is evident in the Christian’s life.
Paul wrote,
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Col 2:1–14 emphasis added)
There is structure in what Paul wrote to the Colossians, who first received Christ Jesus and then began to walk as Jesus walked (see 1 John 2:6; 1 Cor 11:1; 1 Thess 1:6 et al), and who were then to resist vain philosophy and empty deceit coming from human traditions and not from Christ. When the person who was a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), doing by nature the things that form the core of human culture, is raised from death by the Father (John 5:21) through giving to the person a second breath of life, His breath [pneuma theon] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christos], this person experiences the indwelling of Christ Jesus, who is now the Head of the person (Col 2:10), the Head of the person’s now-living inner self, and is to the person as a husband is to his wife. If the fleshly body of this person worships any other deity but the Father and the Son, the person’s fleshly body commits adultery against its Head, Christ Jesus, who is a jealous God and not quick to forgive spiritual adultery [i.e., idolatry].
Circumcision of the heart follows and does not precede receiving the indwelling of Christ Jesus, with Christ becoming the Head of the person … how does one see the evidence of inner circumcision? Hellenistic Jews in the 1st and 2nd Centuries BCE sought to remove evidence of their outward circumcision, which was for them a stigma in public baths and in public athletic games performed nude. Some were moderately successful. And the son of God who returns to sin or to the philosophies of this world seeks to remove evidence of the person’s circumcision of his or her heart, which most likely never occurred. For in this era, the person who has been circumcised of heart has also been delivered to the glorified Jesus who is now in charge of his or her salvation, and who will lose none of the sons of God who have been given to Him except those called specifically to fulfill Scripture as sons of wrath (cf. John 17:12; Rom 9:22–23).
This Sabbath Reading is not a marriage manual and should not be used as one when confronting physical adultery, followed by repentance. However, principles remain the same, but how these principles are applied can vary from person to person; for one spouse will have a lower standard for what is fruit of repentance than another spouse. But where repeated incidences of adultery occur, there is no repentance: there is at best only remorse over getting caught in a strange bed.
Hence, the person who is not appalled by the infidelity of a spouse, regardless of whether married to the adulterous spouse or merely acquainted with the adulterer, will be far too willing to accept idolatry in others because of a lack of righteous jealousy within the person. This lack of righteous jealousy becomes the undoing of the person; for with true love comes jealousy, comes zeal for the other, comes an unwillingness to share the other with a third person. The Lord was not willing to share Israel with the idols of the Canaanites, nor should Christians be willing to share the Lord with “‘dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, [or anyone] who loves and practices falsehood’” (Rev 22:15).
Were Kennedy women ignorant of the adulteries committed by their men?
The structure of Holy Writ is seen in the controlling metaphor that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega — with, again, the physical structure of the letters conveying meaning beyond that conveyed by the thought that Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last letter.
Whenever a Christian claims he or she reads the Bible literally, the Christian discloses his or her ignorance; for what is the literal meaning of a period, a small round black spot on a white page. The period doesn’t prevent the reader from moving on to the next sentence if a “next sentence” is present. While the period signifies that one sentence has come to its end, but the same meaning comes from not placing another word on the particular line of text.
A period conveys to the reader that a presentation of words is thought-complete, but periods occur in a text before the text is complete; i.e., before the thought is truly complete.
In addition, the literal meaning of words can hinder the implied meanings of the word as in the word <immediately>, or <suddenly>, where inclusion of either word in the text by the length of the word delays the presentation of whatever is immediate or sudden, and makes the reader wait in suspense for what is certain to occur.
Therefore, in constructing Greek narratives told by Christ Jesus, the principle imbedded in Hebraic thought-couplets remains: the first presentation is physical—sheep representing Israelites, of which 99 do not need to repent (Luke 15:7)—and the second presentation of the same concept—Israelites representing ten silver coins—is spiritual: there is no coin/no Israelite that does not need to repent. The Israelite who was lost is found when a light is lit and a diligent search is made for the sinner. And these two parables together form the physical portion of an expanded thought-couplet of which the spiritual portion is the parable of the prodigal son, which in turn has a physical portion [the prodigal son receiving his inheritance and squandering it] and a spiritual portion: the faithful son being as the 99 sheep that did not need to repent, with it being shown that there was a need for repentance.
At times, Sabbath Readings seem to be modern hellfire and brimstone deliveries, but what is expressed is that righteous jealousy for all sons of God and for Philadelphians in particular … how is one to construct a barrier against thieves and wolves that would devour the flock when spiritual platitudes form the sheepcote?
Sheep ranchers in America’s Intermountain West suffer predator losses year by year. Various methods have been tried to prevent losses, with two of the most successful involving the embedding of large white dogs with flocks (raising pups with lambs so they bond and the then grown dogs being protective of their litter-mates) and incorporating llamas into flocks … the llamas are not so much protective of the sheep as they are curious, wanting to know who or what approaches the flock, charging out to greet coyotes simply to figuratively say hello. But when an animal the size of a llama charges a coyote, even if the llama’s intention is innocent, the coyote doesn’t stick around. Easier meals can be found.
And so it is with spiritual infants: Philadelphia is as a llama, harmless but curious, and large enough spiritually to challenge Arian coyotes that can find easier meals elsewhere. And whereas llamas are unclean, Philadelphia, too, will be saved in childbirth: those who are of Philadelphia today also need to be liberated from indwelling sin and death at the Second Passover, but those who are of Philadelphia stand, today, head and shoulders taller than the flock—and as a result are better able to see approaching coyotes. And metaphors are always untrue for one thing is not another thing. Arian Christians are not really coyotes, and Christians are not really sheep. Trinitarians are not really wolves. And Joshua is not really a brand plucked from the fire, and texts do not really have structure. All is an illusion, or so biblical literalists who are not really literal readers of Scripture would have us believe.
When the invisible things of God are seen through the things that have been made (Rom 1:20), disciples are sheep, and Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and Philadelphians are today spiritually taller than disciples in the emerging and developing other six churches of God; so it falls to Philadelphia to drive the coyotes back into the sagebrush where they can dine on rabbits and rats, for the Lord is a jealous God, not willing to lose any son—and as younger brothers of the Lord, Philadelphia tends the flock as King David once tended his father’s flocks, defending them against a lion and a bear.
David, with his staff in hand, selected five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd’s bag (1 Sam 17:40) before confronting Goliath. He hurled one stone at the giant. The other four stones remained in his bag to be hurled at the four demonic kings that emerge from around the stump of the first king, the great king of the demonic king of Greece.
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."