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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 about the spirit of man. If your browser does not support Greek characters, please click on this file: Printable/viewable PDF format
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For the Sabbath of February 23, 2008
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. The
person conducting the service should read or assign to be read Ecclesiastes
chapter 3, especially verses 16 through 22. Commentary: The Preacher writes that there is a time for
everything: in perhaps the most familiar lines from Scripture, bipolar
oppositions are linked by the common element of there being a time for each.
“A time to keep silence, and a time
to speak”; a time to conceal,
and a time to reveal—what the physicalness of the creation has
concealed from Israel and the remainder of humankind (i.e., the beginning and
end of what God has done, v. 11), the
physicalness of the creation will reveal to first Israel, then to the remainder
of humankind. The Apostle Paul argues indirectly against
attempting to take meaning from Scripture by adding precept to precept, line to
line, the means by which the drunk priests of Ephraim caused the house of
Israel to stumble, fall backwards, be snared and taken (Isa 28:13). Paul wrote, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the
power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also
to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,
as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by the unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what
can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 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. (Rom 1:16–20) So
for Paul and for those who build on the foundation Paid laid in heavenly It was not time to reveal the concealed things of
God earlier than when the Apostle Paul wrote, and it apparently wasn’t
time to reveal these hidden things until the end of the age; for when God
delivered Christendom into the hands
of the spiritual king of Babylon at the council of Nicea (ca 325 CE) as God had
delivered physically circumcised Israel into the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar
to begin seventy years of exile, typological exegesis (the reading strategy by
which meaning is taken from Scripture through typology or analogies) fell out
of favor and continued more or less out of favor throughout the following 1200
years. When the Protestant Reformers separated from the Roman Church, beginning
with Zwingli in 1525 CE (Luther separated in 1517, but his supporters
demonstrated that his teachings were “Catholic”), a concerted move
away from typology followed, with the most significant countercurrent coming
from Samuel Mather in 1670 CE and Jonathon Edwards nearly a century later. Not
until the beginning of the 21st-Century did a serious return to
typology develop. Because of
the unrighteousness of the Christian Church and of Christian pastors, readily
seen by their transgression of the Law of God every Sunday, the invisible
attributes of God could not and were not perceived throughout the twelve
centuries (that can be likened to the seventy years Israel was in Babylon and
Jerusalem was uninhabited) when all of Israel was in mental captivity to the
spiritual king of Babylon. ·
The Church is
the spiritual Body of Christ (1 Co 12:27). ·
What happened
to the physical body of Christ reveals and precedes what happens to the
spiritual Body. ·
Jesus’
physical body was crucified (John 19:18 et
al), and the spiritual Body is crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6). ·
Jesus’
physical body was resurrected from death (John 20:17), and the spiritual Body
will be resurrected in a resurrection like his (Rom 6:5). ·
If the
spiritual Body will be resurrected in a resurrection like Christ’s, then
the spiritual Body must also die as the physical body died. When Jesus asked His disciples, “‘Who
do people say that the Son of Man is?’” (Matt 16:13), He did not
then ask who He was. That would come after His disciples answered His initial
question. And the answer given to His initial question had ·
Jesus is the
Head of the Church ( ·
Jesus and the
Church, together, make one entity: the Son of Man. 1.
Jesus is the
“uncovered” head of the Son of Man. 2.
Disciples
collectively as the Church form the “covered” body (covered by the
garment of Grace; i.e., Jesus’ righteousness). 3.
“Just as
it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man”
(Luke 17:26), when the Son of Man is revealed (v. 30), as in being disrobed so that both the head and body are
covered only by their respective obedience to God. Because of
the unrighteousness and ungodliness of Christendom beginning long before God
sent Christendom into spiritual captivity, disciples did not know the beginning
and end of what God was doing and has done (Eccl 3:11), even though Jesus
revealed all things to His disciples in figurative [metaphorical] speech. But
in a metaphor, one thing is said to be another thing which it is not. Therefore,
the ungodliness of Hellenist converts that is found in the mystery of
lawlessness (2 Thess 2:7) that was already at work while Paul lived caused
Christendom to believe the lie of the old serpent, Satan the devil, that the
Church would not die. This is the lie the first Eve believed (Gen 3:4) before
she ate forbidden fruit; this is the lie that the last Eve believed before the
Church ate forbidden fruit. When Jesus’ disciples could not readily
identify who the Son of Man was, Jesus asked, “‘But who do you say
that I am?’” (Matt 16:15). Peter answered: “‘You are
the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (v. 16). And Jesus said, “‘Blessed are you, Simon
Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who
is in heaven’” (v. 17). There is a problem here that is not readily
apparent in English translations: Peter’s name was not Simon Bar-Jonah!
Peter was not the son of any Jonah, but of John (John 1:42; 21:17). This
difference is seen in Greek: ·
Simon
Bar-Jonah is written as E\:T< %"D4T<V, with the letters /4T<V/ representing “Jonah.” ·
Jesus would
give only one sign that He had come from God, the sign of Jonah [[T<]. ·
Peter was the
son of John, written as [TV<<@L. ·
The aspiration
or /V/ precedes
the nasal consonant /</ [“n”] in “John,” which has
the English character /”h”/ representing this aspiration rather
than follows the nasal as in “Jonah.” ·
Throughout
Scripture, aspiration or vocalized breath represents the receipt of the Holy
Spirit, or divine Breath of God [B<,Ø:" ž(4@<]. By Jesus calling Peter the son of Jonah rather than the son of John in a passage that begins with
asking for signs, Jesus uses vowel aspiration to disclose what it means to
receive the Holy Spirit and have the Father reveal knowledge directly to
disciples. Jesus gives to His disciples a sign that was undetectable by the
ungodly and unrighteous that believed Satan’s lie about not dying, this
lie manifesting itself in two forms, the first collectively and the second
individually, for disciples are collectively and individually the Body of
Christ. Christendom teaches that a person is physically
born with spiritual life—with an immortal soul. Certainly, Augustine of
Hippo wrote, “This faith maintains, and it must be believed: neither the
soul nor the human body may suffer complete annihilation, but the impious shall
rise again into everlasting punishment, and the just into life
everlasting” (On Christian Doctrine.
Bk 1, XXI. Trans. D.W. Robertson, Jr.). However, the Apostle Paul wrote,
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:23). If the human body is composed of the dust of the
earth (of base elements) as are the bodies of beasts (Eccl 3:18–20), then
do the bodies of beasts not suffer complete annihilation, the logical extension
of what Augustine taught? That would be his argument, except that Augustine
also wrote, “A great thing is man, made in the image and likeness of God,
not in that he is encased in a mortal body, but in that he excels the beasts in
the dignity of a rational soul” (Bk. 1, XXII). So for Augustine it is the
presence of an immortal soul that separates human beings from other breathing
creatures. And because what Augustine writes is contrary to what both Paul and
Solomon wrote, Augustine and his borrowed teaching about humankind having
immortal souls must be rejected. Augustine must not be believed! A man is not encased
in a mortal body, but is this mortal body until he is born of Spirit by
receiving the divine Breath of God as the earnest of receiving glorification
… “earnest” money paid to secure a real estate contract is
real money. Likewise, receiving the earnest of the Spirit is receiving real
life in the heavenly realm, albeit life domiciled in a tent of flesh. The prophet Ezekiel wrote, The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you
mean by repeating the proverb concerning the “Yet
you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the
father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been
careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the
iniquity of the father, nor the father for the iniquity of the son. The
righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the
wicked shall be upon himself.” (18:19–20 emphasis added) A man—a person—is a soul that can die,
but is a soul who shall not suffer condemnation because of the sin and
sinfulness of his father (or she, her mother), nor enter into God’s rest
because of the righteousness of father or mother. And this was the state of all
human beings until the man Jesus came to John the Baptist to fulfill all
righteousness by being baptized (Matt 3:15). Now, the wisdom of God: when the angel Gabriel came
to Zechariah to tell him that he would father a son and that he would name his
son John (Luke 1:13), not a name common to Zechariah’s lineage, Zechariah
questioned God and was struck dumb. So when John was born and was to be
circumcised and named on the eighth day, neighbors and relatives wanted to name
the boy Zechariah after his father, but Elizabeth said, “‘No; he
shall be called John [[TV<<0H]’” (v. 60), with the name’s case ending producing the final
/“s”/. Zechariah confirmed that his son was to be named
“John” (v. 63), and
immediately he could speak, a sign that disclosed to all the specialness of the
child. Jesus said, “‘Truly, I say to you,
among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.
Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than
he’” (Matt 11:11). John was more than a prophet: he was the messenger
sent by God to prepare the way for the Logos
as Theos entering His creation (John
1:1–3) as His only Son (John 3:16), the man Jesus of Nazareth (John
1:14). But the person who will be raised from the dead and glorified will be
greater than John. The prophet Jonah was raised from the dead (Jon
2:2, 5–6), and according to Jewish tradition, twice raised from the dead,
the first time as a child by Elijah; thus the book of Jonah is read on Yom Kipporim. ·
The movement
of aspiration from in front of the nasal consonant [V<] to behind the nasal consonant [<] reveals a movement of life coming from
“breath.” ·
Until born of
Spirit (i.e., the divine Breath of God, B<,Ø:" –(4@<), a person is a soul that consists of the
person’s fleshy body [soma
— Fä:"] and the person’s shallow or natural breath
[psuche — RLP¬<], with psuche
too often translated into English as “soul” (see Matt 10:28). The person who is body [soma] and breath [psuche]
can receive the promise of inheriting eternal life, but has not received
eternal life; has not received the earnest of the Spirit. And this is the state
or status of every person through John the Baptist, the greatest of all who
were born of women. This is the state of those about whom the Preacher writes
when he wrote, “I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that
God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but
beasts” (Eccl 3:18). When Solomon wrote that God was testing men about
what they believed concerning an afterlife, it was not time to reveal the plans
God had for men. The physicalness of this world concealed what God had/has done
from the beginning to the end, with Christ Jesus being both the beginning and
the end (Rev 22:13). It was not time to reveal the movement of breath as seen
when Jesus called Peter (whose given name was Simon, son of John) Simon Bar-Jonah, who will be resurrected
from death upon Jesus’ return, but who was given everlasting life when he
believed the One who sent Jesus (John 5:24) even though he was not born of
Spirit until the glorified Jesus breathed on him and said, “‘Receive
the Holy Spirit [B<,Ø:" –(4@<]’” (John 20:22). To fulfill all righteousness, Jesus was baptized
and the Spirit of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] descended upon Him as a dove. After Jesus
breathed on ten of His disciples, Peter included, the ten were no longer soma and psuche, but he had added to them life [pneuma — B<,Ø:"] as a second life coming from receiving a second
breath, with this life coming from heaven and able to return to the heavenly
realm as wind [in Greek: B<,Ø:"] blows where it wishes, with men then not knowing
where it goes or from where it comes (John 3:8). No one can see the kingdom of God or know the
things of God or the thoughts of God until the person has been born of Spirit
(John 3:5). No one can die a second death until the person has been born a
second time, with this birth invisible in this world but revealed in type by
the person’s birth by the water of the womb, for what is born of the
flesh is flesh (v. 6) and thinks the
thoughts of the flesh (Rom 8:5–8) and cannot please God, nor keep the
laws of God for the flesh is born consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) because
of the sin of the first Adam (Rom 5:12-14). Disciple are today with two lives; hence, disciples
are B<,Ø:" 6"Â RLP¬ 6"Â Fä:" [pneuma and
psuche and soma or translated as deep
breath coming from the Breath given to the last Adam, and shallow breath coming from the breath given
the first Adam, and the flesh that
comes from the dust of the earth] (1 Thess 5:23). These two breaths and the
flesh constitute the whole disciple. It wasn’t time to reveal what Jesus fully
meant about giving only one sign earlier than the time of the end, when the
Body of Christ would be or would soon be resurrected from death. When asked for a sign, Jesus said,
“‘When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.” And in the
morning, “It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.” You know how to interpret
the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the
times’” (Matt 16:2–3 emphasis added). One sign—the sky is red—signifies two
differing weather conditions, with peace or calmness going into darkness, and
with threatening weather going into the light. The sign of Jonah is also this sort of a sign: when
the physical body of Jesus was resurrected from death, the world entered a
period of darkness that has seen relative calmness throughout the Christian
era, but when the spiritual Body of Christ will be resurrected from death, the
seven endtime years of tribulation begin, a period of turmoil unlike any
previously seen by humankind, a period that ushers in the coming of Christ, the
coming of light. As John the Baptist served as a type of the last
Elijah who will restore all things (this last Elijah is the glorified Christ
Jesus), the gospel of John serves as a type of the spiritual message that will
be written [inscribed] on the hearts and minds of the resurrected Body of
Christ—it is by the gospel of John that disciples Know the Lord as Theos [2,ÎH] and Theon
[2,`<], both God, both forming one God, both together
with their respective divine Breaths in the Tetragrammaton YHWH, then consisting of two entities. Disciples are not today begotten but still unborn
sons of God. Rather, they are fully born sons of God that are growing to
maturity in this physical universe where change is possible, and actually
demanded of all things. They have been raised from the dead by the Father
through receiving life coming through receipt of His divine Breath (John 5:21;
6:44). They must still receive life from the Son coming when the mortal flesh
puts on immortality. It is this twice receiving spiritual life that the Because of ungodliness and unrighteousness,
Christendom believed the lie of that old serpent Satan the devil that the
church Jesus built would not die—Jesus saying that the gates of Hades
would not prevail against the church (Matt 16:18) does not mean that the church
would not die as His physical body died, but that as His physical body suffered
no corruption but was resurrected back to life, His spiritual Body would suffer
no corruption and would be resurrected back to life. Today, the gospel message taught by Christendom is
a badly corrupted message; hence this Christendom is not of Christ but is the
synagogue of Satan. And today, only a few are at work as John the Baptist
worked in preparing the way for the coming of Christ. Only a few truly preach
repentance. * The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal. * * * * * "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." [Home ] [Sabbath Readings ] |