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 the Church, the Bride, willingly following Christ, the Husband.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of February 26, 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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Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Phil 3:17–21)
I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. … / You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me—may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day!—and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus. (2 Tim 1:3, 15–18)
Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess 2:3–12)
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Despite what Paul wrote about the Church being one Body of one spirit (1 Cor 12:12–13)—the ideal—the early Christian Church was ripe with schisms and heresies, from the Hellenists to the traditionalists (the Circumcision Faction), with these divisions rooted in the historical civil wars of the Jews and with these divisions manifesting themselves throughout the Christian era, even to today.
In this endtime era, Christendom is not one Body of one spirit. Sabbath observance divides brother from brother, brother from sister, husband from wife and vice versa. There are few issues as divisive as Sabbath observance, and really no other issue is as important for endtime disciples; for in the Affliction, Sabbath observance will “mark” those Christians who are of God in a world that remains consigned to the Adversary.
Keeping the Sabbath denotes difference between Hellenist Christians and traditionalists, but keeping the Sabbath only moves a Christian across a metaphorical River Jordan—the difference between Hellenist and traditionalist flows as the physical Jordan River flows, with Hellenists on the Babylonian side of this difference and with traditionalists on the Jerusalem side. Keeping the Sabbath doesn’t get a Christian into heavenly Jerusalem where the temple of God stands, but only to a spiritual Gilgal, where the Christian will be circumcised of heart. It is then the responsibility of the Christian to present him or herself before God three times a year, with these three times representing the High Sabbath seasons: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. And when the Sabbatarian keeps the High Sabbaths, the Sabbatarian will have finally arrived in Jerusalem, but the Sabbatarian still has to find the foundation for the house of God that the Apostle Paul laid.
To arrive at Gilgal requires the Christian to conquer the giants named Unbelief and Doubt, giants that sleep in iron beds, giants that have slain far more Christians than Moors slew during all of the Crusades. Unfortunately, Hellenist Christians are cowards—and no coward will inherit the kingdom (Rev 21:8)—for Hellenists strive to accommodate the world as they dwell in it. They build houses in this world rather than dwelling as sojourners; rather than dwelling in tents as Abraham did. They participate in the governance of this world as the righteous man Daniel did, but as a eunuch Daniel could not have entered the temple of God. He could only serve God when in a far land. And the same applies to Noah and Job, both of whom lived in far lands. And these three men—Noah, Daniel, and job—by their righteousness could only deliver themselves from death (Ezek 14:14, 20).
Noah’s, Daniel’s, and Job’s belief of the Lord was counted to them as righteousness as was Abraham’s belief; for a righteous man “does what is just and right” (Ezek 18:5):
The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you [Israel] mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge’? As I live, declares the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die. / If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman in her time of menstrual impurity, does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord God. (Ezek 18:1–9)
The above seems simple enough: believing the Lord—the type of belief that will be counted to the person as righteousness—will have the person doing what is just and right, which includes keeping the commandments of God, the codified expression of what it means to walk in the ways of the Lord, the Christian will live. At the present moment, Christ Jesus’ righteousness as if a garment covers the Christian, but when the Son of Man is revealed [disrobed], this garment of grace will be stripped away from all Christians who will then be filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God. The Christian will then have to walk on his or her own as Jesus walked, and the Christian will be able to do so.
The son of disobedience who professes with his or her mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in his or her heart that the Father raised Jesus from death, but who will not walk as Jesus walked but who continues to walk as a person of the nations (i.e., as a son of disobedience) is a Christian, but a Hellenist Christian, a Christian who had theologically descended from Hellenist Jews who professed that Jesus was Lord in the 1st-Century, with these Hellenist converts, buoyed by conversion to their form of Christianity of a great many pagan Greeks and aided by the Roman response to the rebellion of Judean Zealots, wrestling control of the Jesus Movement away from traditionalist converts by the beginning of the 2nd-Century … although Justin Martyr claimed to be a contemporary of the Apostle John, who died about the year Justin Martyr was born, the Apostle John would have reacted to Justin Martyr as he did to the gnostic and proto-Arian Cerinthus—and John wouldn’t remain under the same roof with Cerinthus, let alone eat with him.
So-called Christian orthodoxy [the Nicene Creed] is the logical outgrowth of Hellenistic Judaism, and Christian orthodoxy is an ideology from which every son of God needs to flee as fast as possible; for the Lord said to the prophet Ezekiel in His continuation about righteousness:
But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die. / Yet you [Israel] say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? / Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” (Ezek 18:21–32 emphasis added)
The Christian—the Israelite circumcised of heart—who turns from keeping the commandments of God and walking in the ways of the man Jesus shall perish in the lake of fire. But the Christian who is not today born of God but who will be born filled with spirit at the Second Passover liberation of Israel—this person is presently still a son of disobedience even though the person professes that Jesus is Lord, but if this person turns from his or her lawless ways and begins to keep the Lord’s commandments and does what is just and right, this person shall live spiritually even though he or she will be martyred in the Affliction as a test of the person’s faith, a test like the second journey of faith the patriarch Abraham made (see Gen chap 22). For the Christian who seeks to save his or her physical life in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years, will lose the Christian’s spiritual life; whereas the Christian who is willing to die for his or her belief of God will save the Christian’s spiritual life and possibly save the Christian’s physical life as well … if the Christian’s belief of God is of demonstrably more importance to the Christian than his or her physical life, the Lord has no need to further test the person. Hence, those Sabbatarian Christians who today, prior to the Second Passover liberation of Israel, undertake a second journey of faith have no need to be further tested by God. All these observant Christians have to do is continue in well doing:
I [Jesus] know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Rev 3:8–13)
Philadelphia is an ideological assembly that differs from the other named churches in that it alone keeps the word [message] of Jesus and does not deny His name, His authority, His relationship with the Father, and Philadelphia alone keeps Jesus’ message about the Endurance, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years. Philadelphia alone delivers the message that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13); for once the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18), Christ Jesus will baptize this world in the breath of God and every human being alive will be born of God and born filled-with and empowered by the breath/spirit of God. Then, when filled with spirit, the person—every person—only has to endure in faith to the end to be saved. The Torah will be written on the hearts and placed in the minds of all peoples so that all know the Lord (Jer 31:31–34; Heb 8:8–12).
The Endurance is about the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9) taking a journey of faith equivalent in length to Abraham’s journey of faith into the promised Land and then to the land of Moriah, one journey of faith that consists of a first journey and a second journey in a manner analogous to Israel being one nation that consists of the nation outwardly circumcised and the nation circumcised of heart, with these two nations coming together during the Millennium to be one nation:
Then he brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the temple, and I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple of the Lord. And I fell on my face. And the Lord said to me, “Son of man, mark well, see with your eyes, and hear with your ears all that I shall tell you concerning all the statutes of the temple of the Lord and all its laws. And mark well the entrance to the temple and all the exits from the sanctuary. And say to the rebellious house, to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: O house of Israel, enough of all your abominations, in admitting foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, to be in my sanctuary, profaning my temple, when you offer to me my food, the fat and the blood. You have broken my covenant, in addition to all your abominations. And you have not kept charge of my holy things, but you have set others to keep my charge for you in my sanctuary. / Thus says the Lord God: No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, shall enter my sanctuary. (Ezek 44:4–9 emphasis added)
Even in the Millennium, Israel will not be one Body of one spirit, but will be divided according to schisms that go back to the time of King David, long before Hellenist Jews sought to remove evidence of their circumcision … Judaism was never a unified body of believers; it is not today. One sect or another sect dominates for a while, then loses enthusiasm and drifts away from keeping the commandments of God by faith: believing God will always cause the person to be out of sync with the remainder of the world, and will leave the Believer separated from his or her community and family—
Christianity is today as it was in the 1st-Century, an antifamily religion. Christianity is NOT family friendly; for Christianity requires that the person love God more than father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter. Jesus said,
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:34–39 emphasis added)
And if a person takes up what it is that tethers the person to this world and follows Jesus, the person places him or herself at odds with neighbors, family, and friends that compose this world.
Today, schisms within Christendom preclude fellowship one with another: this schism has no fellowship with that schism, and indeed cannot have fellowship one with the other for the divides are too deep and too broad. The same Christ is not worshiped; the same God is not worshiped. And the same doctrines and dogmas are not shared between Arian and Trinitarian, or between Arians/Trinitarians and Sabbath-keeping Binitarians.
It is the reality of Binitariansim that underpins all of Scripture, with this reality holding that two are one, not two as the Adversary would have humankind believe. Adam and Eve were two individuals that formed one flesh, one unit, analogous to the body and blood, the Passover sacraments of unleavened bread [the broken body of Christ] and wine [the life, the blood of Christ]. The Adversary’s attack on marriage comes from the Adversary understanding that as long as humankind argues for the reality that two equals two, that two individuals—a man and a woman—remain two individuals in a 50-50 marriage, the Adversary can prevent humankind from accidentally stumbling upon Christ Jesus, the cornerstone of the house of God.
Arian Christendom argues that one equals one, and only one can equal one; whereas Trinitarian Christendom argues that in an unexplainable mystery, three equals one. And truly, the logic for three equaling one cannot be supported from Scripture or from any handheld calculator or abacus.
If a marriage is based upon equality between the husband and the wife, neither the husband nor the wife will understand the things of God … when one journey of faith consists of two journeys of faith [one to the land of Canaan, and one to the land of Moriah, which is within the land of Canaan], it is logically acceptable to deduce that one deity [the Tetragrammaton YHWH] can consist of two deities, the Logos [o logos] who was God [theos] and who was with the God [ton Theon], with these two forming one deity as Adam and Eve were one flesh (Gen 2:24), with Yah [] being a part of YHWH as Abraham’s journey to the land of Moriah was a journey within greater Canaan.
The mystery of God that is concealed in the marriage of a man and a woman is that the gift of God to humanity is indwelling eternal life—the breath of God [pneuma Theon]—in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christos] (Rom 6:23), with the indwelling of Christ giving life to the inner self of a human being, with this inner self being to the flesh of a human being as the husband is the head of his wife.
The above is too complicated for Hellenist Christians or even modern Christians of the Circumcision Faction to accept. The above requires the exercise of the spirit, which Hellenist Christians today do not possess and which Sabbatarians either deny having or have lost through the rejection of Christ.
Since Calvary, the historic divisions of Judaism developed as divisions within Christendom and have continued their long time striving for control of the office of high priest, which has come down to control of the Christian message. The division of endtime Israel that descends from the party of the Pharisees rejects Christ Jesus as their high priest, but this division hasn’t recognized any high priest since the 2nd-Century CE, and hasn’t recognized any other possible messiah since they temporarily believed that Simon bar Kokhba was their man. However, other divisions of Judaism, swollen by proselytes, accept Christ Jesus as their High Priest and strive among themselves for control of the Christian message, with the Hellenists having had control of the message since the days of Emperor Hadrian, but control that is slipping from their fossilized fingers. The Second Passover liberation of Israel will reset pawns and pieces. And the descendants of Hellenists, Hasmoneans, and Herodians will again have to vie for control of the center, with the Adversary having to fight for the ideological territory lost in a single day, a day analogous to the 17th day of the second month when, with Noah safely sealed in the Ark, the fountains of the deep erupted and all men not in the Ark perished.
The mystery of God that is codified in marriage, the union between one man and one woman with these two becoming one flesh, one human unit as God is one deity presently consisting of the Father and the Son but formerly consisting of the Logos and the God, with the husband to be the head of his wife as Christ Jesus is the Head of the Church and as the Father is the Head of Christ, with Christ, following the Second Passover, being two who will become one at the Marriage Supper.
A marriage in which two become one cannot occur between two men or between two women: in civil unions, regardless of what they are called, in which two men are legally joined together, or in which two women are legally joined together, these two will forever remain two, the common failing between marriages between one man and one women in this endtime age. Thus, in order for a marriage to occur between a man and a woman, the woman must be of age and must voluntarily choose to join with the man, voluntarily becoming one with him. In this manner, a Christian must voluntarily choose to be one with Christ Jesus, walking as Jesus walked—and for this reason, all Christians will be born of spirit and born filled-with and empowered by spirit at the Second Passover liberation of Israel.
The mystery of God that is codified in marriage holds that Christians who will not voluntarily walk as Jesus walked when filled with spirit will not enter heaven, but will rather be condemned to the lake of fire, a reality that does not bode well for women who insist upon maintaining their independence within a marriage.
As the reality foreshadowed by Pharaoh, the Adversary as the spiritual king of Babylon (Isa 14:4) will not let the people of God go three days journey into the wilderness to serve the Lord, with these three days being analogous to the three days and three nights that Jesus was in the heart of the earth. Israel crossing the Sea of Reeds dry shod, walking not on water but on the ground beneath, is analogous to baptism: “I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor 10:1–2). On the fourth day—after three days’ journey that had Moses turn back on the third day so that Israel would not leave Egypt early, with Egypt representing sin—the people of Israel crossed over death by drowning as Noah and those with him in the Ark crossed over death by drowning, emerging on the other side of death but still far from the Promised Land that represented God’s rest. For Christians, the spirit was given the fourth day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the day after the Sabbath that is within the Sabbath that is the Feast of Unleavened Bread; the spirit was given when Jesus on the day He ascended to His Father and our Father, that day, the first after the Sabbath [te mia sabbaton], breathed on ten of His first disciples and said, “‘Receive the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion]’” (John 20:22). It is on this day, the 18th day of Aviv, the same day as when the people of Israel crossed the Sea of Reeds, that the spirit is given, not seven weeks later, the day of Pentecost … on the day of Pentecost [fifty], the disciples who were born of spirit on the day of the Wave Sheaf Offering, received power from on high and were filled with spirit so that they might serve as witnesses to Jesus being the Christ of Israel, the one for whom Israel had longed and long expected.
It is the concept of the Sabbath within the Sabbath canceling death that is represented by the spirit of God [pneuma Theon] in the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christos] so that on the following day, the Christian can voluntarily choose or not choose to walk as Jesus walked. No one will prevent a Christian, once on the other side of death [the Sea of Reeds], from returning to Sin [Egypt]; for the Woman must truly want to be one with the Bridegroom, and want to be one with the Bridegroom enough that She is willing to die physically for this marriage made in heaven, a reality that used to be seen in childbirth.
The last Eve—the Christian Church—will give birth to three sons, a spiritual Abel, a spiritual Cain, and a spiritual Seth in the first three and a half years of the seven endtime years of tribulation. And in doing so, she will die with her third childbirth; for it is in childbirth that the Woman will be saved (1 Tim 2:15). For in childbirth at the Second Passover, the Christian will truly have the opportunity to voluntarily walk as Jesus walked.
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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."