The Philadelphia Church

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 last Elijah & spiritual food.

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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 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 1, through chapter 4, verse 13.

Commentary: The Apostle Paul could not address the saints at Corinth, even after he had been among them for two years, as spiritual people (3:1) … if Paul could not address the saints at Corinth as spiritual people, and if the writer of Hebrews could not address these Jewish converts as spiritual people (Heb 5:11-14), and if all who were in Asia had left Paul while he was in Rome (2 Tim 1:15), where are spiritual people addressed in Scripture? About this answer, [quoting the writer of Hebrews] “we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you [Israelites] have become dull of hearing” (5:11). And what we would say first is that endtime Christians, even after Christ has been among them for two millennia, cannot be addressed as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

Paul fed the saints at Corinth spiritual milk, not solid food. The epistles of Paul are spiritual milk, not solid food. The person who argues for sola scriptura argues for a milk diet, not for spiritual meat. And after two millennia of not being weaned, endtime Christians are still not ready for solid food as evidenced by the identifying names of denominations: Mennonites (i.e., followers of Menno Simon); Amish (i.e., followers of Jacob Amen); Lutherans (i.e., followers of Martin Luther). If the name of an individual is not used, an aspect of the practice of the faith is: Methodists; Baptists; Friends. Some will claim to be of God: Assembly of God; Church of God; Church of Christ; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. But of all that claim to be of God, there is not agreement about how God should be worshipped, or even when He should be worshipped.

All that the many names of the thousands of denominations establish is that Christendom is an extremely divided and divisive house, with disagreements about which teachers to follow, disagreements about what practices to follow, disagreements about how to identity the Body of Christ, disagreements about whether the commandments should or should not be kept and why they should or should not be, disagreements about what day God should be worshiped, disagreements about whether God is one, two, or three, disagreements about what it means to be born of Spirit. The situation Paul addresses at Corinth was child’s play compared to the present situation where tens of thousands of schisms have developed within fractured Christendom, with additional thousands emerging almost daily. Thus, if ever a situation existed when restoration of the faith once delivered was absolutely necessary—when a people was not ready for solid food—that situation exists today among endtime disciples.

The concept that underpinned the Protestant Reformation and the Radical Reformers [Anabaptists] was that of restoration … their contention was that at some point in history, the Church had taken a wrong turn that needed to be corrected by reformers. There was, however, no agreement about when this wrong turn was taken. Most of protesting Christendom only wanted to undo the excesses of the preceding few decades or centuries; they wanted to return “the old Church” to the path it left when salvation became a matter of works, of laps around a rosary, of pilgrimages, of purchasing relics. The Radical Reformers wanted to step around “the old Church” and return to the period when Church and State were not co-joined, but the Church in 311 CE was not substantially different than it was in 312 CE when Emperor Constantine allegedly saw the chi-rho sign in the sky. Returning, then, to any period earlier than the apostolic era would be only a partial restoration. But Paul wrote that everyone in Asia had left him (again, 1 Tim 1:15), and Jewish converts were trying to kill him (Acts 21:20-24); so where was even a normative church in this mid 1^St-Century period when the first disciples were still in Jerusalem? And we have returned to that initial question asked: where in Scripture are spiritual people addressed? Where is the beef, as the Cattlemen’s television commercials of a few decades ago asked? Where is the meat, the real substance of what it means to be spiritual and spiritually minded?

The more enlightened of the Radical Reformers, such as Andreas Fischer, did not look far enough back into history to find when the Church made a wrong turn: Fischer wanted to return to the time when the Church ceased keeping the “moral law,” the Decalogue. But was the wrong turn made when the “Church” ceased keeping the Sabbath? Or better, was a wrong turn ever made?

Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Brother, 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” (3:17-19) … minds set on earthly things—here is an address to the spiritually minded. All who have minds set on earthly things, including looking for a visible wrong turn made by the Church, do not walk as Paul walked; do not walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6); do not walk as Peter or John walked. The mind that is set on earthly things looks to prophecy to see what happens to physical nations. The mind set on earthly things looks to physical Jerusalem and reconstruction of a physical temple. The mind set on earthly things looks for a physical king of the North in a European Union controlled by the Roman Church and for a physical king of the South coming from Islamic nations. The mind set on earthly things utters spiritual drivel about an endtime revival of the Roman or Holy Roman Empire. Yes, the mind set on earthly things sees only earthly or physical things, and does not see that biblical prophecy is about what happens in the heavenly realm where humankind cannot go to make observations or measurements. The mind set on earthly things sees a Christendom that is divided, but alive and more loudly and effectively than ever delivering a message about a man that they neither know nor believe.

The restoration of all things will again have the kingdom of God among men.

The restoration of all things will see the return of Christ Jesus.

Thus, the restoration efforts of 16^th-Century Anabaptists, while producing the faith necessary to cleanse hearts of one generation and maybe of a second, were naïve and not well developed in too many cases. When these radical disciples separated the Church from the State, they spiritually left Babylon. Unfortunately, for most of them that was enough: get out of town and hunker down to avoid the sandstorm sure to follow. Become “quiet people,” fearful people, communities of quaint people who do not engage in the politics of this world—that would be enough if hearts were cleansed by fear instead of by faith. Every disciple, first generation or seventieth, must make a mental journey of faith equivalent to the physical journey Abraham made by faith from Ur of the Chaldeans to Haran with his physical father, then from Haran to the Promised Land with God. Every disciple must leave father and mother, and must undertake a journey that has the disciple following Jesus, walking as Jesus walked, living as Jesus lived, and for most endtime disciples, dying as Jesus died. Endtime disciples are not to leave Babylon, then immediately proceed to build for themselves houses in a mental landscape equivalent to the deserts of western Iraq, which is what happened to almost all of the radical disciples of the 16^th-Century.

Where is the beef? It certainly cannot be found in the desert sandstorms of western Iraq.

The River Jordan marks the geographical boundary of God’s rest (cf. Ps 95:10-11; Num 14:21-23, 28-33; Josh 4:20-24). Sabbath observance marks the spiritual boundary of God’s rest (Heb 3:16-4:11). Therefore, since the visible reveals the invisible (Rom 1:20), and the physical precedes the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46), in transferring what is invisible and spiritual into imagery that is visible and physical, endtime disciples will see the vast area between physical Babylon and the Jordan River, with all of these miles representing the scope and magnitude of the mental territory over which Christendom must travel between when disciples quit civil governance and when these same disciples enter into God’s rest—and crossing the Jordan still doesn’t put a person in spiritual Jerusalem, where Paul laid the foundation for the house of God.

The war in Iraq has brought home to most Americans and Europeans the size, the harshness, and often the bleakness of the landscape that must be mentally traversed before a disciple who quit civil governance reaches the plains of Moab where the decision to enter into life or death stands today as Moses stood when the second covenant (Deu 29:1) was initially made with Israel. Thus, the person who would argue for the endtime Church being mature in faith needs to reexamine the basis for making such a determination. The person does not understand what constitutes spiritual maturity, and is him or herself a spiritual infant.

The spiritual milk that Paul fed the saints at Corinth was declared meat by those disciples who by long oppression knew neither milk nor meat, but eagerly celebrated their freedom to worship God free from the tyranny of merchandised Christendom. The signers of The Dordrecht Confession of Faith (ca 1632 CE), the foundational doctrine of the Mennonites, were not spiritually mature Christians, were not men who knew the difference between milk and meat although they thought spiritual things were as easily discerned as are physical things. They were, instead, spiritual infants crawling on hands and knees from Babylon to the plains of Moab, where Moses awaited them with that second covenant, a covenant made with the children of Israel, the nation that had left sin, and a covenant made in addition of the covenant made at Horeb. This Moab covenant is the covenant that promises circumcised hearts and minds (Deu 30:6), a euphemistic expression for the equally euphemistic declaration of having the laws of God being written on hearts and placed in minds (Heb 8:10). This is the covenant to which better promises were added when its mediator became Christ Jesus (better promises cannot be added to that which was abolished).

The Moab covenant was not made on the day that God took Israel by the hand to lead this nation out of Sin; rather, the Moab covenant was made forty years later when God was ready to lead Israel into the Promised Land, the land described as “His rest.”

It takes time for a spiritual infant to crawl from Babylon to the plains of Moab where Moses awaits him or her. Now almost five centuries later, most of the radical reformers still have not yet arrived. Most have settled in western Iraq where they eke out a meager living through bringing their children into a now long dead faith. However, between 1528 and 1540 CE, Andreas Fischer walked this distance as a trailblazer who did not leave a spiritual house bearing his name. Nor should he have left such a house which would stand as a testimony against both its builder and those who live in this house.

Teachers of Israel teach of either their own authority or because they have been called to that position. Those who teach as they should make disciples for Christ Jesus, not for themselves—so, yes, the Mennonite faith stands as a testimony against Menno Simon, for the person who makes disciples for Christ Jesus does not leave his or her name on those disciples. Nor should the one who teaches leave disciples in a static state, not progressing beyond what it was that the teacher taught. Discipling is a noun transformed into a verb that would have the one who “disciples” preparing students to make the journey from spiritual Babylon to the Jerusalem above, a journey that requires all students to choose life or death (Deu 30:15) when the promise of entering God’s rest still stands (Heb 4:1). The person who will not enter into Sabbath observance when this promise stands also will not keep all that is written in the book of Deuteronomy (30:10); will not believe either Moses or Jesus (John 5:46-47); will not be convinced by one raised from the dead (Luke 16:31). This person is a tare (false wheat), a weed that looks like grain but is worthless.

The disciple who would honor his or her teacher will by taking that teacher’s name onto the disciple do better to consider that there is only one Teacher, Christ Jesus. And it will be Christ Jesus working as the last Elijah that restores all things, including life to the Body. Thus, the person who walks as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6) follows in the footsteps of the only true Teacher.  To be of Christ is to be a Christian, a name that unfortunately has come to mean the very things Jesus said not to think or do … Christians kill Christians in Northern Ireland; Christians killed Christians in the Third Crusade; Christians killed Christians throughout the Protestant Reformation; Christians killed Christians at Haun’s Mill, at Nauvoo, at Carthage, Illinois. How many times does Christians killed Christians need to be repeated, for Christians will again kill Christians throughout the seven endtime years of tribulation. There have been no people that have shed more blood than Christians although many, including Islam, vie for the honor of being greater butchers.

Peter did not make disciples for himself; John did not; James did not, Thomas did not, Matthew did not. The list goes on. Yet today, millions identify themselves as “Lutherans,” tens of thousands as “Mennonites.” So the very thing for which Paul chastised the saints at Corinth has occurred, and occurred for the same reason. Who was Martin Luther? Who was Menno Simon? Did both not work to restore what was lost, not realizing that what they sought to restore was really the work of the last Elijah?

Are both Luther and Menno Simon one, as Paul writes about himself and Apollos (1 Cor 3:8)? And the answer is simply: NO! They are not one in thoughts, deeds, or teachings. Lutherans and Mennonites are not today one in thought or teachings. Therefore as both Luther and Menno Simon will receive wages according to his labor (1 Cor 3:8), they could not work together in life [ignoring their differences in age] and they will not be able to work together in the heavenly realm unless different natures are given to both.

If two are not one, then one of the two (or both) cannot enter the heavenly realm, where all life must function as one. The essence of Christianity is that two will be one, the Head with His Body, the Bridegroom with His Bride, Theon with Theos. So simply put, Christendom is spiritually lifeless, and will remain lifeless until the restoration of all things when saints are filled with or empowered by the Holy Spirit at a second Passover liberation from death.

Paul laid the foundation for the house of God in heavenly Jerusalem, with this foundation being Christ Jesus (1 Cor 3:10-11). There is no other foundation; there can be no other foundation. And the endtime saints of Philadelphia will be pillars (Rev 3:12) that stand on this foundation that Paul laid, meaning that no construction has occurred on the foundation that Paul laid between Paul and the restoration of all things at the end of the age. There are no half-walls, no three courses of stonework, no work of any kind after all who were in Asia left Paul while he was a prisoner in Rome (again 2 Tim 1:15). So the basic premise of Anabaptists that the Church must be restored to “truth” is only partially correct at best: the 1^st-Century Church as the Body of Christ Jesus was crucified with Christ and died on the cross with the deaths of the first disciples and first generation of converts. Paul’s instructions to Timothy were also his instructions to second generation disciples, and Paul had Timothy circumcised (Acts 16:3) not because circumcision of the flesh was necessary, but so that Timothy’s lack of circumcision would not be a stumbling block for Jewish converts, who, in the 1^st-Century, should have been teachers of spiritually circumcised Israel but were in need of someone to teach them the basic principles of God; they were in need of milk when they should have been ready for spiritual meat. And Timothy was to be one of their teachers.

It will not, however, be Gentiles converts that will form the backbone of the restoration of the Body of Christ, but endtime converts from among the circumcised natural sons of Abraham, both Ishmael and Isaac.

Pause and consider: if natural Israelites were to be teachers as Peter, John, Paul, and the other disciples were all natural Israelites, and if Paul had Timothy, whose father was a Greek, circumcised before taking Timothy on the road with him, then who among all of these natural Israelites would have taught Gentile converts to continue living as Gentiles, inwardly and outwardly? If Jesus lived as an Observant Jew of His day, and if disciples ought to walk as Jesus walked (again 1 John 2:6), then what disciple will walk as a Gentile inwardly? Any? Will not only the Christian who will not be ruled by Christ Jesus walk as a spiritual Gentile. And the question becomes one of whether the spiritually circumcised Jew will also be physically circumcised: apparently Andreas Fischer went down this wrong road before he was killed a second time.

Throughout his ministry, Paul fought with the Circumcision Faction, Jewish converts who held that a person must first become a physical Jew before becoming a spiritual Jew. This is not the case. The status of the tent of flesh in which the born-of-Spirit son of God dwells is not of importance. Physical circumcision or uncircumcision means nothing. Physical lineage means nothing. Social status means nothing. Biological gender means nothing; for the Christian is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, free nor slave (Gal 3:28). The Christian is not, therefore, the tent of flesh in which the son of God dwells, but the new creature that has been born from above. And this new creature is a living stone (1 Pet 2:4-5) that is, as if a holographic image, both the temple of God and a stone hewn offsite that will form the living temple of God.

What has not been understood by Christendom or by Judaism is the holy nation of God that was not before a nation (1 Pet 2:9-10) was not and is not a physical nation; was not and is not a physical assemblage of individuals; was not and is not a physical Church. Rather, this holy nation is a spiritual nation concealed within the flesh of Christendom. In the 1^st-Century, this holy nation of God was not the fellowships in Asia that left Paul, nor was it the Jewish converts that were trying to kill Paul. It was not even all who followed Paul to Rome. It consisted only of the new creatures that were born of Spirit and dwelt in tents of flesh. Thus, this holy nation has never been observable—human eyes cannot see these new creatures born from above, but can only see the flesh and the actions of the flesh.

Anyone can claim to be a Christian and claim to be born of Spirit. How is someone to refute these claims, except through the observable actions of the flesh? And inevitably, the person not born of Spirit ends up in charge of a Christian fellowship and will put out of these fellowships disciples that are genuine (3 John 9-10). Thus, it is the person without the Holy Spirit who makes decisions about who to include and who to exclude from the Body of Christ … if ever a more perverse situation could exist, it will be when the seven endtime years of tribulation begin, for those without the Holy Spirit will again actively seek to kill those who have been born of Spirit.

The Anabaptist thread is a story that is worth telling, and a story that takes more than one Sabbath Reading to cover.

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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."

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