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 “one origin.”

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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 Hebrews chapters 1 and 2, with special attention paid to chapter 2, verse 11.

Commentary: What does the author of Hebrews mean when writing, “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brother” (2:11)? Is this a text that supports Unitarian theology?

The second chapter begins with, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” The natural nation of Israel heard the gospel message, but this nation did not benefit from hearing it (Heb 4:2), neither the nation that left Egypt that couldn’t enter into God’s rest because of unbelief (Heb 3:19; Ps 95:10-11), nor the descendants of that nation (Ezek 20:18-26) that were sent into national captivity, first to Assyria (the northern house of Samaria) and then to Babylon (the southern house of Jerusalem). Then the spiritually circumcised nation of Israel that heard the gospel from the first disciples did not benefit, for this nation was sent into spiritual captivity in spiritual Babylon; hence, the second day of the plan of God ends without God declaring it good. Whereas God will twice say that the third day is good, both its dark and its light portion, He does not say that the second day is good … the dark portion of this second day began when the light of day one (2 Cor 4:6) ended at Calvary. The light portion of the second day began with the Resurrection and then continued until the darkness returned through the Church twisting or turning away from God late in the 1^st-Century CE. Certainly by the time of Emperor Hadrian’s decrees (ca 135 CE), the Church, crucified with Christ, was dead even in Judea, the only place where the Body of Christ was still visible. Conciliar Christendom developed in the dark portion of the third day. But it is the return of a living remnant of the Body to heavenly Jerusalem that God declares good, this living remnant leaving conciliar Christendom to dwell on the dry land of Moses.

Christ Jesus walked on the water. Peter, as long as he kept his eyes on Christ, walked on the water as did the first disciples. But Moses walked on dry land and did not get his feet wet. Likewise, Joshua and Caleb walked on dry land when they entered into God’s rest, for they walked as Moses walked. Endtime disciples who will enter into God’s rest will walk as Moses walked, for though Christ walked on water, He lived as an obedient Jew. He was Observant. So to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:4-6), and to imitate Paul as he imitated Christ (1 Cor 11:1; Phil 3:17) requires that a disciple also walk as Moses walked. For example, Peter, years after Calvary, when he fell into a trance and saw something like a great sheet descending, in which were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds, and heard a voice saying, “‘Rise, Peter, kill and eat,’” said, “‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.’” The voice said, “‘What God has made clean, do not call common’” (Acts 10:10-16).

Peter had not eaten any unclean meats prior to seeing this vision, nor did he eat any afterwards. However, he was obedient to the voice of God when told to go with men sent from Cornelius, and when entering into Cornelius’ home, Peter said, “‘You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me’” (Acts 10:28-29). … When did God show Peter he was not to call any person unclean if not in the vision in which people were represented by all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds? The first disciples, all Jews, were not in the habit of proclaiming the gospel to Gentiles—even a decade later, they did not fully understand what had occurred at Calvary. Yes, Philip had proclaimed Christ in Samaria, where people worshiped God in the tradition of the house of Israel.

These Samaritans to whom Philip preached the gospel were not Israelites, but the mixed peoples brought in to inhabit the land when Assyria took the northern kingdom into captivity. But the practice of the Near Eastern cultures was to associate certain gods with certain geographic regions, a practice that caused Israel to worship Canaanite deities, including burning their firstborns to Molech. This practice God used, though, for once the idolatrous house of Israel was removed from Samaria, the mixed people brought in to replace this Israelite nation sought to worship the god of the area as the house of Israel should have. Therefore, when Jesus talks with the Samaritan woman (John chap 4), the woman, apparently the first time she has talked with a prophet, said to Jesus, “‘Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship’” (4:20). She knows Scripture, for she knows that the Messiah is coming and that the Messiah will tell all things (v. 25). She has not been worshipping sticks and stones, but the God of the house of Israel. However, she has been worshiping God at Samaria as the house of Israel did under Jeroboam. So while Samaritans were considered a little lower than dogs by the remnant of Israel that had returned from Babylon, these same Samaritans were worshiping God as they knew how, based upon the practices of the dispersed house of Israel (they were worshiping what they did not know). And Jesus said that neither those of Samaria nor those in Jerusalem worshiped the Father in spirit and in truth, that the Father sought those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth for God [Theos] is spirit [pneuma].

God is spirit (John 4:24), expressed in Greek as pneuma ŏ Theos.

This simple declarative statement is one to which disciples must pay closer attention; for “it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb 2:10) … who has been made perfect through suffering? Is not this one Christ Jesus? It is, for the writer of Hebrews says, “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (v. 9). So without doubt, the one who suffered death was Jesus, and He is the one who sanctifies; i.e., tastes death for everyone.

Since the one who sanctifies is Christ Jesus, to have one origin as Christ the disciple must have the same origin as Christ. Any other origin will not be of “one origin.”

The writer of Hebrews says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death are subject to lifelong slavery” (2:14-15) … does fear of death cause sons of disobedience to continue in disobedience, when the wages of disobedience (sin) is death? God consigned every person to disobedience or to slavery to sin (Rom 11:32), so that death reigns over every person, even those who have not sinned as the first Adam did (Rom 5:12-14). Does, then, that which a person fears produce in the person what has been feared? Does death produce death? Does disobedience produce disobedience? Yes it does. Disobedience will never produce obedience. Only obedience produces obedience. And as disobedience is death, obedience is life. Therefore, only from obedience comes life and only from obedience comes additional obedience and additional life.

Jesus was obedient. He lived as an Observant Jew. And from Jesus’ obedience came life that He might bring forth additional life in the form of additional obedience, not continued disobedience.

Disobedience in the flesh begets disobedience in the flesh, but God is spirit, not flesh. Thus, the disobedience of the first Adam that had been continued through the flesh had to be broken by obedience in the flesh before life could come to anyone born of flesh. No one prior to Jesus could have life dwelling in the flesh because of the death that dwelt in the flesh since the transgression of the first Adam.

Now if we stopped right here, we could project all sorts of nonsense onto sanctification, including that Jesus was fully man and fully God — but remember, God is spirit. Was Abel, the second son of Adam, fully spirit? If Jesus is of one origin with His disciples, then His disciples and even righteous Abel will be of the same origin as Jesus. And Abel was not fully spirit, for his blood soaked into the ground. Abel was fully man as Jesus was when born of Mary.

Every honest reading of Hebrews 2:11 will refute traditional Christendom’s understanding of whom Jesus was; for Jesus cannot be both man and God [flesh and spirit—soma kai pneuma] and have the same origin as disciples unless disciples are also God while still sons of disobedience, an unsupportable and false conclusion.

The churches of God have, for the most part, ignored “one origin,” because of the awkwardness that the clause produces. They should not have; for if Jesus is not ashamed to call disciples “brothers” why should disciples be ashamed of being called “brothers”? But that fear which kept the disobedient in bondage to disobedience has also kept disobedient disciples from calling themselves “brothers,” for they intuitively knew that they were not brothers with Christ.

If “the founder of [disciples’] salvation” (Heb 2:10) is Christ, and if one for whom and by whom all things exist made the founder of disciples’ salvation perfect through suffering, then the sense of the sentence introduces confusion: can the one who made all things and who made the founder of disciples’ salvation perfect through suffering also be the one who suffered? The sense of this sentence causes the one who made all things to be different from the one who suffered—and this difference cannot be ignored.

But John writes that the Logos who was Theos and who was with Theon made all things (John 1:1-3). John specifically says that it was not Theon who made all things, but Theos, the Logos, and that this Theos entered His creation as the man Jesus (v. 14), the only Son of Himself (John 3:16).

Jesus was not Theos, the one who made all things and the one who made the founder of the disciples’ salvation perfect through suffering. Rather, Jesus was the only Son of Theos, and it was this Theos who left the heavenly realm to come [enter His creation] as His only Son.

So what are the origins of Jesus, who entered into His creation, not the Father’s creation, as His only Son (again, John 3:16)?

In the heavenly realm, Theos was spirit. He had to cease being spirit [pneuma] when He entered His creation through the womb of Mary: He entered His creation as flesh and blood [i.e., flesh and shallow breath—soma kai psuche]. He was of the same composition as His disciples were when He sent the twelve forth (Matt 10:28), assigning to their physical breath [psuche] the properties of spiritual breath which they would receive when He breathed on ten of these twelve (John 20:22)

So that there is no misunderstanding: all this is physical—the galaxies and space between, the discernible and measurable mass and energy, the calculable but indiscernible dark matter and dark energy—all have been created from nothing physical by the spirit entity known as the Creator, who was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This Creator is called, in Greek, Theos (John 1:1-3). There is no other creator of physical things. And this Theos entered His creation as His son, not as Himself, an extremely important distinction to make. He entered as His only Son (John 3:16), for once He ceases to be Himself and becomes His Son, He is, first, no longer in heaven, and second, He is no longer Theos but has made of Himself the man Jesus, the only Son of Theos.

It is here, at this point, where Trinitarians separate themselves from Unitarians and Binitarians. In order to worship the idol of monotheism, Jesus must be fully man and fully divine, for God cannot die and still be the one true God. Thus, for Trinitarians Jesus cannot have the same origin as the first Adam, a man made from mud, the elements of this creation; for the Creator and the creation cannot be the same entity linguistically or logically. If the creation is its own creator, the essence of biological evolution and the argument for its truism, then there is no deity for created beings to worship. All worship is of things made through natural processes, including myths and superstitions. And worship shifts into environmental awareness and political activism.

Scientific speculation about the origins of the universe is speculation by the creation about the nature of its creator. It is a theology as legitimate or more so than any other that has originated from the creation itself. It is as legitimate as Catholicism or Islam or Buddhism, theologies that do not hold that the Creator and the creation have the same origins.

All forms or variations of Unitarian and Trinitarian belief hold as one of their foundational constructs the tenet that the Creator of all that is and the creation do not have the same origin. Unitarians make this clear by asserting that Jesus of Nazareth was a “created” being: Unitarians distinguish themselves from Trinitarians by their belief that God created Jesus and after being glorified, Jesus became God. For Unitarians, God is a single entity like a man is a single entity. For Trinitarians, God is a triune entity that includes both Jesus and the Father.

At this point, scientific speculation has the better argument; hence, most “educated” people in the 20^th and now 21^st Centuries have flocked to environmental activism and “green” causes, particularly global cooling in the 1970s and global warming since, in their attempts to serve the deity they unknowingly worship. They worry about the destruction of the Amazonian rain forest as Puritans worried about sin.

Trinitarian Christendom has many supporters, with none able to explain the scriptural basis for a triune deity.

Trailing closely behind scientific speculation in logic and legitimacy is Unitarianism in its various forms, Christian, Rabbinical Judaism, and Islam.

It is only Binitarian disciples that have a scripturally consistent and logically sound belief, but a belief that requires paying close attention to what has been written (Heb 2:1): Binitarians hold that God is the Father’s “house” [oikia] as Moses is a house (Heb 3:3), with the builder of the house having more honor than the house—and every house built in this world, beginning with Adam, is of Theos [Theos] (v. 4), who was with Theon in the beginning (again, John 1:1-3).

Theos and Theon are, according to John, both God [The–], with the masculine and neuter case endings and differing vowel aspirations separating one from the other.

Moses is a house. Those who believe Moses and follow Moses are of his house, just as those who believe Herbert W. Armstrong and follow his teachings are of his house. Those who believe Ellen G. White and follow her teachings are of her house. Those who believe Martin Luther and follow his teachings are of his house. And so on back to the first Adam: those who are sons of disobedience are of the first Adam’s house, for he was disobedient with sin entering the world through him (Rom 5:12).

God is spirit, so the house is also spirit … God is the Father’s house, in which are many “stayings” (as in a stay of execution) which Jesus has gone ahead to prepare for His disciples by being their high priest and advocate. All who are of the Father’s house are God and are spirit. Thus, the glorified Jesus (as opposed to the man Jesus) is the firstborn Son of the Father, and as such, He sits at the right hand of the Father. He is of the Father’s house; thus, He is “God,” a declarative statement with which Unitarians and Trinitarians should agree.

But Jesus was not born of Mary as the glorified Son of the Father. Rather, He was born as the only Son of Theos, the Creator of all that is (John 1:3, 14; 3:16 — these are Scripture passages that every Christian needs to be able to read in Greek). He became the firstborn Son of the Father when the divine Breath [pneuma] of the Father descended upon Him as a dove, thereby causing Him to be born of spirit [pneuma] to fulfill all righteousness (Matt 3:15-17).

Before the divine Breath of God [pneuma Theou] descended upon the man Jesus, He was not fully God; He was flesh and blood (breath), a man like other men. And every breath [spirit] that does not acknowledge that Jesus came as a man in the flesh is not of God, and is of the antichrist (1 John 4:2-3 … what John writes is in the context of determining who is a false prophet, false teacher).

The contention of Unitarians is that, yes, Jesus was a man and only a man—this is the testimony of Scripture—from birth until baptism. This is also the contention of Binitarians. This is the contention of Judaism. This is the contention of Islam. But this is not the contention of Trinitarians. So at this point (Jesus’ baptism), Trinitarians are the only people of the Book out of sync with others.

When the divine Breath of the Father descends and comes to rest on the man Jesus, a third element is added to the flesh: a man is flesh [soma] and swallow breath [psuche] from human birth until receiving the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion], which is a second birth. Disciples are, because they have received the spirit of God pneuma kai psuche kai soma [pneuma and psuche and soma] (1 Thess 5:23); whereas when Jesus sent the twelve forth they were only [soma and psuche] (Matt 10:28).

To be of the same origin as Jesus, disciples must be born initially as flesh and shallow breath [soma kai psuche], and after baptism, disciples must be born anew or born again through receiving the divine breath [pneuma] of the Father, thereby becoming pneuma kail psuche kai soma".

Human beings are not born with immortal souls, but are born as Jesus was, flesh and shallow breath [soma kai psuche]. To their flesh and shallow breath, a second life or second breath must be added, and this second life originates with the Father and comes through the person receiving His divine breath, the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion]. The person is now born of spirit as the person had previously been born of water (of the womb). Baptism now equates with the flushing from the womb that comes from breaking the embryonic sack. And as a Hebrew infant was not circumcised until the 8^th day, a born of Spirit disciple is not spiritually circumcised until this person makes a journey of faith of sufficient distance to cleanse the heart so that the person’s heart can be circumcised.

God is spirit, the spirit that gives life to the disciple for whom Jesus has gone ahead to prepare a place, an adoption, a stay of execution in the Father’s house (John 14:2).

To understand the love Jesus has for disciples, when He was with the Father, the two functioning as one as a man and his wife are one flesh, in the beginning, He created all that is for the purpose of entering His creation as flesh, thereby dying in the heavenly realm, but trusting in the Father to give Him again the glory and life He had (John 17:5) before He left the heavenly realm. He enters as His only Son—there is no going back once He enters except through death and resurrection by the Father. He no longer exists in the heavenly realm. He only exists in this physical universe as flesh and blood. And after He demonstrates obedience, so that this obedience can beget further obedience, He receives spiritual life from the Father. He creates at Calvary the path or way by which human beings born as sons of disobedience can receive life and obedience (the garment of His righteousness, Grace). He makes it possible for the Father to give life in His house to every person, thereby making all of His sons God. But not all who have been born of spirit practice obedience. Most continue to practice disobedience, not from the weakness of their flesh but from their willful choice to continue living as Gentiles. Thus, all judgment has been given to the Son who knows the hearts of those whom He has covered with His righteousness. He knows weakness from willfulness. And He has already said that many are called but few will be chosen (Matt 22:14). Few will take His obedience and beget in themselves obedience. Most will continue to fear death and as such remain in slavery to disobedience even though they have been set free. They are ashamed to be called the brothers of Christ for they know they are not His brothers, but that they still bondservants to Satan.

As we near renewing the Passover covenant, every disciple needs to examine the flesh and see what disobedience continues to reside in the disciple’s fleshly members. Every disciple needs to realize that he or she is of the same origin as Jesus and that he or she needs to bring forth obedience. Every disciple will know that he or she has failed to do this; thus, Grace remains needful. But the disciple should perceive that some growth in obedience has occurred … if not, then the disciple truly needs to mend his or her ways while the luxury of time remains.

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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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