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 two becoming one.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of April 28, 2007
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 services should read or assign to be read Romans chapter 8.
Commentary: The concept of a dispensation of Law and one of Grace, the first for Jewish converts and the latter for Gentile converts, is a heretical teaching that entered Christianity in the 19th-Century to effectively end the Great Awakening before it began. All who teach that a differing standard of faith cleanses the heart of one disciple than cleanses the heart of another disciple, with the quality of this faith “adjusted” according to the fleshly tent of the disciple, teaches as a minister of Satan (2 Cor 11:14-15), with no exceptions made. All who teach that natural Israel must keep the law whereas Gentile converts are free to sin however much they wish because they are under Grace will be denied in their resurrection (Matt 7:21-23) and will be thrown into the lake of fire regardless of their sincerity or their mighty works or their pleadings for mercy. They truly will not be heard, for they taught without hearing the voice of Jesus.
Is that strong enough? Or does this need to be said more forcibly? The uncircumcised person who, by faith, keeps the precepts of the law as the reasonable expectation of discipleship, expressed in the form of “knowing Jesus” (1 John 2:3-6), will have his or her uncircumcision counted as circumcision (Rom 2:26) and will be saved; and the circumcised Israelite who has returned to keeping the commandments when in a far land (Deut 30:1-2), an act of faith, and who, by faith, professes that Jesus is Lord and believes that God raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:6-9) will be saved and will stand on the same theological ground as his uncircumcised brother or sister. There is no difference in the standard of faith necessary to cleanse hearts.
The lawyer asked Jesus what must he do to inherit eternal life (Luke 10:25)—the lawyer knew that he did not have eternal life dwelling within him. The rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life (Luke 18:18)—this young ruler knew that he did not have eternal life dwelling within him. The Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion] had not yet been given. Only Jesus, as the last Adam, had received the divine Breath [pneuma] of the Father, and He did not receive it until He “fulfilled all righteousness” by being baptized (Matt 3:15-17). Only then did the divine Breath of the Father descend as a dove, light and remain on Jesus … long ago a fallacy entered Christendom: this fallacy holds that following baptism, a person automatically receives the Holy Spirit. The relationship is that of quid pro quo. But as with other post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacies, the closely linked events do not imply one necessarily follows the other, especially as seen in the case of Cornelius (Acts chap 10). Jesus had no need for baptism upon repentance; He was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, with this fulfilling all righteousness being the shadow or pattern for how His disciples would receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus had never sinned, so He had already brought forth fruit worthy of repentance before being baptized, but this is not the case for disciples whose father, however many generations removed, is the first Adam, not Theos. Therefore, with fruit worthy of repentance—being without sin can be no higher fruit—Jesus had to make no further journey of faith to cleanse His heart. He was beloved by the Father. His heart was pure. And He received the divine pneuma of the Father, which joined with the flesh of His body to form one entity: before He was taken, Jesus prayed, ‘“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us … that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one’” (John 17:20-23). Thus, the Spirit [pneuma] of Christ (Rom 8:9) is one with the Spirit [pneuma] of the Father, the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Two Spirits, two divine Breaths, that are one spirit as in marriage transforming two human beings into one flesh (Gen 2:24)—this is the “Spirit of God” (Rom 8:14) which, if disciples follow, causes disciples to be sons of God.
The Father raises the dead, regardless of whether these “dead” are or are not presently air-breathing creatures [nephesh]. And not until the Father gives a second life to a person—a life that is not of this world, but is from the heavenly realm—can a person enter the kingdom of heaven. But once the Father has raised the dead through giving the “dead person” the earnest of His Spirit [pneuma], the person is born of Spirit [pneuma]. If this person, now, hears the words of Jesus (who spoke only the Father’s words) and believes the One who sent Him, the person passes from death to life and does not come under judgment (John 5:24); for judgment is presently on the household of God (1 Pet 4:17), and the person who hears and believes will be found doing those things that are pleasing to God, which includes keeping the precepts of the law.
The person who hears and believes separates him or herself from the world yet remains in the world—and a multi-tiered analogy is set up:
· Human nature is a received nature as evidenced by God suddenly taking “human nature” from King Nebuchadnezzar and giving the king the nature of a beast (Dan chap 4); thus, human nature is not a property of biology and is not physical.
· Human nature is combined with the fleshly body of a person to form one human person, in the manner of two becoming one—it is this human nature that has been consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32), and that has delivered the person to the prince of this world to be his willing bond servant.
· This human nature is not, however, an immortal soul, but in a now comprehendible comparison, is like a software program that allows a computer to do useful work.
· When a person is born of Spirit, the person is raised from the dead by first receiving the Spirit [pneuma] of the Father, who then gives the person to the Son, who resides within person in the form of the Spirit [pneuma] of Christ, with the “married” Spirits of the Father and the Son forming the Spirit of God.
· The “married” Spirit of God consisting of the Spirits of the Father and the Son is not of this world, so it cannot be discerned by eyes or ears, taste or touch; yet this Spirit of God resides within the mind and the heart of the disciple in a manner analogous to “human nature” residing in the fleshly body of a natural Israelite, who in turn resided in a house of mud bricks in Egypt.
· The “married” Spirit of God forms the new self or new creature about which the Apostle Paul writes—and this new creature resides in the same tent of flesh as the “human nature” that formed the crucified old self or old creature.
· The “married” Spirit of God residing in the fleshly tent of a person can now be likened to a born of Spirit disciple in this world. The “born of Spirit” new self that is a son of God must overcome the flesh without being overcome by the flesh as a disciple must overcome the temptations of the world without being overcome by the world.
· If the world overcomes the disciple, the flesh had first overcome the new creature; so the defeat of the invisible new creature by the flesh can be visibly seen by the temptations of the world overcoming the disciple.
Regardless of whether the explanation begins with the invisible as a pseudo-psychological explanation for human behavior and moves to the visible relation that is marriage between a man and a woman, or begins with human marriage and works inward to the relationship between Theos & Theon (John 1:1-2) in the beginning, the concept of two becoming one lies at the core of understanding the things of God. And since the things of God are not of this world and since the concept of “two as one” doesn’t logically compute in human perception, the invisible things of God can only be humanly discerned through the shadows these things cast in this physical realm.
The prevailing principle of biblical exegesis is that the visible things of this world reveal the invisible things of God (Rom 1:20), and that the physical things of this world precede the spiritual things of God (1 Cor 15:46). The world, now, exists as the lifeless shadow of a spiritual creation—and because the physical precedes the spiritual, the “light” source [i.e., God] shines from a position that lies ahead of humanity in time. Therefore, shadows lie behind or away from humanity’s present location in a time continuum, with the most distant location recorded in John 1:1-3; Genesis 1:1; and Genesis 2:4, this location being “the day” when Elohim, singular in usage, created the heavens and the earth.
But even though Elohim is singular in usage, /Elohim/ remains the regular plural of /Eloah/: when Elohim said, using the plural pronoun, “‘Let us make man [adam – lower case “a”] in our image, after our likeness”’ (Gen 1:26), Elohim created humankind in His image, “male and female he created them” (v. 27). Thus, to be in the image of Elohim, a plural linguistic icon, humankind must be both male and female, with male and female becoming one flesh through marriage. The pronouns assigned are properly plural. Elohim is one through two—Theos & Theon—being one God as a man and his wife are one flesh through marriage.
As review, the Gospel of John begins, “In the beginning was the [Logos], and the [Logos] was with [Theon], and the [Logos] was [Theos]. He was in the beginning with [Theon]” (1:1-2). In John’s usage of Greek, the case endings linguistically prohibit Theon from being Theos although in the Septuagint the two linguistic icons are used somewhat interchangeably. However, King Solomon wrote, “He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity [Heb: olam or “the creation”] into man’s heart, yet so he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Eccl 3:11). Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end (Rev 22:13). So for the person who has not been born of Spirit [who is not spiritually minded] the creation conceals Christ Jesus; whereas the creation reveals Christ to the person born of Spirit. The same creation that reveals the invisible things of God to disciples also conceals those same things from the person who has not been born of Spirit. And based upon the historical record, those theologians involved in 4th-Century Christology debates were not spiritually minded. Thus, the creation itself concealed from them the nature of Christ. And none of the Septuagint’s translators were born of Spirit.
John further writes, “No one has seen [Theon]” (1:18) although Moses,
Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of
· Elohim is the regular plural of Eloah, which deconstructs to /El/ the name for God as in El Shaddai (Gen 17:1) and the linguistic radical for vocalized or aspirated breath, /ah/.
· Elohim is [God + breath] an indeterminable number of times.
· The tetragrammaton YHWH deconstructs to /YH/ + /WH/, which is [deity + breath] + [deity + breath]. So coupling these two deities [Yah + WH] with Elohim creating humankind male and female, the multiple for Elohim is two.
· Since the Logos as Theos entered (John 3:16; John 1:14) His creation (John 1:3) to reveal the Father, whom no one had seen, it was Theos who was seen by Moses and the seventy.
· Continuing, Theos, when entering His creation, divested Himself of His divinity to be born as His son, His only son. Once he comes as His son, He cannot enter His creation a second time. Thus, when the boy Jesus was found at the temple (Luke 2:49), He was literally in His father’s house, but not the house of Theon. Disciples are the temple of the Father, with Jesus being the cornerstone, the First of the firstfruits.
The relationship that existed in the beginning between Theos and Theon was like that of a man and his wife, in that then two were one as far as natural Israel knew. The relationship was not a hypostatic relationship where one was atop the other so that the lower revealed the upper one. Rather, it was a side by side relationship in which two functioned as one, a relationship like that between Moses and Aaron, who was the spokesman for Moses.
But the relationship that is characterized by the union of a man and his wife ends when the Logos enters His creation as His son, effectively dying in the heavenly realm to end the marriage-type of union. Theon is now alone as God as He begins the spiritual creation, which the physical creation reveals as its shadow and a copy. Not until the Father glorified Jesus “with the glory that [He] had with [the Father] before the world existed” (John 17:5) will there again be two in the heavenly realm, with these two not functioning as a man and his wife, but as a father and his son. This changed relationship now frees an opening for glorified disciples to enter the heavenly realm as the Bride, the wife of the Son, so that as Theon & Theos were one (and as the Father and the Son are one), the Bride and the Son will also be one as in marriage.
Returning to what Paul wrote, and to what he did not clearly communicate: the new creature born of Spirit will only marry once and this will be to the Son upon His return, but this new creature is not of this world or from this world. This new creature cannot be seen or measured. The only way that this new creature reveals itself [this new creature is neither male nor female] is through the actions of the flesh as it “overwrites” a disciple’s human nature, thereby causing the disciple to lose interest in the things of this world such as (for guys) hunting, fishing, the pleasing appearance of a woman. These things are of the flesh, and to set the mind on the things of the flesh is death (Rom 8:6).
The falseness of Christendom can be seen through its focus on the things of the flesh. The “prosperity gospel” is a message aimed at the flesh, a message that promises physical prosperity to Christians. The “name-it-and-claim-it” gospel is focused on naming the things of the flesh, whether material prosperity or physical health,” and receiving these things through the witchery of speaking them into existence. The “prophecy gospel” will have disciples looking at physical events and physical nations to determine when Christ Jesus will physically return.
The test for having the mind set on the Spirit of God remains now what it was when Paul wrote to Roman converts: “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Rom 8:7). The inverse is that the mind set on the Spirit submits to God’s law because it can: it is no longer under the domination of sin. And the foremost outward sign of whether a Christian submits to God’s law is whether this person keeps the Sabbath.
If the person argues any reason at all for not keeping the Sabbath other than ignorance of the need to keep the Sabbath, the person’s mind is set on the flesh and not on the Spirit. The person is a false disciple.
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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."