">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 New Jerusalem is in type represented by the woman.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of July 5, 2014
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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After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this." At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who is seated on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." (Rev 4:1–11)
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21.
Same head quote as in the previous Reading: the Elect as purchased slaves now consigned to obedience (because of being purchased) owe much praise to God, owe many thanks, owe for passing from death to life without coming under judgment. The Elect already have, while still residing in fleshly bodies, what is promised to Noah, Daniel, and Job: they already have what will be given to Abraham and David and the righteous men and women of old, that is glorified life, heavenly life. And while their fleshly bodies will not pass through walls, if it were necessary for the person numbered among the Elect to get to the other side of the wall, the wall would topple as did the walls of Jericho. Obstacles standing before them would disappear in a way analogous to how the sea parted for Moses and how the flooding Jordan River parted for Joshua.
The Elect are not perfect human persons. Usually, they are far from perfect, but they strive for perfection. They hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent Jesus into this world—they believe God as Abraham believed the Lord, and their belief is counted to them as righteousness; for their belief is coupled to obedience, to striving for perfection.
There is no real belief of God when the Christian is willfully stubborn, doing what the Christian desires to do and not what God desires the Christian do. There is no belief when the Christian knows the Commandments and will not keep them, with the Sabbath Commandment serving as the test analogous to Abraham being tested at Mount Moriah, the site of Jerusalem (see 2 Chron 3:1).
Will the Christian sacrifice his [or her] only son—the Christian’s inner self that is the son of promise—by going to spiritual Jerusalem, where the inner self will be given to God as Hannah gave Samuel to the Lord (1 Sam 1:11, 22, 28)? The living inner self is from the Lord through the indwelling of Christ Jesus, and for the Elect, the physically living outer self must give this inner self to the Lord by keeping the Commandments; by a life of obedience to God, obedience that leads to righteousness.
But the physically living outer self remains consigned to disobedience and is therefore a serf of the Adversary. So by bringing the inner self to life, God has introduced rebellion into the Adversary’s dominion over the single kingdom of this world. Initially, this rebellion is confined to inside the person, but as with the Adversary’s rebellion against God, this rebellion will spread. The righteous person will plant seeds of obedience that sprout and quietly grow, attacking the Adversary’s reign of disobedience from within. The righteous person has to say nothing, do nothing but be a witness, giving the person’s testimony only when asked. And figuratively, under the radar, obedience grows from this person to that person, all the while the Adversary is busy attacking any Christian that dares to openly defy him by speaking out, but being visible as Christ Jesus was visible.
There are uninformed, uneducated pastors within the Sabbatarian Churches of God who argue that no Christian is born of spirit; for none can walk through a wall as Jesus did when He appeared to ten of His disciples (John 20:19). These ignorant persons teach what they do not understand, speak about what they have no knowledge-of, and are as cockleburs clinging to pant cuffs, carried about for a while by the living but fit only to be cast away, cast into the lake of fire.
Over the years, what a Japanese fish buyer flying into Dutch Harbor said—flying in from Tokyo for third time that summer because the cannery crew couldn’t pack fish in a manner that the fish could be sold in Japan—has been used several time, THE ONLY CURE FOR STUPID IS KILL! … I’m not sure the buyer fully understood the words he was mentally translating from Japanese into English, then speaking. But the buyer was correct. There is no more effective cure for “stupid” than kill. There is no other cure for the stupid things that Christian pastors say other than to consign them to the lake of fire. And this extends far beyond Sabbatarian pastors who truly are undereducated. Even the best of Sabbatarian pastors—while smart enough individuals—have not pushed themselves intellectually; thus, we find that among Sabbatarians, quackery thrives, weirdness flourishes, and the occult pervades even worship services, for the Sacred Names Heresy is nothing but white witchcraft.
When the spirit of the Lord left King Saul and went to David, anointed by Samuel, Saul felt the spirit leave:
Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of [YHWH] rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. Now the spirit of [YHWH] departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from [YHWH] tormented him. (1 Sam 16:13–14)
What Saul felt was the arrival of the harmful spirit that was soothed by David playing music (1 Sam 16:23).
Christians not born of spirit will be like David’s brothers; whereas the Christian truly born of spirit will be like David, who was in the midst of his brothers when Samuel anointed him with oil … David’s brothers felt nothing, experienced nothing. David’s eldest brother even mocked David when David showed up at the camp of Israel:
And Jesse said to David his son, "Take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers. Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand. See if your brothers are well, and bring some token from them." Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the Valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. And David rose early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper and took the provisions and went, as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the encampment as the host was going out to the battle line, shouting the war cry. And Israel and the Philistines drew up for battle, army against army. And David left the things in charge of the keeper of the baggage and ran to the ranks and went and greeted his brothers. As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him. All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid. And the men of Israel said, "Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel. And the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel." And David said to the men who stood by him, "What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" And the people answered him in the same way, "So shall it be done to the man who kills him." Now Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spoke to the men. And Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, "Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle." And David said, "What have I done now? Was it not but a word?" And he turned away from him toward another, and spoke in the same way, and the people answered him again as before.(1 Sam 17:17–30 emphasis and doubled emphasis added)
First, Jesse was not a free man in Israel; no one was. All where subjects of the king, and in effect, all were serfs. What Saul offered to the man who killed Goliath was wealth, royalty, and family freedom, which would have been a very attractive offer.
But David’s eldest brother, who was there when Samuel anointed David and David received the spirit of the Lord [of Yah], didn’t see any difference between himself and his baby brother except that of age—and Samuel’s anointing didn’t seem particularly important to Eliab. He saw his kid brother as a nuisance, a spectator there to make trouble for the real soldiers, the real men of Israel. And everyone knows how this story turned out. Goliath had an appointment with destiny, and David made sure he kept it. However, the difference between David and his brothers, between David and the men of Israel was the presence of the spirit of the Lord.
Because of the cultural familiarity of this story, the Elect, born of spirit whereas David was merely filled with spirit, will be to other Christians—to other Sabbatarians—as David was to his brothers and as David was to the men of Israel … even Jesus’ brothers didn’t see any real difference between them and their big brother (see John 7:3–5). Therefore, the Elect should not expect even Sabbatarian brothers to show the person truly born of spirit any deference. As far as they are concerned, they are the equal of the Elect. They would consider themselves the Elect even though they will tell you that they are not born of spirit, not already justified and glorified.
Saying that David was filled with spirit is not to say that David was born again, or born of spirit. Rather, David was as John the Baptist was, a human man filled with the spirit. In David’s case, the spirit was of Yah, the Logos [’o Logos] whereas in John the Baptist’s case, the spirit was of God the Father.
David was not born of spirit through receipt of the indwelling breath of God [pneuma Theou], a devouring fire unless this spirit/breath is held in a vessel that has also come from heaven, this vessel being the glorified Jesus. Thus, no person prior to John 20:22, when the glorified Jesus breathed His breath [pneuma Christou] on ten of His disciples, was born of spirit … the spirit that David asked not to be taken from him was, again, the spirit of the Logos:
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
(Ps 51:2–13 indented lines are spiritual portions of couplets)
The God of the Old Testament, contrary to what is taught within greater Christendom, was the Logos, who made all things that have been made (John 1:3), and who then entered His creation as His unique Son (John 3:16), not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men (Phil 2:6–7) …
There will again be world war, only this time not between ethnic nationalities, but between ideologies, Arian Christendom plus Islam against Trinitarian Christendom, with those who believe God, believe Jesus, being caught in the middle—
And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. … And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:3, 5)
In John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise’” (John 5:19) … taking Jesus’ words in their literal sense, we would have the Logos [’o Logos] who was God [Theos, no definite article in John 1:1 but the noun shares the article belonging to ’o Logos thereby linking the two, showing that the two are the same entity] and who was with/of [pros] the God [ton Theon] in primacy [arche, no definite article so not translatable as the beginning]—this one, the Logos, will now be the Father of Jesus until the God, the Most High God, gives to the man Jesus His breath, the breath of the Most High God [pneuma Theou]; for with receipt of a second breath of life, Jesus was born anew, or born again, or born from above, Thus, in the Father—the Most High God—giving to Jesus a second breath of life, the Most High God raised the inner self of the man Jesus from death.
The inner self of a person is not the outer self; thus, the inner self, dead from being consigned to disobedience because of Adam’s transgression, can be raised to life while either domiciled in a fleshly body or in a spiritual or imperishable body. The inner self does not receive life when the outer self does; for the inner self is in this world but not really of this world.
The death from which the Most High God raised Jesus came about from the Logos entering His creation as His unique Son, not as Himself … in order for the Logos not to be Himself, He had to divest Himself of His divinity. If he didn’t, He couldn’t take the form of a servant: He would have been readily recognizable by demons, which He was after baptism and receipt of the breath of God, and He still would have had the power and authority of being the Creator of all things physical. Hence, the only way for the Logos to enter His creation where He would create the bridge between heaven and earth in Himself was for Him to come as His unique Son.
The Genesis “P” creation account is the abstract of God’s planned procreation.
On the dark portion of Day One, linguistically separated from the other six days, God “filled” [bara] the heavens and the earth—what portion of the physical creation is not created: all things physical are there in the beginning (Gen 1:1).
The holy spirit cannot be physically seen; so it is in verse 2, where the abstract of divine procreation moves from physical to spiritual: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Because from the perspective of the narrator, the spirit of God can be seen hovering, the narration is no longer from a physical perspective.
Paul links Christ Jesus to the Light of Day One:
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 4:4–6)
Spiritual procreation begins/began with Christ Jesus, the light of Day One; for in Christ—the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering—God is seen, what Jesus tried to convey to His disciples (John 14:8–9), and what Paul references when he said that Christ was the image of God … divine procreation will conclude when disciples are created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26–27); when disciples are glorified, not physically created.
Human persons are NOT created in the image and likeness of God. Rather, they are created as servants. Living creatures are created in the image of angels, or at least this is Paul’s claim:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5–8 double emphasis added)
The Logos, Yah, gave life to the man of mud in a manner representative of how the Most High God gave life to angels, also sons of God … the glorified Christ Jesus will give life to human sons of God in a manner analogous to how the Father gave life to angels.
Continuing the cite from Philippians: In the epistle Paul wrote to the Philippians, Paul said in an already cited passage,
Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9–11 double emphasis added)
Human persons exist in the form of servants, and are in this way are like angels. Thus, the Logos [Yah] in creating Adam created man in the form of a servant … again, what is declared in Genesis 1:26–27 represents the culmination of human creation, the mature son of God, not the ovum or pre-fertilization stage (i.e., before the person is born of spirit through receipt of the breath of God in the form of the indwelling of Christ Jesus). In the ovum stage, a son of God—an ordinary human person—has the form of a servant. Again, the Genesis “P” creation account is the poetic abstract of the plan of God, not a detailed account of creation; for Adam was created on “the day that [YHWH] God made the earth and the heavens” (Genesis 2:4–7).
On the same day that the Lord made the heavens, He also made the earth as well as making Adam in the creation account of Genesis chapter two … the Genesis chapter one account is not an account of a physical creation, but the account of the spiritual creation that concludes with man entering into God’s rest, heaven, after having been made in the image and likeness of God, not in the image and likeness of servants—angels.
Like angels, human persons are created entities, with each created in the form of a servant, a slave. Because of having been created, neither angels nor human persons can directly enter the moment in which the Father has heavenly life, this moment being analogous to the earthly temple’s Holy of Holies and being typified by the people of Israel being prevented from ascending to the summit of Mount Sinai.
All angels received life from the Most High God: none had life in the heavenly moment that existed prior to their creation. Thus, because heaven is timeless, the moment in which the Most High God and His Beloved had life, have life cannot be entered by created servants that were not in this moment when heaven itself received birth, used figuratively.
The difference between human sons of God and angelic sons of God, both created as servants, is the location where they receive heavenly life … because angelic sons received life inside heaven, they cannot enter that portion of heaven where they did not have life, visually represented by the earthly temple and the people of Israel not being able to enter the Holy of Holies. But because human sons of God will receive heavenly life outside of heaven (that is, inside the physical creation), they can enter whatever portion of heaven from which they received life, meaning that since the life received by human sons of God comes from the Most High God giving His divine breath to Christ Jesus, human sons of God can enter where God, their Father, dwells. Human sons of God—based on Moses—can enter into the presence of God; for they have heavenly life that has come from God through Christ Jesus. Their breath of heavenly life (their glory) is the glory of Christ.
The preceding is an important point, especially in Trinitarian versus Arian discussions [both ideologies are wrong]; for the Logos could not have life in the same heavenly moment as the Father if the Logos did not preexist the moment. Thus, the Logos could not be a created being unless His creation predates the creation of heaven itself—and that gets disciples beyond Scripture far enough that the disciple needs to wait until the disciple is in heaven to pursue the matter.
Again, created angels cannot have life in a heavenly moment that predates their creation; for in any timeless “moment” the presence of life and the absence of life cannot coexist. One exists and the other does not. The Most High and His Beloved had life in a moment that would seem to be the earliest moment in heaven: they had life before angels were created. They had life when angels were without life. Thus, angels cannot have life in this moment: they can only have life in another moment.
Mormons and Muslims speak of heaven being in layers, spheres within spheres, with the precise number varying upon which demon conveyed information to the human person. Likewise, Dante, in Comedìa, had descending layers or levels in hell, with two popes being in the lowest level. So the concept of heavenly shells or layers, or spheres is an old one.
Likewise, before the creation of this physical world with its legacy of clay/mud, Adam could not exist … this physical world is not heaven, but is of four unfurled dimensions in which, apparently, the elusive Higgs boson, an elementary particle first introduced in theory in 1964, gives mass to what would otherwise be without mass. Thus the relationship between the physical creation and heaven makes visible the relationship between one heavenly moment and another heavenly moment; that is, the relationship between heaven and earth makes visible the relationship between the heavenly moment in which the Most High and His Beloved have life and the heavenly moment in which created angels have life in what would be analogous to the Garden of Eden, with “life” for Adam and Eve outside the Garden typifying life for unbelieving angels in the Abyss.
The preceding discloses an important attribute of Adam’s creation outside the Garden of Eden: if the earthly Garden of Eden typified Eden, the heavenly Garden of God (from Ezek 28:13), and if Christ Jesus as the last Adam was created outside of heaven from life received from heaven, it follows that the Beloved of God came to life outside of heaven; that heaven didn’t exist prior to the creation of the Beloved; that heaven itself is a living house analogous to the soul of a person when this soul puts on immortality; that the indwelling of the Most High on the holy mountain functions for heaven as the indwelling spirit of Christ in the spirit of the man functions for the soul of the disciple. And if this is all true, then the Most High from His Beloved created heaven in a manner analogous to the glorified Christ Jesus creating from His disciples His Assembly that is the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27) and the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16–17) … the Body of Christ will now typify heaven itself, with the Body of Christ becoming the Bride of Christ, New Jerusalem, which will have New Jerusalem (at least in type) representing all of heaven in a manner analogous to the temple representing Israel without being all of Israel until “Israel” shrank in size from being all of the Promised Land to being the House of Judah after the northern kingdom of Samaria went into captivity, then shrank again to being the polis of Jerusalem, and finally, to being the temple mount before going vertical to being Christ Jesus and then expanding to being the Body of Christ.
Confusing? Yeah—
New Jerusalem will, in type, be represented by the woman in marriage, which will have heaven itself being, also in type, represented by the woman in marriage. And it is here where we will pick up this subject in next Sabbath’s Reading.
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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.