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 “a teachable moment.”
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of July 17, 2010
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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While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so He went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that He did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. / But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
One of the lawyers answered Him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” And He said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” (Luke 11:37–52)
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What sort of dinner guest insults his or her host? … When Jesus accepted the invitation to eat, He could have followed the customs of the Pharisees when it came to ritually washing hands so as not to place a stumbling block before the Pharisees, which is what Paul would have disciples do when it comes to those weak in faith (Rom chap 14, in particular). The decision of the Jerusalem Conference (Acts chap 15) was that no stumbling block should be placed before converts whose hearts were circumcised by faith. So for Jesus to deliberately provoke a confrontation with Pharisees—and then denounce them in one of their homes—was a so-called teaching moment: Jesus knew that He was being tested, that Pharisees were wanting to see Him deliver a sign from heaven (Luke 11:16), and as the crowds increased while He spoke, Jesus said that He would give no sign but that of Jonah (v. 29), a subject addressed in previous Sabbath readings. But the dinner invitation gave Jesus the opportunity to deliver a “sign” without really delivering a sign: not washing in the proscribed manner was a sign that the “outside” of a person was not of importance.
The outside of a person is all that another person can see; thus, at the human level, the outside is the person. So if the outside is pious, the person is pious as far as other humans can discern. If the outside appears righteous, the person is righteous—but not necessarily before God, who sees the inside of a person. God sees the alms given from within the person, with obedience to Him (obedience out of love) being the greatest gift that the person can give, with love for neighbor and brother being of equal importance to love for God.
For far too long, Christian theologians have assumed that [the good news, power of God it is unto salvation to everyone believing, Judean both first and Greek — Rom 1:16] meant that everyone who believed the good news [gospel] “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3) would be saved. The contention of these theologians has consistently been that belief was enough for salvation, but belief doesn’t exist apart from action. A person can say that he or she believes the good news that Christ Jesus died for our sins, but if the person continues in sin (i.e., transgressing the law) then of what benefit was Christ’s death to the person? The person continues as a son of disobedience even though the person professes with his or her mouth that Christ is Lord … if the person really believed that Jesus was his or her Lord, then the person would walk as Jesus, a Judean, walked (1 John 2:6). The person would do what Paul said:
· “I urge you, then, be imitators of me” (1 Cor 4:16);
· “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1);
· “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1);
· “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (Phil 3:17);
· “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thess 1:6);
· “For you, brothers, became
imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in
· “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:7–8);
· “‘Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I [Paul] committed any offense’” (Acts 25:8).
Those Christian theologians who hold that believing alone that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day is sufficient for salvation are ministers of the Adversary: they appear righteous, but no wonder for the Adversary, according to Paul, “disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (2 Cor 11:14–15).
No Christian can walk as Jesus walked or imitate Paul as he imitated Jesus and attempt to bodily enter into God’s presence on the first day of the week—and that is what Sabbath observance represents, bodily entering into God’s rest, with God’s rest being a euphemistic expression for God’s presence. Thus, the person who attends Christian worship services on Sunday does not walk as Jesus walked, but seeks darkness rather than light regardless of what this person thinks his or her relationship with Jesus is.
The Apostle John goes beyond stating that sin is lawlessness:
You know that he [Jesus] appeared to take away sins, and in him [Jesus] there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil. (1 John 3:5–10)
John steps in front of unbelief when he says that sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4); for lawlessness comes from unbelief … if a person truly believed God, Jew or Gentile, the person would keep the commandments as a matter of faith (i.e., as a matter of belief). And this is what Paul writes in Romans: “For all who have sinned [transgressed the law] without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:12–13). And, “For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law” (vv. 25–27 emphasis added).
If, according to Paul, the person who is not under the law but nevertheless transgresses the law will perish regardless of whether the person believes that Jesus rose from the dead after three days whereas the person who is not under the law but keeps the commandments will condemn the natural Israelite who has the law but doesn’t keep it, then keeping the commandments by faith is for the Gentile the ideological equivalent to the Observant Jew [the Jew who keeps the commandments] professing with his or her mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing that the Father raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:9). Both Jew and Gentile who will be saved will profess that Jesus is Lord and will keep the commandments. Two things. “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Rom 2:28–29). For when the heart is cleansed by faith (Acts 15:9), with this faith coming through belief that has caused the Jew to profess that Jesus is Lord and has caused the Gentile to leave spiritual Babylon and mentally journey to Judea where he or she begins to live as a spiritual Judean, then hearts will be circumcised by spirit, the soft breath of God.
Nothing could be farther from the truth than saying that the Church is not the subject of the Old Testament either in history, type, or prophecy, an asinine statement made by a so-called Christian leader a century ago, but a statement that continues to influence 21st-Century theologians. What was kept secret [kept a mystery] (Rom 16:25) was that the Church was the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16)—and if the Body of Christ, the Church was also “Christ” and was dead as Christ Jesus died and was to be resurrected as Christ Jesus was resurrected on the third day.
Paul made known the simple reality that was first
disclosed in a psalm: “God has taken his place in the divine council; / in
the midst of the gods he holds judgment: / ‘How long will you judge
unjustly / and show partiality to the wicked? Selah / Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; / maintain the
right of the afflicted and the destitute. / Rescue the weak and the needy; / deliver
them from the hand of the wicked.’ / They have neither knowledge nor
understanding, / they walk about in darkness; / all the foundations of the
earth are shaken. / I said, ‘You are gods, / sons of the Most High, all
of you; / nevertheless, like men you shall die, / and fall like any
prince.’ / Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!” (Psalm 82).
Like men shall the sons of the Most High die—when Jesus appeared at the temple during the Festival of Light, and was bluntly asked, “‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly’” (John 10:24), Jesus reminded them that He had already answered their question, but that the Jews who asked did not believe. Jesus said, “‘The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me’” (vv. 25–27) … those who belong to Christ Jesus walk as He walked. They are His disciples. And since the spirit was given [not before], Jesus’ disciples have been the sons of the Most High. Unfortunately, these sons of the Most High were rebuked long ago: How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? The sons of the Most High are to give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute; rescue the weak and the needy, delivering them out of the hand of the wicked. But these sons of the Most High have neither knowledge nor understanding; they walk in darkness. They do not walk as sons of light. Hence, it falls to the Son of Man to judge the earth for it is the Son of Man who shall inherit all nations when the single kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of the Father and His Christ (Rev 11:15).
If Jesus had stopped after saying that His sheep hear His voice, the Jews of the temple might not have picked up stones to hurl at Him, but Jesus continued, “‘I give them [His disciples] eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one’” (John 10:28–30).
Jesus asked those Jews who had stones in their hands, “‘I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me’” (John 10:32). And after the Jews answered, saying that they intended to stone Him for blasphemy (v. 33), Jesus said, “‘Is it not written in your Law, “I said, you are gods”? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming,” because I said, “I am the Son of God”?’” (vv. 34–36).
Did the word of God not come to Paul? To John? To
James the Just? To Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Jude? To which of the New
Testament writers did the word of God not come? And if the Lord called those to
whom the word of God came sons of the Most High, and by extension, “gods”
(for the son is of his father), then how can it be said that the
Simply put, the Christian who makes a practice of sinning is a child of the devil regardless of what this Christian believes about him or herself … inevitably this Christian will say that he or she is comfortable with his or her relationship with Christ, but the person has no relationship with Christ, the point John makes when he speaks of righteousness. The person’s relationship is with the devil, who appears as an angel of light, and this person will fight and kill genuine disciples in the name of Christ, sincerely believing that the person does the will of God (John 16:2), but our Christian will kill genuine disciples because he or she has “‘not known the Father nor’” Christ Jesus (v. 3).
To Roman converts, Paul wrote that “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he [Jesus] might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he [God] predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (8:28–30 emphasis added).
Salvation isn’t a simple matter of belief: unless the person has been foreknown by the Father, the person will not, and indeed, cannot believe the Father—
In the sign of Jonah that has whale representing the outer man and returned-to-life Jonah inside the whale representing the inner new self born of spirit, it isn’t the whale that will enter the kingdom, but the inner new self. Thus, it does no good to cleanse the whale—to scrape barnacles from the skin of the whale—when the inner person is defiled by greed and all manner of wickedness.
Washing hands is of no more value to a person than scraping barnacles is from a whale; for the “person” isn’t the tent of flesh in which either a son of disobedience or a son of God dwells. Rather the person is either dead or living within the tent of flesh as Jonah was dead—“‘The waters closed in over me to take my life; / the deep surrounded me; / weeds were wrapped about my head / at the roots of the mountains. / I went down to the land / whose bars closed upon me forever; / yet you [O Lord] brought up my life from the pit’” (Jon 2:5–6)—then brought to life inside the whale [great fish]. The tent of flesh [i.e., a person’s physical body] is analogous to the whale, a living vehicle that transported Jonah through the waters of the deep for three days and three nights. A person’s physical body carries the living or dead person through this sea of time in which the earth exists.
By not washing His hands before He ate, Jesus set
the stage for delivering the essence of what the sign of Jonah represents to
His disciples: the three days during which His earthly body would be dead in
the heart of the earth serve as a type of the Christian era from the end of 1st-Century
to when the Church is resurrected from death at the Second Passover liberation
of
Whereas the collective Church in the 1st-Century
was crucified with Christ and hung dying on the cross until the Apostle John
died [ca 100–102 CE], individual Christians are inwardly crucified with
Christ in a crucifixion that cannot be seen by human eyes. Paul writes to the
saints at
The writing of Scripture ended with the death of
the last of the first disciples, the Apostle John. In a tenuous argument, with
the end of the writing of Scripture came the end of the sons of the Most High:
the spiritual Body of Christ died with the temporary closing of the biblical
canon … “temporarily closed” for the record of
circumcised-of-heart Israel is not complete, and will not be completed until
Christ Jesus returns as King of kings and Lord of lords. Thus the canon has
been temporarily closed until the
Body of Christ is resurrected without decay at the Second Passover liberation
of
In the shadow and type of the endtime resurrection of the Church from death, the fifteen or so hours after Jesus was resurrected and before He ascended to the Father as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering represents the seven endtime years of tribulation, with Mary Magdalene being the only human being to see Him during these hours which will have Mary serving as a shadow and type of the 144,000 (Rev 14:1–5). Therefore, Jesus’ acceptance by the Father on the morrow after the weekly Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread foreshadows the acceptance of firstfruits on the morrow after the Sabbath seven weeks later [Feast of Weeks], with each of these weeks representing a day. In typology, Israel’s exodus from Egypt comes at the beginning of the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread as the shadow and type of circumcised-of-heart Israel’s liberation from bondage to sin and death coming at the beginning of the seven endtime years of tribulation, with this liberation occurring at the Second Passover.
Those Christian theologians who foolishly contend
that the Old Testament doesn’t pertain to the Church will be taken by
surprise when, because they have not covered firstborns with the blood of the
Lamb of God, their firstborns suddenly and unexplainably die on or about the
date for the second Passover. This is to say that if 2011 were the year of the
Second Passover liberation of
Christians who refuse to take the Passover sacraments after the model Jesus left with His disciples can mock Christ to their hearts’ content—and Christians mock Christ when they profess belief, profess faith, but refuse to leave sin—but they have Scripture; they could have kept the Passover. They chose to believe the Adversary and his ministers rather than believe Jesus … if you were speeding [transgressing the law] on your local freeway or turnpike and the milkman stopped you and wrote you a ticket, would you pay any attention to the ticket? What about if a state trooper stopped you? Would you pay attention to the ticket? Well, the words of Jesus have the authority of the Father. They are both milkman and state trooper. It is NOT another testament of Christ [such as the Book of Mormon] that is the state trooper, but it is the word or message [o logos] Jesus left with His disciples that judges them (John 12:48), condemning the unbelieving Christian. Whereas the epistles of Paul are milk, delivered by the milkman (see 1 Cor 3:1-3 for an example text), the words that Jesus spoke—words that were not of Himself, but were of the Father (John 12:49)—give life eternal.
When
Again, the Sabbath represents liberation from
Paul writes,
And you [Ephesians] were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:1–10 emphasis added)
We are Christ’s workmanship, created for good works that we should walk in these good works … how, if we are created to walk in good works, can we not keep the Sabbath? Or deliberately transgress any commandment?
Every person is spiritually dead when born of woman. Except for the natural Israelite and for the Christian who claims to understand the mysteries of God, the spiritually dead person, because he or she is dead, has no sin counted against the person (Rom 5:13) for the person is not under the law. But once a person is born of God through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theon], the inner self is made alive, with sin having no dominion over this new inner self that is under grace and not under the law (Rom 6:14). But—and this is a huge caveat—if this newly born son of God returns to sin as its willing bondservant [slave] (v. 16), this son of God takes himself out from under grace and places himself under the law, which leads to death for this son of God was created to walk in good works. What can be more simple: the former son of disobedience who was inwardly dead is given indwelling eternal life in Christ Jesus (v. 23) not as a result of anything the former son of disobedience did for this former son of disobedience was faithfully following the prince of this world, pursuing the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind, and was by nature a child of wrath like the rest of humankind when the Father drew the person from this world (John 6:44) by giving to the person a second breath of life. … The Christian can only be the workmanship of the Christ Jesus, and this Christian is “created” [i.e., born from above] for the good works which the Father prepared beforehand. To now not walk in these good works is blasphemy against the life given to the former son of disobedience.
· To deliberately not do the good works that the Father prepared beforehand is, for every Christian, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion];
· Jesus told the Jews of the temple that Moses had given them the law but none of them kept it (John 7:19);
· Jesus told His disciples that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, they would never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20);
Therefore, when Jesus deliberately provoked the scribes and Pharisees when He was invited to dine with a Pharisee, Jesus used this teaching moment to show that the outer person was nothing more than Jonah’s whale, or a cellar or a basket under which no one would hide a light—the inner person, born of God, is the light (or son of light — from John 12:36) that cannot be hid. And this inner person when born of God does not “emit” greed and wickedness. Nor does this inner person lay upon people burdens that cannot be borne.
The good
works that the Father prepared beforehand are not burdens so heavy that
they break the backs of
What does a son of disobedience take from a lifetime of hard work and acquisition?
The popular television reality series The Deadliest Catch has recently addressed the death of Captain Phil Harris at age 53 … Harris died while fishing tanner crab in February of this year. His death was mourned by his sons, by his crew, by fellow skippers, the fishing fleet, and fans of the television series. And for all of years that he fished as a highliner, what did he take with him? His sons will, most likely, fish his boat this coming king crab season—his boat remains here in this world. The motorcycles he rode remain here in this world. The finely crafted bird houses he built remain here in this world. All he took with him is the dead inner self that will be remembered when the books are opened in the great White Throne Judgment: he will be judged, according to Paul’s gospel, by whether the work of the law is written on his heart (Rom 2:14–15), with the work of the law being love for God and love for neighbor and brother. And he might well have displayed love for neighbor and brother even though he never knew God.
Sabbatarian Christians have traditionally used Luke 11:42 as evidence to prove that Christians are to tithe, but what did Jesus mean when He said, “‘Did not He who made the outside make the inside also’” (v. 40)? Does He not reference an outer man and an inner man [self]? And is it the outer man that has faith/belief counted to him as righteousness? Is not faith an attribute of the inner man as arms and hands are attributes of the outer man? Does the inside of a cup have hands that need washed before food is eaten? Does the inner self eat bread made from grain, or fish caught in the sea? Is not knowledge of the kingdom the food that causes the inner self to grow?
Paul the milkman wrote to the saints at
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matt 7:21–23)
A teaching moment is presently here.
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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."