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 water and blood.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of August 7, 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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Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not [en to hydati in] the water only but [en to hydati in] the water and [en to haimati in] the blood. And the spirit is the one that testifies, because the spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the spirit [to pneuma] and the water [to hydor] and the blood [to haima]; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that He has borne concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:1–12 emphasis added)
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John’s testimony is that disciples will love one another because they are born of God, but John’s claim that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God has some historical problems: Christians have made war against Christians from the beginning of the so-called Jesus Movement. One disciple claiming that he or she believes that Jesus is the Christ has sought to kill another disciple who also claims that he or she believes that Jesus is the Christ, with the most obvious example of Christian hating Christian developing from the theological teachings of Arius (ca 250–336 CE). Declared a heretic by the first Council of Nicea (ca 325 CE), rehabilitated by the first Synod of Tyre (ca 335 CE), then again denounced as a heretic at the first Council of Constantinople (ca 381 CE), Arius became a byword for heretical belief by equally false Nicene Christians, who a century later had fully embraced the Trinity … in the 4th and 5th Century, the Body of Christ was visibly not one body of one spirit, with God having appointed first apostles, second prophets, third teachers (1 Cor 12:28), but the Body of Christ was a literal battlefield on which disciples were denounced or defrocked according to who ruled Rome at the time.
By the 4th-Century, God had appointed none of the men who held offices to the positions they held. All were false, a claim that can be proved for John continues: For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world … the person who participates in the governance of the world while the present prince of this world continues in power has not overcome the world but is overcome by the world. This person is not born of God. Thus, any union of Church and State prior to the kingdom of this world being given to the Son of Man (Rev 11:15; Dan 7:9–14) will have the Church being an agent of the Adversary. Any official of this Church, despite the official openly professing that Jesus is the Christ, will be a servant of the Adversary disguised as a minister of righteousness (2 Cor 11:14–15). Any derivative denomination, sect, or fellowship will also be of the Adversary for the first Nicene Creed comes from the mingling of the sacred [Christ] and the profane [the State] in an unholy alliance that has Satan establishing sound doctrine for the dead Body of Christ.
Of the three hundred or so bishops who, at Emperor Constantine’s beckoning, came to the first Council of Nicea, none were born of God … certainly the three hundred were pious men who believed that Jesus is the Christ, but their participation in the council is prima facie evidence that they had been overcome by the world. Sound doctrine isn’t ever a matter of what the majority believes, but what God says. It matters not a whit what the majority believes. So responding to the Emperor’s call to come to Nicea to settle questions of Christian doctrine discloses that those who went were not of God but were of this world—and this claim is correct for the Body of Christ had died with the Apostle John more than two centuries earlier. Nevertheless, Christendom, as Judaism before the spirit was given, prevailed in this world as an ideology even without the support of the Father or the Son; for the imbedded ideas within the ideologies were of God and these imbedded ideas could not be overcome by the world.
The above is an important understanding. The basic concepts imbedded in Christianity even when individual Christians were overcome by the world remain true: Christ died for the sins of Israel in accordance with Scripture, with Israel now being the nation circumcised-of-heart; and He was buried in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights as the prophet Jonah was buried in the bowels of the whale [great fish] for three days and three nights [an unambiguous expression in Hebrew]; and after the third day, He was raised from the dead in accordance with Scripture; and His resurrection from the dead and acceptance by the Father as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering began God’s harvest of firstfruits, with Jesus of Nazareth being the First of these firstfruits. This harvest began when the glorified Jesus “breathed” on ten of His first disciples and said to them, “‘Receive the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion — breath holy]’” (John 20:22), and this harvest of firstfruits will continue until Christ Jesus comes again as the all-powerful Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
But a grain harvest is dependant upon seed being sown on good ground. Paul writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building” (1 Cor 3:6–9). … Good ground amounts to human beings, each spiritually lifeless, who will receive the Word as Paul planted the Word, the cornerstone of the house of God.
By the 4th-Century CE, enough tares [false wheat] had gone to seed on the fields of humanity that there was no longer any “barley” being planted.
In the 4th-Century CE, the conflict between Arians and Trinitarians trapped most Church members, from laity to theologians to emperors, into displaying something less than love for the other. Although mainstream Christendom today has shrunk the Arian conflict into a spat with a handful of bishops, it was not then certain which side would prevail. Emperors Constantius II and Valens were Arians. Goth, Vandal, and Lombard leaders were Arians. All were within mainstream Christendom in the 4th-Century CE. But they are deemed heretics today, with Arian bishops nearly disappearing into the flotsam of history.
Arianism remained the dominate sect of Christendom among the educated elite of the Eastern Empire until the reign of Theodosius: two days after Theodosius entered Constantinople in November 380 CE, Theodosius seized control of the churches of the city, expelled Arian bishops, and delivered these churches to Gregory Nazianzus, leader of Constantinople’s tiny Trinitarian community, an act that provoked rioting. But the emperor was the emperor: in February 381, in an act of arrogance equal to that of the United States House and Senate forcing President Obama’s health care onto a reluctant America in 2009/2010 CE, Emperors Gratian and Theodosius published an edict declaring that all their subjects must profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria [the Nicene Creed] or be delivered to the State for punishment … Christianity had been, by the late 4th-Century, reduced to a decree of the State, a declaration that originated in this world and was of this world. And what is being seen today across America is a similar secular debate over whether Americans will live in political liberty or in a socialist nanny state, with this debate increasingly being draped in the language of Christendom in a manner analogous to the 4th-Century conflict between Arians and Trinitarians, with those Americans desiring political liberty being spurred forth by an Arian television commentator, Glenn Beck.
Yes, Arianism is today alive and well within the greater Christian community: because the opponents of Arianism have controlled history since Arian Vandals sacked Rome in 455 CE and for fourteen days looted the city, little written material comes directly to 21st-Century Christians from 4th-Century Arian theologians. A letter from Auxentius, an Arian 4th-Century bishop of Milan, regarding the missionary Ulfilas who was sent to the Germanic tribes gives some information: apparently the core of Arianism was the dogmas that God the Father was unbegotten, meaning that He always existed and was separate from the lesser Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God who was born before time began and who was the creator of this world. For Arians, the Father working through the Son, created the Holy Spirit, who was a servant of the Son as the Son was subservient to the Father … there are numerous theological problems with Arianism, but no more problems than there are with Trinitarian ideology—the breath of God [pneuma Theon] is no more a personage than is human breath, a subject that has been previously addressed and will be addressed again as secular political disputes are dressed up in the rhetoric of Christianity and sent forth to joust with one another before the actual shooting war begins on or about Christmas of the year of the Second Passover.
Christmas, the commingling of the holy [Christ] and the profane [the day of the invincible sun], seems like an innocent holiday that all Christians can observe, but what did Eve do wrong in the Garden of Eden: she ate the commingled fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. She didn’t believe her husband, who had delivered to her the command of the Lord. And what did the last Eve, the Christian Church, do: she didn’t believe her Husband to be, the glorified Christ Jesus, and the Church ate the commingled fruit of the holy and the profane. The Church, after being overcome by the world, began to keep Christmas and later Easter as Christian sacraments. Neither should ever be observed by a “Christian.”
The Goth convert Ulfilas was sent as a missionary to the Goths across the Danube by Emperor Constantius II for political reasons. Ulfilas had success in converting these Germanic barbarians to Arian Christianity, with the belief of these Germanic tribes strengthened by subsequent political events. From Ulfilas’ work comes a separate and parallel Arian hierarchy that in the 5th-Century CE held those professed the Nicene Creed as sometimes-tolerated heretics … Christianity in the 4th and 5th Centuries was simply another ideology in Satan’s arsenal.
The concept of political “liberty” is a more-recent tool used by the Adversary to keep his slaves from fleeing lawlessness as Moses fled Egypt when it became known that he had killed the Egyptian: as long as a person remains enslaved by sin [unbelief], the person is not “free.” The person hasn’t fled Egypt, the metaphorical representation of sin, but remains a slave of the Adversary as Israel was enslaved by Pharaoh and continued in slavery for as long was the nation remained in Egypt—
On its own, Israel would never have left Egypt. Likewise, on its own the greater Christian Church would never cease worshiping on Sunday—reduced to an easily understand example, when Christians worship God on Sunday, Sunday serves as the metaphorical representation of sin, and Christians are as Israel was in Egypt. These Christians, however, can no more enter into Sabbath observance than ancient Israel could escape Pharaoh, for to escape means fleeing without flocks, without wealth as a fugitive in this world. To escape today means fleeing as Moses fled. And greater Christendom has been overcome by this world through “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions” (from 1 John 2:16). Greater Christendom wants to escape sin, but “escape” without having to keep the commandments. It wants Jesus to do everything for them while they do nothing, and such a desire is that of a newly born infant.
To those same saints at Corinth, Paul also writes,
The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? (1 Cor 2:14–3:4 emphasis added)
For any of the bishops who went to the first Nicene Council, including Arius, to have gone, the bishop was subjecting himself to judgment by other men, and the spiritual person—the one who truly has the mind of Christ—will not do this … there is a fine line and a huge chasm between being arrogant in ignorance and being secure in the truth. Whereas the spiritual person judges all things, including whether any of the participants in the first Nicene Council were truly of God, the spiritual infant is open minded to the point that Paul has to write to these same saints at Corinth,
I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge. (2 Cor 11:2–6)
The reason for schisms in the Church is so that genuine disciples can be recognized (1 Cor 11:19). But who does this recognizing? … There is a truism that birds of a feather flock together, meaning that all who have accepted a particular heresy will join with one another in a denomination or ideology. False Christians join with other false Christians in whatever falsity they happen to choose. Unless called by God, the Trinitarian will not cease to believe that the Apostle John was wrong about the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion] when he uses the neuter singular pronoun auto [it] for this breath from God, but it isn’t John who is wrong. Nevertheless, the Trinitarian will separate him or herself from the Arian or Unitarian, and will actually flee from the Binitarian.
Even though concepts of God are imbedded in the liturgies of Trinitarian fellowships, the fellowships themselves are not of God but are of the Adversary: they are the tares that the enemy planted long ago.
Philadelphians were willing to sacrifice the wealth, the good things of this world to escape sin, but many Sabbatarian Christians remain ensnared by the things of this world, from circumcision of the flesh to the construction of an earthly temple in present day Jerusalem. Too often these trapped Sabbatarians look for a pope to appear as the man of perdition, and for a European combine of nations to be the endtime king of the North, but they look amiss: the king of the North is the demonic king that supports Arian Christendom whereas the demonic king of the South [Sin] supports Trinitarian Christendom. Both so-called Christian ideologies are of this world; both will have the Christian worshiping demons. Hence, shortly before the kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and his henchmen and given to the Son of Man, the two thirds of humankind not killed in the Sixth Trumpet Plague [one third of pre-Second Passover humanity] will “not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols” (Rev 9:20). This remaining third part of today’s humankind will be Arian Christians, for the demonic king of the North will have finally prevailed over the king of the South as the Seleucid Empire wrestled control of Jerusalem away from the Ptolemaic Empire shortly before the sons of light [Maccabees] successfully rebelled against these Syrian Greeks.
When tares threatened to overwhelm the fields of humankind, God planted a cover crop that will be plowed under during the Affliction. This cover crop is Islam, and this cover crop has kept the fields of humankind from being completely soiled by tares; i.e., false Christendom. It has served its purpose.
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If Christ Jesus came not by water [of the womb] only but by water and blood [i.e., came as a human being], then Calvary is as important as the birth of Jesus … spirit or breath [moving air - pneuma] and water and blood are three fluids that do not testify as men testify to confirm a matter. Their testimony is not through words inscribed by men but through ideas that come from the mind of God. Hence, their testimony is what’s imbedded in even the dogmas of the tares.
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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."