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 second journey of faith.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of September 4, 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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What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. / But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (James 2:14–26 emphasis added)
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The Apostle Paul cites the faith of Abraham as the defining example of Christian faith: in his treatise to the Romans, he writes,
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, … Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. (Rom 4:1–5, 9–12 emphasis added)
If Abraham’s belief of God when told that his offspring would be as the stars was counted to him as righteousness, then Christians’ belief that Jesus is Lord will also be counted to them as righteousness before hearts are circumcised by the soft breath of God; for the hearts of the unrighteous are not cleansed by faith and circumcised by spirit. It is the hearts of the righteous—as Abraham had his faith counted to him as righteousness—that are circumcised after the righteous receive the divine breath of God as Abraham had aspiration added to both his and Sarah’s names when he received the seal of circumcision … no one except the righteous receives a second breath of life, the divine breath of God [pneuma Theon], and then the righteous only receive the breath of God after they make a journey of faith equivalent to Abraham’s physical journey of faith, a journey of faith that cleanses the hearts of the righteous.
There are a multitude of self-identified and generically identified Christian teachers that would have the righteous make no journey of faith, but remain in spiritual Babylon as slaves to the present prince of this world—and what better way to keep a slave in serfdom than to convince the slave that he or she is free and under no obligation to keep the commandments of God. But Paul wrote in his treatise to the Romans, “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Rom 6:16)
The Christian who believes that he or she is free from any obligation to keep the commandments inevitably presents him or herself as an obedient slave to sin, which leads to death; for this Christian will not keep the commandments. However, this Christian—as a purchased dead soul—feels good about his or her freedom from the Law. And the Adversary collects these dead souls as scalps [instead of eagle feathers] on his coup stick.
Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, not simply the righteousness counted to him as a gift but the faith he had that caused him to journey from his country and from his kindred and from his father’s house to the land that the Lord would show him, where the Lord would make from Abram a great nation and a great name so that in Abram all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:1–3) and then to believe the Lord that the covenant would actually be fulfilled in seed from his own loins. Christians will make an equivalent journey of faith when they profess that Jesus is Lord and begin to walk as Jesus, an obedient Jew, walked, meaning that for a Christian to imitate Paul as Paul followed Jesus the Christian will live as a Judean regardless of whether the Christian is outwardly uncircumcised.
Again, aspirated breath [ah] was added to Abram’s name when Abraham received the seal of circumcision, not when he had his belief counted to him as righteousness, with Abraham’s circumcision coming shortly after aspiration was added to his name. This addition of breath forms the left hand enantiomer of Christians receiving a second breath of life, the breath of the Father [pneuma Theon], the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion breath holy].
Christians tend to forget about Abram making a physical journey of faith from Ur of the Chaldeans [Babylon] with his father Terah to Haran [Assyria], then without his father to Canaan, but this journey of faith—a real journey—is part of the faith Abraham had that was counted to him as righteousness. This journey of faith didn’t “earn” Abraham wages for he was still “looking forward to the city … whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:10) when he physically died. About Abraham, the writer of Hebrews says, “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him to the same promise” (v. 9). And it was this faith that was counted to him as righteousness.
Paul doesn’t err, but his words don’t translate well. For the faith that Abraham had was a faith adequate to cause Abraham to believe God when he was in the land of Haran and to leave that land and journey into the unknown regions of Canaan. But after continuing through the land of promise and on down to Egypt and then after a sojourn in Egypt and a return to the land of promise and separation from Lot then rescuing Lot from captivity and paying tithes to Melchizedek, Abram still had no heir according to the covenant made with him when he was with his father Terah in the land of Haran. When the word of the Lord came to Abram in vision and told him, “‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great’” (Gen 15:1), Abram had an issue with the Lord: “‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezar of Damascus. … Behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir’” (vv. 2–3).
In vision, the Lord took Abram outside and promised Abram that his seed would be as the stars of heaven, an analogy that meant more to Abram than it usually does to endtime Christians for Egyptians believed that Pharaohs in death would be stars in heaven; thus for the Lord to use the number of stars as a referent rather than, say, grains of sand, was to tell Abram that not only would his offspring be many but they would also be the rulers of this world.
Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted Abram’s belief to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6).
Did Abram do any work to have his belief counted to him as righteousness? No, not really. For what work of the hands was it to pack up his wife Sarai and journey from Haran to Canaan, then down to Egypt where Pharaoh claimed Sarai as his wife, then back to Canaan where he, with 318 men of his household, defeated the four kings that had just defeated five other kings? Abram and his 318 men defeated the four kings and their armies with sword and spears which is real work in the middle of a dark night. But without faith, Abram would have defeated no one: because of his faith, the four kings were routed and chased north of Damascus. Abram, however, took no wages for the work he did in defeating the four kings for he knew that the victory belonged to the Lord, so he paid tithes to Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, and returned everything but what his men ate to the defeated kings as he promised the Most High that he would do (Gen 14:20–24).
Christians tend to enter into the middle of the story, ignoring what Paul had previously written in his treatise to the Romans:
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. 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. His praise is not from man but from God. (2:25–29)
The person, male or female, who is uncircumcised but who keeps the law by faith—there is no social or cultural obligation for an uncircumcised person to keep the law—will condemn the natural Israelite who received the law from Moses but who doesn’t keep it. If the uncircumcised person keeps the law by faith, this outwardly uncircumcised person will be circumcised of heart, a circumcision not made with hands (Col 2:11), and will be the “Jew” of record, the Israelite of endtime prophecies.
Abraham is, according to Paul, “the father of all who believe without being circumcised” and “the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Rom 4:12 emphasis added) … is God a respecter of persons, having one criteria for salvation for all who believe without being circumcised and a differing criteria for the circumcised that walk as Abraham walked? He is not! The outwardly uncircumcised must make a journey of faith from spiritual Babylon (this world) where they live/lived as sons of disobedience to the spiritual Land beyond the River where they enter into God’s rest represented by Sabbath observance (Heb 3:16–4:11); they will make this journey into keeping the commandments, a journey that cleanses their hearts, before their hearts are circumcised. They will be sustained by the earnest of the spirit on this journey that would be too great for them otherwise.
Moses twice fasted for forty days; Elijah did once; Jesus did once. And before Elijah went on a journey that would have been too great for him, he was fed by an angel of the Lord:
But he [Elijah] himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. (1 Kings 19:4–8)
In real estate transactions, earnest money is real money paid to show the good faith of the purchaser. It is not enough money to cement the transaction, but it is money that cannot be recovered if the purchaser backs out of the transaction. Likewise, the earnest of the spirit is real eternal life given to a person who has been purchased from the Adversary by the blood of Christ Jesus; it is not “enough” real life to cause the mortal flesh to put on immortality, but it enough to raise the inner self from the dead and to show that the Father doesn’t intend to back out of the purchase.
The food and drink the angel of the Lord initially fed Elijah were not enough to sustain Elijah for a forty day journey without food and water, but served as the earnest of the food that would sustain Elijah—the angel of the Lord had to feed food and drink to Elijah a second time before Elijah had within him the sustenance needed to sustain Elijah in a fast that represents the death of the self … Moses was sustained by being in the presence of the Lord, and Jesus was likewise sustained, but Elijah was fleeing from Jezebel and was not in the presence of the Lord.
The concept embedded in Elijah being twice fed food and drink by the angel of the Lord reappears in the story of Abraham:
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. (Gen 22:1–8)
If Abraham had his belief of God counted to him as righteousness long before Isaac was born, why would God test Abraham and command Abraham to sacrifice his son of promise? Was one testing of Abraham in delaying the birth of this son of promise not enough to sustain Abraham on his journey from death to life? What purpose did a second testing serve, and this command to sacrifice Isaac was indeed a second testing.
Abraham’s faith had not faired well when he went down to Egypt and Pharaoh took Sarah to be one of his wives … Egypt serves as the geographical representation of sin, and Abram entered into sin when he told the half truth and full lie about Sarah being his sister. Nevertheless, Abram prospered in Egypt (Gen 12:17)—the wealth of this world belongs to those who are of this world—but “the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife” (same verse).
Abraham’s faith faired equally poorly when he journeyed into the territory of Abimelech, where from the weakness of his flesh he commanded Sarah to say that she was his sister, which got her as an older woman taken into the household of the king. This time, however, the Lord appeared Abimelech in a dream, and told the king that Abraham was a prophet (Gen 20:7) and that the king needed to return Sarah to Abraham immediately.
The Lord had to “cover” Abraham’s weakness of flesh by preventing Abimelech from touching Sarah … Christ Jesus, as the reality of the Azazel, covers the weakness of disciples’ flesh by bearing their sins in the heavenly realm. If disciples by faith keep the Law and walk as Jesus walked, disciples would not sin. But Paul found that he couldn’t keep the law even when that was his desire:
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. / Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Rom 7:7–20 emphasis added)
John writes.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5–10)
Because disciples are weak of flesh and have indwelling sin in their fleshly members, belief of God that is counted to the disciple as righteous in the same way that Abraham had his belief counted to him as righteousness will be tested as Abraham’s belief was tested in the matter of Isaac.
The testing of faith is also the feeding of faith in a manner analogous to the angel of the Lord twice feeding Elijah so that Elijah would have the strength to journey for forty days without food or drink.
Because disciples have sinned even when their desire is to keep the commandments, disciples will necessarily have to make two journeys of faith as Abraham twice made journeys of faith, once from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan, then again years later to the land of Moriah where he would sacrifice Isaac—
Every Sabbatarian Christian in this era must make a second journey of faith: the Sabbatarian Christian’s initial journey was from spiritual Babylon where the disciple then lived as a son of disobedience to Sabbath observance, the mental representation of the Land beyond the River, where the Christian lives as a spiritual Judean. Isaac, now, forms the left hand enantiomer of the inner new self that is born of spirit as a son of God; hence Paul writes, “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Gal 4:28–31). And in Paul’s analogy, natural Israel is cast out and the only Israel of record today is the nation circumcised-of-heart.
How can the Lord compel greater Christendom to make an initial journey of faith? The same way that the Lord compelled Israel in Egypt to make a journey from bondage to Pharaoh to God’s rest: the Passover liberation of the nation. Hence, there will be a second Passover liberation of Israel, now the nation circumcised-of-heart. But Sabbatarian Christians, especially those who keep the holy days, have already left Egypt/Babylon and have crossed into the Promised Land as represented by the Sabbath: they are as Abraham was, and they will be tested as Abraham was when commanded to sacrifice Isaac.
Today, a Sabbatarian Christian who was baptized thirty, forty years ago and who tenaciously clings to those things that the Sabbatarian learned thirty or forty years ago has made no second journey of faith and would be as Abraham was when told that he must sacrifice Isaac … will the Sabbatarian believe that a Second Passover liberation of Israel will occur, and will soon occur?
The Sabbatarian who answers, No, Scripture doesn’t say anything about a Second Passover liberation of Israel [which isn’t true], is today as Abraham would have been if Abraham had refused to journey to the land of Moriah. And if Abraham hadn’t made the second journey of faith, the journey about which James writes when he says, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar” (2:21), where would we as disciples be today?
No firstborn son of God will enter into the kingdom (i.e., received the fullness of the spirit that causes the mortal flesh to put on immortality) who does not make a second journey of faith. For most Sabbatarians, this journey will be to martyrdom, but it doesn’t have to be for those Sabbatarians who between now and the Second Passover make a second journey that serves as a testing of their belief of God.
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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."