The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary are offered as openings into dialogue about the subject or concept. And the concept behind the readings for Atonement or Yom Kipporim is the covering of righteousness.
High Sabbath Readings
For services on Atonement, September 22, 2007
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
The person conducting the services should read or assign to be read Leviticus chapter 23, verses 26 through 32, followed by Leviticus chapter 16, and Numbers chapter 29, verses 7 through 11.
Commentary: In its rejection of the high Sabbaths of God as “Jewish” days that New Testament Christians do not observe because Jesus fulfilled them, the visible Christian Church reveals that it has never understood spiritual birth or Grace—
To say that the visible Church does not and has never understood Grace is a bold statement, but one supported by funeral services performed by ministers employed by the denominations, sects, and fellowships comprising visible Christendom. These ministers seem determined to preach every person into heaven, regardless of how the person actually lived his or her life and regardless of whether the person was truly born of Spirit and regardless of what Scripture says about the fate of the dead. Although it is a social taboo to speak ill of the dead, these ministers could, instead, say that judgment is not today upon those who are not of the household of God; judgment is only upon those who have been born of Spirit and have undertaken journeys of faith of great enough distance to cleanse hearts and so receive circumcised hearts. Therefore, the unjudged dead await resurrection in the grave. They are in neither heaven nor hell. They await resurrection in the great White Throne Judgment where those who have done by nature what the law requires will show that the work of the law was written on their hearts, while those who have sinned without the law will perish without the law (Rom 2:12-16). The person who has sought to do what was “right” will not be forgotten, nor will be the person who has sought to get away with whatever the person could.
The new creature that is a son of God is not a fleshly creature like a natural Israelite is. This new creature is born of Spirit, an invisible substance that is not of this world, but is like wind or moving air in this world. Thus, this new creature can only be described through a metaphor, and in metaphoric language. This new creature is born of pneuma hagion, or in a literal translation, Breath Holy … a word’s meaning must be assigned to the word; for words don’t come with little backpacks containing dictionaries that give their meaning. Thus, the Greek icon phrase /pneuma hagion/ has only the meaning assigned to it by a particular reader’s reading community. If this community assigns personhood to the icon phrase, then the phrase represents the third personage of a triune deity. But if the person assigns a meaning of /the force or power of God/ to the icon phrase, then for that person, the Holy Spirit is the power of God. But if the person treats the icon /pneuma/ as it would be treated if found in a secular work, then the Holy Spirit is the Breath of God—and through this Breath, God transfers spiritual life to His sons as a mother through her human breath transfers life across the blood of the placenta to her child.
Since the new creature that is a son of God dwells in a tent of flesh and is not this tent, the new creature is not male or female, Jew or Greek, bond or free (Gal 3:28) — the tents of flesh are male or female, Jew or Greek. These tents of flesh are made from the dust of the earth [elemental compounds]; they are made of powdered stone. They have or do not have circumcised foreskins. Those that have circumcised foreskins are regulated by the laws of God written by the finger of God on two tablets of stone; whereas those without circumcised foreskins remain consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as the bondservants of the prince of this world, who temporarily covers their lawlessness by them not being free to keep the commandments of God. Since sin entered this world through the transgression of the first Adam, being able to keep the commandments has required that the person be set free from bondage to disobedience. But the man Jesus did not have the first Adam as His father. He came as the son of Theos so He was born free! He was never the bondservant to sin for He never sinned: He never placed Himself under the authority of Sin and Death, the active agents of the prince of this world. Thus, for Jesus to die, He had to voluntary submit to Death, and He did so by taking upon Himself the sins of Israel as the reality of both goats sacrificed on this day.
Again, this new creature is not of this world and does not have physical attributes, nor does it commit transgressions of the laws of God in this world. And it is this new creature that is garmented by the righteousness of Christ Jesus; it is this new creature that is covered by Grace if this new creature has presented its members to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom 6:13-14), for the lawlessness of this new creature occurs in the supra-dimensional heavenly realm where Jesus, as the reality of the Azazel goat, covers (by bearing) this new creature’s sin that still requires the loss of life. Therefore, when this new creature, alive in the heavenly realm, presents its members to sin in this world, thereby transforming its members into instruments of unrighteousness, sin reigns in the mortal body and no sacrifice remains for this sin.
Jesus, as the reality of the goat slain on the
altar, covered the sins of natural
The visible Church has understood Grace as unmerited pardon for sin, but this understanding is always accompanied with the acceptance of the old serpent’s lie that the last Eve will not die (Gen 3:4) because disciples have regenerated immortal souls. Nothing could be farther from what Jesus taught. Nothing could be farther from what Paul taught. Nothing could be farther from what John or Peter or James taught. No human being has or had any life but that which came from the breath the first Adam received when Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into the man of mud’s nostrils (Gen 2:7) until—and this is the key—the divine Breath of the Father descended as a dove on the baptized man Jesus of Nazareth to fulfill all righteousness (Matt 3:15-17) thereby making Jesus the last Adam (cf. Rom 5:14; 1 Co 15:46).
To teach Israel that human beings are born with immortal souls is blasphemy—and today, every person, no exceptions, who teaches the spiritually circumcised nation of Israel that disciples have regenerated immortal souls is a minister of the Adversary disguised as a minister of righteousness (2 Co 11:13-15).
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Atonement is the day [Yom] of coverings [Kipporim — note the plural “im,” which is proper]. Two coverings are needed, the first for sin in this world committed by the flesh—this sin is “covered” by the goat sacrificed on the altar. The second covering is needed for sin in that portion of the heavenly realm within the void created when lawlessness was found in an anointed cherub. This second covering is represented by the Azazel goat, the scapegoat, led into the wilderness by the hand of a fit man, and this second covering is Grace, the righteousness of Christ Jesus that disciples put on daily as a garment.
When a person has been born anew, or born again, or born of Spirit, the person has two lives or life in two realms, not one. The person still has his or her physical life. But to this physical life has been added a second life that begins to overwrite the “old nature” of the person. Thus, the second life that a person has is like the person’s human nature, the mental software program that animates the flesh.
The creation concealed the things of God from
ancient
When born of the water of the womb, a person consists of [soma or flesh] and [psuche or shallow breath] (Matt 10:28). Every person who has ever lived has been born of water, so every person possesses the commonality of being flesh and breath, or flesh and blood [that which carries physical breath to every cell]. This is what can be scientifically observed; this is what is true regardless of what a person has accepted by faith or by what has been traditionally passed down from pagan antiquity. Any other teaching is not true and is not of the Father and the Son. Again, if a person teaches any version of human beings having immortal souls received from the first Adam, the person is false and teaches the things of this world, not the things of God. The person is spiritually blind.
The Father raises the dead and gives them life (John 5:21) — He raises the dead in this era by drawing the person from the world (John 6:44, 65) through giving the person the Holy Spirit, or His divine Breath [pneuma hagion]. Receipt of the Holy Spirit causes the person to be “born of Spirit,” a metaphorical phrase that embodies the truthfulness of what has occurred in the unseen heavenly realm. The person has been born a second time; the person is born from above; the person is born anew or born of Spirit (John 3:3-8), having received life in the heavenly realm that invisibly goes where it will, with this spiritual life domiciled in a tent of flesh that remains perishable (2 Co chap 5).
The natural nation of
There is a portion of
Yes,
The lioness “took another of her cubs and made him a young lion” (Ezek 19:5), who “learned to catch prey; he devoured men, and seized their widows … and the land was appalled and all who were in it at the sound of his roaring” (vv. 6-7), and the nations of this world set against him, took him captive, and brought him to the king of Babylon, and “his voice shall no more be heard on the mountains of Israel” (v. 9) — the Christian Church was taken captive as if it were a young lion, and it was delivered by Greek philosophers and Roman legates to the prince of this world, who castrated this young lion with the hooked knife of lawlessness, thereby rendering this young lion unable to do more than lap milk from the Adversary’s saucer.
Today, the Christian Church today prays to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob while being in active rebellion against the deity to which the Church prays—is it any wonder why so few prayers are answered?
When Israel was still in Egypt, God swore that He would pour out His wrath on the nation and spend His anger against Israel … understand the significance of this: the Christian Church spiritually lives in the void [the bottomless pit] created in the heavenly realm when lawlessness was found in an anointed cherub as natural Israel lived in Egypt. This comparison has the geography of the earth [specially, of pre-Flood Eden] being the physical equivalent of the mental topography of humanity in spiritual Babylon, the spiritual territory within the void, with all of the void constituting the “outer darkness” into which rebelling angels were cast. The flesh of every disciple—the tent in which a son of God dwells—remains on earth and cannot ever enter the realm of thought and imagination, the mental topography of humanity. Thus, as God swore to pour out His wrath on natural Israel in Egypt but didn’t for the sake of His name, God is today refraining from pouring out His wrath on the lawless Christian Church for the sake of His name so that it should not be further profaned in the sight of the other peoples who have not yet been born of Spirit (Ezek 20:9).
Today, the separation between spiritually circumcised Israelite and the person who has not yet been born of Spirit [the person who is the spiritual equivalent of an Egyptian] isn’t through physical plagues affecting the one but not the other. Rather, the separation is outwardly invisible, and only revealed in this world by the actions and enacted philosophies of the spiritual Israelite as opposed to the spiritual Egyptian or Babylonian. In the heavenly realm, the separation is immediately evident, for one has life and the other is dead. The spiritual Israelite has life through the earnest of the Holy Spirit—and as the person who places earnest money down on a parcel of real estate deposits real money with a Realtor, to be held by the Realtor until the sale is completed, the Father deposits real life in the heavenly realm in a tent of flesh to be held by this tent of flesh until the judgment of this tent of flesh is revealed upon Christ Jesus’ return (1 Co 4:5). Then, as the Father made alive that which was dead through depositing real spiritual life in a tent of flesh, the Son will give life to whom He will (again John 5:21), giving imperishable bodies to those disciples whom He determines worthy.
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Again, all teaching that assigns to human beings an immortal soul is of the old serpent, Satan the devil—and all who teach that human beings are born with immortal souls teach as ministers of the Adversary. This cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Satan does not have physical seed as is falsely taught by the Christian Identity Movement (CIM); for Satan is a spiritual being. He has spiritual seed, which includes human beings teaching his message of lawlessness and hate toward God.
Both the Father and the Son must give life to a spiritually lifeless tent of flesh before the mortal tent of flesh will put on immortality, thereby permitting the new creature born into that particular tent of flesh to walk through the fire (Isa 43:2) separating dimensions. These tents of flesh will never leave this physical realm. The characteristic solidness of matter will not permit a bodily rapture of flesh and blood disciples into heaven. Rather, that which is perishable [human bodies] must put on imperishability received from Christ Jesus when judgments are revealed.
Being born of Spirit makes a person alive in the heavenly realm—and this is the necessary prerequisite for “seeing” the kingdom of God for the person who has not been born of Spirit is hostile to God (Rom 8:7), while knowing nothing of God. The person who has not been born of Spirit has no spiritual understanding and, in a taxonomical hierarchy, is comparable to a beast. And as a person’s dog or cat cannot understand why the person balances his or her checking account, the person who has not been born of Spirit cannot understand why a Christian would afflict the flesh by keeping the Fast.
The disciple who doesn’t keep the Fast on Atonement has written a NSF check to God.
Understand this well: the Christian who chooses not to afflict the flesh on Yom Kipporim remains a servant of the flesh, a servant of disobedience, a voluntary son of Satan. God could, possibly, wink at the ignorance of this person in times past, but no longer. The disciple who serves the flesh is unworthy of Christ Jesus.
Being born of Spirit must be accompanied by hearing
the words of Christ Jesus and believing the one who sent Him (John 5:24); the
one who raised Him from the dead (Rom 10:9). Merely being born of Spirit does
not get a person into heaven. As human birth comes without the infant’s
consent and advice, spiritual birth comes without the spiritual infant’s
consent, without prior consultation. A person does not “decide” to
be born of Spirit when hearing an altar call; salvation isn’t a
figurative railway switch that if thrown sends a person to heaven and if not
thrown continues the person on his or her way to hell. God is not a respecter
of persons: every person will be born a second time, born of Spirit, with most
of these births occurring in the great White Throne Judgment (Rev 20:11-15)
when the mass of humankind will be raised from the grave to receive credit or
condemnation for those things done in the flesh. Judgment is the winnowing of
the grain, the separation of the chaff from the kernels. The grinding of this
grain into fine flour occurred during the course of living a life that has
already been concluded. And this post-Millennium resurrection to judgment will
be the main harvest of humanity, and is foreshadowed by the main crop wheat
harvest of ancient
Indeed, God is not a respecter of persons: “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek” (Rom 10:12), for “‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (v. 13) … is that all there is to salvation, calling on the name of the Lord? That is what Paul writes, and when taken out of context, the sentence makes for a wonderful sound byte. To be saved a person merely has to call on the name of the Lord. But the Apostle Paul continues, “But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed” (v. 14).
· A person cannot call upon the one whom he or she has not believed and expect that one to hear the person.
The Apostle Paul asks, “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard” (Rom 10:14)? … Who today has not heard of Jesus Christ? The world knows this name—
But the world does not believe the words of Christ when it has heard them.
· The Father raises the dead, but the Father does not judge the dead. All judgment has been given to the Son.
· If a person only has to call on the name of the Lord to be saved, the person would escape being judged by the Son; for—
· This person could live in sin, hearing the words of Jesus but not believing them, then a moment before death call upon the name of Jesus and be saved, yes or no?
Will Jesus cover the sins of the person who does not believe His words? The Apostle Paul gives the answer: No! Grace covers only the person who presents his or her members to God as instruments for righteousness—it is over this person that sin has no dominion (Rom 6:13-14). The person who presents his or her members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness remains under the law, and condemned to death by the law.
To be under the law is to be condemned to death—and every person who presents his or her members to sin [lawlessness] is condemned by the law. It is only when a person keeps the commandments and presents his or her members to God as instruments for righteousness that the person comes under Grace, for every person will come short of perfection (1 John 1:8-10), even those who have presented themselves and their members to God to serve righteousness. Grace covers the shortcomings of those who diligently strive to keep the commandments.
Ancient Judea brought forth not one but two grain harvests each year, with the harvest of the firstfruits [the barley harvest] beginning at Passover with the Wave Sheaf Offering and concluding with the Feast of Weeks, fifty days later. Disciples today are the firstfruits, the early barley harvest. And the Father determines whom He will draw from the world to become part of the firstfruits; i.e., part of the early barley harvest, with the firstfruits comprising the Body of the Son of Man.
Today, a physically unbridgeable schism exists among human beings: one part of all humanity has not been born of Spirit, but remains as the water that covers the surface of the earth. The second part of humanity has been born of Spirit, and has its citizenship in the third heaven. But the tents of flesh in which born of Spirit sons of God dwell were once sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2-3), consigned to disobedience by God (Rom 11:32) so that He could have mercy on all. The new creature was not born consigned to sin, but born free to keep the law.
· Tents of flesh are not given freewill when born of water, but are consigned to sin and death.
· The new creature born of Spirit is not born under condemnation, but is born free to keep the law.
·
As Moses set
before
· Thus, it is the born of Spirit new creature who will choose life by presenting its members to God as instruments for righteousness, or who will choose death by presenting its members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.
The disciple who willing transgresses the law of God—with the most common transgression being breaking the Sabbath commandment—chooses or has chosen death. With this disciple’s choice, God as the Master Potter will form the person into a vessel for honored use covered by Grace, or for a vessel of dishonorable usage, a vessel of wrath to be endured for a season, a vessel doomed for destruction.
In blunt language, Christ Jesus takes the disciple’s decision to present his or her members as instruments to God to form this son of God into a vessel for honored usage, thereby eliminating from the disciple the option to make a different choice. The disciple no longer has freewill even if the disciple thinks that he or she has. Rather, the disciple is tethered to righteousness and covered by the garment of Grace, which doesn’t mean that the disciple cannot sin … anyone who has attended a tethered a goat or a sheep knows how much harm the animal can still do to itself while tethered in a “safe” area.
For the part of humankind presently born of Spirit, freewill was given—and a choice was made by every disciple, with far too many disciples choosing lawlessness and death.
During the seven endtime years of tribulation,
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If
properly understood, Grace would be defined as undeserved covering for sin,
with “covering” used as in a cloak or mantle that encloses the
person, thereby protecting, sheltering, but also disguising or concealing the
person. This cloak of Grace is Christ’s righteousness, which disciples are
to put on as a garment (Gal
Satan does not cover disciples’ sins, but is ultimately responsible for them.
Again, the Hebraic linguistic icon, Kipporim, that is usually translated
into English as Atonement [at-one-ment] is better translated as “coverings.”
Traditionally, Judaism has used the singular form of the icon, Kippur; hence, calendars identify this
High Sabbath as Yom Kippur. But this
Day of Coverings appears in Scripture in its plural form. Two
coverings—two goats covered the sins of
What hasn’t been well understood by the
greater Church is that Jesus will give the sins that He bears either back to
the disciple or to Satan upon His return; He will not be crucified again. He
died at
The disciple who hears Jesus’ words and
believes the One who sent Him passes from death to life, but disciples are not
to be surprised when some for whom Jesus has borne their sins are resurrected
to condemnation (v. 29). These
disciples will have had their sins returned to them because their righteousness
did not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt
Two coverings for sin: one natural, which returns the
flesh of every disciple to the state of bliss the first Adam experienced prior
to eating forbidden fruit; one spiritual, which causes no sin to be counted
against the disciple in the heavenly realm where disciples received life
through receipt of the divine Breath of the Father. Two births: one natural or
physical and coming from the breath Elohim
[singular in usage] breathed into the nostrils of the first Adam; one spiritual
coming from the divine Breath of the Father that descended as a dove onto the
man Jesus, the last Adam. The first covering for sin covers the natural man,
the fleshly bodies of disciples; the second covering for sin covers the son of
God dwelling within the natural man. This second covering is the righteousness
of Christ Jesus; this second covering is Grace. And the disciple who will not
afflict the natural man as Christ Jesus was afflicted at
Two dimensions, two worlds, one natural, one spiritual. And what is flesh and blood in this natural world cannot enter the heavenly realm—the bodies or tabernacles in which born anew sons of God presently dwell cannot enter heaven. These sons of God must receive a glorious or incorruptible body (a body of primal energy) before they can cross dimensions.
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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."