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 circumcised heart.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of September 24, 2011
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.
___________________
Praise the LORD [Yah]!
Praise, O servants of the LORD [YHWH],
praise the name of the LORD [YHWH]!
Blessed be the name of the LORD [YHWH]
from this time forth and forevermore!
From the rising of the sun to its setting,
the name of the LORD [YHWH] is to be praised!
The LORD [YHWH] is high above all nations,
and his glory above the heavens!
Who is like the LORD [YHWH] our God [Elohim — the plural of Eloah],
who is seated on high,
who looks far down
on the heavens and the earth?
He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.
He gives the barren woman a home,
making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the LORD [Yah]! (Ps 113:1–9)
___________________
1.
The structure of Hebraic poetry has that the physical presentation of a concept, an ideal, followed by the spiritual presentation of that same concept. Poetic movement is, therefore, from dark to light (why night precedes day), from natural to spiritual, from outside to inside, from hand to heart … the first Adam, a man made from mud to become a nephesh [a breathing creature], precedes the last Adam, the glorified Christ Jesus, a life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45). The first Israel consists of the natural descendants of the patriarch Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. The last Israel consists of all who come to God through Christ Jesus; for if a person is of Christ the person is Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise made to Abraham (Gal 3:29).
Yes, there is a first Israel and a last Israel, with the promises made to Israel being fulfilled in the last Israel. The biblical theologian who denies the reality of so-called replacement theology denies Christ Jesus, and will thereby be denied by Christ before the Father. And excuses such as, I didn’t know, will not alter Jesus’ denial of the theologian, who should have known, who should have understood that the physical precedes the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46) and reveals the spiritual (Rom 1:20), and who has had this knowledge available to the theologian since Paul wrote his epistles.
Physical Israel forms the shadow and spiritually lifeless type of spiritual Israel—and the Zionist settlers return to the ancient lands of Judea, beginning more than a century ago, forms a shadow and type of Christendom’s return to God, with the Holocaust also forming a type of the persecution that genuine Christians will experience in the Affliction. For greater Christendom as it presently understands Scripture denies Christ, denies that the Logos who was God and who was with the God in the beginning and who created all things (John 1:1, 3), including the first Adam, twice died, once when the Logos divested Himself of His divinity and entered His creation as His only Son, the man Jesus the Nazarene, and then died again at Calvary … when the Logos entered His creation, He was no longer God. He was a man. And about this Paul wrote,
Have this mind among yourselves [the holy ones at Philippi], which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5–8 emphasis added)
Life and the absence of life cannot coexist in the same moment. In order for any living entity to die, the moment in which the entity lives must decay into the next moment, and with the change of moments what had life can lose that life and die. Hence, the creation is a glorious death chamber where stars are born and then die, where men are born and then die, where death reigns supreme, the beast that tramples and devours all that is. Therefore, as long as the Logos remained outside of space-time, the Logos [o logos] in the beginning, the Logos could not die, nor can angels residing in their proper habitation outside of the creation die. But the angel cast into the creation will surely die just as the Logos, when entering His creation, gave up His divinity to become His only Son, the man Jesus of Nazareth. And as a man, His Son, the Logos was spiritually dead.
The God to whom Noah spoke and to whom Abraham spoke as well as washed His feet; the God that the seventy elders of Israel saw (Ex 24:9–10), that Moses saw; the God that appeared to the prophets in vision—this God, the Logos, died and was spiritually dead until heavenly life returned to Him when the breath of the Father, the breath of God [pneuma Theon], descended upon Him in the form of a dove.
As blood carries oxygen molecules from the lungs to every cell of a nephesh, with the life of the living creature being in the blood (Gen 9:4), the dove John the Baptist saw and that others did not see (Matt 3:16) carried the breath of the Father from heaven and into Christ Jesus when He rose from being baptized … in the first Adam and his descendents, blood carrying oxygen molecules fuel the dark fire of cellular oxidation that sustains life in nephesh; therefore, blood serves as the shadow and type of the dove that brought the breath of God, the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion], from the Father to the man Jesus. While it is usually said that the Holy Spirit appears as a dove, this was not the case in Acts 2, Acts 10, or Acts 19 — the Holy Spirit appears as fire, the bright fire seen in Ezekiel chapter 1, verses 26 though 28.
Physical life, as a type and shadow of eternal life, is represented by the optically invisible dark of cellular oxidation, with blood both carrying fuel to this fire [O2] and carrying away refuse from this fire [CO2] as well as other poisons. Spiritual life is, by description, non-physical life: it originates with God the Father, and it is transported by a carrier of which blood forms the shadow and type. Sin is the poison produced by spiritual life dwelling in a tent of flesh, and the wine taken at Passover represents the blood of Christ Jesus that is poured out for the forgiveness of sin (Matt 26:28). Hence, the Passover sacraments of Bread and Wine—sacraments representing the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God—bring the fuel for spiritual life into the disciple and carry away the byproduct from this life … the Bread representing the Body of Christ, the bread of life, forms the fuel that sustains spiritual life in a disciple, whereas the Wine representing the Blood of Christ carries away sin, the unwanted poisons produced from possessing spiritual life in this creation.
The blood that circulates inside a disciple forms the spiritually lifeless shadow and type of what the Passover sacraments represent, the life of Christ Jesus, or simply, the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christos].
When blood represents the life of a living entity, a Christian will not eat blood because doing so would represent devouring the spirit of the living entity, this spirit or breath having originally come from God when the creation of the living entity occurred: to eat blood is to symbolically devour God, what the demonic prince, cross-shaped Death, seeks to do.
Far too many Christians, in rejecting Moses and all that Moses represents, have gone out of their way to eat blood, with blood sausage having become a festive meat … the Council at Jerusalem (Acts chap 15) resolved that no heavy burden should be placed on Gentiles who sought Christian fellowship. It would be enough if, upon entering fellowship, these Gentiles abstained from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from meats coming from strangled animals, and from blood (Acts 15:20). Of course, the fellowships which these Gentiles were entering were keeping the commandments for “‘from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues’” (v. 21).
Simply because a Christian doesn’t understand a matter is not reason enough for the Christian to do whatever is right in his or her own eyes … the means by which Christ Jesus fuels spiritual life in a disciple is not readily apparent: yes, Bible study and prayer keeps a disciple close to God, but a person in an oxygen tent must still breathe in and out or the person will die. Oxygen molecules do not get to individual cells within a human body by being absorbed through the skin. Rather, these oxygen molecules enter the lungs where red blood cells pick them up and carry them throughout the body in a reasonably well understood model. But the spiritual reality foreshadowed by the work that blood does is not as well understood, if understood at all.
The breath of Christ [again, pneuma Christos] forms the indwelling of Christ Jesus in a disciple, with this breath of Christ serving as the vessel able to hold the breath of God [pneuma Theon] but also serving to deliver needed spiritual sustenance to the living inner self and to carry away the refuse generated [sin] by the living inner self that is a son of God. The breath of Christ doesn’t give life to the inner self, but without the breath the Christ, the inner self could not have indwelling immortal life (i.e., life outside the creation). Hence, only through possessing the indwelling breath of Christ can a person be saved—there is, therefore, salvation in no other name but that of Jesus the Nazarene.
The Christian who eats blood is anathema, a spiritual aberration upon which people of the Book should spit—and the Christian that eats hog’s blood doubly condemns him or herself to becoming ashes under the feet of saints.
2.
Yah was the deity that created all that has been made physically; Yah was the Creator, the one Muslims identify as Allah. Yah was the Logos [o logos] and His indwelling life or breath. But symbolically, Yah was to YHWH as Adam was to Adam …
Paul wrote to the holy ones at Corinth,
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 3:1–4)
Milk precedes baby food, which in turn precedes eating solid food—
Previously in his epistles to the holy ones at Corinth, Paul wrote, “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:1–2).
Preaching Christ Jesus and Him crucified is spiritual milk and precedes preaching the weightier matters concerning the mysteries of God. Paul tells the holy ones at Corinth that he could only give them spiritual milk, that they were babes, and in giving them spiritual milk, he preached Christ Jesus and Him crucified—the preaching of Christ crucified is, again, spiritual milk and not solid food, not even squashed-smooth baby food.
But preaching Christ Jesus and Him crucified is where a person begins a ministry to unbelievers, with this preaching of resurrection from death seeming like foolishness to those whom God has not yet called, thereby through the preaching of the cross making plain the separation of Israel from non-Israelite, a separation abolished when circumcision moved from foreskins to hearts, but reestablished through giving to the chosen ones the breath of God in the breath of Christ.
The movement from outside to inside, from physical to spiritual is the movement that infants in Christ cannot understand—this movement simply boggles their minds:
He [the Lord] gives the barren woman a home,
making her the joyous mother of children
The movement is from “the barren woman” to “the joyous mother of children” through giving the barren woman a home, not children of her own. Thus the barren woman having a home with the Lord forms the physical type and shadow of the joyous mother of children, but this movement and its ramifications cannot be understood by either Jews or Gentiles unless or until the Jew or the Gentile is born of God as a son and matures sufficiently so that this son of God can understand dual referents, where the scale model [the physical shadow and type] reveals the reality that casts the shadow. Spiritual infants able only to digest milk, not solid food, are utterly unable to understand that the Levitical high priest and Yah were to natural Israel as Christ Jesus and the Father are to circumcised-of-heart Israel; that the temple in Jerusalem was to natural Israel as the Christian’s fleshly body is to the now-living inner new self that is a son of God.
Natural Israel is the barren woman, the body unable to bring forth children, unable to conceive because of the unbelief that occurred at Mount Sinai and that was disclosed in the golden calf/calves that Aaron cast. But this barren woman having a home in the Lord forms the shadow and type of the Christian Church being the joyous mother of many children. For the Christian Church in its present state and configuration will not enter the kingdom of the heavens, but the Church will bring forth two spiritual sons at the beginning of the seven endtime years of tribulation, and then a third son halfway through these seven endtime years, this third son (a spiritual Seth) will serve as a replacement for righteous Abel, those faithful Christians that are killed by their lawless brothers during the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years.
The barren woman having a home in the Lord becomes the joyous mother of many children as Israel goes from being the nation circumcised of foreskins to Israel being the nation circumcised of heart.
The promise made to Abraham no longer rests with his physically circumcised descendants but has moved to Christians, the spiritual descendants of Christ Jesus … yes, this is replacement theology. So? Deal with it! The Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah,
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh—Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart. (Jer 9:25–26)
Those days have come, and those days will come again: the nation of Israel that is merely circumcised in the flesh will be punished by the Lord as the house of Israel and the house of Judah were punished when taken into captivity by the Assyrians and by the Babylonians. The punishment will be directed against all of Israel not circumcised of heart—and this includes all of Christendom not circumcised of heart.
Moses wrote,
And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God [an act of faith], you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD and keep all his commandments that I command you today. The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, when you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deut 30:1–10 emphasis added)
Elsewhere Moses wrote,
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. (Deut 10:12–16)
Circumcision of the heart is not some mysterious process, but is first cleansing the heart by faith, then by faith believing the writings of Moses and the words of Jesus, about whom Moses wrote. And the person with a circumcised heart will fear the Lord, and will walk in His ways, and will keep His commandments out of love for the Lord.
Paul wrote,
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. (Rom 2:25–29 emphasis added)
Israel is no longer the nation that is merely outwardly circumcised, but is the nation that is circumcised of heart. Whereas the spiritual infant will preach Christ Jesus and Christ crucified, the mature teacher will show parishioners how the promises made to the biological descendants of Abraham form the shadow and copy of spiritual promises made to the descendants of Christ Jesus (i.e., to Christians).
Again, from the Apostle Paul:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col 2:8–12 emphasis added)
Israel is no longer a nation of fleshly bodies, a barren woman spiritually—having been made barren when the prohibition came against kindling a fire on the Sabbath (Ex 35:3)—but the nation circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. Yes, the barren woman has been replaced by a living woman, but a woman who died at the end of the 1st-Century but who will bear children in a day (see Isa 66:7–8), the day of the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And this is a mystery of God that spiritual infants simply cannot handle … permit these infants to continue drinking milk from their sippy cups, continue preaching Christ and Christ crucified; for such preaching is appropriate for congregations of infants as spiritual babes with soiled diapers attempt to lead other spiritual babes into a Promised Land for which they have no GPS coordinates.
Talk about easy prey for the Adversary: following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, Christians could not be more vulnerable if they were blind chickens wandering in front of a fox den. The Adversary will not have to work hard to slay nearly all of Christendom, which is an unavoidable shame. If it had been the habit of Christians to strive to keep the commandments, the Adversary could only destroy the flesh and not the inner self once Christendom is raised from death and every Christian is filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God.
The movement from, He raises the poor from the dust to make them sit with princes, to [He] lifts the needy from the ash heap [to make them sit] with the princes of his people (see below),
He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.
is also from physical [dust] to spiritual [ashes], and from a human prince to many princes. This movement is not concealed, but is readily observable.
The Christian Church as spiritual Israel did to Christ Jesus what natural Israel did to Yah, exchanging the spiritual for the physical, abandoning the writings of Moses to wander lost in a wilderness of sin—and there, in that wilderness of sin, the Christian Church died as did the men of Israel numbered in the census of the second year. Today, greater Christendom is spiritually dead. But the Church, as the Body of Christ, will live again. A new generation will be born of spirit, a generation that would not even consider eating blood or denying Christ. The birth of this new generation is not far from now in time, but is close at hand …
We should pray for its birth.
*
The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
* * * * *
"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."