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 the basis for dual referent theology.
Printable/viewable PDF format to display Greek or Hebrew characters
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of October 17, 2015
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.
___________________
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Pet 3:1–7)
_________________
1.
Peter’s second epistle was not written by the same hand as wrote First Peter, that is the hand of the faithful brother Silvanus. As a result there was, near the end of the 1st-Century CE, considerable dispute about the authenticity of the epistle; for what Peter expresses in the head citation of this piece disagrees with John’s vision, unless John’s vision [Revelation] is read as a limited historical vision, fulfilled in the 1st-Century. Using the assembly at Philadelphia as an example, a historical limiter will have the angel to Philadelphia being a human messenger, the small assembly being threatened by hostile Jews, and Christ Jesus promising to physically deliver this assembly. But as in Genesis 1:2 where the Holy Spirit is “seen,” the glorified Christ is seen by John when John is “in spirit, with the seven angels to the seven churches being seven stars and the seven churches being seven candlesticks.
No human person can see the face of the glorified Christ in His glory and still live, what the God of Abraham told Moses (Ex 33:20). So if John in spirit sees the glorified Christ and speaks with Christ face to face, then physicality has been thrown out the window … the vision is about spiritual events, but sealed with two literary tropes, the first being that the vision doesn’t occur until the Day of the Lord, not a physical week day but the “day” when dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation. Metonymically, all seven endtime years come under the cover of the Day of the Lord, as well as the Thousand Years of the Millennium.
The second trope that seals an otherwise limited historical revelation is that the appearance of things and events are not how these things “appear” but how they “function” in the plan of God. Hence the glorified Christ seen by John in the first chapter appears as a slain Lamb in the fifth chapter; the seven angels to the seven churches seen as stars in the first chapter become the Lamb having seven eyes, internally identified as seven spirits. The seven churches, seen as seven candlesticks in chapter one, become the seven horns on the head of the slain Lamb. This will produce a separation between the horns and the body of the slain Lamb, with the still spiritually dead body of the Lamb being greater Christendom, physically liberated from indwelling sin and death at the Second Passover. The seven named churches become the assemblies of the Elect, who are already “one” with the glorified Christ through being prematurely born of spirit, thereby having indwelling eternal life through the indwelling of the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] that enters the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou], thus giving to the person the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16).
In spirit, John sees heavenly Jerusalem, not a physical city, and he records, “Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (Rev 22:15). … In spirit, all who love and practice falsehood are as “dogs,” males that sexually function as women when with other males [the bitch in a homosexual relationship]. So to not understand the tropes that have sealed John’s vision but to speak about this vision as an authority figure is to practice falsehood in the spirit. This person is a spiritual dog for the Adversary.
John’s vision wasn’t given to a still vibrant 1st-Century Church, but was given to John while he was separated from the 1st-Century Church through being isolated on Patmos so that he could not easily deliver the vision to the spiritually dying remnant …
Scholars debate about who is the <John> that received the vision, and exactly when was the vision given: those who hold that what John records is literally [physically] true and pertained to seven churches in the 1st-Century will have the vision being given in probably the seventh decade of the 1st-Century, and the <John> who received the vision not being John the Apostle, an illiterate person early in the fourth decade. But these scholars fairly well agree that Revelation was written by a person whose first language was Aramaic, written by a person who was a workman, a common man. The text suggests that its author thought in a Aramaic and mentally translated Aramaic into Greek when writing.
The historical records from the 1st-Century are not detailed enough to support popular belief about the Apostle John being boiled in oil but not killed and thereafter exiled to Patmos in the ninth decade [ca, 80 CE]. What’s recorded is that <John> was on the isle called Patmos when the vision was received; hence, John was physically separated from the seven named assemblies, with this physical separation suggesting spiritual separation from the assemblies on the Roman mail route through Asia Minor. Of course, a carnally minded person will not be troubled by this physical separation for this person’s thoughts are physical; this person’s perceptions are physical; and this person cannot please God (Rom 8:5–8). And the physically minded person who would teach others is a dog for the Adversary.
So what can be said with certainty is that Peter had no knowledge of John’s vision when he, feeding the sheep (John 21:17), wrote his second epistle, probably by his own hand; for the epistle seems to be written in Greek with the coarseness of word usage employed by fishermen of the period.
It would seem that both John and Peter as adults learned to read and write, and perhaps initially learned to do both in Greek, an inscribed language in which aspiration is recorded as vowels. Hence, theological separation linguistically exists between Hebrew and Greek texts, with Hebrew [or Aramaic] being favored before the spirit was given, and Greek favored after the spirit was given, with the inscribed aspiration of vowels representing the inclusion of the spirit in the word [logos] of Jesus that He left with His disciples (John 12:47–49).
If Peter truly had no knowledge of a Thousand Year millennial reign of Christ Jesus because John’s vision had not yet been given, and if, therefore, Peter expected Christ’s return to come suddenly at the end of the age—
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.(2 Pet 3:10–13)
—a different scriptural dynamic is at work than what greater Christendom realizes; for Scripture is not and cannot be a closed text.
Moses wrote, “‘You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord* your God that I command you’” (Deut 4:2), and “‘Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it’” (Deut 12:32). … Did not Jesus modify what Moses wrote when He changed the Passover sacraments from a bleating lamb to broken unleavened bread and wine representing His body and His blood, with Him being the Passover Lamb of God for the household of God? Certainly He did.
Paul writes by the hand of Tertius,
For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned 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. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. …
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 spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. (Rom 2:11–16, 25–29)
Paul modifies what Moses wrote by moving <a Jew> from the fleshly outer self of a human person to the non-physical inner self of the person, with circumcision of the inner self being circumcision of the heart not circumcision of the flesh.
It is this movement of <a Jew> from being the outer self of a natural descendent of the patriarch Abraham to being the inner self of a person drawn from this world by the Father and delivered to Christ Jesus to call, justify, and glorify through the indwelling of His spirit in the person. Without this movement of a Jew from outer to inner self, what Paul wrote to the holy ones in Galatia would make no sense:
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal 3:27–29)
When a female person is baptized, a female person is raised from the baptismal pool. The female fleshly body is raised unchanged. However, the inner self of this female fleshly body has put on Christ and is therefore a son of God, Abraham’s offspring, and heir according to promise. So Paul’s gospel is a dual referent gospel, with natural Israel forming the shadow and copy of spiritual Israel—and this is not something that carnally minded pastors and teachers of Israel can understand. The gospel is not for dogs.
Whereas Peter, according to the knowledge he had post-Calvary and through the seventh decade of the 1st-Century, believed that Christ Jesus would return suddenly and the heavens would then pass away, Christ Jesus wasn’t finished delivering to His disciples revelations about His return …
In John’s vision, the book of Revelation, a differing endtime scenario is presented from what Peter understood, with John being the partner and brother of endtime disciples in the Affliction, Kingdom, and Endurance of Jesus, a 2520 day period commonly called the Tribulation.
Both scenarios—Peter’s and John’s—cannot be simultaneously true despite what the Adversary’s dogs teach and apparently believe. Nor can a literal reading of Moses be in effect if Paul’s dual referent gospel is true. And it is here where things fall apart for literalists.
At the end of the 1st-Century, the beginning of the 2nd-Century disciples clustered around either John or Peter, with those that supported John [Revelation] denying validity to 2nd Peter, and those that supported Peter denying validity to John’s vision. However, eventually a compromise was worked out and both Revelation and 2nd-Peter became part of the Christian canon. But their differing endtime scenarios didn’t quietly go away.
Detractors of Revelation were not then nor are they today, nearly two millennia later, convinced John’s vision is legitimate, with these detractors holding scholarly positions within sects and denominations that support received eschatology, namely Roman Catholic and Lutheran. Plus, these detractors are sprinkled throughout greater Christendom, where as dogs they lick the Adversary’s wounds as a rebellion builds against the still-reigning prince of this world.
If there are seven endtime years divided into three clusters—the 1260 days of the Affliction, the doubled day 1260 when dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man, and the 1260 days of the Endurance of Jesus—then Christ Jesus will not come as a thief in the night, but will come in a time like the days of Noah, with Noah entering the Ark on the 10th day of the second month [the day when, under Moses, the lamb for the second Passover was selected and penned, awaiting sacrifice until the 14th day at even] … the Flood came on the 17th day of this second month.
From the day of the Second Passover when a third part of humanity, all biological or legal firstborns, are suddenly slain because they are unredeemed [uncovered by the blood of Christ] firstborns that belong to God, the clock will begin a 2520 day countdown to when Christ Jesus will return [the Second Advent], with this countdown accurate to within five days. Thus, according to John’s vision, Christ Jesus doesn’t come as a thief in the night, but comes 2520 days after the midnight hour of the one long spiritual night that began at Calvary … Christ Jesus is the sacrificed Passover Lamb of God, a Lamb appropriate to the size of God’s household. Thus, humanity has lived into the darkness that came with Jesus sitting down at the right hand of the Father. And the midnight hour will come when humanity can get no farther from God and must turn and begin its return to the Light that is God.
As endtime disciples survey the global human condition, it is difficult to see how humanity could be farther from God than it presently is … but that could have been said in 2011, and look at how much farther just American culture has moved away from God since then: the Supreme Court struck down homosexual marriage bans. It has become public knowledge that Planned Parenthood not only aborts fetuses, but also sells these fetuses, being careful in how they kill these unborn infants so as to maximize their value. And perhaps even worse, the American military has become an open playground for sodomites.
Regardless of whether American Christendom likes comparison to ancient Jerusalem in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, such a comparison is valid; for where is the Christian outcry against the blossoming cult of sodomy—one woman, Kim Davis, stood against the Federal Court bent upon enforcing the High Court’s ungodly decision. One woman and a handful of politicians seeking the “Christian vote.” And President Obama wanted to lecture the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, on Kenya’s anti-homosexual laws. Even Russian President Putin’s position on homosexuality should cause American Christians to be ashamed of being American … not only has America declared moral equivalency between Muslim terrorism and the modern nation-state of Israel’s response to this terrorism, but America apparently has refused to arm Kurds fighting against the Islamic State while tacitly giving the go-ahead to the Islamic Republic to produce nuclear weapons. Whose side is America on? Perhaps the better question is, whose side can America be on when the Adversary remains the prince of this world, the prince of the power of the air? Unfortunately, there is only one side for those Christians not truly born of spirit: the Adversary’s. If these Christians attempt to solve the ongoing problems of this world, they will do so as pious agents of the Adversary. They do so as dogs.
It does matter, though, what American Christians do privately and publicly, with the prophet Ezekiel recording his vision of his sixth year in captivity … the following is from the middle of his vision:
Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. And He called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his waist. And [YHWH] said to him, "Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it." And to the others He said in my hearing, "Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the house. Then He said to them, "Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out." So they went out and struck in the city. (Ezek 9:3–7 emphasis added)
If an American Christian does not sigh and cry about the abominations committed in the land, will the Christian not be akin to those inhabitants of Jerusalem slain for their silence? Indeed, the Christian whose citizenship should be in heavenly Jerusalem will be as the people of earthly Jerusalem were …
The Apostle Paul wrote that the invisible things of God are preceded and revealed by the things that have been made (cf. Rom 1:20; 1 Cor 15:46). In this, Paul established that the good news [gospel] he proclaimed was a dual referent gospel theology, the visible revealing the invisible. But Paul didn’t get this concept out of thin air. He got it by being able to read Hebrew, and in particularly being able to read David’s psalms, with David being a very good poet even though he wrote in a language that did not record vowel sounds, and was thus “silent” on the page. So instead of David using phonetics to create the structure of his poetry, he followed in the then existing Hebraic language tradition and created “structure” through the repetition of ideas, with his poetic movement being from darkness to light, from community to individual, from outside the person to inside the person, from death to life, from the God of Abraham [Yah] that interfaced with Abraham, Isaac, Moses, to the conjoined deity [YHWH] Christians know as the Father and His Beloved, now the Father and the Son … you can see this movement in Psalms 146:1; 148:1; 149:1 when read in Hebrew. You can see this movement is Isaiah 43:1, where Jacob is the natural man and Israel is Jacob’s name after he prevails with the God of Abraham.
The men that Ezekiel saw being marked by the man with the inkhorn and thus being spared form the shadow and copy of those inner selves that will be spared during the seven endtime years of tribulation. So as the Lord used the earthly king of Babylon as His servant to bring destruction upon the House of Judah and Jerusalem in the days of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the Lord will use the spiritual king of Babylon—the Adversary—to bring destruction upon greater Christendom once the Second Passover occurs.
The Second Passover liberation of the second Israel [the nation circumcised of heart] from indwelling Sin and Death through being filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] will see every Christian spiritually being inhabitants of heavenly Jerusalem as natural Israelites were inhabitants of earthly Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah, with the majority of these Christians being carried by the king of spiritual Babylon to the second death, the lake of fire.
Consider what John saw in vision: “Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, ‘Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months’” (Rev 11:1–2 emphasis added) … “the nations” are Gentiles—and what are Gentiles doing in heavenly Jerusalem.
Today, the vast majority of greater Christendom lives as spiritual Gentiles; so when greater Christendom is filled with spirit following the Second Passover, these Christians who suddenly have the Torah written on hearts and placed inside them will not long mend their ways, but will return to the lawless ways of their present worship of God. Hence, on day 220 of the Affliction [a Sunday], the Apostasy (2 Thess 2:3) occurs. And there is little any of the Elect can do to prevent this rebellion against God that results in the majority of Christendom committing blasphemy against the spirit.
The prayers of the Elect can today be heard; so the Elect needs to be sighing and crying about the evil that occurs within the greater Christian Church; for today the dogs run unchecked.
* * *
"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."