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 doubling means that the thing is fixed by God.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of November 6, 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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After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile, and behold, there came up out of the Nile seven cows attractive and plump, and they fed in the reed grass. And behold, seven other cows, ugly and thin, came up out of the Nile after them, and stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile. And the ugly, thin cows ate up the seven attractive, plump cows. And Pharaoh awoke. And he fell asleep and dreamed a second time. And behold, seven ears of grain, plump and good, were growing on one stalk. And behold, after them sprouted seven ears, thin and blighted by the east wind. And the thin ears swallowed up the seven plump, full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and behold, it was a dream. So in the morning his spirit was troubled, and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was none who could interpret them to Pharaoh.
Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “I remember my offenses today. When Pharaoh was angry with his servants and put me and the chief baker in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, we dreamed on the same night, he and I, each having a dream with its own interpretation. A young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. When we told him, he interpreted our dreams to us, giving an interpretation to each man according to his dream. And as he interpreted to us, so it came about. I was restored to my office, and the baker was hanged.” / Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they quickly brought him out of the pit. And when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.” … / Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one. The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind are also seven years of famine. It is as I told Pharaoh; God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, but after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land, and the plenty will be unknown in the land by reason of the famine that will follow, for it will be very severe. And the doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about. Now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land and take one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plentiful years. And let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine that are to occur in the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine.” (Gen 41:1–36 emphasis added)
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In the days of Joseph, before Israel went down seventy in number to Egypt, Pharaoh and Egypt would receive seven good years, seven years of prosperity before famine struck, regional famine that drove the sons of Jacob down to Egypt to fulfill the visions Joseph had of his brothers bowing down to him (see Gen 37:5–11) … Joseph’s brothers hated him because Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than any of his sons (v. 3), and because they understood that the doubling of Joseph’s vision of his brothers’ sheaves bowing his sheaf (first vision) and of the eleven stars bowing to him (second vision) confirmed that he would reign over his brothers.
The dreams that Joseph saw functioned as witnesses. Likewise, the two dreams that Pharaoh saw functioned as two witnesses whose testimony would establish a thing, in the case of Pharaoh’s dreams that seven good years [the reality of the thing established] would be followed by seven years of famine [the remainder of the reality]. The two dreams that formed one vision were not in the same dimension as the reality the vision established, meaning that dreams are not physical. They do not possess mass. They lack the properties of thinginess; yet they are as “real” as thoughts produced by seeing light reflected from objects possessing mass. They are thoughts of often not easily explained origins.
Joseph’s dreams of his brothers bowing to him were experienced by Joseph alone. The Pharaoh’s dreams of seven cows and seven ears of grain were experienced by the Pharaoh alone. But the doubling of a dream to establish a physical thing does not have to be by one person—note the preceding clause: the doubling of a dream [a non-physical entity] to establish a physical thing [a real world happening] … the movement is from dream to a physical thing, but the movement can be in the other direction, from a doubling of physical events to establish a non-physical or heavenly reality.
Now returning to what Joseph understood, and apparently what his brothers understood: while a person experiencing two dreams as two witnesses to establish an earthly thing, the two dreams that function as witnesses do not have to be experienced by the same person. In the case of the cupbearer and the baker, fellow prisoners with Joseph, each dreamed his own dream, and each dream had its own interpretation (Gen 40:5). But neither the cupbearer nor the baker could interpret their dreams (v. 8). Joseph replied that interpretations belong to God, and he asked both to tell him their dreams.
Joseph told the cupbearer that the three branches in his dream represented three days, not three branches, that in three days the cupbearer would be restored to his office (Gen 40:12–13).
After listening to the baker’s dream, Joseph told the baker that three cake baskets of baked foods also represented three days, not baked goods, that the birds eating from the first basket represented the birds eating the flesh of the hung baker.
The two visions—that of the cupbearer and of the baker—were the same vision even though the interpretations differed; for the resulting actions differed from person to person. … Perhaps the most familiar example of two individuals having the same vision occurs when King Nebuchadnezzar saw a humanoid image in vision, but refused to tell his vision to his magicians and wise men. Daniel then saw the same vision and gave to Nebuchadnezzar both a relating of the vision and its interpretation. And because the vision was twice seen—once by the king and once by Daniel—the vision was firmly established, but with a caveat: the vision was both of this world and about entities in heaven [i.e., in that portion of the heavenly realm in the Abyss], for the wind that carried away the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold (Dan 2:35) does not possess solidity as the metals and clay do.
A thing in a dream doesn’t directly represent the same “thing” in the physical world; so an element of interpretation is necessary to link the non-physical thing to the physical “thing” in this world, with both Joseph and Daniel stating that the interpretations come from God … it is God that inspires the connection to be made between the referent in the dream and the referent forming the reality of the dream, or said in other words, to connect cows and ears of grain to years, or branches and cake baskets to days.
In the Apostle Paul’s tour-de-force allegory of two women—Hagar and Sarah—representing two covenants (Gal 4:21–31), Paul has disciples being represented by Isaac, the son of promise, thereby placing Christ Jesus in the position of Abraham, with those who are baptized and who are Christ’s being Abraham’s offspring … Paul takes two referents who are real women and claims these two referents are in reality two covenants, with one being a physical covenant and the other being a non-physical covenant just as physical circumcision [circumcision of the flesh] represents inclusion in the physical covenant and non-physical circumcision [circumcision of the heart] represents inclusion in the non-physical covenant. Paul isn’t here creating something new, but is applying the two world interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision to physical and somewhat parallel entities in this world, thereby giving to the historicity of Scripture qualities that previously pertained to dreams and visions—for recorded history functions as tangible dreams. There is no significant difference between the words used to record Pharaoh’s vision of seven cows and the words used to record Joseph’s rise in power to become the second in the land. Even when Pharaoh speaks in his recorded words to describe his vision and when Joseph speaks in his recorded words, the same voice of the narrator is heard. Both narratives can as easily be believed as they can be rejected as myth. There is no more tangible evidence to support Joseph’s rise in power than there is to support a dream having occurred. And it is this last element that troubles skeptics and scholars; for to believe Scripture requires the suspension of disbelief.
Returning to Paul, if 1st-Century disciples were spiritually Isaac, then disciples in the endtime Affliction—that is after the Second Passover liberation of Israel; after Zion gives birth to a nation in a day—would be represented by Esau and by Jacob/Israel. And disciples in the Endurance that are elsewhere represented as the children of Israel would be, in Paul’s allegory, represented by the sons of Israel, with a spiritual Joseph preceding his brothers out of sin as the physical Joseph preceded his brothers into Egypt. This would mean that those disciples represented by Joseph would leave sin and death before the Second Passover liberation of Israel; this means that those disciples representing Joseph also are represented by Moses, who was reared as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and not as a slave. Now, considering that the second Sinai covenant is made with Moses [apart from Israel] and with Israel (Ex 34:27)—two covenantees, not one—the second Sinai covenant ratified by the shining on Moses’ face, like the Moab covenant (Deut 29:1) ratified by a song (Deut chap 32) form the two tangible earthly visions [a.k.a., witnesses] that establish the reality that is the New Covenant.
Paul’s allegory works only if the reader suspends disbelief and accepts the premise that the natural sons of Abraham descend through Hagar, the slave woman, which of course they did not. But in what Joseph told Pharaoh about the doubling of the vision establishing the “thing,” the embedded truism of Paul’s allegory is established by the duality of the stepped relationship between things physical and things spiritual, with the slave status of physical Israelites in Egypt representing the spiritually lifeless state of the inner self of all sons of disobedience—and with the “free” state of disciples representing the spiritually living state of the inner self of those who have been born of God. This will have the geography of Egypt representing the mentally topography of unbelief/sin, and the geography of Judea representing the mental topography of obedience by faith. Thus, natural Israel’s exodus from Egypt becomes a shadow and copy of [a dream of] circumcised-of-heart Israel’s liberation from indwelling sin and death, with these two Passover liberations forming the confirmed vision that inner sons of God will be resurrected to glory and enter heaven upon Christ Jesus’ return.
Two Passover liberations—one from physical slavery; one from indwelling sin and death—form one confirmed vision that the righteous shall live forever. This vision is doubly confirmed by two resurrections of the body/Body of Christ from death, one in the 1st-Century and the second in the 21st-Century … the resurrection of the earthly body of Christ after three days is a historical event that cannot be well supported by confirming secular tests, and the resurrection of the spiritual Body of Christ from death has not yet occurred. Thus, the reality of human sons of God being resurrected to glory and entering the supra-dimension called heaven is presently rooted in faith, not in evidence. However, once the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs, the liberation itself confirms the vision of the reality of disciples being resurrected to glory, and resurrected in a manner analogous to Joseph telling Pharaoh, “‘And the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about’” (Gen 41:32 emphasis added). Once the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs, 2520 days later—a short while later—disciples will be resurrected to glory.
It is the suspension of disbelief that allows endtime disciples to take meaning from Scripture through typological exegesis, where one referent—what is historically described—represents another referent, a heavenly referent that cannot be directly named or described by human words. It was the suspension of disbelief that allowed Joseph to interpret the seven fat cows and seven plump ears of grain as seven years of plenty. The cows were not cows, and the ears of grain were not ears of grain … oh, yes they were, but no they weren’t. How was someone to know—and Joseph tells us how: “‘It is not in me: God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer’” (Gen 41:16). God will, and already has, suspended disbelief in His sons so that the parakletos [from John 14:26] can teach them all things and remind them of those things Jesus said.
But disciples take disbelief back inside themselves when they return to Scripture and attach literal referents to linguistic icons that were used metaphorically by Jesus.
Failure to suspend disbelief is the primary indication that the disciple, who was not under the Law but under the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness when born of God, has returned to sin [unbelief] and is either for the first time or again under the Law. Paul writes, “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law” (Rom 2:12); hence the Christian who willingly sins, regardless of whether the Christian was a Gentile not previously under the law or was a natural Israelite under the law—the Christian who sins will perish, for it is “the doers of the law who will be justified” (v. 13) by the faith, not by the works of their hands. To not strive to keep the commandments when sin has no dominion over the disciple is to return to unbelief, if the disciple ever suspended disbelief.
Disbelief and unbelief do not have quite the same meaning. When a disciple opens Scripture to the Book of Jonah and reads, “And the Lord [YHWH] appointed a great fish [a whale] to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (1:17 — 2:1 in Hebrew transcripts), the suspension of disbelief will not have the reader inquire about what species of a fish/whale swallowed Jonah, but will have the reader accept the premise that Jonah was swallowed, that Jonah died inside the fish, and that Jonah was raised from the dead to be spewed forth as a spokesman for God. In this matter, Christians have an advantage over natural Israelites; for Jesus used the Jonah narrative as the basis for the only sign He would give that He was from heaven.
Joseph told Pharaoh that the double presentation of the dreams—two dreams forming one vision—means that the thing is fixed by God (Gen 41:32); therefore, Jonah’s resurrection from death while in the belly of the whale is one narrative, and Jesus’ resurrection after the third day is the second narrative that establishes the thing; for Pharaoh’s vision was about a real event, a real famine that pushed Jacob and his sons down into Egypt—
Now step up a level, Pharaoh’s two dreams that formed one vision revealed a thing that would come to pass in this physical world. Likewise, Jonah’s resurrection and spewing forth from the whale’s belly and Jesus’ resurrection from death and ascension to the Father are two “real” events in this physical world that reveal a thing that will come to pass in the heavenly realm; i.e., in that portion of the heavenly realm that is in the Abyss. And here is where the refusal to suspend disbelief manifests itself as unbelief … sin is manifested unbelief that always results in the transgression of the commandments, and refusal to suspend disbelief manifests itself as unbelief; hence, a literal reading of Scripture always results in the person being under the Law, either by trying to outwardly keep the commandments or by returning to sin as its willing slave. Either way, the Gentile who was not previously under the Law commends him or herself by professing that Jesus is Lord, then not striving to keep the commandments. Grace only covers the Christian who, by faith, strives to keep the commandments and walks as Jesus walked.
Grace covers all of the times the disciple who strives to keep the commandments fails to do so, but grace does not cover any of the sins of the Christian who willingly transgresses the commandments. Intent rooted in faith is everything. And the Christian who willingly transgresses the Sabbath commandment is just as guilty of sin as the Christian who hates his or her brother, or who lusts after his or her neighbor’s spouse.
Failure to suspend disbelief produces the Sacred Names Heresy, which has the oral utterance of Jesus’ name determining whether a person is or isn’t of God. The premise embedded in the Heresy is so childish that if were not for the damage the Heresy has already done to Sabbatarian Christendom, the Heresy would not be worthy of being mentioned. But because of the damage, it is routinely addressed.
Jonah’s three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, and Jesus’ three days and three nights in the heart of the earth were, again, physical and historical events that must be accepted by faith, but as physical and historical events, these two things form the vision [visible evidence] for a heavenly event, the resurrection from death of the Body of Christ.
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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."