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 Disciples are to be one with the Father.

Printable/viewable PDF format to display Greek characters

 

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 service should read or assign to be read  John chapter 17.

Commentary: Can the entirety of Jesus’ gospel be reduced to a simple understandable message; i.e., to a sound byte? … In this era of instant communication and worldwide television coverage of news events, the successful politician reduces his or her message to approximately a seven second sound byte that can be easily remembered. Barack Obama’s message was, Change you can believe in. John McCain’s message was, America first. And visible Christendom’s gospel has been reduced to, Believe in Jesus and you shall be saved. What, though, is the gospel of Sabbatarian Christendom?

Sabbatarian Christians teach that disciples need to keep the commandments. But salvation doesn’t come from keeping the commandments; rather, salvation comes by hearing the words of Jesus and believing the one who sent Him (John 5:24). And what are the words of Jesus: (same chapter) “‘If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words’” (vv. 46–47). So the precursor to believing Jesus’ words is to believe Moses’ writings, the very thing which visible Christendom has rejected as not necessary for salvation, and actually what visible Christendom teaches that a “Christian” shouldn’t do. So the gospel of Sabbatarian Christians is not a centralist gospel, but a message that has been marginalized and shoved to the edges of social thought.

Sabbatarian Christendom’s message holds that believing the Father means keeping the commandments as the reasonable expectation of sons in the household of God; for everyone who believes in Him will call upon the name of the Lord, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:9–13). But how is anyone to call on Him in whom they have never believed, and how is anyone to believe in Him of whom they have never heard, and how is anyone to hear without someone preaching, and how is anyone to preach unless the person has been sent (vv. 14–15)? And how does Sabbatarian Christendom reduce all of the above into a sound byte?

Let’s take the above apart piece by piece: Jesus said,

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The scribes and the Pharisees had the law, had the commandments, but did not keep the law (John 7:19); for the law requires that Israel, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord [YHWH] your God [Elohim] … executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Deut 10:16–19). To keep the Law of Moses, Israel must love those who were as they were in Egypt; Israel must love neighbor and sojourner, the victim, the oppressed, the helpless; for circumcision of the heart only comes after the heart has been cleansed by faith.

The prophet Jeremiah recorded the Lord’s words:

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” (9:23–24)

“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.” (vv 25–26)

When in a far land, when far from the Lord, none of Israel had turned to the Lord by faith so that the Lord would bring the people back to the land of His rest. Rather, a remnant of Israel returned to build for King Cyrus a house for the Lord (Ezra 1:1–2). Yes, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus, thereby causing Cyrus to declare, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem” (v. 2). To Cyrus, the Lord [YHWH] was the sky God and as such differed from the gods of this earth, but to Cyrus, the Lord was also “the God who is in Jerusalem” (v. 3). So it wasn’t because Israel turned to the Lord when Israel was in a far land that Cyrus ordered a house be built for the Lord at Jerusalem; it wasn’t because Cyrus desired to worship the Lord alone; rather, it was so that “the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled” (v. 1).

Returning now to Deuteronomy, Moses as mediator of the Moab covenant delivered the words of the Lord,

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, 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. (30:1–10 emphasis added)

Moses’ writings are the inscribed words of the Logos, who entered His creation as His only Son, the man Jesus of Nazareth, and who when here on earth only spoke the words of the Father. So Moses’ writings are the words of the Lord. They are, therefore, the same words that Jesus spoke; so it was logical for Jesus to ask, “‘But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words’” (again, John 5:47), for the writings of Moses and the words of Jesus words expound the same thoughts, express the same words of the Father. And in Moses’ writings the Lord tells Israel that when the nation is in a far land and when the nation returns to the Lord, obeying His voice in all that He commands Israel on the plains of Moab with heart and mind [nephesh], then He, the Lord, will gather Israel and will bring the nation back into the land of His rest and will circumcise the hearts of the nation … this returning to the Lord did not happen in Babylon. A remnant of Israel returned to Jerusalem to build for King Cyrus the house of the Lord. But this remnant returned to fulfill Jeremiah’s prophecy, not because the nation turned to the Lord with hearts and minds. There was no wholesale returning to the Lord, no keeping of His commandments and statutes written in Deuteronomy, no circumcision of hearts. Therefore, Paul writes, “What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works” (Rom 9:30–32 emphasis added).

The “law” that would have lead to righteousness is the Moab covenant, what Paul identifies as “the righteousness based on faith” (Rom 10:6 — cf. Deut 30:11–14; Rom 10:6–8). This righteousness based on faith is Paul’s “law of faith” (Rom 3:27), for the Moab covenant requires of Israel, when in a far land, to turn by faith to the Lord and to begin loving the Lord with heart and mind, keeping His commandments and statutes. Faith requires keeping the commandments when a person is not socially obliged to do so.

The uncircumcised [Gentiles, or people of the nations] are, when living as sons of disobedience, under no social obligation or expectation to keep the commandments from their youth as the rich young ruler was under (Luke 18:18–21). Therefore, when the uncircumcised pull up whatever tethers them to this world (Matt 10:38) and follow Jesus, the uncircumcised do what Jesus tells the rich young ruler to do after this young ruler assures Jesus that he has kept the commandments (Luke 18:22). But as the young ruler could not sell all he had and give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus, the uncircumcised Gentile who has no problem following Jesus will not keep the commandments.

The rich young ruler could not sell the evidence of his physical righteousness. He wanted to be told how righteous he was; he didn’t want told to divest himself of his goods, and separate himself from this world. Yet to follow Jesus, the young ruler had to separate himself from the things of this world. Because he was a Jew[1] by birth and a person under a social obligation to keep the commandments, keeping the commandments was not of faith. Keeping the commandments would never cleanse his heart so that it could be circumcised because he was already keeping them and had been keeping them throughout his childhood. Selling all he had and giving the proceeds to the poor would have been, for this young ruler, an act of faith.

A Gentile in a far land neither keeps the commandments nor has an interest in following Jesus, but when this Gentile hears the gospel and turns to God and begins to follow Jesus, this Gentile separates him or herself from this world—and often from family, friends, and neighbors. This Gentile begins a journey of faith that will not conclude until the Gentile keeps the commandments of God by faith. To Gentile converts at Rome, Paul writes,

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. (Romans 2:25–29 emphasis added)

In order for either the outwardly circumcised or uncircumcised person to be spiritually circumcised [i.e., circumcised of heart], the person must cleanse the heart by a journey of faith equivalent in length to the patriarch Abraham’s physical journey of faith. The person must leave the kingdom of this world [spiritual Babylon] as Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans, and the person must crucify the old man or self as Abraham left his father in Haran, the land of the Assyrians, the geographical representation of death. And the new creature must journey into God’s presence, into His rest, geographically represented by Judea. Spiritually, God’s rest is represented by Sabbath observance.

On the plains of Moab, the Lord, using Moses, set before Israel life and death, with the admonishment to chose life by obeying “‘the commandments of the Lord your God that I [YHWH] command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules … I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days’” (Deut 30:16, 19–20).

Israel knew how to obtain righteousness. The lawyer, testing Jesus, asked, “‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He [Jesus] said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?’ And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’ And he [Jesus] said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live’” (Luke 10:25–28).

The lawyer knew what to do to inherit eternal life—Jesus confirmed that the lawyer knew what to do—but the lawyer had no interest in loving his neighbor as himself, and the lawyer asked, “‘And who is my neighbor’” (Luke 10:29). … The lawyer did not keep the law, and he was typical of the Pharisees to whom Jesus, when He stood to speak during Sukkot, said, “‘Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law’” (again, John 7:19).

The first mistake visible Christendom makes is teaching that ancient Israel kept the law—the mistake ancient Israel made was its failure to understand that it, too, like its ancestor Abraham, had to make a journey of faith. And the failing of the 1^st-Century Church was in not understanding that every generation has to make a journey of faith comparable to Abraham’s journey of faith; for hearts are cleansed by faith so that they can be circumcised by believing Jesus’ words as Abraham believed the words of the Lord [YHWH] and had his belief “counted to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6).

The Pharisees were hypocrites, having the law but not keeping it, and Jesus said that if a person’s righteousness did not exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, the person could in no way enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20). Jesus also said that the person who kept the commandments and taught others to do likewise would be called great in the kingdom of heaven (v. 19). So to have the commandments and to keep them and to teach others to keep them will cause a person to be great in the kingdom of heaven whereas to have the commandments and to not keep them will keep the person out of heaven—this is not a difficult gospel message to teach, but can it be reduced to a sound byte?

· Circumcision of the heart comes my cleansing the heart by a journey of faith, for without faith no one can please God.

· Keeping the commandments only has value when keeping them reflects the person having entered into God’s presence, into His rest.

· To not keep the commandments when the law is written on the heart and put into the mind is blasphemy against the spirit; to not keep the commandments is hypocrisy.

· How can a Christian separate him or herself from this world dedicated to lawlessness unless the Christian keeps the commandments by faith?

· If every person is a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) and condemned to death because sin entered this world through one man (Rom 5:12), and if death reigned over all men “from Adam to Moses” (v. 14), then “life” doesn’t enter this world through Jesus Christ but through Moses on the plains of Moab when life or death is placed before Israel and the nation is told to choose life.

To enter into life requires of Israel “‘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’” (Deut 10:12–13). To keep the commandments requires Israel to love its neighbor as itself. Thus, anyone can see that the lawyer who sought to test Jesus answered correctly when asked what did Scripture say was required to inherit eternal life. But to hear the above gospel requires someone to preach it, and neither Judaism nor visible Christendom will preach what Moses delivered to Israel when he would lead the nation no farther. Israel would follow Joshua/Jesus, not Moses, into the Promised Land. But only the portion of Israel that chooses life follows Jesus into God’s presence.

*

There is a way to reduce Sabbatarian Christendom’s long-winded gospel message to a sound byte, but generally Sabbatarians don’t want their convoluted gospel message touched. Too many Sabbatarians would just as soon bar the door and keep visible Christendom at bay; too many Sabbatarian disciples will shun those who sing the lyrics, “Believe in Jesus, Just believe,” repeated over and over again, the rhythm unvaried, the message unvaried, the mind numbed, and lawlessness approved.

Visible Christendom has reduced its gospel to its lowest common denominator: just believe. And belief, now, replaces knowledge, replaces righteousness, replaces obedience. According to this gospel of visible Christendom, all the person must do is believe in Jesus, and the person, by an act of his or her own will, shall be saved, making the person ultimately responsible for whether he or she will go to heaven or to hell. So the person in remote Tibet who has never heard the name Jesus of Nazareth “chooses” by the person’s lack of knowledge to go to hell … what kind of a gospel is this? Good news of what: you didn’t utter the magic words that will get you into heaven so you are doom to fry forever? The gospel of visible Christendom is hate-filled. It is not a gospel of love.

Although the gospel of believe in Jesus and you shall be saved certainly sounds simple and loving, the gospel, when examined even from a distance, holds that the following is true: a person is humanly born with the ability to save him or herself by simply professing belief in Jesus. Every person is born with full control of the person’s salvation. Profess and be saved; don’t profess and be damned. How much more simple can a message be? And how much more wrong can a gospel message be? For Jesus said, “‘And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’” (John 17:3). Believing in Jesus is not the same as knowing the Father. In fact, believing in Jesus is not the same as believing Jesus.

Following James the Just saying that he would show his faith by his works, he writes, “you believe that one [third person personal] is the God,…and the demons believe and shudder” (2:19). Yes, the demons believe and shudder; they know that the Father exists. But believing that the Father exists will not save any of them; for “believing that the Father exists” is not the same as “believing the Father.” Believing that Moses is a heroic, historical figure in Judaism’s history is not the same as believing what Moses wrote. And believing in Jesus as a historical figure is not enough for salvation.

If every person is in charge of his or her own salvation, then a 12^th-Century CE Muslim with a sword at an infidel’s throat demanding that the infidel profess that Allah is Lord differs little from a 21^st-Century Baptist on 24/7 television pleading with his viewers to please allow the Lord to enter your heart by repeating after me the sinners’ prayer. Both use the threat of death and hell [eternal doom] to extort a profession of belief from the unbeliever. Both use intimidation to bring alleged salvation to the unsaved. Both justify their use of intimidation by the unbeliever being allegedly destined for heaven once the person accepts the position of the intimidator.

There is no truth in either the 12^th-Century Muslim’s sword, or in the 21^st-Century Baptist’s promise of salvation; for eternal life is the gift of God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:23) … if a person is not one with Christ Jesus as Jesus was/is one with the Father, the person will not enter into heaven.

Nearly the last words Jesus’ disciples heard Him speak before He was taken were those of His prayer to His Father, read at the beginning of this Sabbath reading:

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:1–5 emphasis added)

The Father had given Jesus a work to do: He accomplished that work, and that work was to give eternal life to all whom the Father had given Him … the work Jesus came to do wasn’t to give eternal life to all who professed belief in Him, but to give life to all whom the Father has chosen. This is an extremely important distinction that has been omitted from visible Christendom’s gospel. So the first error of visible Christendom is the democratic nature of its gospel: the Father isn’t today choosing everyone, but choosing the firstfruits, His firstborn sons, with Christ Jesus being the First of the firstfruits, the First of the Father’s firstborn sons.

Remember, though, that Paul wrote that death reigned from Adam to Moses … if eternal life is to know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom the Father sent into this world, then both the Father and the Son must be somehow “knowable” in the writings of Moses—and it is through Moses and Aaron that the Father and the Son can be known, for Moses was as god to Aaron (Ex 4:16) as the Father is God to the Son (John 20:17) and Aaron spoke for Moses (again, Ex 4:16) as the Son spoke for the Father. But to recognize that Moses is to the Father as Aaron is to the Son, the person must also recognize that physically circumcised Israel is to spiritually circumcised Israel as Moses is to the Son.

Until the Father draws a person from this world (John 6:44, 65), the Father doesn’t give the person to Jesus, a straightforward declaration that is true by self-evidence. It logically follows, then, that not until the Father gives a person to Jesus can Jesus make the Father known to the person. And until Jesus makes the Father known to the person, the person is without eternal life.

Jesus said eternal life is to know the Father, the only true God, and how much of visible Christendom knows the Father? Very little! Most of visible Christendom gets the Father confused with the Son, believing that it was the Father who is the Creator of all that is and thinking that the Father was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Most of visible Christendom has the Father and the Son and their separate breaths [used metaphorically] being one deity, triune and unexplainable. Therefore, God is an unexplainable mystery for most of visible Christendom; God is an unexplainable mystery for “Christians” do not know the Father, and as such, are not saved.

From the perspective of this world, being a Christian isn’t a matter of being chosen by the Father but a matter of ancestry, with a few additional converts coming from evangelism. But this perspective is inherently flawed, for no one is born a “Christian.” All become Christians when drawn by the Father from this world. So the person who is a Baptist or a Catholic because the person’s ancestry is Baptist or Catholic most likely has not been drawn by the Father and given to the glorified Jesus as a disciple. This person would not still be a Baptist or a Catholic if the person has undertaken a journey of faith of enough distance to cleanse the heart. Remaining a Baptist or a Catholic is, thus, prima facie evidence of not being drawn by the Father.

Jesus prayed, so that His disciples could hear, that eternal life was to know the Father and to know Jesus. So what does it mean to know the Father? If eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son, and if a Christian says that the Father and the Son and their breath [pneuma] are one in a triune deity, does this Christian really know anything about the Father when Jesus said that disciples are also one with the Father and the Son?

Jesus prayed (as read earlier):

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. (John 17:6–19 emphasis added)

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. (vv. 20–26 emphasis added)

Jesus’ prayer wasn’t for the world, wasn’t for everyone, which would make God a respecter of persons, offering salvation to one person and not offering salvation to the world, if visible Christendom’s gospel were true. Therefore, “knowing the Father,” Jesus’ definition of salvation, isn’t being offered to “the world,” which hates those who are one with the Father and the Son as “the world” hated and killed the Son. A clear and certain demarcation exists between those whom the Father has drawn from this world and “the world,” with this separation coming by being drawn (John 6:44, 65).

Disciples are to be one with the Father as Jesus was/is one with the Father, thereby making visible Christendom’s triune deity anything but triune—making visible Christendom’s triune deity a polygon, with the number of sides equal to the number of disciples who are one with the Father and the Son, plus two (for the Father and the Son). And a person can begin to see the problem inherent within visible Christendom’s concept of a closed deity: the Father cannot answer Jesus’ prayer in the affirmative according to the traditional gospel taught to this world.

Christendom’s traditional gospel bars disciples from being one with the Father as Jesus is one with the Father: visible Christendom either holds that God is numerically one in the personhood of the Father [the Arian or Unitarian position], or numerically one in the personhood of the Father, the Son, and their Breath being one entity [the Trinitarian position]. Both of these positions, however, exclude disciples from being numerically one with the Father as Jesus was “one” with the Father; for if disciples are one with the Father as Jesus is one with the Father, the godhead is open and unnumbered, with “one” being a declaration of unity not numerically the number of disciples who are saved.

If “one” doesn’t represent numerical singularity but unity, then “God” is not numerically singular but “unified”—and it is this application of singleness that is behind, “‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord [YHWH] our God [Elohim], the Lord is one’” (Deut 6:4); for Elohim is the regular plural of Eloah, and YHWH is the compound of Yah and WH, with Yah being the one whose feet Abraham washed, and the one with whom Jacob wrestled, and the one whom Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders saw on Mount Sinai, for no man has seen the Father to whom Jesus prayed but the one who came down from heaven (John 1:18).

Pertaining to God, the digit “one” represents absolute unity, but not numerical singleness. Jesus was not praying to Himself when He asked His Father restore to Him the glory He had before the world existed (John 17:5). The breath of Christ [pneuma Christou] is not the breath [pneuma] of Him who raised Christ from the dead (cf. Rom 8:9, 11). And Paul consciously addressed two entities in the introductions of his epistles.

Elohim (singular in usage) fashioned the man of mud into a corpse outside of the garden, breathed into this corpse’s nostrils, and this corpse became a breathing creature, the first Adam (Gen 2:7), “in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (v. 4). Elohim then placed the man inside the garden, and from the ground formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heaven. But no helpmate was found for the man from among other breathing creatures who were not like him. So Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, took from his side a rib, and made a woman, Eve, the mother all human beings. About this Eve, who was not Adam but was of Adam, the Lord God would have a man leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh … two becomes one, not in the offspring of Eve, but in the union of a man with a woman.

In marriage, two fleshly human beings become one couple, but remain two in numerical count though one in function and in unity as Moses and Aaron were two brothers who functioned as one entity before the Lord.

Eternal life is to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom this one true God sent into this world—and no one who claims that Jesus and the Father are two personages of a single triune deity knows the one true God. Every “Christian” who claims that God is a trinity lacks knowledge of God. Likewise, every “Christian” who would have the Father being the creator of all that has been made lacks knowledge of God.

Now, can all of the above be reduced to a sound byte? Yes. Disciples are to be one with Christ Jesus as Jesus is one with the Father, and if disciples are one with Christ, disciples are Christ. Paul says that disciples are the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), and if the Body, then disciples will walk as Christ walked (1 John 2:6) for they form the feet and legs and torso of Christ. So as disciples follow Paul as he imitates Christ Jesus (1 Cor 11:1; Phil 3:17), disciples imitate Christ Jesus. They will now look and act like Christ.

To know the Father is to imitate the Father as a son imitates his earthly father … to know the Father is to walk as Christ Jesus walked (John 14:9). Therefore, eternal life is to walk as Christ walked.

Whereas visible Christendom proclaims a gospel message of, Just Believe, Sabbatarian Christians will proclaim the gospel message of, Walk as Christ walked.

“Walk as Christ,” a simple message that can to taken to the world in under seven seconds. And when this message is coupled to the endtime gospel of, endure to the end and you shall be saved, Sabbatarian Christendom has its sound byte:

Walk as Christ, enduring to the end, and you shall be saved.

Seven seconds? Probably less.

*

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."

---