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 Christ in us means we walk as He walked.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of November 26, 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.
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Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life--to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.
All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:1–21)
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1.
Is what John wrote late in the 1st-Century about everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God still true in the 21st-Century? Or is what John writes qualified by the death of the Body of Christ at the end of the 1st-Century? Simply put, is the Christian who believes that Jesus is the Christ but who absolutely refuses to keep the commandments born of God? Can a Christian be born of God and continue to practice sinning? The question must be asked: does the Christian who makes a practice of sinning truly believe that Jesus is the Christ?
Before the above question is answered, consider the commission given disciples—
In Luke’s recounting of what happened after Jesus was glorified, he writes,
And while they [the first disciples] still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he [Jesus] said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them. Then he said to them, "These [His bites of broiled fish] are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24:41–49)
The first disciples were witnesses to those things that Jesus did in the flesh; thus, they were to speak as witnesses. They were not themselves to do the things that Jesus did although Jesus said to them when answering Philip,
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:8–15 emphasis and double emphasis added)
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ will also do the works that Jesus did, and will do even greater works … who has done greater works than Jesus?
The words that Jesus spoke were the works of the Father (“‘The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works’” — John 14:10). Thus, the words that disciples speak will be the works of the glorified Jesus. So the greater works that 1st-Century disciples do will be manifested in the words of 21st-Century disciples, not necessarily in healings or in raising the dead: the greater works of the Apostle John, works greater than Jesus did because Jesus wrote no words down, comes to endtime disciples in John’s gospel, in his epistles, in the book of Revelation, with these greater works manifested in the words of Philadelphia … the works of the two witnesses in the Affliction will be manifested in the words of the Remnant (from Rev 12:17) during the Endurance in Christ, not in the Remnant doing additional works like those done by the two witnesses.
Therefore, if someone truly believes that Jesus is the Christ, this person will do greater works than Jesus did with these works being done through the words of later generations of disciples of Christ Jesus: John’s works are his writings, not an occasional healing. Without John’s works (and the works of Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude), Jesus’ words that were the Father’s works would be lost to history. And John’s works are manifested in the words of Philadelphia, with the works of Philadelphia being manifested in the words spoken by the two witnesses in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years.
The works of the many false teachers, false apostles, false prophets of the 1st-Century are today manifested in the endtime words of the Sacred Names Heresy, in the words of biblical literalists, in the words of Arian heresies, in the words of greater Christendom. For the many false teachers and false prophets of the 1st-Century all sincerely believed that Jesus was the Christ, but the Jesus that they knew was not the Jesus that was crucified at Calvary. And therein lays the imbedded problem in John’s universal statement that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God (1 John 5:1).
2.
Jesus commanded His first disciples to remain in the city [in Jerusalem] until they were clothed with power from on high: they were not to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations until they were empowered by the spirit of God. In opening the minds of His first disciples so that they could understand Scripture, the glorified Jesus told them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem … Paul identifies the Church as the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), with the glorified Jesus being the Head of the Church (1 Cor 11:3). Thus, Christ is both the Head and the Body of Christ; for as the human body is one with its head, the Body of Christ is one with its Head. It cannot be otherwise. Both the Head (the glorified Jesus of Nazareth) and the Body (the assembly Jesus built) are Christ, the Christ that should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.
The man Jesus the Nazarene suffered and died on the cross at Calvary. He gave one sign, that of Jonah, that He was of God and from heaven, a sign that could not be fulfilled except in the death of His earthly body … prior to death, the sign of Jonah was like the midday or midnight sky: no red sky can be seen at midday or midnight. A red sky can only be seen at dawn or as dusk—and the sign of Jonah can only be seen after death and resurrection.
Prior to the death and the resurrection of the spiritual Body of Christ, the sign of Jonah could not be fulfilled or seen.
Certainly, Jesus’ earthly body was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth as the prophet Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish [whale] (Jonah 1:17), with the linguistic icon <day> representing both the 24-hour period from sunset to sunset as well as the light portion of this 24-hour period … remember, words [linguistic icons, or signifiers] do not come with little backpacks containing their meanings. Rather, readers [auditors] assign meanings [linguistic objects, or signifieds] to words, with the particular meaning assigned to the word by a collective of readers creating a reading community.
There are as many Christian reading communities as there are denominations, sects, and heresies. But there is only one reading community that assigns the meanings that the Father and the Son intend for the words of Holy Writ to have—and this community is today very small, and is entirely based on the works of the one endtime person called by Christ to reread prophecy as the Apostle Paul was called to know the will of God. The words of Philadelphia come from the endtime work being openly done but heard as the thin silence the prophet Elijah heard (1 Kings 19:12).
The earthly body of Christ Jesus was not raised from death on the third day but after three days and three nights; however, the spiritual Body of Christ will on the third day rise from the dead, with this “third day” being the third day of the “P” creation account, the day about which the Lord God twice said, It is good (Gen 1:10, 12).
With God, darkness precedes light; night precedes day. With man, with the Adversary, a day can begin at midnight, at dawn, or at any fixed hour, but with God, the turning away (twisting away) from the light that is represented in the Hebrew signifier for night represents the rebellion against God of an anointed guardian angel that led to the opening of the Abyss in which the universe was created, with light coming to the darkness of the Abyss in the face of Christ Jesus (cf. 2 Cor 4:6; Gen 1:3). Thus, with God, light always comes out from darkness: it doesn’t follow darkness, but emerges out from darkness, with the earth’s sun forming a dead shadow and type of Christ entering the world as the light of men (John 1:4).
The heathen that practices sun worship; the Christian that practices sun worship—both worship the shadow and not the substance of Christ. And it is the Adversary who would have the day begin with his rebellion against God, thus calling darkness light and light darkness. The Adversary would have the day begin with sunrise, thereby having human beings worship him as the messiah, the one who lifted the darkness that comes with obeying God, according to him and his servants.
Returning to the “P” creation account: the fourth day of the account sees the glorification of the firstfruits of God, with those who are great (from Matt 5:19) ruling the day (Gen 1:16) and those who are least (again, Matt 5:19) ruling the night—
It is on the third day of the “P” creation account when the Church as the Body of Christ is resurrected from death through Christians being filled-with and empowered by the divine breath of God, not after three days and three nights. It will be after three days and nights (that is, on the fourth day) when the firstfruits of God are glorified as two great lights (again Gen 1:16), the greater to rule the day (heaven) and the lesser to rule the darkness (the creation). Therefore, the glorified Jesus commanded His endtime or post-resurrection disciples to remain in Jerusalem, the city of God, until they are clothed with power from on high.
The assumption has been that Jesus’ disciples were clothed with power from on high on that day of Pentecost following Calvary, an assumption that can be examined in looking at how Stephen was clothed in Jerusalem when he was martyred (that day of Pentecost had come and gone before Stephan was martyred).
On that day of Pentecost, the disciples had been visibly baptized in spirit (the sound like the rushing of a violent wind that filled the house — Acts 2:3) and in fire (the cloven tongues of fire that sat on each of them — v. 3); thus we would expect to see Stephan as we do, full of grace and power and performing wonders and great signs (Acts 6:8), but Stephan had not left the city. Rather, after witnessing to the things that had happened in the city, Stephan was filled with spirit [he hadn’t been before] and gazed into heaven—
But he [Stephan], full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." But they [the Jews] cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:55–60)
Stephan was clothed with power from on high when he saw the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God—and all of the first disciples, with the notable exception of John, were similarly clothed with power from on high. All were martyred, with Lord Jesus receiving their spirits. All now await the arrival of endtime disciples who will be killed as they were and thereby afterward clothed with power from on high … the fleshly body in which the living son of God dwells functions as a garment, as a tent, as a house, as the temple. To be clothed with power from on high is not to be further clothed, adding layers of righteousness over the top of sinful flesh, cloaking sin under grace, but is to be stripped naked, revealed—not the flesh, but the living inner self that is then clothed with power from on high. And to be stripped naked so that the invisible inner self can be seen requires expunging sin and death from the fleshly body of the disciple so that the fleshly body of the disciple functions as an invisible garment, a garment through which the inner self can be seen.
There is an important principle concerning light that John understood but that most Christians have not: the visible world is seen because it reflects light … when light is physical (i.e., of this world), visibility comes from the surface of things reflecting the light spectrum, all or part. Color comes from a partial reflection of the light spectrum. Likewise, when light is God, visibility comes from lawlessness [sin] blocking this light, and color comes from the partial reflection of God off a living entity.
Light itself casts no shadow; hence, when there is no indwelling sin—when a living entity is of God—there is no shadow. The world simply cannot see the living entity.
Neither the patriarchs of old, Israel, nor the world could see the Father, the reason why Jesus had to reveal Him to Jesus’ disciples—and the world today cannot see the Father, the reason why carnal Greek and Latin converts to Christianity debated about whether God was one, or three-in-one, and why this debate continues between Arian denominations and Trinitarian denominations.
In order for the fleshly body of a Christian to become spiritually invisible so that the living inner self can be seen, sin and death must be purged from the flesh, the work of the Second Passover liberation of Israel. Then, whatever is the desire of the heart or the thought of the mind, the Christian will have the power to do, making the flesh spiritually invisible while retaining physical visibility. So both men and angels can see the thoughts and into the heart of the person, thereby seeing the living inner person that is a son of God.
Any Christian ministry that is large and visible in this world today is based on disobedience and in rebellion against God; for what is Light casts no shadow and cannot be seen. … The shadow and copy of the Second Passover’s expunging of sin and death from the fleshly bodies of disciples occurred on the day of Pentecost that followed Calvary. For a while afterwards, the shadow of Peter and John falling across a person would heal the person. But shadows shorten as the light moves overhead, and shadows fade as the light dims: in muted light, shadows are no longer seen and healings will cease to occur and the words coming from Christ will no longer be recorded. Scripture will become a closed canon—until the words of Christ are again written.
The first disciples were to remain in Jerusalem until they were fully clothed with power from on high—they were to be as Stephan was, in Jerusalem and witnesses to the things that have occurred from Adam to Adam, the first and the last. Their words would be the works of Jesus; their works would be the words of endtime disciples. And the works of endtime disciples would the words of the third part of humankind:
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me," declares the LORD of hosts. "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones. [cited by Jesus — Matt 26:31] In the whole land, declares the LORD, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, “They are my people”; and they will say, “The LORD is my God.” (Zech 13:7– emphasis added)
But if the first disciples had remained in the city, would the Body of Christ have died in the manner that it did? Would disciples have consented to the death of the Body, necessary before the sign of Jonah could be manifested in the Body of Christ as this sign was manifested by the Head of the Body?
3.
What does it mean to believe that Jesus is the Christ, a question that invites mockery? Certainly every Christian knows what it means to believe that Jesus is the Christ, but this cannot be: the person who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and therefore does not make a practice of sinning (1 John 3:8–9). The person who truly believes that Jesus is the Son of God has overcome the world and is no longer a functioning part of the world even though he or she continues to dwell in this world; the person who believes that Jesus is the Christ is not overcome by the world. Thus, the Christian who makes a practice of sinning cannot be born of God but is of the Adversary even though this Christian earnestly claims to believe that Jesus is the Christ. So the seemingly universal statement that John writes is not for a universal context.
To limit a universal statement to a specific-context statement requires evidence even greater than visible Christendom’s open transgression of the Law; for how can so many Christians—most all of Christianity—not be born as sons of God, but be deceived into bringing condemnation upon themselves by saying that they know the Lord, that they understand the mysteries of God, that they are saved when they openly mock Christ Jesus and worship the Adversary, calling him Jesus?
Models reset; patterns reset; what was true remains true, but the words [linguistic icons/signifiers] used to express this truth shift meanings as differing linguistic objects are assigned to icons. So while a universal statement made late in the 1st-Century was true when made, the Adversary negated the statement through introducing a different Jesus than the one actually crucified at Calvary.
Paul wrote,
For I feel a divine jealousy for you [the holy ones at Corinth], since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Cor 11:2–4 emphasis added)
If someone comes and proclaims another Jesus — a different Jesus from the one crucified that had already been proclaimed to the holy ones while Paul still lived, with this different Jesus being acceptable to the Church at Corinth. Thus, no one should be surprised if the Jesus proclaimed by the Roman Church is a different Jesus than the one proclaimed in most Sabbatarian fellowships, or the one proclaimed in Latter Day Saint wards. Every major schism within Christendom has its own Jesus, all but one of which have come from the Adversary.
But how do these many Saviors differ from the Jesus crucified at Calvary, the one that John presents in his gospel? Is there really not just one Jesus, the one that came as the unique one, the only Son of Yah, the God that Moses and the seventy elders saw?
Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank. (Ex 24:9–11)
And here is where the source of varying Saviors lays … God is one, the mantra of Judaism—and of Christendom. But if God is one, then why does Judaism name God with the plural signifier, Elohim, rather than the singular signifier, El, or Eloah? Certainly excuses have been created for the use of the plural, excuses similar to the English use of the royal we, but John writes, oudeis popote heoraken Theon [God no one has seen ever] monogenes theos ho on eis toy patros ton kolpon ekeninos exegesato [the one being in the bosom of the Father that one explained Him] (John 1:18). Elsewhere, John records Jesus saying, “‘O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me’” (John 17:25).
Abraham under the oaks of Mamre did not wash the feet of the Father but the feet of Yah (Gen 18:4); Jacob did not wrestle with the Father, but with Yah (Gen 32:30); Moses did not see the backside of the Father, but the backside of Yah (Ex 33:23). And it was the only Son of Yah, the man Jesus the Nazarene, that revealed the previously unknown existence of the Father to Israel.
Looping back to a previously introduced concept: if God is light, how did Moses and the seventy elders see Yah, who would have been light? How did Jacob wrestle with Yah in darkness? There is an element that is expressed in the Lord saying to Moses, “‘But … you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live’” (Ex 33:20) that is underdeveloped in Scripture: if Moses and the seventy saw the Lord—and the testimony of Moses is that they did—then entering into the creation imparts visibility to what is invisible, suggesting that the taint of darkness comes upon all that is in the creation.
Now back to other Saviors: every Christian ministry holding the dogma that Jesus came into this world as the only Son of the Father teaches a different Jesus from the one that John knew—and as the disciple that Jesus loved, John set out to correct error and to purge from the Body of Christ the false Saviors that were said to have come into this world as the Unique Son of the Father, when this simply wasn’t so. Jesus was the only Son of the Logos [o logos] who was God [theos] and who was with the God [ton theon] in the beginning (John 1:1). Jesus became the First of the firstborn sons of the Father when the breath of the Father [pneuma theon] descended upon Him in the form of a dove.
· Jesus did not come into this world as the Son of God the Father, but as the only Son of the Logos.
· The Logos created all that has been made (John 1:3) in anticipation of entering His creation as His only Son;
· Thus, the Logos not the Father is the Creator;
· The Logos then ceased to exist as God—He died—when He entered His creation as His only Son, the man Jesus the Nazarene, who came to die inside the creation.
· Therefore, the man Jesus the Nazarene was fully a human being and not God: to teach that Jesus came as fully man and fully God is heresy, is to teach another Jesus, a false Jesus.
Every Christian who holds dogma contending that the Father created this world and all that is in it teaches a Jesus other than the One crucified at Calvary. Every Christian who believes that Jesus came into this world as the only Son of the Father believes in an alien Jesus. Every Christian who believes that Jesus came as fully man and fully God believes a lie—
Cutting through the differing Saviors, each claiming to be Jesus, what can safely be said is that if the disciple doesn’t keep the commandments, the disciple has not been born of God regardless of how many times the disciple professes with his or her mouth that Jesus is Lord.
As the Father gave the Twelve to Jesus to be His first disciples, with one of the Twelve there to betray Jesus, the Father in this present era gives those human persons whom He has foreknown to Jesus to be His disciples, with some given to betray their brothers and friends. The Father gives these persons to Jesus by drawing them from this world—by causing their mindsets to become alienated against the things and the values of this world, with this alienation coming from receiving the earnest of the spirit, meaning that Jesus must call the person who is to be His disciple in the fairly narrow time space between when the Father gives the person to Jesus to be a disciple and when the person feels so alienated from this world and its desires that he or she becomes truly weird—
There is a tendency among Christians, especially Sabbatarian Christians, to become weird when they experience alienation from spiritual Babylon. Sabbatarians tend to draw into themselves, hyper-correcting past practices and beliefs, even rejecting Greek as the language of the New Testament. Almost without exception, the Sabbatarian is transformed into a biblical literalist when called by Christ: the Sabbatarian desires to be under the law, the desire admirable but also the desire of a spiritual newborn infant. And it is in this narrow window between being given to Jesus and circumcision of the heart where many sons of God die of spiritual SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. For no easily explained reason, these Christians give up on God.
The simple Christianity of just give your heart to the Lord becomes complicated by Greek equivocation, by Hebraic thought-couplets, by one God being two Gods that function as one God … Nicodemus was puzzled by how a man can enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born again—and endtime Christians are puzzled by a God of love that would slay a third of humankind, all biological or legal firstborns, that have not covered sins by taking the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14th of Aviv. How can that be? A God of love killing so many without warning?
But the works of the Father were manifested in Jesus’ words, and the works of Jesus were manifested in the words of His first disciples, and the works of the first disciples are manifested in the words of endtime disciples, and the works of endtime disciples will be manifested in the words of the third part of humankind … a warning was given in the works of the Father that continues forward through the words of Yah to the writings of Moses to the dwelling of Israel in the Promised Land, each a text read in the testimony of Stephan.
The Adversary remains as the prince of this world and will continue as this world’s prince until the single kingdom of this world is taken from him and his angels and he is cast from heaven and cast into time [space-time] (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18; 12:7–10) where he will acquire visibility, looking for all the world like the effeminate, long-haired portrait of Jesus that the world recognizes as its Savior … it has been in the Adversary’s self-interest to turn Christianity into a tool that serves him and his reigning hierarchy. And the most efficient means of forging Christ into a hammer that he swings was to reinvent the Christ through sending his servants forth declaring a different Jesus, a different gospel, a different salvation, a universally acceptable Savior, a man who came to bring peace to the world and prosperity to the individual.
Face the reality: God consigned all of humanity to disobedience so that He could have mercy on all (Rom 11;32), meaning that every human person is born as a slave of the Adversary. Paul preached his gospel about Christ Jesus to the Adversary’s slaves, thereby stirring up his slaves and causing trouble for the Adversary. And since the Adversary, as the still-reigning prince of the power of the air, has placed his nature, his thoughts, his values into every person, all the person has to do to understand the Adversary’s response to the threat against him that Jesus posed is to think about how the person would react to someone meddling with the person’s property, causing trouble for the person. Is the person going to meekly accept someone like Paul preaching rebellion to the person’s slaves/employees? How welcome were union organizers in early 20th-Century company towns—and Paul would have been less welcomed by the Adversary than any union organizer … as coal companies in, say, West Virginia, or mine owners in Butte, Montana, hired armed thugs to defend their interests, the Adversary sent forth an army of theological thugs not to prevent the spread of the gospel of Christ Jesus, but to preach a different gospel about a different Jesus, with all of these additional gospels being more family-friendly and therefore more acceptable in the Hellenistic world than the gospel Paul delivered to the Adversary’s slaves.
When a person not drawn from this world by the Father hears the good news that salvation has come to Greeks as well as to the Jews, that all a person has to do to be saved is to called upon Jesus, inviting Jesus into the person’s heart, why would this person not want to be a Christian? Certainly persecution by civil authorities will hinder the faint-of-heart from openly living as a Jew, but according to the good news of Jesus brought to the person by seemingly devout men of God, Greeks don’t have to live as Jews. All Greeks have to do to be saved is profess that Jesus is Lord and believe that the Father raised Jesus from death … Jesus kept the commandments, and with Jesus in the person’s heart, the commandments are being kept by the person even when the person conducts his or her mundane affairs on the Sabbath, buying and selling, planting and harvesting, laboring long hours for little gain. And is this not the good news of Jesus that is today proclaimed 24/7 on satellite television? Is this not the gospel delivered to Africans in crusades attended by tens of thousands, even by hundreds of thousands, with most attendees signing pledge cards that promise to the signer relief from the present trials that have come upon all of Africa? Is this not the gospel believed by tornado victims throughout America’s Bible Belt? Is this not a different Jesus and a different gospel than the ones Paul preached?
Does it truly make sense that a Christian doesn’t have to walk as Jesus walked because Jesus is in the heart of the Christian—that is a nonsensical premise! To hold such a belief while professing that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is the Christ reveals that the person is not born of God, but is a spiritual bastard, spawned by the Adversary but claiming God to be the person’s Father.
Paul was called by Christ Jesus to do a job, that of laying the foundation of the house of God. But in laying this foundation, Paul also laid the foundation for the Church as the Body of Christ dying spiritually … while He lived, Jesus prevented His disciples from telling the Jews that He was the Christ—the Jews as a community were not given by the Father to Jesus as disciples. Therefore, to announce that He, Jesus, was the Christ to the men of Israel would invited both persecution and invention by the Adversary of many gospels messages about the exploits of Jesus, messages that actually exist but that were authored after the first disciples died physically.
Paul, by preaching Christ to unbelieving Greeks, most of whom were disgruntled slaves of the Adversary that the Father had not predestined to be glorified as the firstfruits of God—Paul, by preaching Christ and Christ crucified to all, condemned the Church to spiritual death by bringing many Greeks not foreknown by the Father into fellowship with the holy ones. Condemning the Church to death was never Paul’s intension, and was probably far from his thoughts, but Paul, by consenting to Stephen’s martyrdom, sealed his own fate …
Paul writes, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor 12:27) … the Body of Christ is a fractal image of Christ, with each individual Christian truly born of God in turn being a fractal image of the Body. Stephen was a fractal image of Christ Jesus, and by extension, a fractal image of the Church and of Paul, himself. Thus, in Stephen’s martyrdom is seen the death of the man Jesus the Nazarene, as well as the death of the Body of Christ—as well as Paul’s own death. Therefore, the miracles Jesus did forms a fractal of the history of Israel that Stephen relates to the Jews that had seized him; the miracles Jesus did also forms a fractal of the miracles Paul did, the healings. And as the miracles Jesus did laid the foundation for His martyrdom, the miracles Paul did laid the foundation for his own martyrdom—and in Paul preaching Christ and Christ crucified to Greeks, Paul consented to his own martyrdom as he had consented to Stephen’s. However, in Paul being a fractal of the Church, Paul also consented to the death of the Body of Christ.
It is unclear in Scripture whether any of the first disciples would have consented to the death of the Church … certainly, none of the first disciples except for Judas Iscariot consented to the death of Jesus, the Head of the Church; so most likely none would ever have knowingly consented to the death of the Body. A person, an apostle had to be called by God and by the Son to do the work of consenting to the death of the Body, with Paul in consenting to Stephen’s death disclosing that he was such a person. For truly, what the disciples bound on earth was bound in heaven: if the disciples would have refused to consent to the death of the Body of Christ, the Body would not have died. But the disciples were scattered, not very perceptive, and they had authorized Paul to go to the Gentiles, taking the gospel of Christ to those who were not natural Israelites. And in sending Paul to the Gentiles, they had unwittingly consented to the martyrdom of the Body of Christ, with the foundation for this martyrdom coming by Paul preaching Christ and Christ crucified to Greeks as Stephen had preached Christ crucified to the Jews.
The ways and thoughts of men are not the ways and thoughts of God—and the Christian who has not been truly born of God can not think the thoughts of God. The subtlety of the Adversary is more than the slaves of the Adversary can grasp.
For as long as a Christian remains a functioning part of this world, the Christian remains a slave to the Adversary … the Second Passover liberation of Israel will, however, end Christendom’s enslavement—
4.
The Apostle John wasn’t martyred as the other first disciples were martyred: after being told to feed the lambs and sheep of Christ, Jesus addressed the issue of Peter’s martyrdom—
“Truly, truly, I [Jesus] say to you [Peter], when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he [Jesus] said to him, "Follow me."
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said, "Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?" When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?"
Jesus said to him [Peter], "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!" So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?" This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. (John 21:18–24 emphasis added)
The saying spread among the brothers that John was not to die—John remained alive and mostly well long after each of the brothers died, leaving the brothers to continue believing that John was not to die. When John writes what is chapter 21, again, the chapter having the narrative feel of an addendum, John realizes/has long realized the truth of the situation: he would die, but not as the others died. However, John would do far greater works than all of the other disciples, with these works coming through the writings of his endtime brothers and partners; for in John’s name the inner self of the Body of Christ is made visible.
Yes, in John, Jesus introduced visibility to a previously invisible aspect of the fractal that is Christ … to die as Jesus the Nazarene died isn’t to die completely, for the living inner self doesn’t die but merely sleeps (used metaphorically) until the body is resurrected from death, with the mortal flesh putting on immortality. In his person, John represents the inner self/selves of Christians; hence, his name is the before-movement-of-breath form of Ionas.
The first disciples form shadows and copies of endtime disciples—and the first disciples began to follow the man Jesus the Nazarene before the spirit was given. Now, move upward spiritually a step: endtime disciples can only be disciples by having been born of spirit. They cannot follow Christ as sheep follow a shepherd, with both the shepherd and the sheep leaving visible footprints on sage-covered hillsides. They can only metaphorically follow Jesus by living their lives as Jesus lived His life. Therefore, the first disciples prior to being born of spirit form the shadow and copy of endtime disciples prior to the Second Passover liberation of Israel. The first disciples after being born of spirit form the shadow and copy of endtime disciples that have been filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God. And Peter and John, who were filled-with and empowered by the spirit form the shadow and copy of the two witnesses in the Affliction.
It has been stated many times in Sabbath Readings that the two witnesses in the Affliction are represented by Moses and Aaron, and in turn represent the glorified Lamb of God and the Remnant (from Rev 12:17) in the Endurance, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years … the lesser of the two witnesses (the younger brother) is represented by Aaron and represents the Remnant. But between Aaron and the younger of the two witnesses is the Apostle John, whose long life reappears in the Remnant not dying but in the twinkling of an eye being glorified—but John did die! So yes, some of the Remnant will die, but in the works of John [the endtime writings that come from John’s testimonies] the role of the Aaron is rewritten so that the Remnant doesn’t have to die. And because the Remnant doesn’t have to die, most of the Remnant will not be martyred whereas both of the two witnesses will have been martyred.
Now, in your mind [in the imaginations of auditors] visually gather all of the first disciples together, including Jesus’ brothers and Paul, and see them as the fractal image of Christ Jesus, each of them outwardly circumcised and living as an observant Jew. These men are undoubtedly the Church. And of these men, all but John is killed for his belief that Jesus is Lord, with John/Ioanne being in name the disciple Jesus loved best … why? Because John in name [again, Ioanne] would represent the inner self of the Church, the Body of Christ, that is not martyred, that is transformed through the movement of breath from in front of the nasal <an> to behind the nasal <na> — the movement of breath from that received from the first Adam when Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into the man of mud’s nostrils (Gen 2:7) to the breath of God [pneuma theon] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christos] received when the person is truly born of God. In his name, John represents the inner self of the Body of Christ, the inner self that is presently dead but that will be resurrected from death when the Body of Christ is resurrected from death at the Second Passover liberation of Israel.
And the above simply cannot be understood by the person—the Christian—not yet born of God.
The Christian who does not believe John will not believe the Christian’s own inner self when this inner self is resurrected from death.
When Paul preached Christ and Christ crucified to Greeks, the Adversary probably was certain that he had at his fingertips the means of killing the Body of Christ; of subverting the entirety of the Christian movement. What the Adversary didn’t understand was that the Body as the fractal of Jesus had to die but live on through the resurrection of the inner self—John--from death at the end of the age.
As darkness/night precedes day/light, the dead inner self precedes the living inner self, living from having received a second breath of life … the sign of John precedes the sign of Jonah.
In understanding John’s gospel, his vision—in comprehending the movement of breath from the nose, represented by aspiration <h> (in Greek ah) occurring in front of the nasal consonant (<n> in English; to behind the nose/nasal consonant as occurs in the only sign that Jesus gave, the sign of Jonah—the Body of Christ again breathes the breath of Christ, disclosing that the return of life to the full Body is nearly at hand.
The sign of John is expressed in John writing,
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
The sign of John will have disciples that are truly born of God keeping the commandments as the outward expression of inward love for God.
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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."