The Philadelphia Church

The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary are offered as openings into dialogue about the subject or concept. And the concept behind the readings for Atonement or Yom Kipporim is the covering of righteousness.

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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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The person conducting the services should read or assign to be read Leviticus chapter 23, verses 26 through 32, followed by Leviticus chapter 16, and Numbers chapter 29, verses 7 through 11.

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Commentary: In rejecting the high Sabbaths of God as “Jewish” days that New Testament Christians do not observe because Jesus fulfilled them, the greater Christian Church reveals that it has never understood the plan of God. If the greater Church had understood that the Sabbaths of God, like the Levitical priesthood and like circumcised Israel, were parables [from Heb 9:9] that made visible [revealed] what was to occur inwardly (and invisibly) when the dead inner self of disciples was raised from death through receipt of the spirit, the breath of God [pneuma Theon], perhaps the greater Church would not have so quickly turned to wholesale lawlessness and separation from God. Perhaps the Body of Christ would not have died as Jesus died. But as the Head of the Church died when still dwelling in a tent of flesh, the Body of Christ died while still dwelling in tents [tabernacles] of flesh—and as the Head was raised from death after being buried in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, the Body will be raised from death on “the third day” of the Genesis chapter one creation account, a grammatical claim with which biblical literalists will struggle but a claim that is true.

What would be different if the greater Christian Church had understood that the Sabbaths of God were parables? If the greater Church had understood, would the Church not have also understood that the invisible inner self was the head of the outer self in the same way that the invisible Christ Jesus was the head of the Church, the Body of Christ? Would the Church not have understood that Christ Jesus covered His Body with His obedience, His righteousness, in a manner analogous to how a man clothes his body in garments earned by his labor? Would the Church not have understood that the grace is the garment with which Christ Jesus covers His Body until the Son of Man is disrobed or revealed (Luke 17:30)? Would the Church not have understood that in the relationship between the inner self and the outer self; that in the relationship between Christ Jesus and the Body of Christ there is no room for a Roman emperor as an earthly representative of God, or a top-heavy ministry of fat sheep trampling the grass and muddying the water on which the lean sheep feed and drink (see Ezek 34:11–24), that the Body of Christ has no shepherd but Christ Jesus? Certainly if the greater Church had understood that the Sabbaths of God were a parable, with entering the Sabbath each week representing entering into heaven (see Heb 3:12–4:11), the Church would not have so quickly abandoned God and turned to worshiping demons in the name of Christ. But then, the Body of Christ would not have died as Jesus’ earthly body died.

Outwardly circumcised Israel in the Promised Land was a living parable, a metaphor that made visible circumcised-of-heart Israel: Christendom. And as outwardly circumcised Israel took from the Promised Land two grain harvests that formed one annual harvest of the land, with the early barley harvest deemed the harvest of firstfruits and the latter wheat harvest forming the main crop harvest, the Lord God will take from the earth two harvests that form one harvest, with a harvest of firstfruits to occur in the “Christian era,” the years between when Christ Jesus as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering ascended to the Father and when the glorified Christ returns as the Messiah, with these two millennia represented by the seven weeks between the Wave Sheaf and the Feast of Weeks.

A second and greater harvest of the earth will occur in the great White Throne Judgment after the thousand year long reign of the Messiah as King of kings and Lord of lords, and after Satan has been loosed for a short while [three and a half years] to deceive and attempt to deceive those individuals born during the thousand years.

But when Moses led the children of Israel to the plains of Moab and became the mediator of a second covenant, a spiritual covenant, a covenant made in addition to the covenant made with Israel at Sinai (cf. Deut 29:1; Ex chap 34[1]), Moses told the children of Israel that the harvest of the Promised Land would be “your grain and your wine and your oil” (Deut 11:14). So the two grain harvests, the early barley harvest and the latter wheat harvest, represent the main harvest of humankind, but not all of the harvest of humankind. And the greater Christian Church isn’t the oil and wine (from Rev 6:6), the “processed” fruit of God’s rest, that Sin, the spiritual king of the South, cannot harm in the Affliction; the harvest that will not be bought and sold as commodities are bought and sold. There is no “futures” market on which Sin can wager the lives of those disciples who represent the oil and the wine. Rather, the greater Church represents the early barley harvest that has less value than wheat—a third the value of wheat; i.e., disciples that will be raised from death in the great White Throne Judgment. The reason for the lower value of firstfruits will be addressed later in this reading.

It is, however, the Sabbatarian churches of God that are of primary interest today, Yom Kipporim 2010. The greater Christian Church and its lawlessness can wait.

For the past three-quarters of a century, the Sabbatarian churches of God have taught that the Second Advent occurs on the Feast of Trumpets [Herbert W. Armstrong’s teaching]—

Whereas Seventh Day Adventists teach that Christians are today in the reality of the Day of Atonement, meaning that Christ has already come, the reason why Ellen G. White said that her disciples do not keep the Passover as Jesus left His disciples the example, the factionalized churches of God continue to hold the teachings of Herbert Armstrong, and have understood what rabbinical Judaism has understood: Yom Kipporim somehow represents the revealing of judgments and the covering of sin. Whereas both Armstrong and White mingle partial understanding of the plan of God with misunderstanding and end up doing disciples more harm than good, at least the factionalized churches of God fast on Atonement, afflicting the flesh through not eating or drinking for twenty-hour hours. However, with unknown exceptions, the factionalized churches of God (COGs) continue to teach that the two goats selected as Israel’s sin offering (Lev 16:5) represent Christ and the Adversary, which is a grievous error and an actual denial of grace—it is perhaps good that disciples in the COGs are without spiritual birth, for to deny grace would cause a born-of-spirit son of God to be condemned to the lake of fire.

Both goats represent Christ Jesus; both goats form one parable, a special kind of metaphor where one thing is said to be another thing within the parameters of a story. For Jesus’ death at Calvary “covers” or pays the death penalty for every sin that Israel has committed or will commit within the creation: the crucifixion of Jesus is the reality of the selected goat that the high priest kills as the sin offering that is for the people (Lev 16:15). But after His resurrection, Jesus “covers” the sins of Israel in the heavenly realm by bearing these sins without dying for them, meaning that someone else with life in the heavenly realm will [when judgments are revealed — 1 Cor 4:5] die for these sins, with this someone else being either the person who committed the sin or the Adversary, the one who is ultimately responsible for all sin. Thus, the Azazel is not the Adversary [Satan], but the glorified Jesus bearing the sins of human sons of God until the Son of Man is revealed [disrobed] (Luke 17:30). The precipice represented in the word Azazel is the separation between heaven and earth. The reading or confessing of the sins of Israel over the head of the Azazel (Lev 16:21) represents the glorified Jesus taking upon Himself the confessed sins of Israel, the nation that is now circumcised-of-heart. Hence, when the Son of Man is revealed [made spiritually naked as Adam was physically naked in the Garden of Eden], grace ends and disciples either will or won’t cover themselves with their own obedience, with “obedience” functioning spiritually as clothing functions physically … the inner son of God must clothe himself in the modest attire of obedience as the outer man [or woman] clothes himself [or herself] in modest attire, not adorning the flesh with fine clothing or gaudy jewelry or plaiting of the hair. To think more highly of oneself than the disciple of God should (Rom 12:3) is to adorn the inner self with fine clothing that is condemned under the word vanity. Therefore, the modest attire of obedience is not subject to fashion whims or the will of people, but is appropriate attire before God in season and out, year after year, decade after decade, century after century. And when the inner self is arrayed in the garment of obedience, the outer self has no use for the “finer things” of this world. Before God, there are no metro-males. There are no designer gowns or custom tailored suits. There is one garment that looks pretty much the same on every son of God, the garment of obedience by faith.

Oil and wine vary year by year and by cultivar, but all olive oil looks pretty much the same as all wine looks pretty much like wine. Most wines improve with aging … grapes growing on a vine are not wine, nor are freshly crushed grapes or unfermented grape juice.

Olives on a tree, regardless of whether wild or domesticated, are not oil, but the fruit from which the oil hidden in the flesh will be extracted by pressing.

Likewise, the sons of Adam in this present era are not glorified sons of God, but the raw fruit from which oil will be pressed or wine will be made. Whereas there will be a lightly valued [when the Son of Man is first revealed] harvest of firstfruits that will be bought and sold as a grain commodity on a spiritual futures market, the pressing of grapes and olives has been occurring for decades, but the metaphorical grapes crushed and fermented in the 1^st-Century, with very few exceptions, turned to vinegar—and the wild olives graphed to the Root of Righteousness have continued to bear wild fruit, small and bitter and hardly worth pressing. These wild olives branches (from Rom 11:17–24) have not changed their “natures” and produced the fruit of cultivated varieties [cultivars], but year by year continue to produce the fruit of disobedience. And these wild olives branches bearing wild fruit represent the majority of the COGs that inevitably stand as obstacles to understanding the plan of God.

The Sabbatarian churches of God—the surviving splintered fellowships of Armstrong’s disciples—have eaten the leaven of the Jews which Jesus warned against (Matt 16:6, 12): either through use of the calculated calendar or through the Sacred Names Heresy, the various COGs with their aging memberships cling like cockleburs to the partial understandings gleaned four and five decades ago from radio broadcasts that spread the seed of Sabbatarian Christendom across the continent and around the world. But Christ did not overlook the errors embedded in these broadcasts: getting the Body of Christ to “breathe” on its own wouldn’t then be accomplished because of these embedded errors. And as the last Elijah, Christ Jesus knew a third attempt would be required: He knew He would have to let these disciples go, that He would have to stretch Himself over the Body of Christ a third time as the first Elijah thrice stretched himself over the son of the widow of Zarephath before the lad again breathed on his own (1 Kings 17:21–22).

In the “natural” world a grafted branch does not bear the fruit of the rootstock, but bears its own fruit while being sustained by the rootstock. But when Gentiles as wild olive branches are grafted unto the Root of Righteousness that is Christ Jesus, the expectation is that these wild branches go against nature and begin to bear the fruit of righteousness. Thus, when these wild branches continue to bear wild fruit year after year, the Father prunes these branches … if, however, these branches bear no fruit either before or after being pruned, they are cut off to make room for additional branches, ones that will bear fruit even if only wild fruit (cf. John 15:2; Rom 11:22); for it isn’t the works of the Law that God primarily or immediately desires, but the faith that would cause a wild olive branch to go against what is natural and bear the fruit of righteousness. For the fruit of the olive, either wild or cultivated, must still be pressed before the oil is released so that “bread” can be made from the beaten-fine harvest of firstfruits: the two loaves of bread to be waved on the Feast of Weeks are not made only from flour and water, but are baked with leavening as loaves of raised bread.

The oil and wine function as harvesters of the firstfruits, the early barley harvest. And as barley has one third the value of wheat on the spiritual futures market, the endtime harvest of human firstfruits [the harvest in the Affliction] begins with a “crop” that is not highly valued because it isn’t the nation of circumcised-of-heart Israel liberated from indwelling sin and death at the Second Passover that enters into God’s rest. Instead, the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9) that metaphorically represents the children of circumcised-of-heart Israel will enter into heaven at Christ’s Second Coming.

Understand, except for Joshua and Caleb, the nation of Israel numbered in the census of the second year (Num 1:1–3) did not enter into God’s rest because of unbelief (Heb 3:19 et al), but the children of Israel—those Israelites who were less than twenty years old when the census was taken and those born in the wilderness—entered into the Promised Land. Whereas the children of Israel and the Levites (Num 1:47–49) were not numbered in the census of the second year, the children of Israel and the tribe of Levi did not perish in the wilderness of Sin because of their unbelief. Metaphorically, the children of Israel represents the third part of humankind in the Endurance [the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years], and the tribe of Levi [the Levitical priesthood] represents the oil and the wine that sin cannot harm in the Affliction [the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years].

Although Sin, the third king of the four kings that emerge from around the stump of the broken first king or great horn of the king of Greece, cannot harm the oil and the wine, those already processed disciples are still mortal and are still subject to Death, the fourth king. They can die physically, but a remnant of them will survive (Rev 12:17), and this Remnant will serve as the spokesman for God in the Endurance, having in the Endurance power and authority similar to that possessed by the two witnesses during the Affliction.

The reason the barley harvest is lightly valued pertains to the rebellion of Christendom in the Apostasy (2 Thess 2:3), the great falling away that occurs on day 220 of the Affliction … as the third part of humankind will rebel against the Antichrist 250 days into the Endurance, thereby turning away from the cross, the metaphorical representation of Death, the greater Christian Church will reject the Sabbath and keeping the commandments 220 days into the Affliction[2] and will instead keep Sunday and Christmas. Whereas 250 days after Satan is cast from heaven and comes claiming to be the Messiah, the third part of humankind will turn their backs to the fallen Adversary and will begin to keep the commandments by faith even though keeping the commandments will mean that they cannot buy or sell, 220 days after every Christian regardless of sect or denomination is filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God [pneuma Theon], greater Christendom will turn its back to the Father and the Son [and all things allegedly Jewish] and will return to its past practices and traditions, with Christmas occurring on Sunday forming a double witness supporting their rebellion against God. Whereas greater Christendom ought to represent the majority of the harvest of firstfruits, few Christians will not rebel against God on day 220; thus, today’s Christians are lightly valued. They are not worthy of Christ Jesus. They will not pickup what tethers them to this world and follow Jesus, who walked as an observant Jew. They are worthless as grain; they are tares [darnel], planted by the Adversary to look like grain until it becomes time to harvest the fields of humanity. Only in fields seeded in a cover crop [e.g., Islam] will the early barley harvest of humankind grow to maturity; only in fields in which legalism has been plowed under to enrich the soil will the fruit of the spirit ripen. In the sandy deserts of traditional Christianity, the soil is too thin and too poor to support a crop. Thus, in the Endurance (as opposed to the Affliction) the spiritual children of Christianity will grow in faith by being prevented from buying and selling. A few fields will produce the majority of the harvest of firstfruits, with the cover crop plowed under during the Affliction and the fields replanted with Christ when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15).

As a harvest of God, today’s Christians are lightly valued … who “shall separate us from the love of Christ. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword” (Rom 8:35)? Who shall? Christians shall, that’s who. Yes, Christians themselves have separated themselves from Christ Jesus, but not necessarily from His love which is why they will be filled-with and empowered by spirit at the Second Passover. So it didn’t take persecution or famine or war to separate Christians from Christ: it took ego and vanity and the importance of family values. It took the anti-Semitism of Hellenist culture. It took Christmas and Easter and Halloween. It took buying and selling on the Sabbath. It took going along to get along; it took so little that even Paul was surprised when all in Asia left him (2 Tim 1:15) and when those about whom Paul had boasted began serving their bellies, with minds set on earthly things (Phil 3:18–19). It didn’t take much for Christians to separate themselves from Christ and His love: it took Christians believing that Christianity was like other religions with which they were familiar.

The basic premise of Christianity differs from every other ideology: for Christians, at least for those Christians who understood and believed the Apostle Paul, this world and the things in it form the spiritually lifeless, visible shadow of the things of God, with the shadow [the effect] preceding and not following those things that block the light of God [the cause — this is retrocausality or backwards causation]. God was not merely a sky god as Apollo was for pagan Greeks. The creation and all the things that have been created are not merely shadows of “real” objects that exist in heaven as Plato contended. Rather, the creation is a glorified death chamber in which death is the left hand enantiomer of life, the right hand enantiomer. Death forms the mirror image of life. Therefore, every entity confined within the creation will die, and this includes the Adversary when he is cast into time (Rev 12:7–10). Real “life” only exists outside of the creation, with even the inner self that animates the flesh [the outer self] of humankind being “dead” until raised from death by the Father (John 5:21) through the Father giving to this dead inner self “life” (in the form of His breath: pneuma Theon) that comes from heaven. Thus, those heavenly entities that by their unbelief block the light of God cast spiritually lifeless shadows not as chairs and desks, but as physically living parables such as physically circumcised Israel and the children of Israel and the Levitical priesthood—physically living parables such as King Nebuchadnezzar being the shadow of the spiritual king of Babylon (from Isa 14:4), the Adversary … the Lord had to harden the heart of Pharaoh (Ex 10:27 et al) before this Egyptian king could be as resistant to the Lord as the Adversary is to God and thereby form the shadow of the Adversary before and after the Second Passover.

As Elijah the prophet lived in the days of King Ahab, a second Elijah would come to Israel before the great and awesome day of the Lord (Mal 4:6). The first would be a type or shadow of the latter, would be a living parable; for, again, according to the Apostle Paul, the physical precedes and does not follow the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46). In what would seem to be backward causation, within the creation [within time, or better, space-time], the effect seems to precede the cause, but the effect results from a heavenly shadow laying over the mental topography of living creatures; for in the timelessness of heaven, both the shadow that produces the effect and the reality that causes the shadow occur in the same moment for in timelessness there is no past nor future. There is only the present: all activity occurs simultaneously in a non-physical dance of oneness, with previous activity being erased by present activity that must be able to co-exist with what came before. It is only inside of the creation where, in a mirror image of spiritual matters, effects follow the causes that produce the effects; thus, the human being who disagrees with Paul and insists that an effect must follow its cause reveals that he or she remains physically minded and not born of God.

Let this be said once again for emphasis: because the “moment” dies within the creation and passes into the next moment in a manner seen in one generation of human beings passing on only to be followed by another generation, the shadow cast by unbelief [lawlessness] in the heavenly realm will seem to precede the reality that causes the shadow. For example, the lawlessness of endtime Israel—the nation of Israel in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years—is “seen” in its shadow, with circumcised-in-the-flesh Israel during the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan forming one shadow. But a layering of shadows exist; so the lawlessness of the Christian Church in the Affliction is also “seen” in Israel under the judges and under King Saul, and is “seen” in Israel under the kings that follow Solomon, and is “seen” in the actions of Cain. Hence, one “cause” can and usually does produce many shadows, with the layering of shadows giving depth of field perspective to heavenly unbelief that cannot be directly portrayed by spiritually lifeless human beings … a shadow exists in one less dimension than the entity casting the shadow. A three dimensional object in this world casts a two dimensional shadow. By extension, a living entity in the heavenly realm will cast as its shadow the activities of a living entity in this world, with these physical activities having a form of godliness that will seem to satisfy the human need to worship a deity greater than the person.

The writer of Hebrews, in speaking of the first temple, says,

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron's staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. / These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic [a parable] for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. / But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Heb 9:1–14 emphasis added)

The first covenant (i.e., the covenant made on the day when the Lord led the fathers of Israel out from Egypt — Heb 8:9) is not yet abolished, but is “becoming obsolete and growing old” and “ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13). For the earthly temple remains a parable for the spiritual or heavenly temple, with the first section [where the sacrifices are made] still standing in the form of the Passover sacraments of Bread and Wine taken on the dark portion of the 14^th of Abib, with the Passover originally eaten in the houses in which Israel dwelt as slaves of Pharaoh—

The above will take a moment to digest on this day of physical fasting: the second temple went from being a physically lifeless building constructed of sculpted stone and hewn timbers to being the Body of Christ (see John 2:18–22) when the resurrected Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples and said, Receive the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion breath holy] (John 20:22). The assembly that Jesus constructed by breathing on His disciples and thereby directly transferring to them “life” in the form of the breath of God [pneuma Theon] was the rebuilding of the physical temple of God that was destroyed by His death; for Jesus was no longer physical whereas His disciples continued to dwell in physical tents of flesh. The first section of this reconstructed temple was where sacrifices were made and where sacrifices continue to be made, with these sacrifices being the prayers of the saints and the taking of the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Abib. This first section [the mouths of disciples] hasn’t gone away, nor has this first section been replaced by the construction of a third temple. Therefore, until this first section passes away through the disciple being glorified and no longer dwelling in a physical tent of flesh, the earthly temple serves as a parable—a metaphor—for the inner self that functions in the temple of God [i.e., the Body of Christ] as the Levitical priesthood functioned in the first temple.

Spiritual “meat” doesn’t come from the bodies of sheep or goats or bulls, but from the Body of Christ, with this spiritual meat being fit food for the day when physical bodies are not striving to digest physical food—and the above is “solid” food that is not easily digested by spiritual infants.

Herbert W. Armstrong correctly understood that there are two harvests of God, harvests patterned after the grain harvests of ancient Judea, with the Judean spring barley harvest representing the harvest of firstfruits and the latter Judean wheat harvest representing a general resurrection of the dead in the great White Throne Judgment. Hence Armstrong, borrowing from rabbinical Judaism, taught that the Feast of Trumpets [the blowing of Trumpets] heralded Christ’s return and Yom Kipporim represented the revealing of judgments that had been made prior to the coming of the Messiah. Armstrong taught that the Feast of Tabernacles represented Christ Jesus’ millennial reign and the Last Great Day represented the great White Throne Judgment when all who have ever lived and were not called by God as firstfruits will be raised from death and judged by their works. He also taught [falsely taught] that there would be a third resurrection, a resurrection to damnation for evildoers—and this latter teaching is simply not true: there are only two resurrections. The first resurrection is of firstfruits and begins with Christ Jesus, the First of the firstfruits, and is then continued at Christ Jesus’ return as the Messiah. This one resurrection stretches from the Wave Sheaf Offering when the first handful of ripe barley was waved before God on the day after the Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Feast of Weeks, the day after the Sabbath seven weeks later, when two loaves of bread made from finely ground barley from the new crop are baked with leaven and waved before God (Lev 23:10–11, 15–17). The harvests of firstfruits could not begin until the Wave Sheaf Offering was made, and the harvest of firstfruits concluded with the waving of two loaves of new crop barley … spiritually [in timelessness], this one resurrection stretches from when Christ Jesus rose from the dead to when Christ Jesus returns at the Second Advent to reveal the judgments of the saints. Inside of time, approximately two millennia pass between the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering and the reality of the Feast of Weeks.

The resurrection of firstfruits: one resurrection stretched over seven figurative weeks, with two appearances before the Most High, the first when Christ Jesus ascended as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering and the second when glorified disciples ascend at the Wedding Feast as the reality of the two loaves of barley bread baked with leavening on the Feast of Weeks—the pattern of “two” forming “one” is consistent throughout Scripture. The two harvests of ancient Judean hillsides (the barley and the wheat harvests, the early and the latter harvests) formed one grain harvest of the Promised Land. Likewise, the resurrection of firstfruits at the Second Advent and the great White Throne Judgment form one harvest of the earth, with the oil and the wine being included in the harvest of firstfruits.

Harvesting of barley occurred as the “crop” ripened throughout the seven weeks between the Wave Sheaf Offering and the Feast of Weeks; so this entire seven week period represents, for the firstfruits of God, their harvest … when moving from shadow or type [the left hand enantiomer] to the reality that casts the shadow [the right hand enantiomer], movement is from physical to spiritual; from darkness to light; from geographical landscapes producing grain to mental landscapes producing the fruit of the spirit. Movement is from a physical handful of ripe barley waved by the high priest before the Lord on the day after the weekly Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the resurrected Jesus Christ ascending to the Father on the day after the weekly Sabbath (John 20:1; Luke 24:1) during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The constant between the physical and the spiritual is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a remembrance that the physical nation of Israel left Egypt in haste (Deut 16:3).

The Book of Deuteronomy is a recounting to the children of Israel of Israel’s Passover exodus from Egypt, a geographical land that metaphorically represents sin, and [this is important to understand] the Book of Deuteronomy is the giving or making of a second spiritual covenant (Deut 29:1) between the Lord and the children of Israel, not a second giving of the Passover covenant, the covenant day with the fathers of Israel on the day when the Lord led them by the hand out from Egypt (Heb 8:9; Jer 31:32).

What rabbinical Judaism, the theological descendant of 1^st-Century Pharisees, has only partially understood is that the Passover covenant ends when the New Covenant is implemented … when the lives of men are again given as ransom for Israel (Isa 43:4) as the lives of Egyptians were given as Israel’s ransom (v. 3), the nation of Israel will be circumcised of heart, with these hearts having been cleansed by faith (Deut30:1–2, 6). The nation of Israel will not be under the Passover covenant that has Israel eating the Passover on the dark portion of the 14^th of Abib [Aviv], but will be under the New Covenant that has the Torah written on hearts and placed within the Israelite [placed in the mind] so that all Know the Lord, from neighbor to brother (Heb 8:11; Jer 31:34), from great to small, from mighty to weak. Sin will not longer be remembered (Heb 8:12; 10:17; Jer 31:34). Rather, simple unbelief will cause the Lord to send a strong delusion over the person who did not love the truth, a delusion that causes the person to believe what is false so that the person who took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned (2 Thess 2:10–12). Sin moves, under the New Covenant, from being the outward or physical transgression of the commandments (1 John 3:4) to being whatever is not of faith (Rom 14:23), of belief of the Torah that is written on hearts and placed in minds.

Spiritually, sin is to not believe God … any unbelief is rebellion against God of the sort that overcame an anointed cherub and created the Adversary.

Therefore, to live without sin is to believe the Lord, who came as His only son, the man Jesus of Nazareth, to speak the words of the Father, whom ancient Israel did not know or even know-of.

To live without sin is to afflict the soul [the old self, or old man that is the old nature of the person] that serves sin through being consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) and unbelief as the bondservant [slave] of the Adversary, the present prince of this world. Even when the inner self [person] is raised from death through the person receiving a second breath of life, the breath of the Father [pneuma Theon] which is the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion], sin and death continue to dwell in the person’s fleshly members, a mystery that Paul did not understand (Rom 7:15–25). And sin and death will continue to dwell in the fleshly members of sons of God until lives are again given at a Second Passover as ransom for the liberation of these sons of God from indwelling sin and death as lives were given at the first Passover as ransom for the liberation of ancient Israel from physical slavery in a physical nation to a physical king [Pharaoh].

The circumcised-of-heart Israelite is not, today, the fleshly body of a Christian, but the inner self that has been born of spirit [pneuma Theon] and dwells in the fleshly body that is under grace, with grace being the “covering” of the righteousness of Christ that the inner self puts on as a garment as the outer person [the fleshly body] will put on obedience when liberated from indwelling sin and death … “two” form “one” in that the inner self [one entity] and the fleshly body [a second entity] form one person, with what was last becoming first and what was first becoming last; for the fleshly body received life first in the womb of a woman whereas the inner self does not receive life earlier than when the fleshly body physically matures and the spirit is received. But the inner self receives eternal life when it receives life: being the last to receive life, the inner self is the first to receive eternal life whereas the fleshly body will not receive eternal life until judgments are revealed when the Messiah comes and Christ Jesus either does or doesn’t cause the perishable flesh to put on immortality. If the fleshly body is not glorified, the inner self will be the first to perish in the lake of fire whereas angels who as sons of God were first to receive eternal life will be the last to perish in the lake of fire, with “eternal life” being [representing] life in the timeless heavenly realm. So again, the last is first and the first is last.

The inner self is born of God to rule over the fleshly body in which its dwells as a living entity, and as the inner self that has been born of God rules over the outer person, the Christian will keep the commandments of God.

Where there is no rule by the inner son of God over the outer person as in the case when the inner self is dead [without life], the person whether claiming to be a Christian or otherwise lives as a son of disobedience. Thus, when the inner self that has been made alive through the person receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theon], does not rule over the outer person, this “Christian” will transgress the commandments, and will justify these transgressions through claiming the garment of Christ: grace. But the garment of Christ’s righteousness does not cover the outer person: if it did, no Christian would ever physically die. Rather, the garment of grace covers the inner son of God, and this garment of Christ serves as a covering of righteousness under which the son of God practices to walk spiritually upright as a human infant “learns” to walk uprightly as a biped. Under the garment of grace, no sin is counted to the son of God even when the son of God transgresses the commandments either unintentionally or through the weakness of the flesh. For the inner son of God, under the covering of grace, makes war [or should be making war] against the lawlessness that dwells in the fleshly members of the outer person. Battles and skirmishes lost are not counted against the inner self as long as the inner self continues to strive to walk uprightly before God. What is counted against the inner self is rebellion of the sort seen in the wilderness of Paran when Israel would not enter the Promised Land because of unbelief …

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (Num 14:1–4)

Two hundred twenty days after the Second Passover liberation of Israel, the Christian Church which has been filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God so that there is no indwelling sin or death in any Christian, regardless of sect or denomination, will rebel against the Lord and will chose for itself a different leader other than the two witnesses and will return to sin as its willing slave. This different leader will be the man of perdition, the lawless one, an Arian Christian who sincerely believes the angel inside him is Christ Jesus when, in reality, this lawless man has been possessed by the Adversary for the expressed purpose of returning Christians to Sunday worship and Christmas observance. For a while, the man of perdition will seem to all Sunday-observing Christians to serve Christ Jesus: he will not appear sinister, but as an angelic, chubby cheeked spokesman for God. But because he will be an Arian Christian in league with the false prophet who has come to the office of Prophet that is reserved for him, the man of perdition will be recognized for who he is; however, this recognition will come too late for those Christians who either stayed with Sunday observance or who returned to it after the rebellion (2 Thess 2:3).

Two outwardly circumcised nations of Israel left Egypt, one numbered in census of the second year and one too young to be numbered in this census. The first in maturity did not enter into God’s rest, but the second—those circumcised Israelites who were less than 20 years of age in the second year—did enter into God’s rest. Of the children of Israel who entered into God’s rest, there were two nations, the first circumcised in Egypt but too young for the census of the second year, and the second consisting of the uncircumcised children of Israel born in the wilderness. Thus, the nation of Israel that entered into God’s rest on the 10^th day of Aviv (Josh 4:19) was circumcised and uncircumcised, with those who were uncircumcised becoming circumcised before Passover (Josh 5:2–7). And again, “two” were “one.”

Today, there are two nations of Israel: the outwardly circumcised nation [Judaism] and the circumcised-of-heart nation [Christendom], with the circumcised-of-heart nation divided into two peoples, those who are already circumcised-of-heart and those who will be circumcised-of-heart after undertaking a journey of faith following the Second Passover liberation of Israel. Those Christians who will be circumcised-of-heart when the second Passover occurs will have cleansed their hearts by undertaking a journey of faith analogous to Abraham’s physical journey of faith from Ur of the Chaldeans [Babylon] to Haran and then on into Canaan, the Promised Land. For Christians, this journey of faith is away from the kingdom of this world [spiritual Babylon] and into Sabbath observance [by extension, into keeping the commandments by faith] as the outward expression of believing God. But for Christians who have not yet been born of God but will be born at the Second Passover liberation of Israel [analogous to the children of Israel that were physically born in the wilderness], the journey of faith that they must make will be following the two witnesses throughout the Affliction [the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years] and then following Christ Jesus into the Endurance as witnesses for Him.

To speak without reservations or qualifications, following the Second Passover liberation of Christians from indwelling sin and death, almost all Christians will rebel against God through Christmas observance, with the first Christmas to follow the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurring on a Sunday. The alleged double-witness of Christmas occurring on Sunday will be “proof” of the necessity for Christians to tightly hold onto Sunday observance as Christendom’s principle article of faith; whereas Sabbath observance will mark all who are of God. … Satan is subtle: he will use the “two” being “one” principle to deceive Christendom; he will use Christ to deceive those who are of Christ. And those who are deceived will employ the little used Christian flag [a white field with a red Latin cross inside a blue canton] as they wage war in the name of God against every person who will not profess allegiance to rebelling Christendom. The cross as a symbol represents the physical death of Christ Jesus at Calvary and the spiritual death of the children of Israel in the Endurance: as Jesus “voluntarily” submitted to physical death by crucifixion in the 1^st-Century because it was foreordained, the children of Israel will “voluntarily” live in the 21^st-Century if they do not submit to eternal death by taking onto themselves the mark of the beast, Chi xi stigma, the tattoo of Christ’s cross; for in the Endurance, all who endure in faith to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13). In the Endurance, only those children of circumcised-of-heart Israel who take upon themselves the mark of the beast so that they can buy and sell will perish in the lake of fire. All others shall live, with the one who has taken judgment onto the person being glorified when Christ Jesus returns, and with the one who is too young to take judgment onto the person living physically for a thousand additional years before entering into the great White Throne Judgment.

Two forming one, as in a man and his wife forming one flesh (Gen 2:24), with the one [the man] being the head of the other as in Jesus Christ being the Head of the Church [the Body of Christ], is the basic principle underpinning Yom Kipporim, the “Day of Coverings [plural]” on which two goats are selected as the sin offering for Israel (Lev 16:5); for Christ Jesus is the reality of both goats, with, again, the crucified Jesus at Calvary representing the goat killed as the sin offering for the people (v. 15) and with the resurrected glorified Jesus representing the Azazel as He bears the sins of Israel in the heavenly realm. In Himself, before and after glorification Jesus “covers” the sins of Israel on earth and in heaven.

Jesus did not bear the sins of Israel in the heavenly realm before He is crucified at Calvary: the spiritual does not precede the physical. Anyone who would say otherwise disagrees with the Apostle Paul, who wrote,

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:42–49 emphasis added)

From the perspective of timelessness—heaven is timeless, for time and the passage of time can be written as mathematical functions of gravity, meaning that time was created with the creation of all things—a shadow and the object casting the shadow [i.e., blocking the light that is God] coexists in the same moment for there is no other moment. However, from the perspective of human beings that are confined in time because of the physicality of the fleshly body, retrocausality [backward causation] is in play for the shadow [the left hand enantiomer] will seem to precede the event casting the shadow. Ancient Israel’s Passover liberation as the shadow of circumcised-of-heart Israel’s Passover liberation precedes the Second Passover liberation of Israel by a time, times, and half a time [three and a half millennia]. … If a person doesn’t agree with the Apostle Paul—and all of Christendom in Asia left Paul while he still lived (2 Tim 1:15)—the person simply isn’t of the household of God, regardless if the person claims otherwise: if the person claims to be a Christian, the person’s claim is bogus even if sincerely intended. And as Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb would have been stoned by Israel in the wilderness of Paran if the Lord hadn’t immediately intervened (Num 14:10), those who serve God in this endtime era and on into the Affliction and Endurance will often need the sudden intervention of the Lord to avoid physical death, with many going to their physical death as their second journey of faith, the journey analogous to Abraham’s journey to the land of Moriah where he was to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:2).

Atonement is the day [Yom] of coverings [Kipporim — note the plural “im,” which is proper]. Two coverings are needed, the first for sin in this world committed by the flesh—this sin is “covered” by the goat sacrificed on the altar. The second covering is needed for sin in that portion of the heavenly realm within the void created when lawlessness was found in an anointed cherub. This second covering is represented by the Azazel goat, the scapegoat, led into the wilderness by the hand of a fit man, and this second covering is Grace, the righteousness of Christ Jesus that disciples put on daily as a garment.

When a person has been born anew, or born again, or born of Spirit, the person has two lives or life in two realms, not one. The person still has his or her physical life. But to this physical life has been added a second life that begins to overwrite the “old nature” of the person. Thus, the second life that a person has is like the person’s human nature, the mental software program that animates the flesh.

The creation concealed the things of God from ancient Israel so that Israel did not know the beginning or the end of matters (Eccl 3:11); Israel did not and could not know Christ, the beginning and the end (Rev 22:13) of all things. But for those individuals who have been born of Spirit—who have life that has come from heaven—understanding of the mysteries of God has been given. Therefore, the spiritual nature of Yom Kipporim was concealed from the natural nation of Israel for human eyes cannot see the things of God, nor can human ears hear the words of God. Natural Israel could not understand that the plural coverings for sin that the two goats represented; thus, the nation rendered the plural as the singular Kippur. And to further flaunt the nation’s ignorance, the nation, before the Jerusalem temple was destroyed, was killing the Azazel goat by throwing it over a precipice (the nation could not have Azazel goats wandering back into town).

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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."

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