To aid beginning fellowships in conducting weekly Sabbath services, The Philadelphia Church has instituted a suggested or possible selection of complimentary readings, with limited commentary and suggested hymns. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/readings.html The first of a series of selections about the role of women in the new covenant, considering their absence in patriarchal Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-04-05R.html The second of a series of selections about the role of women in the new covenant, considering their absence in patriarchal Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-11-05R.html The third of a series of selections about the role of women in the new covenant, considering their absence in patriarchal Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-18-05R.html The concept behind this High Sabbath's selection is the nature of the Holy Spirit--it is suggested that fellowships have morning and afternoon services on the High Days; thus, readings for two services are grouped together for Pentecost. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-19-05R.html The fourth in a series of selections about the role of women in the new covenant, considering their absence in patriarchal Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-25-05R.html The fifth in a series of selections about the role of women in the new covenant, considering their absence in patriarchal Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-02-05R.html The sixth in a series of selections about the role of women in the new covenant, considering their absence in patriarchal Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-09-05R.html The concept behind this Sabbath's selection, which interrupts the selections on the role of women, is whether tithing retains a part of the new covenant. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-16-05R.html Tithing is an act of faith that has solid Scriptural support. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-23-05R.html Disciples are today the firstfruits of God, the firstborn, from above, of spiritual Israel, the nation promised to Abraham that will eventually encompass all of humanity. When the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, every human being will be a spiritual son of the patriarch. As such, disciples today are the spiritual reality of the tribe of Levi. They are the royal priesthood, a nation of kingly priests, or kings and priests, holy to God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-30-05R.html Israel under Solomon forms the shadow of the Church in the Millennium, not in this present age. The Church is singularly and collectively the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16-17). So the temple/Church built in the Millennium is a beautiful building, but Israel under Solomon built for the king an even more magnificent house--and at the end of a thousand years, when Satan is loosed for a short season, humanity turns from God as Solomon when old turned from God because of his many foreign wives. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-06-05R.html Solomon's reign--and the peace God gave to Israel for forty years--anticipates Christ Jesus' millennial reign over the earth. At the beginning of this reign, Christ will marry the Church. So today all disciples are part of the Bride. If they keep their heads covered by the righteousness of Christ (i.e., the covering of grace)--the head of the Bridegroom is uncovered--and practice no hypocrisy for their righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20), then they will be glorified, adopted, and be one with Christ Jesus as a man and a woman become one flesh through marriage. Canticles anticipates what occurs to Israel after the Bridegroom and Bride marry. The relationship between He and She isn't idealized, but the reflection of what happens when words of love and devotion lose their meaning, the reason why Satan will be loosed for a short while after a thousand years. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-13-05R.html Again, the adult circumcised Israelite dwelling in a house in Egypt forms the lively shadow of a spiritually circumcised son of God dwelling today in a tabernacle of flesh in spiritual Babylon. For the individual, baptism equates to crossing the Red Sea--and the adult (the old man) who is baptized will not enter God's rest. The child of God born from above into the same tabernacle of flesh is now directly analogous to the uncircumcised child born into the tent of the adult who left Egypt. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-20-05R.html Remember, the essence of Christianity--the basis for the philosophical construct that represents the argument for Christianity--is that the disciple is not a body of flesh, or the flesh, but is an entity born of God that is temporarily housed or domiciled in a body of flesh. Therefore, the person cannot be defined as the body. The flesh is no more than an earthenware vessel, or a building of common stone. The disciple is a priest of God and an actual child of God that lives for a season (while maturing) in a humble physical abode that has no inherent life. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-27-05R.html Disciples need to realize that the teachings of historic organizations, particularly of dogma developed in the 3rd through 5th Centuries, is askew, the reason the endtime Elijah must restore all things (Mal 4:5). Because false ministers had crept in among the sheep, a still persistent problem, disciples end up blown about by every wind of doctrine, for most doctrines seem correct to some disciples for a while. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-03-05R.html The question is thus asked and answered: what must a person do to receive eternal or everlasting life? A person must hear the words of Jesus, words that Moses also spoke, and believe those words by implementing them. The sacrifices testify of Jesus, who is their reality. The annual Sabbaths testify of Jesus, again their reality. And the journey from Egypt to Judea is the journey every glorified saint will have made. The person who stopped or stops along the way, or who looked or looks back as Lot's wife did will not be glorified. Just this simple. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-10-05R.html Are Natural disasters, such as Katrina, of God? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-17-05R.html Again, are natural disasters, such as Katrina and now Rita, the result of God's hand? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-24-05R.html What does it mean to know God? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-01-05R.html Feast of Trumpets http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-04-05R.html Knowing God through the prophecies of Jeremiah. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-08-05R.html One of the occasions when every Israelite, natural and spiritual, has the chance to show the Father and Son that he or she loves God more than the person's own flesh is through fasting--no food and no water--on the day that symbolically represents judgment, the Feast of Atonement. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-13-05R.html Knowing God through the writings of the prophet Ezekiel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-15-05R.html Tabernacles is the roadmap that the holy nation of God follows from mortality to immortality. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-18-05R.html Knowing God through the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, part 2. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-22-05R.html Knowing God through the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, part 3. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-29-05R.html Knowing God through the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, part 4. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-05-05R.html Hell fire or the lake of fire. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-12-05R.html Advent - Being Born From Above. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-24-05R.html Rebellion against God - the great falling away. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-31-05R.html Many antiChrists. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-07-06R.html The AntiChrist. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-14-06R.html The AntiChrist continued. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-21-06R.html The Scarlet Woman of Revelation http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-28-06R.html The Basics of Typology http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-04-06R.html The Basics of Typology - Continued http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-11-06R.html Within a Hebraic poetic conceit is a natural element followed by its spiritual equivalent, but also within the conceit are paired thought couplets that move from natural to spiritual. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-18-06R.html Those who are teachers of iniquity--antinomian dispensationalists and all others who refuse to keep the commandments of God--will not sit as friends with those who walked in the ways of the Lord. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-25-06R.html Again, Jesus said that the only sign He would give of who He was would be the sign of Jonah (Matt 12:39-40). There is no ambiguity in the book of Jonah: the man who fled God was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish before being spewed out of that fish to come to the men of Nineveh. And if Jesus was not in the grave for three days and three nights, He doesn't qualify as the Son of Man as He established the basis for condemning the generation that would kill Him. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-04-06R.html Salvation has come to the nations, but those who are called will not mentally remain where they were. They will, instead, mentally relocate themselves to Judea, i.e., God's rest - from Ps 95:10-11, where they will live as spiritual Judeans. If they mentally remain in the Wilderness of Sin, or if they mentally rebel in the Wilderness of Paran, taking to themselves Egyptian wives, marrying lawlessness, sin, they will never enter into the heavenly realm. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-11-06R.html King David understood the relationship between Yahh and the Most High Lord God, the Ancient of Days--again, David was a man after Yah's heart. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-18-06R.html The readings and commentary are more extensive for this week and next than will be usual; for the following will most likely be new and unfamiliar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath's selection is the sacraments. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-25-06R.html The readings and commentary are more extensive for this week and next than will be usual; for the following will most likely be new and unfamiliar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath's selection is discipleship. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-01-06R.html The readings and commentary are more extensive for this week and next than will be usual; for the following will most likely be new and unfamiliar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath's selection is discipleship continued. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-08-06R.html The concept behind this High Sabbath's selection is the nature of the Holy Spirit--it is suggested that fellowships have morning and afternoon services on the High Days; thus, readings for two services are grouped together. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/1UB.html The readings and commentary are more extensive for this week and next than will be usual; for the following will most likely be new and unfamiliar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath's selection is predestination continued http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-15-06R.html The readings and commentary are more extensive for this week and next than will be usual; for the following will most likely be new and unfamiliar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath's selection is the wave sheaf celebration. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/wavesheaf.html The readings and commentary are more extensive for this week and next than will be usual; for the following will most likely be new and unfamiliar observations. And the concept behind this High Sabbath's selection is the coming of the Messiah--it is suggested that fellowships have morning and afternoon services on the High Days; thus, readings for two services are grouped together. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/2UB.html 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 discipleship. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-22-06R.html The false prophets of the splintered Churches of God would have the modern descendants of Joseph being the chosen people of Israel, but that is not the case (vv. 67-72). David shepherds in the heavenly realm. Until then--for David remains in the grave--the shepherds come from spiritual Judah, not a geographical land, but a mental typography that has disciples living as spiritual Judeans in the Jerusalem above, a heavenly city peopled by those who live by the laws of God written on hearts and minds. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-29-06R.html Thus, the Law of God inscribed on stone tablets extends through John the Baptist, but moves inside to be inscribed on tablets of flesh once the last Adam is created by the joint acts of Theos [Him coming as the man Jesus] and Theon [giving life through His Breath to Jesus]. The law or commandments do not cease to exist. The stone tablets, though, are replaced by the same commandments being spiritually written on hearts and minds. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-06-06R.html If there is no growth, no learning of obedience, then there is no overcoming of the flesh; there will be no glorification. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-13-06R.html The good news that must be taken to the world as a witness to all nations is the message that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13-14). The other side of this message is that all who look for physical salvation as the first thief on the cross did (Luke 23:39) will die physically as well as spiritually. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-20-06R.html What occurred year by year to or for the natural nation of Israel happens once for the spiritual nation. However, this spiritual nation exists as twins in the womb of the last Eve, with one son hated, one loved. The hated son will slay his righteous brother, leaving Abraham without seed if the third part of humanity doesn't become that single nation descended spiritually from the patriarch. And for this second spiritual Israel, foreshadowed by a second physical Israel crossing the Jordan, liberation from sin and death will occur when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-27-06R.html The Sabbath is never the time when disciples do their weekly shopping. It is never a time for buying and selling that does not give rest to the weary. And there remains the keeping of the "little Sabbath" (i.e., the weekly Sabbath) for the people of God (Heb 4:9) - the disciple who knows to keep the Sabbath and who does not condemns him or herself to the lake of fire. No covenant made with Death that makes lies [falsehoods] this holy nation's refuge and shelter (Isa 28:15) will save the lawless disciple. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-03-06R.html The giving of the Law from atop Mount Sinai in the third month, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit fifty days after Jesus appeared before the Father--both foreshadow the liberation of the holy spiritual nation from the law of sin and death that presently dwells in the flesh of disciples (again, Rom 7:21-25). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-04-06R.html The relationship between natural Israel entering Egypt, going into slavery to Pharaoh, being liberated from this bondage, then marrying its Lord is analogous to humanity being consigned to disobedience, then being liberated from this disobedience, and following liberation, marrying its Lord, so that these two become one Spirit. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-10-06R.html The prophet Isaiah, when speaking of the natural nation of Israel also speaks of the spiritual nation when he says that despite having eyes and ears, Israel is blind and deaf. Never have any people been more unwilling to see, or harder of hearing than the endtime great Christian Church. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-17-06R.html The new creature, born from above, born of Spirit, is liberated from sin and death with spiritual birth, but the tent of flesh in which this new creature, an actual son of God, dwells remains under the righteous requirement of the law. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-24-06R.html In explaining the parable of the tares to His disciples, Jesus said, '"The harvest is the close of the age--just as weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age."' http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-01-06R.html Every disciple has the choice offered to him or her of life or death, good or evil. And once the disciple makes his or her decision, God shapes the person into a vessel appropriate to the disciple's choice. Nothing will separate the disciple who has chosen life from the love of God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-08-06R.html Christianity has struggled with predestination; for Scripture affirms both free will and determinism. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-15-06R.html By faith, the person who is physically circumcised or uncircumcised must become spiritually circumcised, which is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter (Rom 2:29). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-22-06R.html A fundamental doctrinal schism separates a minority of the endtime Christian Church from the far larger majority: this schism is over the day on which disciples are to worship God. Sunday? Or Saturday? And for most fundamentalist denominations, the linguistic referent /Sabbath/ is attached to the day of worship. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-29-06R.html Scripture or the Sacred Writings to which the Apostle Paul referred was not the Bible that 21st-Century Christians read. Rather, it was the Old Testament in, probably, Greek [i.e., the Septuagint]. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-05-06R.html The subject of salvation is truly central to Christianity, for the claim of Christianity is absolute exclusivity: by no other name than that of Christ Jesus can a person be saved. But Christians cannot agree concerning even how this name should be said, or pronounced, or replicated, let alone over larger issues such as Law and Grace. If anything, Christianity is a divided house that, using the authority invested in the Disciples, has condemned most of the house to hell. Thus, the principles underlying salvation through the name Christ Jesus have somehow been overlooked in the marketing of a theologically lite faith that is long on praise music and short on Bible study. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-12-06R.html Common sense would tell a person that camping in the middle of a bear trail is not wise. This same common sense should also tell a disciple that if it isn't lawful for the disciple to murder someone, or to steal, or to bear false witness, or to commit adultery, or to covet, or to disrespect mother and father, then it isn't lawful to ignore the Sabbath that is to be remembered. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-19-06R.html Without a journey of faith comparable with Abrahams, no heart will be cleansed. The young person will be a Christian in name only, and within a very few generations, the fellowship will be spiritually dead or back in Babylon, singing praises to its king. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-26-06R.html The Apostle Paul in a narrative flow about authority transforms intangible love into being the "thing" that Roman converts should give to one another, citing this love as the fulfilling of the commandments, with this love becoming the exchangeable gift that bound together a new culture within an existing society while establishing authority to rule in this new culture. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-02-06R.html The two Theos and Theon, from the beginning, functioned as one until Theos entered the creation to finish creating the Way to everlasting life. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-09-06R.html Korah doubly missed the point: (1) being holy is an ongoing activity, the way Israel was to live, and (2) Moses and Aaron were chosen by God for the positions they were in, with the two of them together representing YHWH Israel's Elohim, Aaron the spokesman [the Logos] and Moses like God [Theon] to Aaron. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-16-06R.html Being holy is an action, not an inherited state. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-23-06R.html If the choice remains yours to be made, choose life. Choose to keep the precepts of the Law by faith. Choose to walk as Jesus walked. Choose to live as a spiritual Judean. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-30-06R.html 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: 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. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-02-06R.html What apparently cannot be helped is that most Christians--by far the vast majority--have never worshiped either the Father or the Son in truth, but have worshiped instead the trace of Christianity that has been tracked as mud onto the pure paganism of Apollonian and Dionysian cults. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-21-06R.html Visible Christianity is lawless; it voluntarily presents its members to sin; it serves sin. As such, visible Christianity has made a mockery of Paul's epistles through making itself the uncircumcised nation that does not keep the commandments of God; thus, it is directly comparable to the circumcised nation that did or does not keep the commandments--and if circumcision of the lawless person causes this person to be condemned by the law, birth by Spirit of the person who remains lawless causes this person to be condemned for his or her lack of faith. Yes, unbelief or willful disobedience by the person born of Spirit causes Christ Jesus to sculpt the person into a vessel of wrath to be endured for a season. And the foremost visible evidence of unbelief is the day upon which the person attempts to enter into God's rest. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-28-06R.html The Elijah to come came when the Logos entered this world as His Son, His only, to be the cornerstone for the house of God built as the restoration of all things--and this Elijah to come will come again as the capstone to this house when the restoration of all things is complete. Therefore, the Elijah to come is not a human being but the Son of Man, Head and Body, with the next visible focal points being the two witnesses, who will do a spiritual work foreshadowed by the physical work of John the Baptist. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-04-06R.html A marriage made between two spiritual corpses is not bound by God--neither spiritual corpse is an Israelite, circumcised of heart and mind. But the practice of marrying and giving in marriage that specifically typifies the world in Noah's day, and again typifies when the seven endtime years of tribulation begin stands contrary to the intensions of God. Endtime disciples are not to remarry and give in remarriage as the world does. A distinction must be made. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-11-06R.html A few disciples who are today of the hated son spiritual Esau will be like Caleb. Let those few turn from what is dishonorable and become vessels intended for honored usage by keeping the precepts of the law. They have been liberated from bondage to disobedience so that they can, truly, keep the commandments. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-25-06R.html Those who claim they work on the same terms as those whom God has actually called to a work will ask for donations, will ask to receive the tithes and offering of disciples, will ask to be supported--but those who ask are "false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ". http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-02-06R.html Too few keep the commandments, especially the Sabbath commandment which cannot be kept on Sunday. Too few value just how special they are to God, for if it were not for the sake of the Elect [disciples who keep the precepts of the law], the days of spiritual Babylon would not be cut short and no flesh would be saved alive (Matt 24:22). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-09-06R.html The one who will be glorified in this world--and has been glorified in the heavenly realm--judges rightly, and has no fellowship with sexually immoral disciples, or disciples who are idolaters, revilers, drunkards, or swindlers. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-16-06R.html The Holy Spirit Pneuma 'Agion is the Breath of the Father; i.e., the Breath of Theon. It is an attribute of the Most High; it is an attribute of God the Father. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-23-06R.html The Father brings forth spiritual life in a tent of flesh; the Son gives to those tents of flesh deemed worthy immortality. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-30-06R.html If the dead are to bury the dead, then disciples who have been made alive through receipt of the Breath of the Father are in the odd position of placing God ahead of family, ahead of community, ahead of state and nation, ahead of social causes, ahead of military defense, ahead of financial considerations, ahead of work, business, recreation, and all of those things that sons of disobedience regard as important. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-06-07R.html The old written code does not pertain to those Israelites who are spiritually circumcised. The old written code is for those consigned to disobedience. But this does not mean that anyone who is of Israel can transgress the commandments of God. It means that these commandments have been internalized and remain in the same relative position to the new creature born of Spirit as the old written code is to the physically circumcised Israelite who awaits spiritual birth.recreation, and all of those things that sons of disobedience regard as important. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-13-07R.html An assertion will here be made that the return of a remnant of Israel from Babylon to Jerusalem in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah foreshadows and is a copy and type of a remnant of the Church leaving spiritual Babylon to rebuild the house of God in heavenly Jerusalem. This remnant of spiritual Israel was led by the Radical Reformers of the 16th-Century. This remnant has been historically identified as Anabaptists, but it was their non-participation in the governance of this world that signified their exit from spiritual Babylon, the single kingdom of this world over which Satan reigns as the prince of the power of the air. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-20-07R.html The Second Covenant, What is meant by Grace? Speaking the Father's Words, The Father's Confirmation of the Sabbaths of God, What is Sin? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-03-07R.html The gates of Hades would not prevail against the Church, a statement that does not preclude the Church from dying but does preclude the Church from staying dead. So even though Satan took over the dead Body after it was buried in hell and called it the living Church of God, causing it to focus on the things of men rather than on the things of God, the Body of Christ was actually concealed in the heart of the earth. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-10-07R.html A person cannot walk as Jesus walked and live as a Gentile, cannot happen! Christianity as practiced by Jesus and taught by His first disciples is a fundamentalist sect of Judaism that has removed the Pharisees' emphasis on the physical and relocated this emphasis on the spiritual, with the laws and practices of Moses moving from the hand to the heart, from the body to the mind, from the outside of the cup to the inside. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-17-07R.html Before the second Passover will occur-when the Church is liberated from bondage to disobedience; when the dead Body of Christ is resurrected to life--the Church must experience enough to soften its hearts so that those who have already been born of Spirit can receive spiritually circumcised hearts, the circumcision they should have received long ago if they had made a mental journey of faith equivalent in distance to the physical journey the patriarch Abraham made by faith. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-24-07R.html Understand, to be submerged in water causes an air-breathing creature a nephesh to drown or suffocate from the inability to breathe; crucifixion causes a person to suffocate. Therefore, submersion in water--a baptism--is analogous to being crucified. In both cases, the person dies from his or her inability to breathe deeply. Thus, to be "baptized into Christ" (Gal 3:27) is to be crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6). Therefore, when the practice of full immersion baptism ceased, disciples ceased being crucified with Christ--and when disciples ceased being crucified with Christ, the Body of Christ ceased to exist. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-03-07R.html Where in Scripture are spiritual people addressed? Where is the beef, as the Cattlemen's television commercials of a few decades ago asked? Where is the meat, the real substance of what it means to be spiritual and spiritually minded? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-10-07R.html The position of The Philadelphia Church is that the endtime Elijah who restores all things and who turns the hearts of the sons of God to the Father and the Father's heart to His sons is the glorified Christ Jesus. This endtime Elijah is not a human being, and is certainly not (as some who misuse the name Philadelphia claim) a dead human man who got prophecy wrong. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-17-07R.html Baptism is not unto life, but symbolically represents the immersion of the world in water--the Flood of Noah's day--and the loss of natural life that comes with drowning, the loss of breath [pneuma] that comes from the lungs filling with water. For Believers, baptism becomes the "death" that precedes judgment; for judgment is now upon the household of God (1 Pet 4:17). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-24-07R.html Anyone who is sexually active outside of marriage is to be excluded from Christian fellowship, a tough and uncompromising position that comes from realizing that those who have been born of Spirit have no fellowship with those who have not been so born; that the person who has not been born of Spirit still has his or her mind set on the things of the flesh, and is at least passively hostile toward God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-31-07R.html The midnight hour has not yet arrived, for lives have not again been given for the liberation of the Church from sin and death. But that midnight hour is not now far in the future. Rather, it is close. Humanity has entered the time of the end, a period that is a little longer than the seven endtime years of tribulation. Roughly, the time of the end corresponds to the practice of the remnant of Israel beginning to keep the days of Unleavened Bread when the paschal lamb entered Jerusalem on the 10th of the first month (this remnant started the seven day festival five days early, making for a twelve day feast season). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/1UB07.html Christ Jesus will deliver you to Satan if you do not turn from your lawlessness, repent, and by faith begin to keep the commandments to the best of your ability. And everyone has the ability to put God first in all things, including in those things that you presently do on the Sabbath. You are a liar if you say otherwise. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-07-07R.html Again, two sons. One is today celebrating Easter. The other is either avoiding celebrating this day so as to not celebrate Easter, or is observing the Wave Sheaf Offering. The firstborn son of the Church will have assembled before dawn to observe the rising sun on a cold, snowy morning in much of North America, then dressed in its finery, will now be hearing a message about Jesus' resurrection, before it sits down to a ham dinner as families gather together on one of two or three annual occasions - what can be wrong with families getting together, this firstborn son will ask, little realizing that those who sanctify and purify themselves, following after one another, eating pig's flesh, shall come to an end together (Isa 66:17), for many will be the slain of the Lord when He comes (v. 16). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/wavesheaf07.html Both the circumcised nation that left Egypt, and that nation's mixed circumcised and uncircumcised children who received the second covenant--a covenant made in addition to the Sinai or Horeb covenant (Deut 29:1)--were told to appear before the Lord three times a year. These three seasons were Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. But there are not three harvests of God: there are only two, with one represented by the barley harvest and with the other represented by the wheat harvest. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/2UB07.html The many who would have disciples worship God from a physical location or through a physical organization are those who would deceive disciples if they could (v. 26). But the anointing that is on all who have been born of Spirit actually causes all to have no need for a teacher (cf. v. 27 with Heb 8:11) -- those disciples who know God have no need for a teacher, but all who say they know God but do not keep His commandments are liars (v. 4). It is through keeping the words of God, living by every word that has come from the mouth of God (again, Matt 4:4), that a disciple's love for God is perfected. Therefore, the person, circumcised or uncircumcised, who will not by faith keep the precepts of the law (Rom 2:26-29) is a spiritual Greek, a Gentile, an alien in the house of God, a person whose citizenship remains in this world. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-14-07R.html As men cannot command other men to accept salvation, men cannot command women to become meek and quiet. A man can command women to cover their hair if these women want to fellowship with a certain assembly of disciples, but the person who covered against her will is only outwardly compliant. Only her flesh complies with the command to meekness. And the flesh will not be saved. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-21-07R.html The relationship that existed in the beginning between Theos and Theon was like that of a man and his wife, in that then two were one as far as natural Israel knew. The relationship was not a hypostatic relationship where one was atop the other so that the lower revealed the upper one. Rather, it was a side by side relationship in which two functioned as one, a relationship like that between Moses and Aaron, who was the spokesman for Moses. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-28-07R.html The linguistic phrase _a cult_ carries a negative stereotype of such enormous size that the stereotype alone will smother organizations that are not led by dynamic personalities, thereby assuring the continuance of the stereotype. Men such as Martin Luther, Menno Simon, and Herbert Armstrong would strongly deny that they are cultmeisters, but the _radical_ nature of their teachings produced bodies of believers that continued beyond their deaths to self-identify themselves by the name of the individual, or in the case of Armstrong, by the identifying phrase, Church of God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-05-07R.html If there was one simple answer that could be given in every instance, life would be simple. . .there is actually a simple answer: the disciple who would be great in the kingdom of heaven keeps the commandments and teaches others to do likewise (Matt 5:19). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-12-07R.html Paul addressed these things in passing as he laid the foundation for the spiritual temple, and one of the _givens_ that forms this foundation is that Jesus created all things, and that all things were created for Him. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-19-07R.html There is no favoritism with God: both the natural Israelite and the Gentile must, by faith, have his or her heart circumcised by Spirit. To teach otherwise is to make oneself into a false teacher and a false prophet. Circumcision by hands is meaningless in this era. The color of one's skin is meaningless. One's biological lineage is meaningless. One's social status is meaningless--all these things pertain to the flesh, and not to the new creature born of Spirit that dwells in a tent of flesh as a physically circumcised Israelite dwelt in Egypt in houses of clay bricks, or in tents of animal skins and fabric. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-26-07R.html The end of this age began immediately post Calvary. All of spiritually circumcised Israel has been living through one long spiritual night ever since, with the midnight hour of that night not yet occurring. The time of the end began when the plan of God could be understood, with this period not beginning any earlier than January 2002. The seven endtime years will begin when the death angel again passes over Israel, slaying all firstborns not covered by the blood of the Passover Lamb of God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-02-07R.html The key of David is understanding typology--and no one or no organization has employed this key to the extent that The Philadelphia Church has. The Bible is an encoded book, but the code of importance is not a substitution of letters and of finding names and event dates closely clustered in the Hebraic text. The code of importance is the code unlocked by the key of David, with this key disclosing that there will again be a Passover slaughter of firstborns that can be likened to the slaughter of firstborns in Egypt when Yah set His hand to liberate a physical nation from physical bondage to a physical king. This second Passover liberation will be of a spiritually circumcised nation from bondage to sin and death. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-09-07R.html The two witnesses will not be initially recognized by Jew or Greek, Christian or Muslim; for they will not be in physical Jerusalem, but in a spiritual wilderness as John the Baptist was in a physical wilderness. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-16-07R.html The first defining characteristic of the _synagogue of Satan_ is that they say they are Jews, but are not. They lie when they say they are Jews. And the second defining characteristic is that they are of Satan, meaning they remain sons of disobedience, following the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-23-07R.html The task of the shepherds of Israel is to bring back into the light the one who has wandered away; the task of the watchmen is to warn the sheep and the shepherds when wolves or thieves are about to prey upon the sheep. But there was not a watchman to warn Israel that the Adversary slithered into the sheep pen and slew more than are left alive--the carnage is self-evident. Nevertheless, the slain of the Serpent will be few compared to the slain of the Lord if Israel does not heed the warning that a second Passover slaughter of firstborns will occur. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-30-07R.html 1. All who came before Jesus were hirelings, or servants. 2. The good shepherd sacrifices himself for the sheep. 3. The good shepherd has more than one fold of sheep, but these folds will be brought together to be one flock with one shepherd. 4. The good shepherd knows his sheep and they hear his voice; the sheep do not follow other voices. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-07-07R.html That Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples, thereby directly transferring to them the Holy Spirit, is not insignificant; for according to the Mishnah, a new synagogue could be formed anywhere by ten male Jews. Thus, the ten upon whom Jesus breathed (plus others) were a newly formed synagogue that _with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer_. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-14-07R.html The change that occurs within the vision marks when John lives to see Christ's return by consciously entering the heavenly realm. This opportunity was not given to Peter, but it was apparently also given to Paul even though Paul was prevented from telling what he saw. Thus, John's vision has credibility even though it hasn't been understandable. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-21-07R.html To follow Jesus is to imitate Paul which will have the person living as a spiritual Judean and spurning the idolatry and lawlessness of the Roman Church and her errant daughters, all truly synagogues of Satan that claim to have the spirit of God but lie; for these communities remain in bondage to disobedience as evidenced by when they take the Passover sacraments. Peter condemns lawless communities when he writes, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Pet 2:1). These destructive heresies are firmly imbedded in denying that Jesus was three days and three nights [72 hours] in the grave; in denying that Jesus fulfilled the only sign He gave, that of Jonah. It is upon this sign, this rock that He built the church. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-28-07R.html The intertextual relationship between the Jonah account and account of Christ's resurrection now forms the basis for a hypertextual relationship to the Spiritual Body of Christ being resurrected from death after the third day, with this "third day" being day three of the Genesis one creation account. Thus, the conjoined intertextual realities of what has already happened forms the prophetic revelation of what will happen during the seven endtime years of tribulation, with this second text not now being an inscribed text but a text generated in the disciple's mind. When plants bring forth seed and fruit on day three, God declares the day good. It is only on day two, when no longer does anyone born of Spirit remain here on earth that God fails to declare the events of the day good. And through typology, a disciple can understand why God is not pleased with what occurs on day two. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-04-07R.html It is for the benefit of this person that he or she is baptized for the dead, the person being then dead; for following repentance and being baptized for the dead, the person will receive the Holy Spirit and will, if still alive when the second Passover occurs, be baptized by Spirit. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-11-07R.html After Jesus healed the man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath, Jews sought to kill Jesus for not only breaking their Sabbath regulations but also for making Himself equal with God (John 5:18). And in the exchange that followed, Jesus told these Jews, "'Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you had believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words'" (vv. 45-47). Therefore, the following juxtaposition holds: the written words of Moses are visible representations of the invisibly uttered words of Jesus. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-18-07R.html Endtime prophecies are not about human kings or presidents; they are not about physical nations. Rather, they are about ideologies, about the mental state of human beings, about who rules these mental states or landscapes. They are about the Church and about what happens when those who are born of Spirit are empowered by the Holy Spirit as the Body becomes the Bride. They are about eliminating those who teach falsely or presumptuously. They are about the fall of spiritual Babylon and the rise of the Son of Man, Head and Body. And they are about the sacrifice of the Body during the first half of the Tribulation. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-25-07R.html The modern State of Israel is not the endtime nation of Israel, a nation whose rite of inclusion is circumcision of the heart instead of the foreskin--it is this endtime nation of Israel whose accuser is Moses that has now been taken in the act of adultery. Jesus does not condemn this nation, but commands that this nation go and sin no more (John 8:11). Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). Any lawlessness is sin. So this woman who would be the Bride of Christ must sin no more. She must cease her transgressions of the law, for no one, no nation can enter into God's rest on the following day regardless of repentance (cf. Num 14:11, 39-42; Ps 95:10-11; Heb 3:16-4:11). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-01-07R.html Paul consistently addresses the Father and the Son in his epistles, while never sending greetings to the saints from a third personage--and Paul separates the Spirit of Christ from the Spirit of the Father, which is the Spirit by which the Father raises the dead (again, John 5:21). So for Paul, the Holy Spirit [Pneuma 'Agion] does not have personhood but is a force in the heavenly realm that equates to physical breath or wind in this physical realm. In the beginning God was two who functioned as one as if the two were married. The creation concealed the existence of the second entity from physically circumcised Israel even though the plural pronoun is properly used in Genesis 1:26 http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-08-07R.html Since those who are reading this high Sabbath message most likely keep/kept the high Sabbath day, it shall here be said that you brought yourself before God on the holy day. You may have also brought moneys, but those moneys are not your offering to God. You are. You presented yourself to God and whether knowingly or not, you committed yourself to being a servant of God for the remainder of your life. You have broken away from those disciples who, if glorified, will be gatekeepers and excluded from the presence of God. You presented yourself inside the temple for service. The heavenly realm is timeless: your service doesn't stop tomorrow or the next day. Once it begins, it continues forward through Christ's millennial reign and into the age beyond when all that is physical ceases to be. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-13-07R.html It is only those Sabbatarian Christians who have the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10) that will form the offspring of the woman that keeps the commandments (Rev 12:17). Therefore, the remnant goes beyond keeping the commandments and loving God. The remnant also understands prophecy. And no one who thinks physically can understand prophecy. No one who looks for a physical temple to be built in physical Jerusalem understands endtime prophecies about Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-15-07R.html Traditionally, Judaism has used the singular form of the icon, Kippur; hence, calendars identify this High Sabbath as Yom Kippur. But this Day of Coverings appears in Scripture in its plural form. Two coverings--two goats covered the sins of Israel, not one. Both goats were the sin offering, not one. Both goats together represent the Lamb of God. One goat was sacrificed on the altar. Jesus was sacrificed at Calvary. And the other goat was lead into the wilderness by the hand of a fit man. Jesus was glorified and now sits at the right hand of the Father, sits across the precipice of crossing dimensions and having entered the heavenly realm. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-22-07R.html The sign of Jonah will be a sign of turmoil and tribulation when the spiritual Body of Christ is resurrected from death on the third day. Jesus will not have brought peace to this world, but a sword. He will have set a man against his father (especially if this man makes a journey of faith into Sabbath observance) and a daughter against her mother (Matt 10:34-35). And this time of trouble is apparent in the sign of a red sky being analogous to the sign of Jonah. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-13-07R.html Endtime sons of the prophets are those Israelites who have circumcised hearts as _the sons of the prophets_ in the 1st-Century CE were physically circumcised Israelites (Acts 3:25). And as Peter preached repentance to these 1st-Century sons of the prophets, servants of the endtime Elijah will, as John the Baptist did, preach repentance to the endtime Church, which is today more concerned about calendar issues than making disciples for Christ. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-20-07R.html In the wilderness, Israel grumbled about receiving manna and called it worthless food. Today, Christians call eating the Passover [i.e., taking the sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed] worthless food. Yes, they do. By taking the sacraments on any night but the 14th of Abib, they spurn Grace; they spurn the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-27-07R.html Simeon was awaiting the salvation of Israel, not a prize for finishing in second place. Yet Simeon's prophecy about Jesus when he took the child in his arms placed Israel in the second position: "'[M]y eyes have seen your salvation / that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, / a light for revelation to the Gentiles, / and for glory to your people Israel'" (vv. 30-32). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-03-07R.html No one of endtime Esau, the hated son, shall be spared. God will not have pity on any, regardless of how well they sing praises to Him or create websites dripping of blood. If the disciple will not sigh and cry about the abominations committed within and without the Church, then the disciple is of the hated son. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-10-07R.html The factions of yesterday have developed into endtime denominations, leaving the factions of today to stew in a caldron of discord as supporters of this ministry and supporters of that ministry--like negatively and positively charged radicals in a chemical solution--gravitate toward this pole or that pole, with the most active radicals clinging to each other and weaker radicals left to hold hands as the broth simmers, bubbling and splattering as it thickens. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-17-07R.html The kingdom of this world is not given to Christ many times, but once. When the stone cut without hands (Dan 2:45) breaks to pieces the metal kingdoms of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw, the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed and a kingdom that shall not be left to others. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-24-07R.html The pattern of disciples sending tithes and offerings to a distant administrative headquarters is of Satan, not God. Those who hold to this practice are doomed to failure. The splintering of the former WCG should have been example enough to cause the model to be abandoned, but apparently not so. Apparently more disciples need to be burned; more disciples need the prosperity that comes from giving into a dead ministry, or to an imaginary school or phantom orphanage. Instead of doing a local work with local funds, those disciples trained by the senior Armstrong to send moneys to headquarters will, as if Pavlov's dogs, continue to send their tithes and offerings to a far-removed headquarters, where good salaries have to be paid so that ministers can live as imagined kings. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-01-07R.html Let it here be said with no uncertainty: the Logos was born as the man Jesus, lived as a flesh and blood human being, died at Calvary, and received again the glory He had before He entered His creation as His only Son. By His name--Jesus Christ of Nazareth--salvation has come to humankind, and by no other name will anyone receive salvation. To deny Him in this world will cause Him to deny the disciple when judgments are revealed--and a disciple denies Christ when the disciple refuses to believe that all things were made by Him and for Him. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-08-07R.html It is past time to end the teaching of what is false even if the concept of God is one but consists of multiple entities is seemingly too difficult for beginners to understand. And it is certainly past time to end assigning personhood to the Holy Spirit, and to end denying that the pre-existing Son is the Creator of all that is. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-15-07R.html What about the loved one who is a drunkard, a drug addict, a habitual thief, an addicted gambler? Is this person automatically doomed to the flames of hell? No! This person will have paid the penalty for his or her sins with the person's physical death. When he or she is resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment, the character of the person will come under judgment, not the acts of the flesh for which the death penalty has already been paid. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-22-07R.html It has been said of Brigham Young's football team that when they play a game in Las Vegas, they each take the Ten Commandments and a ten dollar bill with them, and bring back both unbroken. Unfortunately, this is simply not true, for they break the Sabbath commandment with most every collegiate game they play. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-29-07R.html Understanding holiness, righteousness, and the new covenant begins with eagerly seeking to live by every word uttered by God, with these words forming even the material tent of flesh in which the born of Spirit son of God now temporarily dwells. Understanding does not come from wading through impenetrable theological dissertations, and hacking away obscure constructs on which rest many words, each a mosquito carrying malaria. Rather, understanding comes from hearing the voice of Christ Jesus, with His voice inscribed in Scripture as they are imbedded in the things that have been made when He spoke the world into existence. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-05-08R.html There is nothing a person believes that does not come from faith, with the person only partially able to perceive the quality of the faith establishing this thing or that thing. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-12-08R.html Those hundred plus thousand disciples who once had a little knowledge thanks to Armstrong but who have rejected what they had, from them will be taken salvation. They no longer have any knowledge to lose; they have only their spiritual lives. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-19-08R.html So Judah was all of Israel that remained in the Promised Land when Nebuchadnezzar surrounded Jerusalem--the spiritually lifeless shadow of the Christian Church--was, indeed, an uncircumcised nation as the prophet Jeremiah declares. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-26-08R.html The rest of God is heaven. Entering the rest of God is entering heaven. The natural type of this rest is entering Judea [Canaan, the Promised Land]. The spiritual type in this era of entering into God's rest is Sabbath observance. Christ's Millennium reign over the earth will be from the heavenly realm and the last shadow of entering heaven. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-02-08R.html The foundation that Armstrong laid is now charred rubble, his work having gone up in flames when tried by fire. Only work constructed on the foundation Paul laid will stand--and this work of Philadelphia is built on Paul and Christ Jesus. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-09-08R.html As long as Christ dwells in disciples, these disciples are with the Bridegroom. The Comforter has not been sent from the Father, has not come to disciples. But the time will come at the beginning of the seven endtime years of tribulation when the Bridegroom is taken from disciples by the Father. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-16-08R.html If the human body is composed of the dust of the earth (of base elements) as are the bodies of beasts (Eccl 3:18-20), then do the bodies of beasts not suffer complete annihilation, the logical extension of what Augustine taught? That would be his argument, except that Augustine also wrote, _A great thing is man, made in the image and likeness of God, not in that he is encased in a mortal body, but in that he excels the beasts in the dignity of a rational soul_ (Bk. 1, XXII). So for Augustine it is the presence of an immortal soul that separates human beings from other breathing creatures. And because what Augustine writes is contrary to what both Paul and Solomon wrote, Augustine and his borrowed teaching about humankind having immortal souls must be rejected. Augustine must not be believed! http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-23-08R.html The theological landmines that explode regularly are fused with the assumption that for a "spirit" to speak or to testify or to teach, the "spirit" must be a living entity like an angel is. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-01-08R.html Christians do not know Christ Jesus. They have no idea He said that if Israel did not believe Moses' writings, Israel would not believe His words--if you do not believe Moses' writings, you will not believe Jesus' words, and if you do not believe His words--He spoke only the Father's words--then you have not passed from death to life, but remain numbered among the dead of this world, walking pillars of salt. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-08-08R.html After Jesus demonstrates obedience, so that this obedience can beget further obedience, He receives spiritual life from the Father. He creates at Calvary the path or way by which human beings born as sons of disobedience can receive life and obedience (the garment of His righteousness, Grace). He makes it possible for the Father to give life in His house to every person, thereby making all of His sons God. But not all who have been born of spirit practice obedience. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-15-08R.html If a person will believe Scripture, the person will never say that the Father created all that is unless the person also adds the qualifier, through Jesus Christ. It was the one who entered His creation as His Son that created all that is, then entered His creation as the light of day one. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-22-08R.html Jesus replaced the temple made with hands as the temple of God. Disciples who are one with Jesus have been added to this temple, thereby making each the temple as Jesus was and making them collectively the temple as New Jerusalem will be. No physical temple in present day Jerusalem can be the temple of God, or can have spiritual importance. So efforts to rebuild a physical temple are at best misguided; at worse, these efforts amount to open rebellion against God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-29-08R.html Every fellowship has the same responsibility and authority as every other fellowship to establish a calendar and set the date for Passover observance (which is always on the dark portion of the 14th of Abib) on the Georgian calendar. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-05-08R.html The Passover meal is not eaten every week, but once a year for however many years there are until Jesus returns. The Passover meal will be eaten even after disciples are liberated from indwelling sin and death. But the Passover meal would never have been eaten with leavened bread, for the entire period in Judea was _unleavened_ or simply, the Passover. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-12-08R.html The Seder is a poor replacement for the sacrifice of a paschal lamb, and a doubly poor replacement for taking the Passover sacraments of bread and wine. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-19-08R.html Keeping the Sabbath of God sets a person apart from this world and is a sign that identifies the person as being of the household of God. But the "Sabbath" is not just the seventh day of the week: it is every day listed in Leviticus chapter 23. It is the weekly Sabbath, plus the three seasons a year when Israelites are to appear before the Most High. And the Sabbatarian Christian who will not come before God on these three seasons breaks the Sabbath just as surely as does the Pope. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/1UB08.html Under the second and eternal Sinai covenant, the Sabbath commandments includes the weekly Sabbath and the three times a year when all of Israel is appear before God--and this is what is seen in Leviticus chapter 23. The _Christian_ who does not observe the weekly as well as the annual Sabbaths breaks the Sabbath commandment, and is a transgressor. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-26-08R.html The person who employs Paul's epistle as justification for disobedience has not been sent by God, but is a disguised servant of Satan, regardless of how pious the person appears or how large an organization the person represents. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-03-08R.html To answer what is usually the first question asked of a Sabbatarian disciple, "Why not worship on Sunday," the disciple needs to remove the focus that the question places on Sunday and place the focus on Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath, and the disciple's personal Lord. . .if Jesus is truly the disciple's personal Lord, then the disciple will desire to walk as Jesus walked, and the world was no friend of Jesus. Nor will the world be a friend of the disciple. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-10-08R.html The Son of Man will reign over the single kingdom of this world by ruling humanity's mental topography through Jesus giving to all humankind His mind and His nature when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-17-08R.html Obedience is an idea that has substance in this world as if the word were a cloak that is put on daily when rising from sleep. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-24-08R.html Being saved by grace, now, is analogous to not be killed for idolatry, which will have all those Israelites saved by grace not practicing idolatry--Paul identifies his people, natural Israel, as an idolatrous nation. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-31-08R.html To dwell in the house of God, disciples are to imitate Paul as He imitated Christ. Only by walking as Jesus walked will a disciple cross the threshold and enter into the house of God as a younger son of God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-07-08R.html To resolve Christological questions, the most reliable writings endtime disciples have are of John and in particular the first and third chapters of his Gospel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-14-08R.html Christ Jesus is, ultimately, the substance or reality of every festival, new moon, and Sabbath (Col 2:16-17), which does not give a disciple excuse to neglect observing these festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths; for without observing these Sabbaths when disciples consciously enter into the presence of God, disciples will have no understanding of the plan of God and will say silly things about God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-15-08R.html If the issue under discussion at the Jerusalem conference were either circumcision or keeping the commandments, then there would have been no reason for Paul to have Timothy circumcised unless the Circumcision Faction had prevailed at this conference--and this is definitely not the case. The issue was not causing offense or setting stumbling blocks in front of those whom God was obviously calling to be part of the Body of Christ. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-21-08R.html As Paul while he still lived saw all in Asia leave him and rejection by those in Achaia and Judah, John while he still lived saw the death of the Body of Christ, for disciples such as Diotrephes (3 John v. 9) had gained control of congregations. These false disciples were John's little antichrists, disciples that went out from them, for they were not of them even though at one time they had fellowshipped with John. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-28-08R.html The new creature will be as a Levite in the temple of God: the fleshly bodies of disciples equates to the temple (1 Cor 3:16-17; 2 Cor 6:16), and each person can be likened to a living stone (1 Pet 2:4-5), sculpted and shaped off-site so the sound of an iron tool (a tear or a cry of anguish) will not be heard on the temple mount. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-05-08R.html What Jesus pointed to when He called Peter the son of Jonah was the prophet Jonah and all that Jonah represented, including being the spokesman from God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-12-08R.html When the spirits are tested, what is found is the presently dead Body of Christ [dead through separation from Christ] that has many, many disciples looking at the physical things of this world (i.e., those things that pertain to the flesh) as if they were spiritual things. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-19-08R.html The Philadelphia Church has been employing enantiomorphs and using chirality for some period before formal realization occurred that within typology what was being seen were non-symmetrical mirror images that were as left and right hands, with the /S/ or left hand images being the physical things of this world that reveal the invisible things of God, the /R/ reality that which has life in the heavenly realm. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-26-08R.html The good news that Jesus said would be proclaimed is about the world being baptized in spirit into life as the world was baptized by water into death in the days of Noah. The message will not be believed or accepted prior to death angels passing over all the land, slaying firstborns not covered by the blood of Christ--and once this slaying occurs, disciples of Christ Jesus will be truly hated by all the world. Typology reveals end is near. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-02-08R.html Paul genuinely received knowledge of the mystery of Christ by revelation as evidenced by his insight of this mystery. To say otherwise causes the person to commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. But--and here is the caveat that divides the sons of God from the sons of the devil--to use the epistles of Paul to teach a disciple to transgress the commandments is also blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-09-08R.html The hermeneutics of the angel Gabriel always moves from the physical _the visible_ to focus on the spiritual _the invisible_, using the visible only to "set up" or reveal the invisible--and it is this movement that forms the central metaphor of typological exegesis. Those scholars and disciples who only permit the use of "typological exegesis" to reference New Testament intertextual use of types badly miss the hypertextuality of the angel Gabriel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-16-08R.html To understand Zephaniah, a disciple needs to realize that Zephaniah writes about his own days and about a time like the days of Noah, employing dual referents. Zephaniah also writes about what is on the other side of Christ's return, and he also writes about this period while using dual referents, the darkness over which the lesser light rules and the day over which the greater light rules. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-23-08R.html Unless a person is of Nahum's reading community, the meanings Nahum assigned to his words are not fully recoverable, a lengthy way of saying that words mean not what the author intended but what the reader intends; so unless a reader also hears the voice of Yah before or Christ Jesus now, the reader will not assign the same meanings to Nahum's words as Nahum assigned. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-30-08R.html The person who argues for a literal reading of the text, of the prophecy, argues for keeping the text or prophecy sealed forever ... no literary text that openly proclaims itself to be sealed and secret can ever be unsealed and read with a "literal" reading. No exceptions. A prophecy that declares itself for the latter days or the time of the end is never fulfilled by events earlier than the time of the end, even when those events seemingly satisfy the prophecy. A text that declares itself sealed until a certain period requires being deconstructed: more meanings are necessarily present than the literal or surface meaning of the text. Likewise, a biblical prophecy that is for the latter days or the time of the end can have any number of apparent fulfillments that are not "the fulfillment" of the prophecy. All the apparent fulfillments do is keep the prophecy sealed and secret. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-06-08R.html Deconstruction describes forced separation of signifier from signified ... for a literal reading of a text to possess validity, signifier and signified must necessarily be tightly bound together, a condition God ended at Babel. Hence, no literal reading of Scripture has ever been valid or really even possible since Babel. In blunt language, God has already negated and declared invalid every literal reading of Scripture; so the person who advocates literal readings opposes God. Deconstruction breaks the hard link Daniel establishes when he tells Nebuchadnezzar that he is the head of gold, for what Daniel tells the king cannot be literally true but must be figurative language. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-13-08R.html Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet, not a civil activist. He was the hinge prophet, the pivotal prophet, the prophet that marks the break between the initial delivery of the words of the Lord and the rereading of words already delivered. Thus, the Apostle Paul is the prototypical endtime prophet who rereads the earlier prophets and adds his commentary to the words of Scripture. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-20-08R.html Christians that participate in the governance of this world make themselves into spiritual worker bees, hard-working but impotent and willing to die to protect the establishments of this world. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-27-08R.html Trumpets or Yom Teru'ah is about warning Israel that a sword will come upon the nation for its rebellion against God. Trumpets is about the prophet delivering his or her message of repentance. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-04-08R.html When the good news that the one who endures to the end shall be saved (Matt 10:22; 24:13) is proclaimed throughout the world, the end will come. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-04a-08R.html The great nation of God will be built from those who believe Moses' writings, for if an Israelite will not believe Moses' writings the Israelite will not believe the words of Jesus (John 5:46-47), and if the person will not believe Jesus the person will not believe the Father (v. 24) and will not be glorified. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-11-08R.html Therefore, no "Christian" enters into God's rest until he or she begins to keep the weekly Sabbath (Heb 3:16-4:11; Ps 95:10-11; Num chap 14), and no "Christian" who does not keep the high Sabbaths, including the Fast, journeys to heavenly Jerusalem. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-10-08R.html When an Israelite looks at a feast or at a Sabbath and doesn't see the disciple in this feast or Sabbath, then the disciple is not part of the Body of Christ. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-15-08R.html This fractal nature of every spiritually circumcised Israelite being a type and copy of the Church that has not been well understood or well explained. If ancient Israel as a chiral shadow of the saints is also a fractal of the Christian Church, what is missing is the middle; i.e., life. Sin and death are present in the form of a spiritual Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, but the dark or missing portion of a Sierpinski Triangle now represents life, or the Tree of Life in the Promised Land. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-18-08R.html The majority of humanity is not now in an ever-burning hell, roasting as if barbecued meat on a spit, seared by flames not hot enough to consume the person. They are, instead, dead in the grave. They are in Sheol. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-22-08R.html Light is the glorification of the saints, and the glorification of the firstfruits form the shadow and type of the glorification of the larger main crop wheat harvest of humankind. So Hanukah becomes a type of Sukkot, with the light (oil) that doesn't run out until additional oil is ceremonially purified representing the glorified firstfruits, each a son of God and younger brother to Christ Jesus. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-25-08R.html Should Christians participate in the governance of the nations of this world? Should Christians vote when the Lord will set over the nation whomever He chooses, with this choice being the lowliest of humankind? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-01-08R.html There is no way to refute a revelation: either the revelation happened or it didn't happen. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-08-08R.html America now stands before the world as an individual, not as a nation-state. It is the embodiment of the king of Greece; its shadow looks like the man Alexander the Great, not like Rome or even ancient Greece. But it is afraid of its shadow, which will assume a life of its own as the nation slinks into a political realism that restricts superheroes to the movies. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-15-08R.html Disciples are to be one with the Father as Jesus was/is one with the Father, thereby making visible Christendom's triune deity anything but triune--making visible Christendom's triune deity a polygon, with the number of sides equal to the number of disciples who are one with the Father and the Son, plus two (for the Father and the Son). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-22-08R.html Because of timelessness, God is one. The Father and the Son are one. Disciples are one with the Father and the Son if they walk as the Jesus walked. But disciples are not Jesus, the First of the firstfruits, the firstborn of many brothers (Rom 8:29). Nevertheless, each disciple is one with Jesus and with the Father if the disciple looks like Jesus (is a fractal image of Jesus). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-29-08R.html The demand of rebaptism virtually unbaptized and unchristianized the entire Christian world, and completed the rupture with the historic Church. It cut the last cord of union of the present with the past (History--Vol. VIII). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-06-08R.html Spiritually, there is no justification for requiring that a potential member jump through two years of hoops before the local pastor receives the potential member's name. If there were a court that had the authority to prosecute an indictment of theological malpractice, UCG would be convicted by its own testimony, and prevented from teaching until Christ Jesus returns. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-13-08R.html Assigning December 25th as the birthday of Jesus was necessary if Sunday observance was to replace Sabbath observance within the Christian Church--so a Sabbatarian disciple has no business participating in Christmas celebrations. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-20-08R.html Jesus' natural birth (birth by water) occurred during the fall feast season. Whether it was on the first day of Sukkot as is certainly a definite possibility or whether it occurred a few days before or after, His conception would have occurred on or during Hanukkah, when the Logos divested Himself of His divinity and made Himself into the likeness of a servant to be born of Mary. He was life and light entering into the womb of a woman. He was like the one container of undefiled oil found in the temple. So lighting a menorah would not be inappropriate. However, letting a disciple's light shine through good works would be even more appropriate. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-27-08R.html A Manual of Procedures For The Philadelphia Church and Associated Fellowships With Foundational Bylaws and an Account of the Association's Polity and Beliefs. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/manual_12-25-2008.pdf The king of Greece is not a human king or even one demonic prince, but a federation of five kings, four of whom are still to come; for the first king of this king of Greece is broken at the second Passover liberation of Israel, today a nation circumcised of heart (Rom 2:28-29). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-10-09R.pdf Death, now, imparts color, for a portion of the spectrum of light-of life-is reflected from the surface of the corpse. The gold and the bronze vessels and fixtures of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and later, of the first temple were lifeless or without life. Disciples become the living stones, with Christ Jesus being the cornerstone (1 Pet 2:4-5), of the temple of God. The new creature born of spirit dwelling within each disciple is, then, like a gold or bronze vessel of the first temple. However, disciples are also, collectively, New Jerusalem, made of gold as clear as glass. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-17-09R.html It is easy to say that ancient peoples didn't know that the moon reflected the sun's light . . . God knew, though. And if Scripture is the inspired word of God, then the presumption must be that inspiration precluded the moon's reflected light from really being a "light." It is this presumption of inspiration, now, that argues for gold representing a different "religion" than silver represents. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-24-09R.html The battle lines along which war is fought between the kings of Persia and the king of Greece are neither static nor represented by a person or a nation. They are manifest in this world as ideas that a person holds. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-31-09R.html The green movement is presently trampling visible Judeo-Christian teaching. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-07-09R.html The separation between the resurrection of firstfruits [the barley harvest] and the main crop harvest of this earth [the wheat harvest] by a thousand years can sometimes be lost in the expression 'seven endtime years of tribulation.' The coming of Christ does not mark the end of the world, but the end of this present evil age. The coming of Christ brings light so that the fruit of the spirit can ripen in its due season. Today, the fruit of the spirit must ripen in darkness. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-14-09R.html Philadelphians are to test the utterances of those who teach and who prophesy. If these utterances (breaths) do not tell Israel to keep the commandments, they are not of God--and no test could be more simple. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-21-09R.html Daniel's visions remained sealed and secret throughout Armstrong's lifetime. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-28-09R.html The humanoid image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision has, below the loins, two iron legs and feet . . . iron is a gray metal, approximately the color of lightly oxidized silver--and like silver. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-07-09R.html But of the ten virgins, only five enter with the Bridegroom. There are not many names written in the Book of Life; there are few. Peters asks, "'If the righteous is scarcely saved / what will become of the ungodly / and the sinner'" (1 Pet 4:18). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-14-09R.html It is in the Torah (i.e., in Deuteronomy) where Moses writes of Jesus, whose words will not be believed if the person doesn't first believe the writings of Moses (John 5:46-47). Let there be no doubt: NO ONE CAN BELIEVE JESUS CHRIST WHO DOESN'T FIRST BELIEVE MOSES. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-21-09R.html The Father knows you have needs, and He would be remiss if He didn't supply those needs, but when you ask for the wealth of this world, can you truly expect to receive it when the wealth of this world comes from the prince of this world? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-28-09R.html Jesus saying that He would rebuild the temple in three days made such an impression on the Jews who heard Him that three years later, when accused of wrongdoing, the only charge made against Jesus that wasn't obviously false was made by two who testified, "'This man said, "I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days"'" (Matt 26:61). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-04-09R.html This great Sabbath of the "Sabbath," as John terms the first high day of Unleavened Bread (John 19:31), commemorates natural Israel coming out of Egypt and circumcised of heart Israel coming out of sin ... those disciples who are not assembled before God today have not come out of sin, but remain bondservants of sin, and thus have nothing to commemorate. And nothing could be sadder other than for us to join with them once we know the truth. Many former Sabbatarian disciples have returned to lawlessness as dogs return to their vomit. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/1UB2009.html Therefore, the Passover being eaten on the night that Israel left Egypt doesn't take effect until after Israel, sent into captivity in a far land, turns to God and by faith begins to obey the Lord's voice, keeping all that the Lord has commanded Israel (Deut 30:1-2). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-11-09R.html The example Jesus left with His disciples was the explication of Scriptures concerning Him, beginning with Moses and the Prophets. It is this explication of Scripture that should be undertaken on the day when the ascension of the First of the firstfruits is commemorated. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/wave_sheaf2009.html Again, because few in the Church are natural Israelites; because the majority of the Church consists of Gentiles, with this age not ending until the fullness of the Gentiles come to God (Rom 11:25), the fleshly bodies of Israel have not been redeemed, a situation that will be corrected at the second Passover when death angels will again pass over all the land (all the world this time) as the death angel passed over all of Egypt approximately three and a half millennia ago. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/2UB2009.html If every person that opened the womb is to be redeemed--the Father redeemed all of His sons through Christ Jesus' death at Calvary--and if natural Israel has not redeemed anyone since the temple was razed in 70 CE, and if the Christian Church, with very few exceptions, doesn't cover itself by drinking from the cup on the night that Jesus was betrayed, all of Israel, natural and born-of-spirit, is presently unredeemed, meaning that their sins are not covered and that natural firstborns are subject to loss of life when the death angel again passes over all the world as the death angel passed over all of Egypt so long ago. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-18-09R.html A scroll is not written upon on both sides. It is written upon on one side and then rolled up. But if dual referents are to be assigned to the words of the scroll, and if the visible things of this world reveal the invisible things of God, then the words written without are words read on the page and the words written within are the spiritual (in heaven) realities that cast shadows of the readable words written without. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-25-09R.html Satan is using _good,_ self-proclaimed spirit filled Christians to do his dirty work for him--persecuting Sabbath keepers. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-02-09R.html The plagues of Moses' day and the prophesied plagues in Revelation have not been addressed or well addressed . . . if Sarah's closed womb is a type of a plague, then the lack of spiritual births (Christians truly receiving a second breath of life) is also a plague, one through which the Christian Church is presently living. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-09-09R.html So it is through John that the epistles of Paul need to be read. When doing so, what's seen is absolute consistency of thought. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-16-09R.html In America and in much of the Western world, democracy rules--and the ultimate biblical expression of democratic ideals is made by Korah, who said, "'You [Moses and Aaron] have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord'" (Num 16:3). Again, where is fault to be found with what Korah says? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-23-09R.html The understanding that has been missing from Christendom is that the disciple is not the body of flesh, but the inner new self that is a son of God born of the breath of God. The disciple does no cooking on the Sabbath; nor does the disciple kindle a fire. The disciple is not able to do either. It is the tent of flesh in which this disciple dwells that kindles a fire so that the tent of flesh doesn't freeze during the Sabbath day. And Christ gave to His disciples the liberty to make the Sabbath a delight and not a burden. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-30-09R.html Those Sabbatarian disciples that look for the resumption of animal sacrifices in a rebuilt temple look amiss. They have abandoned Christ; they are without discernment, and having tasted of the goodness of God, they are now really without hope for Christ Jesus will not be crucified anew. Hence, it is important for disciples to understand that they are today the temple of God, and their daily obedience is the sacrifice they offer to God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-06-09R.html As the temple of God, a temple not located in earthly Jerusalem nor constructed from dead stone, we had better have our hearts set on the things of God, with discernment being at the top of that list--for spiritual discernment is "real" wealth of a type that cannot be lost to thieves or to downturns in the market. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-13-09R.html What it means is that those things about which Moses writes pertains to the inner new creature, with the application of these things tempered by common sense and the principle that the weekly Sabbath is the servant of disciples, that there is a change of the law so that Jesus can be high priest after the order of Melchizedek. The change of the law does not abolish the office of high priest or abolish the Torah that includes far more than the covenant made when Israel left Egypt, but abolishes the Levitical priesthood and the covering (garment) of animal sacrifices as the prevailing ministry. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-20-09R.html The endtime temple of God is not and will not be a physical structure in earthly Jerusalem or anywhere in the modern State of Israel: it is the Church, the assembly of circumcised of heart Israel. And every teacher of Israel, every prophecy pundit, every sect or denomination that looks for the building of a "third" temple to satisfy endtime biblical prophecies is without understanding and is false!! http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-27-09R.html All spiritual growth must occur in this world, for growth of the type seen physically cannot occur in the timeless heavenly realm where all that "is" must coexist with what "was" and what "will be." Therefore, all "growth" of a son of God must occur in this world where change is not only permitted but dictated. All growth, including that which comes from drinking milk and eating meat, comes in the spiritual fetal state. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-04-09R.html The person who claims to have been born of spirit but who makes a practice of sinning (such as worshiping on Sunday) doesn't understand spiritual birth . . . Christianity as visibly practiced in this world serves the purpose of the dead burying the dead. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-11-09R.html Biblical prophecy is given for only one reason: to affect behavior. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-18-09R.html Even if endtime disciples hear the words of Jesus, unless they believe the writings of Moses they will not believe Jesus' words. There is simply too much noise in the sheepcote; it is simply too difficult to separate Jesus' voice from the cooing of the thieves and howls of the wolves. Only by returning to Moses will endtime disciples be able to separate the voice of Jesus from the baaing of the fat sheep that push against the lean sheep, shouldering them aside. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-25-09R.html The tools that today aid the study of Scripture, tools that most endtime disciples have available to them, when compared to Stephen, are so much greater that today's disciples really stand condemned before God by their unbelief . . . if Stephen could remember what he heard, accurately recounting the narrative of Scripture as it was read, then what excuse do endtime disciples have for their lack of Bible study? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-01-09R.html It should not take an endtime teacher of Israel longer than it took Paul and Silas to instruct the Philippian jailer before this endtime teacher baptizes a convert who needs to understand that growing in grace and knowledge is a maturation process foreshadowed by human growth and maturation, with this process rooted in hearing Moses read every Sabbath. A fellowship that places two years' worth of hoops and obstacles before the convert is guilty of spiritual malpractice, with this guilt bringing into question this fellowship's salvation. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-08-09R.html A human infant isn't born of spirit as a son of God, but is born of a human father. It will not be born of spirit until after reaching physical maturity . . . regardless of how badly human parents that are disciples want to see their children join their faith, the Father doesn't call physical children to be His sons. He doesn't begin the spiritual maturation process in physical children; He doesn't ask human babies still nursing their mothers to suddenly ingest the milk of the word of God. So what Paul writes about children being sanctified (1 Cor 7:14) doesn't mean that these children are born of God because they are holy. It means that they are as natural Israel was, in the position where they can inherit eternal life upon demonstrated obedience, with this inheritance following biological death. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-15-09R.html Salvation has come to all peoples, those who are called by God must necessarily hear the voice of Jesus before meaning can be assigned to Scripture, with the necessity to assign meaning to words forming one of the strongest arguments for typological exegesis. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-22-09R.html We can recount the history of Christendom and show how it matches the history of natural Israel. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-29-09R.html Fire in this world occurs through the oxidation and destruction of combustibles, but fire in the heavenly realm represents life. To pass through fire is to live spiritually. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-05-09R.html What has not been understood is why a miracle occurs: miracles come via the divine breath of the Father delivering in this world the speech-acts of the Father, with "speech-acts" conveying the entirety of communication occurring in an utterance. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-12-09R.html Unbelief will condemn filled-with-spirit Christians as unbelief condemned Israel at Sinai, the mountain of God, with this former condemnation (again, Ex 32:33) forming the left hand enantiomer of this near future condemnation of the lawless Christian Church that openly rebels against God when the man of perdition is revealed. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/09-19-09R.html Few become the glorified Elect, for few will believe the writings of Moses and act on those writings to make their faith complete. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-24-09R.html In patriarchal cultures women as human beings are invisible to the male gaze, which tends to see women as sexualized objects--whereas the feminism of Betty Friedan's generation sought to abolish the male gaze by demanding respect for female personhood, the post-feminism of Madonna seeks to use that male gaze as the basis of empowering females by using overt sexuality as an economic tool: the attire of prostitutes has become fashionable as post-feminist women trade upon the male gaze as if lust were a commodity like corn, traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/10-31-09R.html Christ Jesus will marry a Helpmate, a Church that will possess feminine traits even though glorified disciples that compose the Bride are His younger brothers. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-07-09R.html In Scripture, Zion is a woman; the Church is a woman; and Israel is the firstborn spiritual son that is biologically second born and is represented by Zion in Scripture. In other words, disciples are individually masculine but collectively feminine. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-14-09R.html A person only receives indwelling eternal life as the gift of God in Christ Jesus, for the Logos was the Helpmate of the God as the Woman is the Helpmate of Her Husband. The firstfruits of God, with Jesus being the First of these firstfruits, are the seed of YHWH, the two that functioned as one deity as Eve was one with Adam. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-21-09R.html If the Church were built on the preaching of pastors or prophets, then oral traditions of the Church fathers would supersede Moses' writings. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/11-28-09R.html Paul's question must again be asked, And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-05-09R.html How are they to know who has been sent? How is a Sabbatarian disciple to know that a person outside of the Sabbath keeper's sect has been sent by God? Both will keep the commandments and teach others to do likewise. And the test comes down to what Paul wrote to the saints at Ephesus: "When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets [in spirit]" (Eph 3:4-5). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-12-09R.html The power of the law is its ability to sentence a person to death. The law has no power over anything it cannot sentence to death; thus, the law has no power over the non-living. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-19-09R.html A disciple will come short of perfection even when striving for it. Grace covers this shortfall. But the disciple needs to be striving for ideological purity; for possessing the mind of Christ. And a disciple kids him or herself if the person thinks that ideological purity can be obtain through marriage to a pagan ideology, or by baptizing pagan holidays and calling them Christian. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/12-26-09R.html It is sad that so many Sabbatarian disciples, born of God before it was the season for fruit, have not developed spiritually but married ideologies and philosophies other than that disclosed in the writings of Moses and in the voice of Jesus when still infants. There is really nothing but their own hubris that stopped them from growing spiritually. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-02-10R.html Christians are to judge righteously, beginning with themselves then extending that righteous judging to the congregation. They are to use the law lawfully to purge unrighteousness from the assembly of the Lord, and they are to suffer the disciple weak in faith without placing a stumbling block before the disciple, a situation made difficult by those who are weak in faith succumbing to the Sacred Names Heresy, which will have the weak judging the strong and polluting infant sons of God. If the person who is weak cannot keep quiet in services, then this person must be put out. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-09-10R.html Clearly Paul holds that the person who will be justified produces the works of the law, regardless of whether the person has the law. This is a position quite far from what Luther wrote about Christians receiving righteousness entirely from outside themselves. Luther never understood that grace is the garment or mantle or covering of Christ Jesus' righteousness, and faith alone is insufficient for salvation and is incomplete until it is manifested in works. Luther was simply wrong when he said that faith alone makes someone just. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-16-10R.html The endtime good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved is not a light and trivial message, but a deadly serious understanding of biblical prophecy explicated by the mirror-image of the prophets of old. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-23-10R.html A purity of heart cannot be obtained through the things of this world; it cannot be purchased. There are no venders selling purity. Yet it is of more worth to God than all of the material things that have been created in the Abyss. And this purity of heart is very rarely seen in this era. It has been long forgotten by Christian America. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/01-30-10R.html When there is no truly "right" way to handle a transaction in this world except by complying in an upright manner with how the world contends that transactions should be documented and recorded then lawyers, unfortunately, need to be consulted before transactions are made, not afterwards. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-06-10R.html John and Christ, together, formed one unit in the 1st-Century CE, with this unit or entity being a representation of the Elijah to come. The two witnesses plus the Lamb and the Remnant, together--two witnesses + (Lamb and Remnant) will form one unit in the 21st-Century, with this entity being the reality of the Elijah that is to come. The last Elijah isn't simply a man, or a ministry. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-13-10R.html To walk in light requires the disciple to walk as Jesus walked. To walk any other way is to stumble, fall backwards, be snared by the Adversary, and to be broken by Christ when judgments are revealed. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-20-10R.html The three woes affect human beings who dwell on this earth, not the inner sons of God whose home is in heaven. The marker of "dwelling on earth" identifies who will experience this third woe. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/02-27-10R.html The removal of a seal comes when Jesus permits an event to happen; when Jesus no longer holds back an event. When seals are not really seals but previously undisclosed events that were concealed because Daniel's visions were kept secret until the time of the end--the marker soon take place limits John's vision to the same timeframe as when Daniel's visions are set--then the scroll that is the Book of Revelation was unsealed by Christ Jesus when Daniel's visions were unsealed. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-06-10R.html Darius the Mede (needing strengthened by the angel as revealed to Daniel) would not have been able to withstand the angel for 21 days, meaning simply that the kings of Persia are demonic kings. The first king of Greece is a demonic king, and the king of Greece is a federation of rebelling angelic sons of God. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-13-10R.html The first beast or king of Daniel chapter 7, the demon that is like a lion who had its wings plucked off and was made to stand like a man and was given the mind of a man (as Nebuchadnezzar was given the mind of a beast), is the rider of the white horse, the rider with a bow and a crown who goes forth conquering and to conquer (Rev 6:2). He is the false prophet, and his emergence from the stump of the first horn of the king of Greece is the removal of the first seal. The second king of Daniel 7, the beast that is like a bear, this beast being Apollyon, is the rider of the bright red horse, the rider permitted to take peace from the earth, the rider with the great sword. At the end of the 1260 day long ministry of the two witnesses, this king will finally be permitted to kill these two. And the emergence of this king from the stump of the great horn of the king of Greece is the removal of the second seal (Rev 6:3-4). The third king of Daniel 7, the four headed beast that is like a leopard and to whom dominion over men has been given, the beast called Sin, the king of the South, is the rider of the black horse. This king buys and sells men as if they were wheat (the latter harvest of God) or barley (the early harvest), for God has consigned all men to disobedience [sin] so that He can have mercy on all (Rom 11:32). And the emergence of this king from the stump of the broken first king of the king of Greece is the removal of the third seal (Rev 6:5-6). The fourth king is the cross-shaped beast called Death. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-20-10R.html Understanding prophecy is important, even if not for salvation. Understanding prophecy prevents a disciple from being deceived by unfolding events in this world and in the Abyss, and understanding prophecy will give those disciples a work to do throughout the last 1260 days, which, unlike the Affliction, will pass fairly quickly. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/03-27-10R.html Sin is a cruel taskmaster, forcing the disciple to do what the disciple does not want to do, but the yoke of Christ is easy and light. It requires that disciples enter into the rest of God that is represented in this world by Sabbath observance, that period when the mind does not focus on the things of this world but on God. The body rests; the mind has peace; and God is pleased to the extent that the disciple believes Him. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-03-10R.html Zephaniah records those things that pertain to the end of the age from the perspective of the shadow those things cast into his world. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-10-10R.html It will be today's Sabbatarians who finally disclose what has been known all along: by their lack of love, they too (with very few exceptions) show that they are the seed of the Adversary. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-17-10R.html The Sadducees and Pharisees of Jesus day would follow this teacher or that teacher, but would not follow Jesus--and those Sadducees and Pharisees form the shadow and type of Sabbatarian Christians in this present era. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/04-24-10R.html No person in this present age can come to Christ unless the Father first draws the foreknown and predestined person, but once the spirit is given en masse to first Christians [Israel] following the Second Passover then to the world [Gentiles] when the kingdom is delivered to the Son of Man, it is the person who chooses righteousness who shall be saved. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-01-10R.html The weak are not unbelievers, but are spiritual infants, toddlers, small children that have the right to expect protection from parents and elder siblings, with Christ Jesus being the Firstborn of many brothers (Rom 8:29), all firstborn sons of God. Those who are strong are to judge the Church and are to put out the idolater, the greedy, the willful lawbreaker, the teacher who would have disciples neglect the commandments. Yes, they are to pass judgment on those inside the Church (again, 1 Cor 5:12), even to forgiving or withholding forgiveness of sin (John 20:23), binding the sins of idolaters to them and turning loose the sins of those who are weak in faith, with these decisions being recognized in heaven (Matt 16:19). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-08-10R.html No Christian can walk as Jesus walked or imitate Paul as he imitated Jesus and attempt to bodily enter into God's presence on the first day of the week--and that is what Sabbath observance represents, bodily entering into God's rest. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-15-10R.html Unlike Paul's epistles and Peter's first epistle, Peter's second epistle is not to spiritual infants, lambs [John 21:15], but to saints on solid food, sheep. Jesus' death at Calvary is the greatest gift Israel could give to the Father, and Jesus' resurrection from death is the greatest gift God could give to men. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-22-10R.html If a person has to ask who his neighbor is, the person doesn't have much love for anyone except those like the person. The lawyer had knowledge, godly knowledge, but no love. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/05-29-10R.html For too long the glorified Jesus saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, has been interpreted to mean that Jesus is everything, the complete alphabet, with alpha and omega representing every letter in the Greek alphabet, but this is not the case: Jesus would build His church on the movement of breath from the physical breath breathed in through the nostrils (the front of the mouth) to the spiritual breath of God that makes alive the inner self. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-05-10R.html Abraham, after journeying to the Promised Land then down into sin and back to the Promised Land, wanted the son that was promised to him. He was not a novice; he was not a new convert. He had journey far in faith--if every Christian would journey as far in faith as Abraham journeyed, the Church would again be the sect of the Nazarenes, a sect of observant Judaism. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-12-10R.html Paul knew that these Galatians were not born of God--he discloses that he knows by not citing the foremost of the commandments, disciples are to love God with heart and mind. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-19-10R.html Luke records Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost following Calvary: this was not a prepared sermon, but an explanation for what occurred given to those Jews who were in Jerusalem for the Feasts of Weeks, one of the three times a year when all Israelite males are to appear before God (see Deut 16:16) as angelic sons of God are to appear at their appointed times. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/Pentecost2010.html Righteousness is always individual -- Abraham believed the Lord about his seed being like the stars of heaven and had his belief counted to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6); so if the men of Judah had believed the Lord, they too would have had their belief counted to them as righteousness. But belief must always be manifested in works. Belief without doing or applying what the person professes to believe is a lie. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-26-10R.html The underlying construct of Philadelphian typological exegesis is retrocausality: the events of a later time in history affects what has happened earlier, with this backward-causation allowing an effect to occur before its cause. In retrocausality, the visible lawlessness of ancient Israelites stems from the inner lawlessness of born of God Israelites [Christians], with shadows ceasing to be cast when the spiritual Body of Christ died from loss of its divine breath--without life in the heavenly realm, Christians can cast no shadow in this realm. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-03-10R.html The seventy [seventy-two] are sent to Islam to warn the ideology not be succumb to the blandishments of the man of perdition, an Arian Christian aligned with the western prophet--when the false prophet comes to the already existing office of prophet, many Muslims will find in this demon who has been given the mind of man (see Dan 7:4) the one for whom they have long waited. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-10-10R.html For Jesus to deliberately provoke a confrontation with Pharisees--and then denounce them in one of their homes--was a so-called teaching moment: Jesus knew that He was being tested, that Pharisees were wanting to see Him deliver a sign from heaven (Luke 11:16), and as the crowds increased while He spoke, Jesus said that He would give no sign but that of Jonah (v. 29). http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-17-10R.html Neither the Father nor the Son judges the world, or judges disciples. Rather, both the world and disciples judge themselves by whether they keep the words that Jesus spoke, with Jesus only speaking the Father's words. The wrath of the Lamb that comes upon humankind during the Affliction (Rev 6:16-17) comes because neither Christians nor the world will keep the words of the Lord. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-24-10R.html There is no getting around the reality that whoever practices righteousness, which is manifested outwardly through keeping the commandments, is righteous as Christ Jesus is righteous (1 John 3:7). It isn't keeping the commandments that makes the person righteous, but the inner desire to please God, whom the righteous person believes. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/07-31-10R.html If Christ Jesus came not by water [of the womb] only but by water and blood [i.e., came as a human being], then Calvary is as important as the birth of Jesus. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-07-10R.html Sabbatarian Christians who don't understand spiritual birth as a real birth after the pattern of the first Adam's birth have no business posturing as teachers of Israel--they need to keep silent and learn for if they have been born of spirit, they are still spiritual infants in need of a teething ring rather than a pulpit. http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/08-14-10R.html