You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation [bad news] and put you to death [bad news], and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake [bad news]. And then many will fall away [bad news] and betray one another [bad news] and hate one another [bad news]. And many false prophets will arise [bad news] and lead many astray [bad news]. And because lawlessness will be increased [bad news], the love of many will grow cold [bad news]. But the one who endures to the end will be saved [good news]. And this gospel [good news] of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matt 24:6–14)

_______________

9.

After sentence after sentence of bad news, all pertaining to His return, Matthew’s Jesus uttered one statement of good news (what the archaic English word <gospel> means) with this statement being that all who endure to the end shall be saved. And immediately upon declaring that all who endure shall be saved, Jesus said that this good news must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations, and then, finally, the end would come. So the time marker for when the end of the age will come is when the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved is proclaimed to the world.

The preceding paragraph is redundant, pedantic, but the importance of this gospel that all who endure to the end shall be saved has been overlooked for far too long, overlooked because it wasn’t “time” to deliver this message; for with its delivery shall come the end. Therefore, the delivery of this good news could not and would not come until humanity entered the period known by the generic phrase, the time of the end.

The message Christendom is to deliver, again as a witness, changes with the age at hand; for in the 1^st-Century, the message was about the man Jesus, about who He was and what He said and what He did, with Peter, according to John the Elder as quoted by Bishop Papias [the cite from Eusebius’ third book] teaching by use of chreiai, brief anecdotes such as, And Jesus said … [the structure of the Gospel of Thomas], with Peter being a witness to what Jesus did and said in His earthly ministry.

The first disciples, apostles, were firsthand witnesses and delivered a message about the man Jesus from the perspective of being actual witnesses. But they wrote nothing down for they expected Jesus to return in their lifetime. Again, it was only when disciples no longer expected Jesus to “immediately” return that the Gospels were written, with (again according to Bishop Papias, writing about 103 CE) John Mark writing the Gospel of Mark and with John Mark not being born when Jesus was crucified, but constructing a time line for when Jesus did this or that by untangling Peter’s non-chronological chreiai … Matthew’s Gospel uses Mark’s time line, and would seem to have been written after Mark’s Gospel, evidenced by identical scenarios appearing in both, but with Mark’s Gospel being in rough Greek while Matthew’s is in better Greek—and a person copying a text wouldn’t usually change the text from good to poor, but from less acceptable syntax to more acceptable syntax.

Luke’s Gospel seems to use Mark’s time line, but John’s Gospel does not, suggesting that John’s Gospel comes from a differing reader community, perhaps from a community isolated from readers of Mark’s Gospel. Regardless, by the early 2^nd-Century CE, the four Gospels were known and the Jesus material had become the source material for Greek novelists in a way analogous to how the 2010 rescue of thirty-three miners trapped inside the San José Mine in Chile for more than two months is the source story for the 2015 movie, The 33.

The book of Acts is a Second Sophist novel based on the journeys of Paul … the book of Acts was, before the 4^th-Century, accepted as the “true history” of the early Church as a reasonably well-documented movie about an event is today readily accepted as historical.

Whereas Peter as a first hand witness taught using chreiai, the teachings about Jesus of later “witnesses” used second or third hand testimony to support their “witnessing.” Thus, these later witnesses were not really “witnesses,” but were storytellers if not gossips that “humanized” Jesus through use of Mary Magdalene material. And all of this is seen in the “death” of the spiritual Body of Christ at the end of the 1^st-Century CE (ca 100–102 CE) when John who would have been the last first-time witness physically died.

A second-hand witness can only offer hearsay evidence, and cannot “testify” about what Jesus did or said. Thus, since the death of John, all testimony about Christ Jesus has been hearsay evidence, not admissible in a court of law. So for the Christian pastor or teacher to say that Jesus said … [what follows matters but doesn’t], the Christian pastor offers hearsay evidence that establishes nothing. Therefore the endtime gospel cannot be a message about the man Jesus—and it is here where understanding what Matthew’s Gospel is and what it represents becomes important.

The four Gospels are structured as Greek biographies of the man Jesus of Nazareth. Luke’s Gospel is a “proper” secular text, with his reason for writing (Luke 1:1–4) properly included and properly placed at the beginning of the author’s biography. So as a manner of form, Luke’s biography of Jesus is the model that the others should have followed (if Mark’s and Matthew’s Gospels hadn’t preceded Luke’s). And this makes the first eighteen verses of John’s Gospel most interesting, for these verses are positioned where the author’s justification for writing the biography should be found. Thus, the justification for writing John’s Gospel is in the declarative sentences, In primacy was the Logos, and the Logos was with the God, and God was the Logos. This One was in primacy with the God. All things through Him came to be, and without Him came to be not one thing (John 1:1–3)—and this “not one thing” includes John’s Gospel.

Matthew’s Gospel differs from Mark’s and Luke’s Gospel; for Matthew’s Gospel uses literary tropes to disclose to attentive readers that this Gospel isn’t a biography of the earthly man Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified on April 25^th (Julian) in year 31 of the Common Era, but is the biography of the indwelling Christ Jesus whose spirit [pneuma Christou] penetrates the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] drawn from this world by God the Father. Thus, Matthew’s biography is of the “Christ” whose mind every disciple truly born of spirit has; so the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel “speaks” when the person truly born of spirit speaks the words of Christ Jesus.

The preceding, when realized, explains why the endtime Gospel that must be proclaimed to all the world as a witness to all nations is the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved …

As Peter testified as a firsthand witness about what the man Jesus did and said, the inner self of the person truly born of spirit through the indwelling of the spirit of Christ in the spirit of the person will testify about the word [’o logos] of Jesus that He, Jesus, transports from the 1^st-Century to the 21^st-Century and delivers to His witnesses for them to declare at the end of the age.

Endtime disciples genuinely born of spirit will testify about what they “know” to be true through the indwelling of the spirit of Christ that gives to them the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16) that permits them to know the things of God. And if these endtime disciples know the things of God, then they “hear” the words of Christ Jesus and are able to testify about these words as Peter and John testified about the words of the man Jesus that they heard.

Presently, The Philadelphia Church is the only organization, sect, or collection of fellowships doing the work of delivering this good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved, and Philadelphia’s voice is as a low whisper, or thin silence, with the Lord telling John the Revelator to write what he sees in vision in a book and send the book to seven churches (Rev 1:11), with the assembly at Philadelphia being one of these seven. And a portion of what John “sees” is the glorified Christ saying,

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” (Rev 3:7–8 emphasis added)

Again, the word [’o logos] of Jesus is the message He left with His earthly disciples, the message that if not believed will judge the unbeliever:

Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in Him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees Him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has Himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that His commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me." (John 12:44–50)

The word of Jesus is the commandment of the Father that represents eternal life; for if a person hears the word of Jesus and believes the One who sent Jesus into this world as His Word, the person will pass from death to life without coming under judgment (John 5:24). This person will have indwelling eternal life and thus be saved while the person [the inner self that desires to serve God and keep the Commandments] continues to dwell in a fleshly body that remains enslaved by Sin … even this person’s fleshly body awaits liberation from indwelling Sin and Death at the Second Passover liberation of a second Israel. And this is what the Apostle Paul didn’t understand when he wrote, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” Rom 7:15). Paul didn’t realize there would be a Second Passover liberation of Israel. He couldn’t know there would be a Second Passover even though he laid the foundation for knowing (for revelation by realization). For knowledge of the Second Passover wasn’t yet revealed—

Paul virtually stumbled on knowledge of the Second Passover when he wrote,

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor 10:1–12 emphasis added)

If Paul would have backed up three days earlier in the Exodus narrative, he would have declared that the Passover happened as an example; as a shadow and copy of the Body of Christ’s liberation from indwelling sin and death.

But backing up three additional days would have caused a problem for Paul, whose gospel (from Rom 2:16) anticipated the great White Throne Judgment (Rev 20:11–15) that wasn’t yet revealed … for Paul, the Elect were still the remnant of his people who would come to Christ as the Lord had reserved for Himself seven thousand in the days of Elijah:

Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life." But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. (Rom 11:2–5)

By what Paul wrote, it is evident that he understood circumcised of heart Israel to already be liberated from sin:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the Law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to spirit. (Rom 8:1–4)

But circumcised of heart Israel was only a portion of those Jews and Gentiles who were attaching themselves to the 1^st-Century Jesus Movement.

What Paul apparently failed to realize—what hadn’t yet been given—is that no person could come to Christ Jesus unless drawn by the Father from this world (John 6:44, 65); that the Father would cease to draw individuals from this world forty years after Calvary, that seventy years after Calvary the last of those individuals drawn from this world by the Father would die physically, thereby ending the Body of Christ’s visible presence in this world. And why would the Father cease to draw individuals from this world? To protect all of humanity from the lawlessness that had crept into the Jesus Movement in a way characterized by how idolatry had entered into the children of Israel’s worship of the God of Abraham, idolatry that caused the Lord to give Israel commandmentss that were not good:

Moreover, I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries, because they had not obeyed my rules, but had rejected my statutes and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their fathers' idols. Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the Lord. (Ezek 20:23–26)

The firstborn belong to the Lord to do with as He sees fit—and because they belong to Him, He chose to seal them in death through their parents sacrificing them in fire so they would not learn the ways of their parents. Therefore, when He chooses to resurrect them in the great White Throne Judgment, these firstborns of ancient Israel will have done nothing wrong; will be innocent of wrongdoing and will therefore be saved; whereas their parents in practicing idolatry of the worst kind will have demonstrated their unbelief of the Lord and will be like their ancestors who died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Only the parents will have practiced their unbelief in the Promised Land, thereby choosing death for themselves when the choice of life or death was placed before them (see Deut 30:15–20).

Because knowledge of the great White Throne Judgment as a distinct resurrection after the Thousand Years, not at the beginning of the Thousand Years—the resurrection of Firstfruits at the beginning of the Millennium and the great White Throne Judgment at the end of the Millennium are enantiomorphs, their chirality seen in the activated light of God—was not given to the 1^st-Century Church, but was given to John in vision while he was isolated (separated from the assemblies of the Lord) on the isle of Patmos near the end of the 1^st-Century, Paul could not have known of two resurrections unless he received this knowledge when he visited the third heaven and heard and saw things that he couldn’t tell about (2 Cor 12:4). And this might be the case for Paul writes, by the hand of Tertius,

God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law. For it is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the Law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, by nature do what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law. They show that the work of the Law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom 2:11–16 emphasis added)

Matthew’s Jesus anticipated the great White Throne Judgment when He said,

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Then He will say to those on His left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” Then He will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matt 25:31–46)

Again, Matthew’s Jesus is the indwelling Christ in every disciple truly born of spirit; hence Matthew’s Jesus would have knowledge of two resurrections to life.

God is not a respecter of persons, offering salvation to one person but not making salvation available to another—and this is what the endtime good news is all about: the person who endures to the end shall be saved, but enduring to the end will require the person to not mark him or herself for death by taking upon him or herself the tattoo of the cross [chi xi stigma, read as Christ’s cross tattoo] … to take upon the person the mark of death, a symbol for the instrument employed to kill the physical body of Christ Jesus, will be to not believe the messages of the three angels once the Endurance begins.

I [John] saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water." Another angel, a second, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality." And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name."

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. (Rev 14:6–12)

The Endurance in Jesus is the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years: the message of the three angels comes at the beginning of the Endurance; comes following when the spirit of God is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28); comes when the Law has been written on the hearts and placed inside the third part of humanity (from Zech 13:9) so that this third part will know the Lord, being taught by the Lord both inwardly and outwardly [by the messages delivered by the three angels].

The dawn of the day portion of the Lord’s Day will have begun with dominion over the single kingdom of this world being taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man (cf. Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18; 12:7–12). So the message of the three angels happens just after dawn of the Lord’s Day. The third angel’s message isn’t today being broadcast by carnally minded Sabbatarian Christians. And the mark of the beast isn’t Sunday worship, which is a serious sign of theological unbelief that will, once the Second Passover occurs, get the Christian condemned to the Lake of Fire for his or her lack of faith [pisteos].

The night portion of the Lord’s Day is represented in type by the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years. The day portion of the Lord’s Day is represented in type by the Endurance in Jesus … the Affliction and the Endurance are enantiomorphs, dual referents for the generic phrase <the Tribulation>, with the Endurance in Jesus and the short while after the Thousand Years when the Adversary is loosed from his chains (Rev 20:7–10) also being enantiomorphs, thus making this short while also three and a half years in length. As Nebuchadnezzar, the earthly king of Babylon, had his wits taken from him for seven years, that old serpent Satan the devil will have his wits taken from him when he is cast from heaven and into space-time.

As Nebuchadnezzar was given the mind of an ox for seven years, the Adversary will be given the mind of a man for the three and a half years he is loose during the Endurance in Jesus and for the short while when he is loosed after the Thousand Years.

The thousand years when the Adversary is imprisoned will seem far longer to him if he has the thoughts of a man versus the mind of an archangel: it would be reasonable to conclude that once the Adversary is cast into space-time, he will have the mind of a man, with his imprisonment forming for him a shadow and type of him being dead forever.

Paul couldn’t declare what hadn’t yet been revealed to Israel, but he did in his gospel, the good news he proclaimed.

Just as Jesus came to reveal the Father to His disciples, not to all of Israel, even though King David had anticipated the presence of God the Father when he deconstructed the Tetragrammaton YHWH in his latter psalms, Jesus revealed the great White Throne Judgment to John in vision even though Paul had anticipated this judgment in his gospel (again, Rom 2:14–16).

The preceding becomes theologically important; for the things of God have antecedents. Therefore, before revelation of any matter occurs, the revelation will be anticipated in Holy Writ. So it can be declared that the seven named churches will, in the Affliction, proclaim the good news that in the Endurance all who endure to the end shall be saved even though Philadelphia will have anticipated the delivery of this good news by at least fourteen years, thereby causing Philadelphia to escape inclusion in random humanity that will be killed in the Second Woe, the meaning of, “‘Because you have kept my word about [the] endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth’” (Rev 3:10).

In returning to how Philadelphia has delivered the endtime gospel that all who endure to the end shall be saved to all nations as a witness to all peoples, we find that the work Philadelphia has done has been as thin silence, which is apparently as it should be. The delivery of this endtime good news hasn’t been heard by many even though it has been “out there” for quite a while.

Paul declared, “We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom 8:26) … a groaning of spirit too deep for words is as thin silence, and Philadelphia’s voice is of little strength. In a very noisy world, Philadelphia’s delivery of the endtime gospel that all who endure to the end shall be saved seems less than a whisper. Nevertheless, this good news has been proclaimed worldwide for over a dozen years.

Again, Paul introduced, “groanings too deep for words,” by saying, “We do not know to pray as we ought” … the world doesn’t know how to pray or for what to pray. Greater Christendom doesn’t know what to pray-for as Christians utter a rote plea sent forth worldwide:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matt 6:9–13 KJV)

Is there any personal meaning to the word’s of the so-called Lord’s Prayer? What does, Your kingdom come, mean? Is this not an appeal for the Second Passover liberation of a second Israel; an appeal for the Apostasy to hasten its coming; an appeal for the wrath of the Lamb to cause humankind to hide itself from God; an appeal for the First Woe to bring discomfort on the world; an appeal for the Second Woe to leave a random third of humanity dead; an appeal for the Adversary to be cast from heaven and come to earth claiming to be the returning Messiah, seeking to devour whomever he can. Yes, the clause is a plea for all of the preceding to occur, and for more, much more to occur. But this Lord’s Prayer is not the endtime good news that must be proclaimed to all nations as a witness to all peoples. It is, on its surface, too broad, too generic.

The endtime gospel that must be proclaimed as a witness to all nations isn’t a prayer, but rather, is testimony to a people who cannot and will not today hear a message about salvation being their reward for simply enduring to the end. Surely, the world will say, there has to be more to salvation than enduring during the 1260-day period John identifies as “Endurance in Jesus” [no definite article] … but ask oneself, why would John identify this forty-two month period as the Endurance in Jesus (from Rev 1:9) if this period were not about “enduring,” the followup to the third angel’s message?

Once dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from that old serpent Satan the devil and given to the Son of Man, Christ Jesus will be the prince of this world, the prince of the power of the air, with the world then being baptized in spirit (Matt 3:11) through the spirit being poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) thereby changing human nature as well as the animal natures of the great predators (Isa 11:6-9). So the person who is today hostile to God; who is a son of disobedience and proud of being such as son will have his or her “thinking” changed so that this person wants to obey God as a servant of righteousness. And this person will have to do nothing more than believe God to the point of obedience for the person to be saved. Therefore the endtime gospel of all who endure to the end shall be saved is both logical and reasonable in the context of the spirit being poured out on all flesh.

Today, few people realize that human nature is not biologically “fixed” and therefore not an evolutionary attribute of Homo s. sapiens, but has been assigned to the human creature at a certain point in the historical past.

An honest examination of hominid DNA evidence produces the inescapable conclusion that the family Hominidae has been, in the past, more diverse than H. sapiens, meaning that the dominance of H. sapiens over its cousins has apparently resulted from a change in the “nature” of this one species a little before recorded history began, or approximately six thousand years ago … in the Adam narrative, there is no logical explanation for why Cain would say to the Lord, “‘My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me’” (Gen 4:13–14 emphasis added). Plus, there is no good explanation of where Cain got his wife:

Then the Lord said to [Cain], "Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. Lamech said to his wives: "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold." And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, "God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him." (Gen 4:14–25 emphasis and double emphasis added)

If Cain was Eve’s firstborn, and if Abel was Eve’s second-born, then Seth would have been Eve’s third-born. Now for Eve—in this Adam narrative—to have had daughters, they were not worth mentioning even though it would have been Eve’s daughters whom Cain feared would kill him, one of these daughters also being whom he married …

The above logic is forced, contrived, and not of the mind of Christ. Why would Cain have feared his sisters who wouldn’t have gone alone to the land of Nod, east of Eden?

Something happened that caused evolutionary hominids to suddenly break from great primate behavior and to become today’s thinking and reasoning creatures, this break coming in relatively recent history—and if King Nebuchadnezzar could have his reason taken from him and be given the mind of an ox for seven years, then the “reason” he had taken from him could have been given to a biological ancestor, thus producing the Adam narrative. But again, whatever happened and when whatever happened is not theologically important; for it is the Adam narrative that is important, not the phenomenon that produced the narrative.

There has been within greater Christendom as well as in Islam the “need” to believe that every word of the Bible or of the Qur’an is divinely inspired and thus infallible. The tendency has been to take each book as literally true in its entirety, or to reject the book in its entirety. And the Adversary by getting a Greek novel included in the canon of the New Testament laid the basis for rejecting all of the Bible by reasoning humanity, as well as rejecting Christ Jesus as Israel’s Savior. Therefore to negate the damage done by the Adversary to the collective faith of Israel, a monumental event has to occur to bring humankind back into belief of God—and this event will be the Second Passover liberation of a second Israel.

For Christians; for Jews, the 1260 days of the Affliction will mean spiritual life or the second death for them; for if Israel, natural and spiritual, will not believe the Lord after the Second Passover, Israel will perish, only to be replaced by a new Israel analogous to the children of Israel replacing virtually man for man the nation of Israel that left Egypt. And this new Israel will be the third part of the little ones (from Zech 13:9), the first two parts [like Cain and Abel] will be dead, either physically [Abel] or spiritually [Cain].

For a Christian to return to transgressing a Commandment when the Law has been written on hearts and placed in minds of greater Christendom, the Christian will rebel against God as the men of Israel rebelled when the spies returned from scouting the Promised Land (Num chap 14).

Genealogies mark transitions between narratives in the Northern Kingdom material that begins Genesis. Thus, the Adam narrative ends with,

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man [adam], He made him in the likeness of God. Male and female He created them, and He blessed them and named them [adam] when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. (Gen 5:1–5)

God created Adam in His likeness, and Adam fathered a son in his likeness; thus Seth was in the likeness and image of God and could be said to be a son of God; could be said to be the left hand enantiomer of Christ Jesus as the second Adam and His disciples in the Endurance in Jesus being the second Seth representing the right hand enantiomer of a chiral image that differs from Jesus being the last Abraham and His disciples being Isaac (Gal 3:29; 4:21–31), the allegory Paul used to get past the physicality of carnal minds.

In unraveling metaphorical or figurative language, with Jesus telling His disciples that He had only spoken to them in figures of speech (John 16:25), understanding that any metaphor is only true for a moment or at a glance is essential.

Whereas Paul’s tour-de-force allegory has Jesus’ disciples being sons of promise and thus likened to Isaac and the natural descendants of Isaac being likened to Ishmael, the endtime allegory that Paul implied but didn’t develop—this allegory bearing the time stamp of “after spiritual Cain slays spiritual Abel when the fifth Seal of the Scroll (Rev 6:9–11) is removed at the time of the Apostasy (2 Thess 2:3)”—has Christ being the last Adam and His disciples in the Endurance being spiritual Seth, His disciples then being the third part of the little ones (Zech 13:9).

According to the Adam narrative, all of humankind are descendants of Seth as winnowed down by the Flood in the days of Noah, this winnowing of humanity has humankind reduced to Noah and the seven with him on the Ark. And these eight serve as symbols for the invisible glorified Christ and the equally invisible seven angels to the seven churches, with the seven pair of clean animals being analogous to the seven named churches and the single pair of every other species being analogous to a single unit of every other Christian ideology crossing from the darkness of the long spiritual night in which humanity presently dwells to the light portion of the spiritual day that is the Lord’s Day.

The endtime gospel that all who endure to the end shall be saved need not be delivered to the seven named churches. That is presently being done by Philadelphia. Rather, these seven assemblies will deliver this gospel to the third part of the little ones, none of who are today “Christian” or even friendly with greater Christendom.

When the Second Passover occurs, all who profess that Jesus is Lord will be filled with the spirit of God but not born of spirit—filled as John the Baptist was filled … the Elect will be filled with spirit but will also be born of spirit. And it is this distinction that is represented by “clean animals” before the concept of clean or unclean animals enters into the theology of righteousness.

Where did the scribes redacting the Flood narrative get the concept of a “clean” [not common] animal before that distinction was given to Israel in the days of Moses? Anticipation? The concept was needed to make the Flood narrative serve as an allegory for entrance into the Kingdom (the linguistic signifier <Kingdom> here representing the doubled day 1260, these two days spanning the last day of the Adversary’s reign as prince of this world and the first day of the Son of Man’s reign as the prince over this same world). But the concept seems out-of-place in the third millennium BCE.

The introduction of “clean animals” in the Flood narrative has been used within the Sabbatarian churches of God to “prove” the antiquity of the clean/unclean identifier.

Again, it is the narrative that has importance, not the Ark or the animals that boarded the Ark, with the narrative being unprovable. However, the narrative, with its mixed use of identifiers for the Lord, seems to be a redacted text following Josiah’s undertaking at Bethel shortly after the long misplaced Book of the Covenant was found in the dilapidated temple (2 Kings 22:8, 10–11; 23:2, 15, 19–20). … The Book of the Covenant would have been a scroll, and if the temple needed repaired and this Book of the Covenant was lost inside the temple, it is probable that the outer wraps of the scroll were not readable. Thus to recover any damaged portions of the scroll, another scroll would need to be located, with the most likely location of a surviving scroll being in Bethel where it wouldn’t have seen much use.

What’s seen linguistically is that the early Genesis material seems to be in the Hebrew of the Northern Kingdom from about the 9^th-Century BCE, suggesting that, indeed, Josiah located a scroll in Bethel and used it as a source text to recover damaged portions of the scroll found in the temple at Jerusalem. And this seems readily apparent in the story of Hagar, with two distinct versions being presented in the Received Text … the Hagar story in Genesis chapter 16 and in chapter 21 are incompatible narratives and seem to have come from two source texts … a mother doesn’t carry her sixteen, seventeen, maybe as old as nineteen years old son into the wilderness and place him under a bush to die when her skin of water is dry. The Hagar narrative is garbled, and glaringly false as presented to endtime disciples.

When a narrative is an obvious redaction as much of the Old Testament is, does the narrative retain its importance? This is not a question that can be answered yes or no.

Today, Philadelphia’s delivery of the endtime good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved is no more than a groaning of spirit within the Body Politick, a groaning because the Body Politick doesn’t know how to pray as it ought.

If the internal groaning of spirit cannot really be heard by ears but only “felt” within a person, how does a person know if any groaning truly occurred; for feelings are both trustworthy and untrustworthy?

In the physical, feelings come from almost instantaneous gathering and evaluation of certain categories of data, these categories producing a fight or flight response in the person. And if the physical is the left hand enantiomer of a right hand spiritual reality, then a groaning of spirit that gives to the person knowledge of God doesn’t take years to get the message to a person, but communicates almost instantaneously with the person’s consciousness.

(to be continued)

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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

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