From Philadelphia — On Head Covering

Covering the Covering

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.” And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so. (Ex 13:17–14:4 emphasis added)

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For the Lord to “cover” Israel with His glory, setting His glory above that of Pharaoh, the Lord would destroy both the life of Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s army: the glory of a king was, apparently, the strength of the king’s army. When no earthly nation had an army that could defeat the Egyptian army, no nation had the glory that Egypt possessed. But Israel, equipped for battle, left Egypt with a high hand: Egypt would not have been able to defeat Israel for Israel was covered with the glory of the Lord—

The Apostle Paul wrote of Pharaoh, saying, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth’” (Rom 9:17 — Paul’s citation is of Ex 9:16). Thus human glory is linked to human strength, not to monuments or wisdom or libraries of knowledge, or even to life itself. Human glory isn’t dependent upon goodness or generosity, but upon who can slay whom, with death forming the absence of glory; hence, the men of Israel went out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle but were not psychologically prepared to fight Pharaoh and his army. They went out as a formidable army, but an army that was without experience and that seriously lacked confidence in its abilities. However, they went out as the glory of the Lord as Pharaoh perceived glory; thus, Pharaoh, seeing only with human eyes, misjudged Israel’s glory.

Glory comes via strength: the name of a strong person or of a strong nation has glory. Proverbs says, “The glory of young men is their strength” (20:29), and, “Grey hair is a crown of glory” (16:31), “and the glory of children is their fathers” (17:6). Grey hair as a marker signifies long life, and the strength and authority of fathers gives glory to children. But perhaps of most importance here, Proverbs says,

It is the glory of God to conceal things,

but the glory of kings is to search things out.

As the heavens for height, and the earth for depth,

so the heart of kings is unsearchable. (25:2–3)

God and kings, the representatives of peoples and nations, have a symbiotic relationship that is not necessarily of benefit to the king: God conceals matters through the creation of all that is physical, with the Abyss [the bottomless pit] in which the Adversary will be imprisoned (Rev 20:1–3) for a thousand years being a place where the men of Israel can gaze upon him:

How you are fallen from heaven,

O Day Star, son of Dawn! …

You said in your heart,

“I will ascend to heaven;

above the stars of God

I will set my throne on high” …

But you are brought down to Sheol,

to the far reaches of the pit.

Those who see you will stare at you

and ponder over you:

“Is this the man who made the earth tremble,

who shook kingdoms,

who made the world like a desert

and overthrew its cities,

who did not let his prisoners go home?”

All the kings of the nations lie in glory,

each in his own tomb;
but you are cast out, away from your grave,

like a loathed branch,

clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword,

who go down to the stones of the pit,

like a dead body trampled underfoot. (Isa 14:14–13, 15–19)

The Adversary is today concealed by the creation and cannot be directly seen by men, but when the Adversary is cast from heaven and to earth (Rev 12:7–12), he will be visible. When enchained in the bottomless pit, the Adversary will be where humankind presently is.

Men are physical: they dwell inside the creation, which is in the bottomless pit—the Abyss. From the perspective of Scripture, the creation is like a cosmic black hole which will have time standing still [not existing] at its “event horizon,” the boundaries of the creation. Outside of the creation, there is no time; thus, indeed, the boundaries of the creation serve as a very large event horizon where everything that has happened in this three-dimensional world forms a two dimensional holographic book that can be read by God without loss of knowledge.

By the very nature of a black hole being a singularity with a gravitational attraction that is too great for even light to escape its pull, black holes are concealed from sight: the glory of God has been to conceal from men black holes that are physical things that reveal the things of God (Rom 1:20), for the world has been created in darkness—in an absence of life/light—and created so that no physically-living entity can escape from this darkness. Not even light. Except for Hawking radiation, black-bodied thermal radiation allegedly first observed in September 2010 but predicted by Stephen Hawking in 1974, nothing escapes from a black hole. However, on the black hole’s event horizon, time will have slowed to where it no longer passes so that everything that has been trapped inside the event horizon is manifested in two dimensions instead of three as if this book were a hologram of everything that fell into the black hole.

Galaxies orbiting around black holes function as orbiting protons and electrons in atoms; thus, an atom becomes a fractal of the galaxy in which the atom exists. By extension, black holes become fractals of the creation itself. And the humanly observable boundary of the creation functions as the event horizon of a black hole, the Abyss of Scripture … this will have all of humankind temporarily dwelling inside the largest black hole of all, with no information loss [no forgetting to write a name in the heavenly Book of Life] coming through the storage of information at the boundary of the creation in a holographic Book of Life.

A black hole is the ultimate container in which knowledge of light—knowledge of God—can be concealed. And the glory of God has been to conceal from men knowledge of spiritual things; whereas it is the glory of kings to search out and describe those things that God concealed. But when kings are too busy making war against each other to search out the things of God, they are without glory. They are as Pharaoh was when Pharaoh perceived that Israel was lost in the land: they are ripe for slaughter as God manifests His glory in the sudden revealing of what He, God, concealed long ago.

To Christendom in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years, the two witnesses will be kings as Christ Jesus was the king of the Jews in the 1^st-Century. The two witnesses will, in their parentage, even bear the name of kings, and they will have searched out and found what was concealed; for at least one of them will have the parakletos, the spirit that reveals what was previously concealed. At least one will have the indwelling breath of the Father and eternal life through the indwelling of Christ Jesus—the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] in the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] that that gives to the person the mind of Christ by which comes the spirit of prophecy that is the testimony of Jesus.

Again, at the event horizon of a black hole is stored in the suspension of time all information of what has been trapped within the black hole so that there is no loss of knowledge. Likewise, at the boundary of the creation is stored knowledge of every life lived, every word spoken, every deed done. The man who blasphemes God and the man who praises God will have their words written in a two-dimensional holographic Book of Life so that there is no loss of information. Thus, symbols of authority are written in this holographic book as well as how these symbols were received. And the concept of glory is related to authority: before God, a king has glory because the king, in searching out what has been concealed by God, comes to think like God, with thinking like God being the only way that the things God has concealed can be found. The divine authority of kings originates in thinking like God from having searched out the secret things of God; so where a king has not searched out the things of God, the king has no divine authority to rule men. The king has only the authority of might; i.e., the authority of the sword or of the gun. And it is here where the answer lies to why God allows a Hitler, or a Pol Pot, or a Lenin or Stalin to rule over men for their harm and not for their good: wicked men do not rule as authorities God appointed, but rule as foils that God uses to show His glory. For the lives that wicked men have taken exists as knowledge on the event horizon of the Abyss, knowledge that will be revealed when these men [and women] are resurrected to life and testify against their murderer.

Since Christians are kingly priests, “a royal priesthood” chosen by God to be a people of His own possession (1 Pet 2:9), all Christians truly born of spirit are the firstfruits of God, and are called to be kings—the kings over whom the returned Christ Jesus reigns as King of kings. But to be a king, the Christian must search out the secret things of God, meaning that it is never good enough for a Christian to say that the mysteries of God are unknowable. These mysteries might well not be known today, but the search for them cannot have ended yesterday but must be ongoing.

When moving to the New Testament and to Greek, the concept of glory will have every man being the image and glory of God, and the woman being the glory of man (1 Cor 11:7), for the man was not created because of the woman but the woman was created because of the man (vv. 8–9) in the same way that God was not created because of man but man was created because of God. And because the woman is of the man as man is of the Lord, the woman ought to cover her head as a symbol or sign of being under authority, a concept that is alien to modern feminism and to most of modern Christendom. (v. 10).

There is more to head coverings than symbols of authority; for God is the Head of Christ Jesus (1 Cor 11:3), covering Christ Jesus who spoke only the words of God the Father:

Jesus said to them, "The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." When Jesus had said these things, He departed and hid Himself from them. Though He had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in Him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: "Lord, who has believed what He heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them." Isaiah said these things because He saw His glory and spoke of Him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in Him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. And Jesus cried out and said, "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 12:35–50 emphasis added)

During His earthly ministry, Jesus was under the authority of the Father: Jesus’ glory was the Father’s glory. When Jesus healed on seven Sabbaths, He “spoke” the words of the Father that were figuratively too large to fit into human utterance, with the overflow of the Father’s words that Jesus spoke as human words being the miracles Jesus worked on these Sabbath days as the Father placed His stamp of approval on the Sabbaths by speaking to the people through Jesus on seven Sabbaths, a significant number confirming completeness.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said, concerning the Passover sacrifice (the covering of blood that caused the death angel to pass over the houses of Israel in Egypt at the midnight hour of the 14^th day of the first month),

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." (Matt 26:26–29 emphasis added).

Jesus “covered” the sins of His disciples with His blood, poured out once for all who are firstfruits, with the symbolism of this one-time covering of blood renewed annually at the Passover when faithful disciples drink from the blessed Cup. The glorified Jesus is the Head of His disciples as God is the Head of Jesus (again, 1 Cor 11:3); thus, Jesus as the Head of His disciples “covers” His disciples with His blood, symbolized by the blessed Cup. He is their covering.

Again, a covering is a symbol of authority. Wearing a covering is a symbol of being under authority, with a military uniform being a type of covering that symbolizes authority as the mantle of Elijah represented the authority of Elijah:

Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. … Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over. (2 Kings 2:1, 8–14 emphasis added)

The spirit or authority of Elijah rested on Elisha as the sons of the prophets at Jericho observed (2 Kings 2:15), with this spirit represented by the mantle [cloak] of Elijah.

The righteousness of Christ Jesus functions as a garment that Christians wear (Gal 3:27) as Elisha wore the mantle of Elijah. When a disciple puts on Christ as the disciple would put on a garment, the disciple should look like Christ and should walk as Jesus walked and should believe the Father as Jesus believed the Father; for it is Jesus’ belief of God that is His righteousness. When a Christian wears the garment that is Christ, then the Christian’s righteousness comes through believing the Father as Jesus believed the Father. Therefore, righteousness stands opposed to unbelief. Righteousness functions as a garment that hides spiritual nakedness, with this righteousness manifested in this world as obedience to God, coming from belief of God, followed by acting upon this belief as Noah acted upon his belief of the God when he constructed the Ark.

Note the above: belief of God will be counted to the person as righteousness, but raw belief must be made complete through testing, through being manifested in deeds that function as a second journey of faith as Abraham’s belief was tested when the Lord told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Gen chap 22). Thus, righteousness has two components: belief of God, and the testing of this belief that makes faith complete, with the testing of belief exemplified by Noah’s construction of the Ark, a monumental task in an era before chainsaws and double-band headrigs.

In the Garden of God, Adam’s nakedness was covered by his belief of God manifested as obedience to the words of God. Adam’s obedience functioned as a garment that didn’t permit Adam to “see” his nakedness.

Eve’s nakedness was covered by her husband’s obedience, and by her belief of her husband manifested as obedience: two coverings, not one, but two coverings that functioned as one garment that concealed her nakedness—

The essence of true Christianity and of how true Christianity differs from Judaism and from Islam and from greater Christendom is in the Binitarian belief of the holy ones: two deities form one deity. Two are one, not two. And it is for this reason that in the beginning the woman, Eve, wore two covering garments: the obedience of her husband to God, and her own obedience to her husband. It is for this reason that the woman who is today of God will cover her head with her hair, a covering that comes from God, and will cover her hair with a covering of cloth representing a covering she has made. This second covering symbolizes her voluntary obedience to her immediate head, her husband, while her hair length—her glory—symbolizes her obedience of God. Thus, it isn’t the prerogative of her husband or of the Church to require that the woman wear a covering she has made; rather, it is her choice of whether she will cover her head with hair and her hair with fabric, with her choice coming from whether she has worthily discerned the Body of Christ. For again, head coverings are an indirect aspect of the Passover sacraments that has the broken bread representing the body of the glorified Jesus [broken for the healing of disciple’s bodies], and the blessed Cup representing the blood of Jesus, poured out for many for the forgiven of sins.

As a fellowship, The Philadelphia Church is silent about whether the Christian woman should cover her hair with a covering made with her own hands; for the Christian woman will be, when glorified, a king in the kingdom of heaven. It is, therefore, her obligation to search out the hidden things of God and arrive at the doorstep of the kingdom, ready to enter. What will be addressed in this piece is a more general discussion of discerning the Body of Christ even when it would seem that specific commands are given.

If a woman is unmarried and not of her father’s household, she is not as Eve was in the Garden of God; so she would not need two coverings but one, for she remains under the authority of God hence she would continue to cover her head with hair … a woman without a covering she has made—a covering that discloses voluntarily marriage—reveals that she is as available as Sarai was when, according to Abram’s instructions, she said she was Abram’s sister when she was his wife. By her husband telling Sarai to deny her marriage, Sarai was in obedience to her husband even when her husband’s faith failed. Hence, when Sarai was taken into Pharaoh’s house (Gen 12:11–15), as well as later when Abraham said to Abimelech, king of Gerer, that Sarah was his sister (Gen 20:2), Sarai/Sarah was without fault and was protected by the Lord.

The Christian woman who covers her head with longish hair reveals that she is in subjection to God, but the married Christian woman who doesn’t also cover her hair with a covering she has made reveals that she is not under the authority of her husband but is as Sarah was when she was espoused to Pharaoh, with Pharaoh being a representation of the Adversary. The Christian woman who is without a second covering, one she has made with her hands, professes that Jesus is Lord; yet she dances to the Adversary’s music.

In the ancient world, it was believed that a man ought to have authority over his own body, his own life, as well as having authority over a wife or daughter, with this ideology continued in Islam and by some fundamentalist Christian sects. This ideology has support in this physical world where glory equates to strength and long life. But the radical concept proposed by the Apostle Paul was that God had authority over the man as the man had authority over the woman, that God exercised His authority over the man through the taking of the Passover sacraments of bread and wine in a manner analogous to the woman covering her head as a symbol of being under authority—and this is not a radical rereading of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, but a reading that does not ignore the juxtaposition of concepts in Paul’s answer to the letter sent him by the saints at Corinth.

Taking the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed—this night being the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv—is a voluntary covering of the Christian disciple that is analogous to the covering the woman makes with her hands for her hair. Christ Jesus has already covered the disciple’s transgressions of the Law in this world by His death at Calvary. Christ Jesus covers the living inner self’s transgressions of the Law in the Abyss by His righteousness, His believe of God that is reflected in the disciple walking as Jesus walked. Thus, the disciple is now in the position of the woman, who by nature has hair on her head. The disciple has done nothing to cause the Father to draw the disciple from this world and give to the disciple a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theou] … the woman does nothing to cause hair to grow on her head. The disciple does nothing to cause Jesus to voluntarily die at Calvary centuries before the disciple is humanly born.

The woman does nothing to cause her hair to grow long, but the disciple must choose to take the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed, just as the woman must choose to cover her hair with a covering she makes.

For the woman to cut her hair short—to be shorn—is analogous to the disciple denying Christ Jesus … short hair does not remain short for long; nor does a denial of Jesus remain long, but must be continually renewed as short hair on a woman must be continually clipped short until a habit is formed. Blasphemy against Christ can be forgiven as the shorn hair of a woman will again grow out. But continued blasphemy is as a continued hair style: the disciple becomes comfortable in his or her blasphemy and will not then repent.

The growth of hair as a covering requires no work. The maintenance of long hair, however, does require work just as the maintenance of obedience to God requires daily work.

For the woman who chooses to cover her hair with a covering she has made, the daily maintenance of her hair differs from that of the woman who plaits her hair or displays her hair in styles that emphasizes the hair’s appearance: hair styles that emphasize appearance would be akin to Pharisees who blew a trumpet before giving alms or akin to Christian televangelists strutting before cameras as they expound the good works they have done for Christ.

The Christian who voluntarily takes the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed covers—by taking the sacraments—the sacrifice of Christ Jesus at Calvary with his or her own belief of God that will be counted to the person as righteousness. This Christian has a double covering of obedience—Christ Jesus’ and the disciple’s—that comes by belief of God and that will be counted to the Christian as righteousness in a manner analogous to a married woman covering her long hair with a cloth covering she has made.

Does the voluntarily married woman have to cover her head with hair, and her hair with a cloth covering? No, she doesn’t have-to. Nor does Jesus have-to give life to the woman.

What argument will the woman use to convince Christ Jesus that she will voluntarily submit to Him when she hasn’t voluntarily submitted to her husband, with a cloth covering of her hair serving as a symbol of this submission that even the angels can see?

Likewise, what argument can the Christian advance that he or she will submit to Christ Jesus as the Christian’s Head when the Christian will not take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed? And what excuse can a Christian give for not knowing on what night Jesus was betrayed when it is the glory of kings to search out the hidden things of God? To not know—and few Christians know—is truly inexcusable.

Circumcision of the flesh symbolically makes a man “naked” before the Lord as Adam was naked in the Garden, with the physical man’s “head” of record being the head of his penis. Thus, a woman cannot be made naked for she has no external head on which foreskin can be cut away: the woman cannot be physically returned to the Garden and to before Eve ate forbidden fruit for Eve was deceived but Adam was not. The woman can only be mutilated, as Islam does when cutting away the woman’s clitoris. Hence when the temple is physical and physical circumcision is required to enter the temple, the woman cannot enter, with the temple and its holy place and Holy of holiest preventing Israel from coming before the Lord—

These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age). (Heb 9:6–9)

The physical temple serves as a barrier that prevents both man and woman from appearing before the Lord, but the temple also serves as a type of the Garden of Eden that when last seen in Scripture had “cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen 3:24). Therefore, as Adam’s unbelief of the Lord led to disobedience—of the sort that prevented Israel from entering the Promised Land (Heb 3:19; also Ps 95:10–11)—Adam’s unbelief brought sin to life in this world and when “sin came into the world through” Adam, “death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12).

But in the movement from physical to spiritual, circumcision goes from paring away of foreskins to circumcision of the heart, a euphemistic expression for no longer being stubborn, the heart representing the person’s inner self that hitherto had refused to believe the Lord.

When the circumcision of record is of the heart, then the other self [the person’s fleshly body] is not the Christian and of no spiritual importance; hence, the reality of what Paul wrote,

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal 3:24–29)

The inner person is like angels (Matt 22:30) in that inner selves are all sons of God: no inner self has physical gender. So there are no “heads” to be outwardly circumcised. And the Apostle Paul, in his insight into the mysteries of God, moved the show of circumcision or uncircumcision to the head of the person that sits atop the shoulders of the person … hair length now becomes the means of disclosing nakedness from being covered.

People, unlike great apes, have hair on their heads that grows continuously. Humans have diminutive body hair that does not continue to grow, but male facial hair and the hair atop heads of both males and females does, thereby making through hair on the head a distinction between male and female—and a distinction between human persons and the beasts of the field.

When the circumcision that matters goes from that of the flesh to that of the heart, this circumcision that matters is neither ethnic nor gender specific: every human person is humanly born both physically and spiritually uncircumcised. But on the eighth day, male Israelite babies were to be physically circumcised according to the physical covenant made with the patriarch Abraham. And at an equivalent amount of growth/maturation, the spiritual son of God is circumcised of heart through ceasing to be stubborn; ceasing to insist upon having his or her own way in worshipping God however the person chooses to worship God.

No person in this present era can come to Christ Jesus unless God the Father draws the person from this world and delivers the person to Christ Jesus … the person who makes a decision for Jesus remains stubborn, insisting upon coming to Jesus when the Father hasn’t drawn the person. And the Apostle Paul didn’t immediately realize just how few individuals the Father was actually drawing from this world—of all Jews then in greater Judea, how many did God initially draw from this world and deliver to Christ Jesus? Twelve? How many Jews followed Jesus? Hundreds, thousands? Yes. But of thousands, only twelve had been drawn by the Father and delivered to Jesus for Him to call, justify, and glorify when He breathed His breath on them (John 20:22–23). Only these twelve were initially foreknown and predestined, with one of the twelve called to betray Jesus.

Without being foreknown and predestined by God the Father, even today no person can come to Christ Jesus to be called, justified, and glorified through the indwelling of the spirit of Christ in the spirit of the person. Thus, the glory of Christ “covers” very few Christians in this present era, and will continue to cover few Christians until the spiritual liberation of greater Christendom at the Second Passover. The sins of most Christians are covered by their lack of spiritual life—by the fact that they have no indwelling spiritual life, but are spiritually dead inside, with the dead knowing nothing (Eccl 9:5) and with sin not being counted against the never-living that never came under the Law.

But for the spiritually living, those who take the Passover sacraments of blessed Bread and Cup on the night that Jesus was taken [the dark portion of the 14^th day of the first month], the blood of Christ Jesus “covers” the disciple that is not the fleshly body of either a male person or of a female person, but is the living inner self, brought to life through the indwelling of Christ.

Whereas the son of God is neither male nor female, the fleshly body in which the son of God temporarily dwells remains male or female and must continue to interact with this world as either a male or female, but not as a Jew or Greek but as a member of the Church of God, with Paul’s instructions concerning outward signs revealing inner circumcision coming to bear.

When the procreation that matters is human procreation, then the “head” that matters is the head of the penis, but when the procreation that matters is spiritual—bringing to birth additional sons of God—then the Head that matters is Christ Jesus. The penis is no longer of importance; phallic symbols are no longer of importance. Nevertheless, the maleness or femaleness of the fleshly house in which the son of God resides determines what each house can do in this physical world. Hence, a showing of maleness or femaleness that typifies outward circumcision or uncircumcision needs to be made, with Paul using an existing custom of the people to make this showing …

The male house/body in which a son of God dwells is to have shortened hair as a showing of having been made naked before the Lord, what circumcision of the penis would have disclosed. The female fleshly body in which a son of God dwells is to have longish hair as a showing of this fleshly body’s uncircumcision. And the wife that inwardly is a son, as a showing that she is covered by her husband in this world, will have a secondary covering over her longish hair. For the sake of angels, the wife will show that she is under authority, not just the authority of the Lord who created Eve but also under the authority of her husband; for angels were under the authority of God, but also under delegated angelic authority, and angels that rebelled against God as well as angels that did not need to see evidence that one peer can submit to the authority of another without war breaking out.

If one human person cannot submit to the authority of another human person, then no angel has to submit to the authority of another angel, thereby justifying the Adversary’s rebellion; for the Adversary came into existence as an anointed guardian cherub that would have been under an archangel … the Adversary was not created as an archangel.

Ancient Greeks understood human glory in terms of the strength of the person, with their perception of glory fossilized in Greek art and statuary. For males, glory was in muscular physiques; for females, glory was in the ability to bear children hence the emphasis on child-bearing form. But for both, males and females, glory was in health and life. There was no glory in infirmities and disabilities, in weakness. A man lame from birth would have been a beggar, having no glory or honor, no authority over his own life.

For the Lord to get glory over Pharaoh and all his host would have been for the Lord to exercise His authority over Pharaoh so that Egyptians would know that the Lord was God indeed. The tenth plague, the death of all uncovered firstborns in Egypt, was not a sufficient display of the Lord’s authority over life and death to establish the concept of the Lord having authority over all humankind, even when those human beings remain sons of disobedience, serving the Adversary as his bondservants. To shortcut a longer argument, the three day and three night journey of Israel on the 15^th day of Aviv, the journey from Rameses to Succoth, the 16^th day of Aviv, the journey from Succoth to Etham, and the 17^th day of Aviv, from Etham to Pi-hahiroth is analogous to the first three years of the Affliction, and is analogous to the three days and three nights that Jesus was in the heart of the earth, dead. Thus, Israel crossing the Sea of Reeds on dry land on the 18^th day of Aviv and entering into the Wilderness of Sin is analogous to the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9) being born of God and born filled with spirit as sons of God on the doubled day 1260 of the seven endtime years of tribulation. The destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Sea of Reeds will now be analogous to the kingdom of this world being taken from the four kings and the little horn and given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18) when the Seventh Trumpet Plague of the Seventh Seal occurs. Pharaoh and his army drowning in the Sea of Reeds as a display of the Lord’s glory is directly analogous to Satan and his angels being cast from heaven (Rev 12:7–10) and cast into time where he knows his time is short [finite].

Note the above: the giving of the kingdom of this world to the Son of Man will be a disaster for the present prince of this world and for his minions as the waters of the Sea of Reeds coming together again was for Pharaoh and his army and as the eruption of the fountains of the deep was for Noah’s neighbors. The trumpet plagues of the Seventh Seal are plagues from the perspective of the present prince of this world. They are not plagues from the perspective of Philadelphians.

For Satan and his angels, to be cast from heaven (Rev 12:7–10) is analogous to crossing the event horizon of a black hole: there is no escape from the Abyss. Hence, the magnitude of the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection from death is comparable to the impossibility of light escaping from a black hole—and for the Logos who was God and who was with the God in primacy (John 1:1) to voluntarily enter His creation (v. 3) as His only Son (John 3:16) must be understood within the reality that not even light can escape the event horizon of a black hole. The miracle of Jesus’ resurrection from death and the return to Him of the glory He had before (John 17:5) is a much greater event than Christendom has realized.

Those Christians who would be kings in the kingdom of heaven have not been diligent in searching out the mysteries of God, but have been as drunkards, ripe for destruction. They have deceived themselves, studying Scripture line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. They are worthless fellows—worse than worthless, for they dragged the dead Body of Christ across generations just to make sure that the Body stayed dead. They wouldn’t let the Body out of their sight on the off chance that the glorified Jesus would breathe life into it before it was time for the Body to live again.

The link between Christians taking the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed [i.e., the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv], the night when Israel in Egypt sacrificed and roasted their paschal lambs, and head coverings as a symbol of authority is solid: the Christian who will not take the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed is as the woman is who does not cover her hair. Both deny the authority of their immediate head/Head. Hence, neither reflects the glory of the head/Head.

But how is this link made solid? It is solid though the concept of Coverings. To repeat what has already been discussed for pedagogical reasons, Christian grace is not unmerited pardon of sin. If it were, Jesus need not have died at Calvary; for He gave to His first disciples authority to forgive or withhold forgiveness of sin (John 20:23) without His disciples having to die. For Christians, grace is the covering of Jesus’ righteousness on a day by day basis in a manner analogous to how ancient Israel sacrificed the daily, the morning and evening sacrifice that covered but did not pay the death penalty for Israel’s sins. Jesus’ death at Calvary was necessary to pay the death penalty for the sins of Israel that were covered by the daily, with Jesus’ death at Calvary canceling that record of debt that stood against human persons regardless of whether this record had been covered by the blood of lambs and goats shed in the temple or not … the covering of Israel’s sins by the shed blood of lambs and goats merely permitted the Lord to look upon Israel. Without sins being covered, the Lord would have turned His face away from Israel as He promised He would do in the song of Moses (Deut chap 32).

Again, what Jesus’ death at Calvary represents is the payment required for every sin that Israel—the nation not born of God as well as the nation circumcised of heart—has committed and will commit in this present world.

What Jesus’ death at Calvary does not represent is payment for sins that the inner self, born of God, commits in the Abyss. These sins are only covered by Christ Jesus’ righteousness, which is why Jesus said, “‘Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment’” (John 5:28–29). If those sins were truly forgiven, there would be no basis for judging Israel. It is because the transgressions of living inner selves are covered but not forgiven that judgments will be revealed when Christ Jesus returns.

The paschal Cup represents Jesus’ blood—His life—that is poured out for the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28). Jesus will not again pour out His blood; He will not be crucified a second time. But disciples cannot once drink of the Cup and have their future sins in this world forgiven. Rather, disciples must drink of the Cup year by year, on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv, for as many years as they live between now and the Second Passover liberation of Israel.

Jesus’ covering of sin in the Abyss is ongoing, day by day, as Israel’s daily was sacrificed day by day. But the blood and body of a paschal lamb in Egypt or at Jerusalem did not pay the death penalty for the sins of Israel in this world. Only the blood and body of the Lamb of God can pay the justly earned death penalty for a transgression of the Law in this world. Thus, Israel’s sacrifice of paschal lambs in Egypt covered the households of Israel in Egypt, but not in the wilderness where all of Israel numbered in the census of the second year, except for Joshua and Caleb, died because of their unbelief (Heb 3:19) … the sacrifice of paschal lambs on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv covered the transgressions of Israel in Egypt as the daily covered the transgressions of the children of Israel in the Promised Land—

The landscape where Israel dwelt moved from being Egypt to being the Land beyond the River, with the Jordan serving as a metaphorical mirror image of the River Styx, the mythical river that separated the living from the dead … in the mirror image, the Jordan separates the dead [those who dwelt in Babylon and on the plains of Moab] from the living. To cross the Jordan was to enter into God’s rest, a euphemism for entering into God’s presence as represented by Sabbath observance.

The men of Israel in Egypt were replaced man for man by the children of Israel in the wilderness; so that a different nation of Israel entered into God’s rest from the nation that covered their households in Egypt #8230; eating the Passover in Egypt did not cover manifested unbelief at Sinai or in the wilderness. Only righteousness rooted in belief of God could cover Israel or the children of Israel in the wilderness.

The sacrifice of paschal lambs in Egypt is analogous to the daily, the morning and evening sacrifice of the children of Israel in the Promised Land, with both being a temporary covering of sins. The sacrifice of paschal lambs in the Promised Land is analogous to the children of Israel’s sacrifice of Christ Jesus in Jerusalem … if a bleating lamb cannot pay the death penalty for unbelief in this world—and one cannot—how much less of a debt can a thigh bone or a chicken neck of a Seder service cover? Rabbinical Judaism openly mocks God in its modern observance of the Passover.

Two things are in play for those Israelites who have been born of God through having received a second breath of life, a breath of life that brought to life the person’s inner self … the breath of life inherited from the first Adam gives life to the fleshly body of a person, not to the inner self. This fleshly body can and does commit transgressions of the Law in this world, but it cannot commit a transgression of the Law outside of time and space. It has no life outside of time and space. And Jesus’ death at Calvary paid the death penalty for every transgression of the Law committed in the world. But a Christian born of God has received a second breath of life, a breath of life inherited from the second or last Adam, Christ Jesus, who is not now of this world just as this second breath of life is not of this world. And in the heavenly realm whence the breath of Christ becomes the living inner self, the born-of-spirit son of God can commit transgressions of the Law for which payment cannot be made in this world. Therefore, Jesus’ death at Calvary doesn’t address or affect a single transgression of the Law committed by the living inner self of a disciple. It is Jesus’ belief of God that is counted to Him as righteousness that covers His disciples as Adam’s belief of God covered Eve so that sin didn’t enter the world when Eve ate forbidden fruit, but entered when Adam no longer believed the Lord and ate.

The Christian is covered by grace, the righteousness of Christ Jesus that comes via His belief of God. To this covering of grace the Christian should add a second covering, a covering analogous to the covering of cloth with which the Christian woman covers her hair. And this second covering of righteousness is the Christian’s own belief of God.

A Christian who today takes the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv does so because of the Christian’s willingness to believe the Father and the Son, a willingness to believe akin to Israel’s willingness to believe that caused Israel in Egypt to sacrifice a paschal lamb at the command of Moses and Aaron—

There is no magic in the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine. What is in play is the Christian’s willingness to suspend disbelief and accept broken unleavened bread on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv as the representation of the body of Christ Jesus, that itself serves as a representation of the spirit of Christ. And with disbelief suspended, the Christian accepts the Cup as the blood of Christ poured out for the forgiveness of sins, with the Cup representing the life of Christ with this life being the spirit of God. Thus, in the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine is the representation of indwelling eternal life—life that has come from heaven—in a vessel, Christ, that has also come from heaven. Receipt of eternal life is the negation of death that comes from sin, the transgression of the Law. Hence, receipt of indwelling eternal life forcibly frees a person from sin and death. Whether the person will stay free is determined by whether the person believes God and again next year takes the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed.

The righteousness that covers the believing Christian is the righteousness of Christ Jesus, with this righteousness causing the Christian to walk as Jesus walked. If the Christian doesn’t believe God—and most do not—then the Christian will not walk as Jesus walked. The Christian who doesn’t walk as Jesus walked, by his or her deeds, denies Christ Jesus and therefore has no covering of righteousness even if the Christian takes judgment upon him or herself by taking the Passover sacraments on the night Jesus was betrayed.

The above needs a moment to digest: the Christian who refuses to walk as Jesus walked (i.e., live as a Judean) is as a shorn woman. This Christian is not covered by grace for this Christian has denied Jesus through how the Christian walks. If this Christian were to take judgment upon him or herself through taking the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed, this Christian only covers him or herself with his or her own righteousness—and the person’s righteousness stinks before God (is as a bloody menstrual rag). Before long, the Lord will discipline the Christian, using the Christian’s body as the chalkboard upon which Christ Jesus will write His means of disciplining the disciple … all the unbelieving Christian does in taking the sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed is take condemnation onto the person.

When sins are truly forgiven, there is no remembrance of them, and hence, nothing upon which judgment of the person can be negatively made. But until the Second Passover liberation of Israel, there is a remembrance of transgressions of the Law by the living inner selves of disciples, and there is a covering for these transgressions, the righteousness of Christ Jesus with the righteousness of the disciple that comes from believing the Father and the Son stretched over the garment of grace.

If a Christian walks as Jesus walked, the Christian will believe God as Jesus believed God, and the Christian will have his or her belief of God counted to the person as righteousness as Abraham had his belief of the Lord counted to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6). But the Christian’s belief of God will also be tested as Abraham’s belief was tested and as Noah’s belief was tested, with this testing requiring that the Christian makes a second journey of faith, which in the Affliction will most likely be into martyrdom.

It will be when the New Covenant is implemented at the Second Passover (Israel’s liberation from indwelling sin and death) that there will no longer be any remembrance of sin. However, when Israel is under the New Covenant, what Paul writes will be true:

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess 2:9–12)

Under the New Covenant, unbelief, not an actual transgression of the Law, will cause the Christian to be condemned to the lake of fire.

Again, the Christian who does not believe the Father and the Son and thus neglects taking the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv is as the woman who prays with her hair uncovered, a common practice within greater Christendom. As the uncovered woman dishonors her husband, the slothful Christian dishonors the Father and the Son, the Bridegroom that the Church will marry. But as equally grievous as the Christian who does not take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed is the Christian who does take the sacraments but takes the sacraments unworthily, not discerning the Body of Christ. This latter Christian dishonors Christ Jesus and is as Pharaoh was and is destined to be disciplined as Pharaoh was and as Satan will be.

If rabbinical wisdom is correct, only a minority percentage of the Hebrews in Egypt actually followed Moses out of slavery, a percentage analogous to the percentage in Jesus’ parable of the pounds [minas] of the nobleman’s servants who appeared before the nobleman when he returned from a far land (Luke 19:12–27). If this is true, then Pharaoh’s army—his glory—would have appeared to Pharaoh as equal to that of the Lord … when Pharaoh tells Moses that the Hebrews are many (Ex 5:5), with the implication that there were more Hebrews in Egypt than there were Egyptians, Pharaoh would have needed an army that represented twenty to thirty percent of the Egyptian population to enforce the deceitful enslavement of the Hebrews. Thus, when Israel left Rameses for Succoth, the 600,000 men on foot (Ex 12:37) would have, to Pharaoh, represented the visible glory of the Lord (the glory that Egypt saw), and would have been in numbers an army about the size of the Egyptian army that would have been hammered hard by its firstborns being suddenly slain at midnight on the 14^th of Aviv. It would have taken a day or two for the Egyptian army to regroup and for its scouts to report the size of the Hebrews’ army. And when Egyptian scouts reported that the Hebrews hadn’t left by way of the Philistines (Ex 13:17), who could muster an army great enough to hinder Egyptian northern expansion, the Egyptian’s would have perceived that their glory was really equal to or greater than the glory of the Lord, who had somehow by magic and trickery afflicted the people of Egypt with the plagues that had come upon them.

The Apostle Paul wrote,

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. / Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Cor 11:23–32 emphasis added)

Again, in moving from physical to spiritual, the physical forms the mirror image of the spiritual [the left hand enantiomer] with the physical preceding the spiritual. Thus, the paschal lambs that Israel sacrificed at even on the 14^th of Aviv in Egypt [the physical shadow of a spiritual reality] are represented in the body and blood of the Passover Lamb of God, Jesus the Nazarene, with the broken unleavened bread and wine [fruit of the vine] taken as the Christian Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv representing the body and blood of the Lamb of God. But when addressing a face-to-face shadow of its spiritual counterpart—as the left hand is the nonsymmetrical mirror image of the right hand—the labor pains that precede physical birth becomes labor pains that follow spiritual birth (Isa 66:7) with these spiritual labor pains representing the seven endtime years of tribulation as Zion gives birth to three sons as Eve gave birth to three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth.

At the Second Passover liberation of Israel, all of self-identified Christendom will be filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God: Zion will have given birth to a nation in a day. But the labor pain for this birth of a spiritual Cain and a spiritual Abel comes after Zion has given birth, and represents the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years. The opening of the Fifth Seal (Rev 6:9–11) will see the separation of Cain from Abel through the Apostasy of day 220, with this rebellion against God coming via the mingling of the sacred [Christ] with the profane [the day of the invincible sun; the birthday of the invincible sun]. The majority of Christendom will, when filled with spirit, rebel against God through manifested unbelief by way of Christmas observance and the continuation of Sunday services—and will kill its righteous brothers as Cain slew righteous Abel. Therefore, Zion will give birth to a third son, a spiritual Seth that represents the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9) that is not today Christian. And it is from this third part that the majority of the harvest of firstfruits will come.

The movement from physical to spiritual that has in the physical labor pains preceding birth and has in the spiritual labor pains following birth will also have the sacrifice of paschal lambs in Egypt occurring before death angels slew the firstborns of uncovered Egyptians becoming the sacrifice of the Body of Christ occurring after death angels kill uncovered firstborns in the Abyss and on earth.

The Passover Lamb of God has both a Head [Christ Jesus] and a Body [Israel, both circumcised in the flesh and circumcised of heart]. The Passover Lamb of God is Christ, Head and Body. And as the children of Israel entered into God’s rest on the 10^th day of Aviv (Josh 4:19) and as the man Jesus the Nazarene entered Jerusalem on the 10^th of Aviv (cf. John 12:1, 12; 19:31), the day when paschal lambs were chosen for the first Passover—the Passover that occurred in Egypt—Noah and his sons were selected on the 10^th day of the second month because of Noah’s righteousness (Gen 7:1), and Christians destined for sacrifice in the Affliction will be selected on the 10^th of Iyyar in the year of the Second Passover as paschal lambs were selected on the 10^th of Iyyar for the second Passover according to the instructions the Moses.

Again, for emphasis, in the mirror-image reversal of the order of events, paschal lambs were sacrificed before the death angel slew uncovered firstborns in Egypt, but the Body of the Passover Lamb of God will be slain after death angels slay uncovered firstborns at the Second Passover. In the reversed order of events, Jesus the Nazarene as the Head of Christ was slain before death angels pass over all the earth on the spiritual reality foreshadowed by the Passover in Egypt, but the Christian Church as the Body of Christ will be sacrificed after death angels pass over all the earth.

Although the spiritual counterpart to the death of uncovered firstborns of men and beasts in Egypt at the midnight hour of the 14^th of Aviv hasn’t yet occurred but will occur the day of the Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God was not complete at Calvary; for there was not then a spiritual Body of Christ. Jesus was and is the Head of the Body of Christ, but until the spirit was given, there was no Body for this Head. There was only the Head. And when a paschal lamb is sacrificed, both its head and its body dies, with the paschal lamb roasted whole, without being disemboweled. Therefore, following the Second Passover liberation of the Christian Church that is the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), the Body will be utterly sacrificed, with only a Remnant passing from the Affliction into the Endurance as Noah and those on the Ark passed from the antediluvian age into this present age.

The Christian who is not today born of God—and this includes almost every Christian, certainly all who do not keep the Commandments, especially the Sabbath Commandment—should not take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv even though not taking the sacraments means that uncovered firstborns will be slain when death angels pass over the land. But to take the sacraments without being born of God is to invite judgment upon the Christian, judgment that will result in illness and premature death.

The firstborn who seeks to escape death on the day of the Second Passover by taking the sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed as an insurance policy against death errs grievously, and truly doesn’t understand the concealed things of God. Taking the sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv for any other reason than belief of God will cause the person only harm. Death will not be escaped, but judgment will be upon the firstborn who previously—because he or she is not truly born of God—had his or her sins covered by death, the absence of indwelling eternal life.

What Paul wrote about anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself, that for this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died does pertain to all who take the Passover sacraments in this present era prior to the Second Passover liberation of Israel. To escape judgment, the Christian either doesn’t take the sacraments or takes them worthily, properly discerning the Body of Christ. There is no third option, no life insurance policy.

The Christian who does not take the Passover sacraments is analogous to Christian women who do not cover their hair. They are without understanding. However, the woman who covers her hair with a covering of her own making but who is not in voluntary subjection to her believing husband is as the Christian who unworthily takes the Passover sacraments on the night Jesus was betrayed; i.e., take the sacraments without examining him or herself and/or without discerning the Body of Christ. And so there is no misunderstanding, a believing woman is not under the spiritual authority of an unbelieving husband or unbelieving father in matters of faith; whereas an unbelieving woman is under the authority of a believing husband, with the unbelieving woman having the right to leave her believing husband if she will not submit to his authority. If she leaves, the marriage will be as one that should never have been made. Both are free to remarry, but the believer is only free to marry another believer for an unbeliever is to a believer as a foreign spouse was to an ancient Israelite, with the unbeliever who is content to dwell with a believer being as Rahab was, or as Ruth was.

Without discerning the Body of Christ and determining whether the person is truly part of the Body of Christ, the person who takes the Passover sacraments on the night Jesus was betrayed takes judgment upon him or herself, with this judgment manifesting itself in illness and untimely death. The person who seeks to be part of the Body of Christ without having been called by the Father and the Son—without receiving the indwelling of the spirit of God in the spirit of Christ—takes judgment upon the person without having the ability to use this judgment as discipline leading to repentance. Therefore, because the person voluntarily asked for judgment without having indwelling spiritual life, the judgment of the Lord causes the person to be sick and to die before the person’s time to die, with sickness manifesting itself in differing forms, from addiction to physical substances such as drugs or alcohol to prolonged illnesses from unexplainable causes. In these cases, the presumptuousness of the person in taking the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine without being a part of the Body of Christ causes the person to be as Pharaoh’s army was when Pharaoh pitted his glory against his perception of the glory of the Lord.

The above is correct: the person who takes the Passover sacraments without discerning who is and who isn’t of the Body of Christ (i.e., if the person is or isn’t part of the Body of Christ) sees the glory that Scripture affords the Body of Christ, desires this glory, and seeks to take this glory unto him or herself by force as Pharaoh sought to rule over the glory of the Lord [the army of Israel] and return Israel to slavery. But judgment was upon Pharaoh as judgment is upon every person who takes the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine, with this judgment serving to discipline disciples.

The issue is authority, with the authority of Christ Jesus in this present era not covering the lawlessness of this world, but only the transgressions of sons of God, born of spirit. The Muslim as an unbeliever is not today covered by grace; nor is the Jew; nor is the Christian who does not keep the commandments.

But the covering of Christ Jesus’ righteousness, while sufficient for salvation, is of no value to the Christian who refuses to take the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed … the woman who is shorn shows by her refusal to cover her head that she is not under the authority of any man. Likewise, the Christian woman who does not cover her long hair with a covering she has made with her hands shows that she is not under the authority of her husband in this world—and if she is not under the authority of her husband in this world, what is the likelihood of her submitting to Christ Jesus in the world to come? Thus, the Christian woman who does not cover her hair is like the Christian who refuses to take the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed (i.e., the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv). The Christian woman’s covering of hair is of little value to her just as grace is of little worth to the Christian who refuses to take the sacraments on the night Jesus was betrayed. Both show that they are not under the authority of Christ Jesus.

With somewhat tedious redundancy, let it again be said that the covering of every Christian is the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness: grace. But the Christian who does not take the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed is as the uncovered woman: the Christian is not covered by grace, but rather by death, the absence of life. The Christian is as Pharaoh’s army was on the 18^th of Aviv, the day when Jesus ascended to His Father and our Father, then returned to breathe on ten of His first disciples.

The 18^th day of Aviv is important as the day after the Sabbath within the Sabbath in the year Jesus was crucified, 31 CE. It was on the 18^th of Aviv when Jesus ascended to His Father and our Father as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering, then returned to ten of His disciples and breathed on them, thereby directly transferring to them the Holy Spirit, giving to them indwelling eternal life in the form of the breath of the God in the breath of Christ. It was on the 18^th day of Aviv when Israel, led by Moses who remained on the south side of the Sea of Reeds until Israel crossed over, truly escaped from the Egyptians:

The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”

Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.(Ex 14:15–20 emphasis added)

Israel did not follow Moses across the Sea of Reeds as the children of Israel followed Joshua across the Jordan. Rather, the Lord, with Moses on the Lord’s side of the Sea, separated Pharaoh and his host from the people of Israel:

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And in the morning watch [the last three hours of the night] the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.” (Ex 14:21–25)

On the dark portion of the 18^th day of Aviv, the Lord by way of a strong wind separated the Sea and made a distinction between the people of Israel and the people of Egypt,

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. (Ex 14:26–29)

The Sabbath had not yet been given to the people of Israel when they crossed the Sea of Reeds on the 18^th of Aviv. No creation narrative was codified. In fact, the month and the days of the first month had only been given to Moses two and a half weeks earlier; so it would be inappropriate to assign week days to the calendar dates for when the first Passover occurred, or for when Israel crossed the Sea of Reeds. But adding Noah to the people of Israel crossing Sea of Reeds, and adding Jesus being resurrected from death at the end of the 17^th of Aviv and ascending to the Father on the 18^th of Aviv, then adding the soon-to-occur Second Passover liberation of Israel to Noah, and a pattern emerges, one seen darkly but one that is distinct enough to be seen: the Second Passover will have a day to date assignment in the second month that is comparable to the day to date assignment of Christ Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection in the first month. Thus, the paschal lamb for the Second Passover liberation of Israel (the nation circumcised of heart) from indwelling sin and death will be selected on the 10^th day of the second month, the day on which Noah was told,

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” (Gen 7:1–4)

The foundations of the deep erupted on the 17^th day of the second month (Gen 7:11). Humanity—all that had the breath of life and dwelt on dry land—perished at the beginning of the 18^th day of the second month; perished by the hour when Pharaoh and his host perished on the 18^th day of the first month. … as the first Passover pertained to a first nation of Israel and to its liberation from physical slavery, the Second Passover pertains to a second nation of Israel and to its liberation from indwelling sin and death in the second month of the year, with the Sabbath that was the 17^th of Aviv in the year Jesus was crucified being the Sabbath that is the 17^th of Iyyar in the year of the Second Passover.

In Christians taking the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv, the night that Jesus was betrayed, Christians discern the Body of the Son of Man that will be revealed—disrobed; stripped of the covering of Christ’s righteousness—at the Second Passover. Christians will then, as the woman does today, voluntarily cover themselves by their covering, establishing the glory of their Husband-to-be, Christ Jesus. For Christians following the Second Passover, their covering will be their obedience to God: their obedience will be their glory as well as the glory of the Bridegroom.

Because John identified all of the Feast of Unleavened Bread—the entire period when an Israelite would have journeyed to Jerusalem to keep the commands of Moses (Deut 16:16; Ex 23:14–15)—as Sabbath (see John 19:31), with the first High Day of Unleavened Bread [the 15^thof Aviv] as the great Sabbath of the Sabbath, the day when Jesus as the Passover Lamb of God entered Jerusalem would have been the 10^thof Aviv, the weekly Sabbath, and the last day when Jesus would have been in the grave would have been the following weekly Sabbath, the 17^th of Aviv. The day when Jesus ascended to His Father and our Father was one day after the Sabbath; was the day on which Israel crossed the Sea of Reeds and entered the wilderness of Shur. Therefore, in the week that stretched from the 11^th of Aviv to the 17^th of Aviv, Jesus was “penned” in Jerusalem and in death, escaping from both Jerusalem and death at the end of the week as Israel escaped from slavery and from Pharaoh at the end of the 17^th of Aviv in a manner analogous to Noah and his sons escaping from death and the antediluvian world at the end of the 17^th day of the second month.

The Sabbath within the Sabbath, with the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread representing the seven endtime years [2520 days] of tribulation, marks the end of Israel’s enslavement by sin and death, but throughout all of the greater period denoted by John as the Sabbath—the period that includes the selection and penning of the paschal lamb on the 10^th of Aviv as well as the First Unleavened on the 14^th of Aviv, with the First Unleavened being the Preparation Day for the High Sabbath—the Sabbath within the Sabbath is not the High Day that marks the liberation of Israel from Sin. It is not the High Day that marks the liberation of Israel from Death at the end of the Sabbath that is Unleavened Bread. Rather it is the weekly Sabbath that marks the mid-week day of a spiritual week that began with the 15^thof Aviv and reaches forward to the 22^nd of Aviv, with the 22^nd beginning a new spiritual week, the week that represents the Millennium. Hence the 21^st of Aviv is a spiritual Sabbath day analogous to the physical Sabbath that is the 17^th of Aviv. The reality of the 21^st of Aviv is for the firstfruits in the Endurance analogous to the reality of the 21^st of Tishri for Israel in the Millennium: on both of these days, an age will end as an age ended for Noah on the 17^th day of the second month and as an age ended for Israel in Egypt on the 17^th day of the first month.

Jesus said,

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:26–30)

For Jesus’ disciples in heavenly Jerusalem, the second month is as the first month was for Jesus in earthly Jerusalem.

The Christian who rightly judges him or herself will not need to be judged and disciplined by the Lord, who routinely uses illnesses and premature death as means of discipline. But the person who does not have the indwelling spirit of Christ is utterly unable to rightly judge him or herself, and can only judge him or herself by the Adversary’s criteria. This person should NOT take the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv even though the person is a biological or legal firstborn that will be slain on the day of the Second Passover … on every other day or night of the year, bread and wine represent the fruit of the earth, Cain’s offering, not righteous Abel’s.

The above doesn’t seem correct but is: Christ Jesus is the Redeemer of every Christian, but in this scenario, to be Christian requires that the person be born of spirit as a son of God. And this simply is not the case when it comes to a billion self-identified Christians, many of whom are biological firstborns. The Christian who remains hostile to God, with this hostility causing the Christian to spurn keeping the Sabbath, is NOT born of God. Oh, the Christian will claim to be born of spirit, but if he or she were, the Christian would want to keep the Commandments; would desire to keep the Commandments; would strive to keep the Commandments; would give up career and family to keep the Commandments. The Christian would seem to be a fanatic, sharing the Sabbath with those who don’t want to hear what it is that the Christian has to say.

Christ Jesus will not be mocked. No person can take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine that represent the broken body of Christ and His blood, His life, on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv and escape judgment … again, if the person is unable or unwilling to rightly judge him or herself, then Christ Jesus will judge and discipline the person, which is what the person asked-for when the person took the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th. And if Christ disciplines the person, that person will not simply be pruned so that he or she can bear more fruit, but the person’s fleshly body will be afflicted in some manner.

The woman who does not cover brings no glory to either herself or to her husband: she is spiritually as a public woman is physically. She is the property of this world; she is not redeemed. She has no covering. She is under no authority but that of the Adversary.

When authority is represented as glory, then obedience is a covering analogous to modest attire. And as a parent “teaches” a child to cover him or herself in appropriate attire, the Lord disciplines His disciples so that they will “cover” themselves in appropriate attire, obedience. And how the Lord disciplines His disciples is through afflicting the glory that these Christians think they possess when these Christians spiritually appear before the Lord in various degrees of undress as public women appear in the brothels of Amsterdam.

A Christian should never be addicted to any physical substance; yet within the Sabbatarian Churches of God, alcoholism is common. If a person accepts the premise that alcoholism is a disease—and this seems to be the case—then the number of alcoholics within the Sabbatarian Church that take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th day of the first month would seem to represent the Lord disciplining those who presume to be in the Body of Christ. And if a person presumes to be in the Body of Christ, regardless of whether the person possesses the spirit of Christ, the reasonable expectation of the Lord is that the person will discern the Body of Christ, meaning that the Sabbatarian Christian who remains in a fellowship not of Christ has not correctly discerned the Body of Christ and can expect to be disciplined, with alcoholism being one of many afflictions that Christ can use to correct the person and with cancer being an often-seen affliction.

The above passes too quickly: the Christian who does not take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed is as an uncovered woman, a public woman, with this Christian covering his or her transgressions not through grace but with Death, whom this Christian serves when he or she serves as Sin’s willing slave (Rom 6:16). But the person who takes the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th, the First Unleavened, is as a woman who covers. However, if this person has taken the sacraments in an unworthy manner without having examined him or herself and without discerning the Body of the Lord, this person is as a woman who covers but who is not in submission to her husband. Her covering is a lie, and as a lie, her covering subjects her to discipline and eventual separation and divorce.

The man who marries a public woman as Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim (Hosea 1:2–3), understands what he has done, and is willing for a while to accept the faithlessness of the woman in exchange for other attributes she brings to the marriage; for living with an honest public woman is preferable to living with a lie, a woman who covers but who lives as her own person … for the Bridegroom, an honest person of this world who chooses to amend his or her ways and live as the wife of the Lord is preferable to a Christian who claims to be a disciple, even one who takes the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed, but who takes the sacraments unworthily, without having discerned the Body of the Lord but residing in the fellowship of another. The Christian who professes that Jesus is Lord and who takes the Passover sacraments, but who then sleeps in a Sacred Names fellowship or in a fellowship that retains the dogmas of the former Worldwide Church of God treats the Lord worse than Gomer treated Hosea. And the Lord will treat the Christian worse than Hosea treated Gomer.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church represents the greatest number of Sabbatarian Christians, but Seventh Day Adventists do not take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the 14^th day of the first month. Therefore, no Adventist covers his or her transgressions with the blood of Christ that represent the indwelling life of Christ. Rather, Adventists, like other Arian and Trinitarian Christians, have their transgressions covered by death, their own, with their still dead inner self not having yet come under judgment, a situation that will be forcibly changed at the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And because Adventists, even though Sabbatarians, are not yet under judgment and hence not being disciplined by the Lord, they do not experience that same illnesses that afflict the Sabbatarian Churches of God, but Adventists wrongly attribute their good health to their physical practices and teachings (in particular, their stand against the consumption of any alcoholic beverage). Whereas their general good health stands as a testimony to their uncovered but honest stature before the Lord, they take their collective good health to be an affirmation of Ellen G. White’s teachings.

The general good health of Latter Day Saints who shun alcohol but not unclean meats is misinterpreted as an affirmation of the teachings of the First Presidency. Likewise, the general good health of observant Muslims who shun alcohol and unclean meats is misinterpreted as an affirmation of false teachings about God.

The Sabbatarian Churches of God that shun unclean meats and other generally harmful physical practices such as smoking permit moderate alcohol consumption, but by permitting any alcohol consumption, the Sabbatarian Churches of God open themselves up to the Lord using alcoholism as a disease through which He can render judgment upon those Sabbatarians who have not rightly discerned the Body of Christ, with the paranoia that comes with alcoholism functioning as a cattle prod to drive the Christian into right discernment or early death.

Whereas a high number of Seventh Day Adventists spurn the consumption of any meat, the Sabbatarian Churches of God—sects and fellowships that strive to take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv—practice heavy consumption of clean meats, thereby giving the Lord an easy means by which the Lord can discipline these disciples via cancer, hypertension, and heart problems. This is not to say that these Sabbatarians should cease consuming clean meats, but is to say that they need to better discern the Body of Christ; that because they take the Passover sacraments as Jesus left the example with His disciples, they take judgment upon themselves—and unless they rightly judge themselves they invite the Lord to judge and discipline them, with the Lord using illnesses and premature death as His means of discipline.

Pharaoh saw the glory of the Lord and compared his glory with what he saw, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that Pharaoh thought his glory was greater than the Lord’s … pious men and women see the glory of the Lord in Scripture, see the command to take the Christian Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv (usually because someone pointed out these commands to the person), and regardless of whether born of God as a son or whether still a son of disobedience, the pious person takes the sacraments and takes judgment upon him or herself, which is just and right for the person truly born of God and for the son of God who rightly discerns the Body of Christ, but which leads to judgment and discipline by the Lord for the person either without the indwelling of Christ or who wrongly discerns the Body of the Lord.

The Sabbatarian Christian who takes the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed has voluntarily subjected him or herself to judgment, but when this Sabbatarian has truly been born of God, this Sabbatarian has the covering of grace to mitigate any discipline that would come to the disciple who repents of wrongdoing and turns to the Lord with heart and mind, correctly discerning what it means to be a part of the Body of Christ. However, the person not born of God does not have access to grace, the garment of Christ’s righteousness, to cover the transgressions of the person. Therefore, when the person not born of God takes the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv, the person invites judgment upon him or herself but must cover him or herself by the person’s own obedience to God—and this is not something anyone other than Christ Jesus, whose Father was not the first Adam, has been able to do. Thus, the person will be disciplined by the Lord first for the person’s presumptuousness in taking the Passover sacraments without being born of God and second for the person’s disobedience.

When the Lord has an easy means of afflicting a person’s flesh and thereby stripping from the person his or her glory, the Lord seems to use the readily-afforded means at hand; therefore, alcoholism has long been a curse within the Sabbatarian Churches of God, and the alcoholic needs to reconsider how and where the alcoholic worships God. Likewise, there has been far too much cancer within the Sabbatarian Churches of God, and the cancer victim needs to reconsider how and where he or she worships the Lord, with the same applying to anyone who is perpetually sick, especially sick for seemingly unexplainable reasons. And the person who taught another pious person to take the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv shares in the judgment of the person, for good or for harm.

Sabbatarian Christians have historically considered themselves to be more righteous than Christians in greater Christendom, with this greater righteousness coming through Sabbath observance, and for the past eighty years, through taking the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Aviv. But this greater righteousness has not spawned greater physical health. On the contrary, because Sabbatarian Christians have been slow to avail themselves of the services of the medical community, trusting rather in God to heal them—which is not wrong—the Lord has been able to use various physical ailments as means to discipline Sabbatarians who have taken the Passover sacraments unworthily.

When there was some authority within the Sabbatarian Churches of God, no one could take the Passover sacraments without having jumped through many hoops, most of which were meaningless. But by limiting participation to baptized members and by locking the doors to Passover services, fewer Christians not born of God actually took the sacraments anywhere near the night that Jesus was betrayed. Although many Sabbatarians took the sacraments unworthily, these many paid for their presumptuousness by no longer being with us. Some were/are shamed by the alcoholism; some died of cancer, or of unexplained heart problems. Most just drifted away as the flotsam of this world. None can be renewed to Christ; for having tasted the goodness of God, they spewed out eternal life and chose for themselves death which tastes sweet to the tongue as an abscessed tooth tastes sweet.

Covering as a Marker Parts One and Two