January 21, 2016
Repairers
You shall be called the Repairer of the Breach (Isa 58:12)
[Part Three]
To Those who would Climb the Mountain
Where They Would Teach God
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What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. (Rom 4:1–10)
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3.
Moses at Sinai prevented the people of Israel from climbing the holy mountain:
When Moses told the words of the people to the LORD, the LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, 'Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain." … And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the LORD said to Moses, "Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the LORD to look and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near to the LORD consecrate themselves, lest the LORD break out against them." And Moses said to the LORD, "The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, saying, 'Set limits around the mountain and consecrate it.'" And the LORD said to him, "Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the LORD, lest He break out against them." So Moses went down to the people and told them. (Ex 19:9–13, 20–25 emphasis added)
Israel in Egypt, then crossing the Sea of Reeds, then around Mount Sinai served as a symbol so that Christians should not want to do evil—be unbelievers—as the people of Israel were (1 Cor 10:6, 11); for Christians are themselves symbols for angelic sons of God, acting out in this world (analogous to “The Mousetrap” in Shakespeare’s Hamlet) what angels did, and could and could not do in the heavenly realm. What angelic sons of God didn’t know about themselves. For the prohibition against Israel setting foot on the mountain will have Mount Sinai serving as a maquette for the heavenly mountain of the Lord, which doesn’t have geographical coordinates or elevation, but has spatial location within a primal energy field, with the holy mountain functioning as the core of a living entity that earthlings have long identified as “heaven.”
The First and the Second Sinai Covenants were given from structured inequality: Israel, except for Moses (and Aaron before the Ten Living Words were spoken), could not climb to where the Lord was … as the “bench” behind which sits the judge in legal proceedings separates the judge from attorneys [advocates] and defendants, thereby producing structured inequality, Mount Sinai as a maquette of the holy mountain of God in heaven gave structure to the hierarchy of divinity, with Moses serving both as the advocate for the people of Israel as well as the spokesperson for the Lord, the God of Abraham. Thus, Moses in type represented the Logos [’o Logos — from John 1:1], the Word of God; for the Bible isn’t the “Word of God.” Christ Jesus is.
But the Moab Covenant (Deut 29:1) that was made with the children of Israel, present and not then present, on the plains of Moab wasn’t made from structured inequality, but gave to these children of Israel liberty to choose life or death (Deut 30:15–20) … the Apostle Paul wrote, “Death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Rom 5:14); for on the Plains of Moab, the children of Israel were “free” to escape from death by loving the Lord with heart and mind, keeping the Commandments, and choosing to do what is right and good. Not since Adam had that choice been offered to any human person, and once the children of Israel choose death, this choice was removed until after the Second Passover liberation of a second nation of Israel, with this second Israel being filled with spirit and thereby liberated from indwelling Sin and Death.
When Mount Sinai serves as a maquette of the holy mountain of God in heaven, heaven will now be not everything that exists on the other side of a sudden creation of matter that by definition has mass, but something that exists or existed before iniquity was discovered in an anointed guardian cherub. Therefore the rent in the fabric of heaven that seems to be seen in X-ray photographs of the outer edge of the galaxy will place all that exists physically on this side of the rent, and nothing that exists physically on the other side, the outer edge of the galaxy serving as Alice’s looking-glass. And as a mirror prevents a human person from seeing what is behind the mirror, the silvering of the glass blocking transmission of light, the physicality of the creation prevents humanity from seeing into heaven which doesn’t consist of “matter” too fine to be seen by human eyes, but consists of primal energy with either no lock or one lock, not the two locks that transform primal energy into the four known forces.
The human definition of “life” as a “condition distinguishing plants and animals from inorganic matter through the capacity for growth, reproduction, and continual change resulting in eventual death” really only applies to entities that have mass and are subject to decay. Any organization of energy into an animated entity without mass would not, therefore, have life and could not be “living” by humanity’s definition … the God of Abraham would not be living even though He was seen by Moses and by seventy elders of Israel (Ex 24:9–11). And being “seen” by the seventy elders has importance that could not be appreciated prior to modernity:
To see a thing is to “see” light reflected from the thing, the “thing” functioning as a partial mirror that reflects from the thing a partial spectrum of light, the complementary portion of the visible spectrum that is absorbed by the “thing.” What is seen is the portion of the spectrum not absorbed by the thing. Thus, for the seventy elders to see the God of Abraham, they had to see “light” reflected from this God of living ones—and they shouldn’t have been able to do that for sunlight would not have reflected from an energy being. Sunlight reflects from conjugated systems through the difference between the ground and excited states, meaning that the molecules forming the surface of the “thing” determines what is seen. No molecules. Nothing can be seen. Little difference between the ground and excited state of the molecules, the “thing” appearing white, reflecting most of the full spectrum of visible light.
For the seventy elders to see the God of Abraham, a light source other than the sun would be needed—and the only “light” that could have caused the God of Abraham to have been seen by the seventy elders would have been the light of God the Father being reflected from the God of Abraham, with the “light” of the Father partially absorbed by the God of Abraham.
Either the story of the seventy elders seeing the Lord is fictional, or what the seventy saw was evidence of a second deity standing near and above or to the side of the God of Abraham. So assuming the story is not fictional, in the seventy elders seeing the God of Abraham is evidence of two deities, not one; for if the seventy elders were to have seen the light of the God of Abraham, they would have seen the source of the light which would have been brighter than a welding flash. If the seventy saw the light that originated with the God of Abraham, the seventy would not have seen any image. Therefore, the seventy seeing the God of Abraham establishes the existence of a second deity that radiated greater “light” than the God of Abraham, something that might well not have been appreciated until the 19th-Century CE.
So there is no misunderstanding, Paul wrote,
For 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. … We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents.” (1 Cor 10:1–4, 9)
Paul has the God of Abraham being Christ, and the author of John’s Gospel writes,
In [primacy/arche] was [’o Logos], and [’o Logos] was with [ton Theon], and [Theos] was [’o Logos]. He was in the beginning with [ton Theon]. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. … And [’o Logos] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1–4, 14 emphasis added)
Christ Jesus is the “light” and life of men; God the Father is the “Light” of ’o Logos, the Rock that Israel followed when lead by Moses out of Egypt. No one can today “see” Christ except by the Light of the Father; hence, no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws the person from this world.
If the Rock that led Israel, that followed Israel in the wilderness would have been the source of the light that permitted the seventy elders to see the Lord, the light would have prevented any image from being seen. The seventy would have effectively been looking into the sun, only many times brighter. Nothing but brightness would have been seen.
Moses could not have seen the God of Abraham in His glory for the same reason: Moses would have been looking as the source of “light” and therefore unable to see anything but brightness. He would have seen no distinguishing image. However, by the Lord passing by Moses, covering Moses with His hand until only His backside could be seen, Moses would see the light of God the Father being reflected off the backside of the God of Abraham.
So by the time of Moses, Israel could have known that the plurality of “Elohim” and of the linguistic determinative, the Tetragrammaton YHWH, came from plural deities functioning as one deity; for if only one deity existed, the “one” couldn’t have been seen except in dreams. Neither Moses nor the seventy elders could have seen with human eyes the Lord without the “light” of the Most High God being reflected from the God of Abraham. So the singularity assigned by Israel to the linguistic signifier Elohim, and to the linguistic determinative YHWH was an expression of Israel’s ignorance of spiritual matters: Israel’s monotheism; Islam’s monotheism are outward manifestations of spiritual ignorance. And greater Christendom’s worship of God, Father and Son, expresses Christianity’s spiritual ignorance.
Until the 17th-Century CE, the difference between the source of light and images seen by the reflection of light was not well understood … an illustration of this difference is found in the burning bush narrative:
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, "I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned." When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then He said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." And He said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (Ex 3:1–6 emphasis added)
The “angel of the Lord” wasn’t an angel but was the God of Abraham, a messenger sent by God the Father to create the death chamber in which angelic sons of God would and could perish—and the God of Abraham couldn’t be seen by Moses. All that Moses saw were flames that did not consume the bush; all that Moses saw was the reflected glory of God … Moses saw “light,” not a human-like figure; for without God the Father also being present, with God being the light of the heavenly realm as the Logos was the life and light of men, there would have been no light able to be reflected off the God of Abraham. There would have only been the light of the God of Abraham, the source of the light seen as non-oxidizing flames of fire reflected off the bush.
The concept of Israel being a symbol has been reasonably well understood for a decade and more, but the concept of greater Christendom also being a symbol has not been well understood … as the people of Israel could not set foot on Mount Sinai and live just as angelic sons of God cannot enter the spatial location narratively identified as the mountain of God in the primal energy field in which “heaven” exists [because they never had “life” in this spatial location], Christians cannot come to Christ Jesus unless drawn from this world by God the Father. No human person has spiritual life prior to being born of spirit. Therefore, the Christian that is drawn from this world and delivered by the Father to Christ to call, justify, and glorify while still dwelling in a fleshly body is akin to Moses; for the God of Abraham called Moses to the summit of Mount Sinai, called Moses into His presence while Moses lived physically as a once-born person. The corollary to a once-born Israelite being called into the presence of the God of Abraham is a twice-born person called into the presence of God the Father, the First of such persons being Christ Jesus.
The people of Israel could not set foot on Mount Sinai when they heard the God of Abraham speak the Ten Living Words to Moses; angels remained in the outer wraps of heaven where they heard the worlds of the Most High God; and Christians are prevented from directly hearing words spoken by the Lord by the existence of written Scripture …
The previous declarative clause will have the inscription of Scripture functioning as the mountain of God that separated Israel at Sinai from the God of Abraham, and that separates/separated angelic sons of God from the Most High God.
Inscription by its very nature separates speakers from auditors, and in turn, returns auditors to when inscription was new and linguistic determinatives were employed in attempts to produce equality between the person who heard with ears an utterance and the person who read an inscription of the utterance.
The Bible as a book prevents Christians from coming to God, an inflammatory declaration but a true declaration. For again, the Word of God is not the Bible but the Beloved of God, who entered His creation as His unique Son, the man Jesus of Nazareth.
The juxtaposition of Israel under Moses not being able to set foot on the mountain of God [Sinai], and Christians not being able to come to Christ Jesus unless drawn by the Father (John 6:44)—both being symbols of angels not being able to enter portions of heaven where they never had life—has simply been ignored by greater Christendom for centuries. But it is what Moses told Israel when he returned from Sinai with the Second Sinai Covenant that should scare greater Christendom:
Moses assembled all the congregation of the people of Israel and said to them, "These are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do. Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day." (Ex 35:1–3)
Because of Israel’s unbelief that caused the people of Israel to demand that Aaron cast for them “gods” [elohim] to go before them (Ex 32:1), the people of Israel were symbolically prevented from ever having spiritual life … human life is sustained by the dark fire of cellular oxidation of simple carbohydrates; spiritual life is sustained by the bright fire that is the glory of God (Ezek 1:26–28), with dark fire and bright fire being enantiomorphs.
The Sabbath represents entering into the presence of God, as in entering the Promise Land, entering the Millennium, entering heaven itself. Thus, to be prohibited from kindling a fire (receiving life and light) on the Sabbath (in the presence of God) signifies the reality that Israel, because its unbelief at Sinai in the gold calf rebellion, can never receive indwelling spiritual life unless individual Israelites turn to God and profess with mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in hearts that the Father raised Jesus from physical death. The outwardly circumcised nation of Israel stands on the outside of history, looking in and longing to return to earthly Jerusalem, not heavenly Jerusalem. This nation of Israel is still loved by God, Father and Son, for the sake of their ancestors, but the chronology of salvation has temporarily passed them by, leaving this people surrounded by enemies and all but abandoned by friends. Why? And the why goes back to their forty year journey in the wildernesses … when still in Egypt, Israel rebelled against the Lord and would not believe Him (Ezek 20:5–8). The Law was then given at Sinai to bring Sin to life so that Sin might devour these unbelievers—and Sin did what it was brought to life to do. Except for Joshua and Caleb, none of the men of Israel numbered in the census of the second year (Num chap 1) entered the Promised Land. Instead, these men of Israel were replaced, virtually man for man, by sons born in the wilderness (see Num chap 26), sons given the choice of life or death, and given this choice because the Law had given life to Sin so that Sin would devour the unbeliever even inside the Promised Land. And Sin, to this day, remains alive for the Law is inscribed in the Bible of every Christian; hence, the Book which Christians believe offers them salvation also condemns them to death when they transgress the Law.
Christians within greater Christendom cannot, because of Christendom’s rebellion against the Lord [Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death] receive indwelling spiritual life: Christians within greater Christendom cannot be born of spirit unless individually drawn from this world by the Father and delivered to Christ to call, justify, and glory. And evidence of being drawn is manifested by the Christian voluntarily keeping the Commandments, especially the Sabbath Commandment, the test Commandment.
The difference between voluntarily keeping the Commandments and being socially and culturally required to keep the Commandments is the difference between “day” and “night.” The person who voluntarily keeps the Commandments is under no obligation to do so, and only does so out of love for God, Father and Son. This person hears the word of Jesus, and believes Jesus, and seeks to do what the person now knows is right. And because this person voluntarily keeps the Law from the person believing the Word of God, the indwelling Christ Jesus, this person does willingly what rebelling angels didn’t do. Hence, for angelic sons of God to “see” human sons of God voluntarily keeping the Commandments, angelic sons of God begin to see the protocols for salvation, their own salvation for they are under sentence to death as is the fleshly body of every human son of God.
For as long as a Christian remains in open rebellion against God, Father and Son, through ignoring the Sabbath, the Christian remains as Israel was at Sinai while Moses was in the presence of the Lord, Moses being a type of Christ Jesus. The Christian remains vulnerable to being devoured by Sin, brought to life by the giving of the Law. Therefore, the Christian’s unbelief as displayed through ignoring the Commandments prevents the Christian from being born of spirit.
But it isn’t Christian unbelief that most threatens the world: the Muslim who mistakenly believes that he or she was humanly born with an immortal soul has, in reality, a spiritually “dead” inner self. If this were not the case; if the Muslim were twice-born (of water and of spirit), the Muslim would never take the life of another person; nor would the Muslim have occasion to take the life of another person. Thus the Muslim who kills others in “the struggle” [jihad] telegraphs to others that he or she has a dead inner self: the Muslim is deceived, but will not discover that he or she is deceived until the Muslim is judged to be a murderer and to be of the Adversary in the great White Throne Judgment. And this is truly sad.
No person of any ideology has the right to commit acts of aggression against another person, whether husband against wife, Yankee against Confederate, Arian against Trinitarian, Christian against Muslim. Defending oneself is more problematic. But even in defending oneself, when a threat no longer exists, there is no justification for acting. And what seems to be true is that with God, sons of God have angelic protection, with this protection rendering benign potentially dangerous situations. Therefore, sons of God really have nothing to fear in this world …
Will martyrdom of sons of God occur? Yes, but only if martyrdom will aid the spiritual development of the son of God. If martyrdom will do nothing spiritually for a son of God, martyrdom will not occur; for it is just as easy for God to keep one of His sons physically alive as it is for Him to let one die physically. Hence, what’s seen is that God keeps His sons out of most deadly situations so that what would be traumatic becomes a non-event.
Human sons of God receive the spiritual breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theou] that is the glory of God, with receipt of indwelling eternal life in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:23) which gives to the human son of God life in the same heavenly “moment” as God the Father has life, with this “moment” functioning in heaven as a geographical location functions on earth—and as a human person cannot simultaneously be in two places at once, an angelic son of God cannot be in the outer reaches of heaven where this angelic son has life and be on what is metaphorically called “the mountain of God” in Scripture. And again, this is symbolically seen at Mount Sinai, when Israel could not set foot on the mountain and still live, but Moses—a type of the Elect—scaled the mountain and spoke with the Lord.
Atop Sinai, Moses entered into the presence of the Lord as sons of God, truly born of spirit, enter into the presence of the Father, with sons of God even today entering into the presence of the Father as the Son, the Firstborn of the Father, dwells in the presence of the Father.
The symbolism of Scripture is far greater than Christian literalists have realized; for the Protestant Reformation followed by individual Bible study has prevented Christians from understanding spiritual matters … when a Christian believes that he or she can read Scripture for him or herself and truly understand what the Christian read, the Christian is deceived. Again, the Bible prevents Christians from coming to God and serves the Father as Mount Sinai served the God of Abraham. But the Adversary has blinded the Christian that meanders from ditch to ditch, always in danger of falling into a spiritual Abyss. And as a person born from birth blind has no appreciation of “sight,” the Christian who sincerely believes that he or she can read the Bible for him or herself and take spiritual meaning from it has no appreciation of what can be seen if “sight” were given to the person.
Paul warns such Christians: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12) … why would a Christian think that he or she stands unless the Christian has engaged in personal Bible study and has “proved” various things true? And when a person proves that, say, Christians are to, “‘Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I [Jesus] have commanded you’” (Matt 28:19–20), the Christian who has read the plain words of Scripture for him or herself will do what? Go forward in ignorance to make disciples of the unwilling and uninterested? That certainly seems to be the case …
What about the qualifier to going forth to make disciples of all nations? There is a qualifier, a time-sensitive qualifier? Or did you miss the qualifier? “Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’” (Matt 28:18).
Has all authority on earth been given to the glorified Jesus? If it has, then both the executive abuses of President Obama and the heinous acts of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are the responsibility of Christ Jesus. Pol Pot’s killing fields would belong to Christ. The Soviet Gulag would belong to Christ. Hitler’s Final Solution would belong to Christ … but He is not responsible for humanity’s abuses against friends and foes; for he is not today the Prince of this world. The Adversary remains that prince. Therefore, all authority on earth has not yet been given to the glorified Son of Man.
To say that Christ has already received all authority on earth contradicts Scripture; for all authority is given to the Son of Man only one time, and that one time is after dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and his angels:
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" (Rev 12:7–12 emphasis added)
And,
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever." And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, "We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth." (Rev 11:15–18 emphasis added)
And,
As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before Him; a thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Dan 7:9–14)
Is the Adversary today, among men? Has he and his angels been cast from heaven? Has he come claiming to be the Christ and having the ability to do great wonders? No, he has not, is not. Therefore, humanity has not yet arrived in the chronology of salvation at the time when dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man. Thus, what the glorified Jesus tells His disciples—all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me—hasn’t yet happened. So now is not the time to make disciples of all nations.
To attempt to make disciples of all nations when it isn’t time to make disciples merely alienates potential converts, turning potential sons of God into enemies against God … in ignorance, those who would study the Bible for themselves do God more harm than good. In believing that these students of the Bible have a commission to determine what is true and what isn’t, they have fallen away from God through their hubris. They have been assassinated on a red carpet by their inferiors.
Those Bible students who deceive themselves into believing that they can read Scripture for themselves and determine what translated words, redacted passages mean are as the drunk priests of Ephraim were:
Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, He casts down to the earth with His hand. The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden underfoot; and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley, will be like a first-ripe fig before the summer: when someone sees it, he swallows it as soon as it is in his hand. In that day the LORD of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of His people, and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left. “To whom will He teach knowledge, and to whom will He explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little." For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people, to whom He has said, "This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose"; yet they would not hear. And the word of the LORD will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. (Isa 28:1–13)
The modern drunkards of Ephraim—Christians teaching British Israelism to spiritual infants being a prime example—are and have been clueless as they have ensnared themselves with line upon line, precept upon precept exegesis; for the Sabbath is to give “rest” to the weary, not to become a burden that prevents spiritual birth.
As angels haven’t yet seen another angel die and as a result still believe the Adversary or at least doubt the words of the Most High God, Christians within the greater Church have been spiritually strangled by their teachers, but strangled without truly seeing the loss of spiritual breath [pneuma Theous en pneuma Christou] that produces “independent Christendom,” the home port of the self-taught Christian who hangs him or herself with a noose made from the words of the prophet Daniel.
The death of an angel, the “legal firstborn” for the Adversary, is seen in Daniel’s vision of Belshazzar’s third year (Dan 8:8), and is the means by which endtime disciples can confirm that Daniel’s vision is “for the time of the end” (v. 17), the vision sealed until “many days from” when Daniel received it (v. 26) … Daniel’s visions are about demonic kings and spiritual events at the end of the age. They were sealed by physical events seeming to fulfill prophesied spiritual events, and their relationship between physical fulfillment and the spiritual fulfillment is analogous to the relationship between the goat sacrificed on the altar on Yom Kipporim and the goat chosen for the Azazel, chosen to have life across the precipice of wilderness—life beyond space-time.
Pedagogical redundancy is necessary: self-styled biblical scholars have so little understanding they can only receive “revelation” about simple matters. After all, they can read Scripture for themselves, and they sincerely believe they can determine what Scripture says and what Scripture means for themselves. But they are as Israel was in the days of the judges when every person did what was right in his or her own eyes: they believe what they think is right—and they find Rome and the Roman Church in Daniel’s visions when nothing Roman is there. And while they look at Rome being the home of the Antichrist, they fail to see the theological giant growing behind them: Arian Christendom.
Self-styled biblical scholars serve as symbols for angels who chose to think for themselves, an attribute of the Adversary ingrained in American exceptionalism. Self-styled Bible students study Scripture day after day to see if a thing is so. They are ever studying, but learning almost nothing; for again, inscription of the Bible functions as the mountain of God in preventing humans from coming to God.
When Paul wrote, “I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me” (Rom 7:9–10), he indirectly addressed the role of Scripture in separating man from God … the Bible that would seem to promise life to Christians will prove to be the means of their spiritual death in the lake of fire; for Protestant Christians, the Reformed Church, as well as Anabaptists study Scripture for themselves to determine what is sound doctrine. They are all self-styled Bible students, as is all of Sabbatarian Christendom. They all believe they can read Scripture for themselves and understand the plain words on the page. They believe that they can determine for themselves good and evil, right and wrong. And even if every determination that these self-styled scholars make is correct, self-determination of right and wrong is rooted in unbelief of God, hence is rebellion against God.
Those Christians who must prove all things before they will believe the “thing” are as the Circumcision Faction was in that they have Scripture on their side, but as the Circumcision Faction wasn’t of God, they too are not of God although they wouldn’t believe that even when told. They do not realize that coming to Christ, coming to God as a small child means believing God because He said so. And if God hasn’t spoken directly to them in twice repeated visions or by audible words, what are they to believe? The Bible, of course. And if they believe the Bible as received, what color of robe did Roman soldiers put on Christ when they mocked Him before crucifying Him? How many women went to the Tomb on the day after the Sabbath? From what tall mountain can the glory of all kingdoms of this earth be seen? And how many generations are there between Abraham and Jesus when these generations are actually counted? From what son of David did Joseph, Jesus’ legal father descend? Where else other than in Acts can a modern Christian read a late 1st-Century Greek novel, a Second Sophist novel?
Those Christians who must prove all things before they believe anything cannot come to God as small children that believe without proving, that believe because they trust parents to tell them the truth … these Christians have been spiritually slain by former pastors and teachers, and can now believe no person without proving what the person says from Scripture; hence, they cannot return to being as believing small children.
Paul told the holy ones at Corinth:
For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. (1 Cor 4:15–16 emphasis added)
To the holy ones at Corinth, the Apostle Paul was their father in Christ, but did these saints believe Paul as little children believe their fathers? No, by no means.
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Cor 11:1–15)
Has there been no more revelation since Paul wrote? Of course there has been. John’s vision hadn’t yet been received. So what about Paul being the father of the saints at Corinth, with these saints in an ideal world believing Paul as they would Christ? But in not believing Paul, they didn’t believe Christ … if they believed Christ, they would at least fake love for brother and neighbor, love that suffers no offense, no assertion of the person’s will upon another, no dealing with another person. Their relation one to another will be honest and upright, not self-serving.
The disciple who will come to Christ as a child will believe Christ without proving whether Christ’s words are true … a simple thing, believing Christ? Yes, a simple thing that has been complicated by many coming in Jesus’ name and deceiving many, including the self-deception of having to prove all things before believing anything.
The Adversary has worked within the greater Christian Church to abort potential human sons of God before they can be born of spirit, and he has been successful, more successful than self-style Bible students imagine. For in causing these Bible students to prove all things before believing anything, the Adversary has inserted his mindset of unbelief into these potential sons of God, thereby continuing their enslavement beyond their redemption by the blood of Christ Jesus.
Following the Second Passover liberation of a second nation of Israel, every Christian will be filled-with and empowered-by the spirit of God. There will be no indwelling sin or death inside any Christian. Every Christian will spiritually be as righteous Abel was. Every Christian will be spiritual Abel, born of the last Eve, Christ Jesus, a life-giving spirit [pneuma].
But before 220 days pass, almost every Christian will slay spiritual Abel by taking sin back inside him or herself when no sacrifice remains for sin: the Christian will commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, unforgivable blasphemy. And these Christians will morph from being righteous Abel to being spiritual Cain, marked for death in the lake of fire. Therefore, on day 220, greater Christendom will collectively rebel against God as Israel often rebelled in the wilderness, and rebelled in particular when the twelve spies returned from the Promised Land.
Today, Christians within greater Christendom cannot come to Christ Jesus as angelic sons of God could not ascend the holy mountain of God, a metaphorical expression for created sons not being able to step behind their creation to be where God, their Creator, was before they were created. And in Christians not being able to come to Christ unless first drawn from this world by the Father, Christians are collectively as Israel was in Egypt when Pharaoh prevented Israel from worshiping the Lord. And the Second Passover liberation of a second nation of Israel “moves Christians forward” in the chronology of salvation to where ancient Israel was around the base of Mount Sinai; for writing the Law on hearts and placing the Law in minds under the New Covenant is analogous to the giving of the Law at Sinai. And if we stopped here, Christians collectively will be in the seven endtime years of tribulation as Israel was at in the wilderness.
We cannot stop with Christians in the tribulation; for Christians as symbols represent in this physical realm angelic sons of God in the heavenly realm. And self-styled Bible students will represent rebelling angelic sons of God, because of their unbelief of the messengers of the Lord; for those Christians who must test all things before believing anything cannot come to Christ as a small child. Any such Christian doesn’t have a child-like mindset, but a challenging mindset that demands “proof” before belief. Therefore, a self-styled Bible student not only cannot come to God unless drawn, but this Bible student will not come to God on God’s terms even when drawn. This Bible student will only come to God on his or her own terms. Sobeit. This student will experience martyrdom because of his or her unbelief—his or her refusal to believe simply because the student doesn’t acknowledge any father in Christ except God the Father who hasn’t yet spoken to the student.
Switching narrative points of view, if I tell you a thing, will you believe my words because I said them, or will you go to Scripture to prove whether what I say is so or not? I don’t ask that you believe me; I won’t tell you to believe me. All I will say is that I was called in January 2002 to reread prophecy—and it is because of this calling that I will say a thing, whatever that thing is. If that calling was genuine, then what I say is of Christ; if not genuine, then I speak my own words.
What basis does a self-styled Bible student have for believing me when I say what hasn’t been said before? Is the basis strength of argument? If it is, then the Bible student doesn’t really believe me, but believes what the student reads in his or her Bible, which is fine with me for I then have no responsibility for the student’s errant belief. And I would just as soon keep it that way; for I don’t want responsibility for another person’s errant presumptions and assumptions.
This is a reasonable point at which to conclude this third installment.
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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."