December 9, 2014
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Repairers
You shall be called the Repairer of the Breach (Isa 58:12)
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When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matt 25:31–40)
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1.
In the previous Repairers, discussion was begun about feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless, clothing the naked being the spiritual equivalent to physical fasting, the humbling [afflicting] of the self before God by voluntarily not eating or drinking for a day or longer …
However, eating the bread of affliction—unleavened bread—during the Feast of Unleavened Bread is, for Christians, a form of voluntarily humbling the self, analogous for Christians to fasting on Yom Kipporim. And yes, the Christian who walks in this world as Christ Jesus walked will fast on the Day of Atonement, the Day of Coverings [plural], with Christ Jesus being the reality of both goats, the goat sacrificed on the altar [Christ at Calvary] and the Azazel [the goat released in the wilderness, a type of heaven].
A person afflicts the soul—the outward self, the fleshly body of the person—when he or she fasts, with <soul> used topically to represent the person as found in English translations of Ezekiel 18:4, and used specifically to represent the non-physical inner self [Gr: psuche] of the person. For going without food or drink does not afflict the inner self: the food upon which the living [raised to life by God the Father, John 5:21] inner self feeds is Christ Jesus, expressed through growing in grace and knowledge, with the outer self presumably in subjection to the living inner self. Hence, the Christian voluntarily eats unleavened bread [flat bread] for the “First Unleavened,” then eats unleavened bread for the Feast of Unleavened Bread as the outward representation of the Christian afflicting his or her soul through fasting, with the ultimate affliction of the soul being for the Christian to live without sin (without unbelief of God) in this present world in which the person was humanly born consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) and by extension, concluded to unbelief.
It wouldn’t seem that living without sin would be an affliction of the typical soul, but living without sin places the person out of sync with the remainder of humanity—so far out of sync that human interaction is restricted, employment limited, marriage prospects even more limited. Belief of God manifested in deeds separates the genuine Christian from family and festivals. Belief/faith of the sort that has ontological presence in this world forms the sort of mental isolation that would be analogous to a person physically living alone on an island, alone in paradise.
Homer’s Odyssey [probably 7th-Century BCE] begins with Odysseus on an island paradise with the beautiful nymph Calypso who offers him immortality, but Odysseus spends his time pining for his wife and son and the rocky fields of his home island … for humanity consigned to disobedience, immortality isn’t as important as social interaction with other human persons. Being together forever with a perpetually beautiful woman isn’t as important social interaction. The promises made to Islamists suicide bombers of sex with perpetual virgins doesn’t cause the elderly or the mentally mature to strap on suicide vests: these promises influence the immature, analogous to the young G.I. who will charge a machinegun nest when ordered to do so—or storm the cliffs at Normandy. For an Islamist to strap on a suicide belt is a form of acting-out that isn’t reversible. And while thousands didn’t survive the invasion at Normandy, other thousands did; for storming these cliffs didn’t translate directly into death as is the case for kamikaze pilots or suicide truck drivers.
Living without sin; living by belief of God, by manifested faith separates the Believer from neighbors and family and effectively causes an affliction of the topological self [the self that occupies a spot, topos, in this world] that can only be undone by returning to society through rebellion against God. This person will have sampled the goodness of God, but will have rejected this goodness as Odysseus rejected Calypso and her island paradise … as a metaphor for the human condition, the return [from Troy] voyage of Odysseus works fairly well. But no Christian should ever trade immortality for trials and tests of this world that will pass away sooner than science projects. The problem is, immortality is traditionally more important to the old who “know” they are near the end of their physical lives than to the young who have their lives before them. To encounter a segment of the young who have little regard for their physical lives is socially disturbing and an indication of the end of a culture. Those youths who engage in the North American drug trade have little regard for their lives.
So that there can be no misunderstanding: the Christian born of spirit as a son of God has been twice-born, the first birth that of the fleshly body with a dead [without heavenly life] inner self, and the second birth coming through the indwelling of the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] when the Father raises the dead inner self to life while the fleshly body still lives. The Father, for reasons and by means known to Him, foreknows and predestines a person to be spiritually born as a son of God as fruit borne out of season. He then delivers this person, still without indwelling spiritual life, to Christ Jesus, the reality of what Jesus said in John 6:44, 65. And Christ Jesus calls the person as the man Jesus physically called His first disciples before they were justified and born of spirit through receiving the direct transfer of the breath of the glorified Jesus (see John 20:22); therefore, the reality of what Paul wrote about Jesus being crucified for disciples while they remained sinners is physically seen in Jesus’ crucifixion at Calvary.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. (Rom 5:6–10 emphasis added)
Without realizing that there is no passage of time in heaven (time and its passage can be written as mathematical functions of gravity; hence time was created with the creation) and without comprehending the possibilities and limitations of timelessness, an endtime Christian cannot understand the reality of what Paul wrote … Christendom rightfully rejects transmigration of souls; therefore, in Christian ideology the soul of a person has no preexistence prior to the birth of the person, which means that Christ Jesus cannot die for the person’s sins until the person is humanly born and commits sin, any act stemming from unbelief.
Christ Jesus physically died on the First Unleavened (from Matt 26:17) in the year 31 CE in this world. But in the timelessness of heaven, the crucifixion occurred today, the day that was in existence when the world was spoken into existence and the day that will be in existence until the coming of New Jerusalem. There is no decay of “today” into “tomorrow.” Today will continue in heaven as a geographical location continues here on Earth. Alaska’s Mt. McKinley exists. When the sun rises tomorrow, Mt. McKinley will still exist, though bathed in the alpenglow of the rising sun hence pink instead of white. And the same can be said for Mt. McKinley two days, three days, four days from today. However, a time will come when Mt. McKinley will be no more—and the same is true for the present heavenly moment. For with the coming of the new heavens and new earth the damage done to heaven by the rebellion of the Adversary will be healed by re-creation. And damage was done; for the fleshly body of the man Jesus formed the shadow and type of heaven, a subject to be developed in another Repairers writing. For now it is enough to say that the wound in Jesus’ side when He was crucified formed a type of the rent in the fabric of heaven through which primal energy poured to form the Abyss, with the Adversary being flushed from heaven through this rent.
For a Christian to reject the trappings of this world—its wealth, its prestige, use of the authority given to the Adversary—is for the Christian to voluntarily go without the so-called good things of this world, with John having written:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15–17)
To not love (that is, to reject as having importance) the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes is for the inner self of the person to afflict the outer self; is for the person to spiritually fast. Now extending this beyond the self, to reject the desires of the flesh will have the person feeding the hungry with the food the person could have eaten him or herself … instead of putting that choice tidbit that the person can afford into his or her own mouth, the person gives what he or she has to the one who doesn’t have, knowing that the Father will provide for the person who is His son.
Again, retain the juxtaposition of Jesus’ fleshly body forming a visible, physical shadow and type of heaven itself, with Jesus’ inner self functioning in His fleshly body as God functions in heaven. To place importance on the desires of the flesh will be analogous to placing greater importance on heaven than on God; hence, will be idolatry, akin to the worship of the creation rather than the Creator. Physical fasting rejects this form of idolatry, but unfortunately substitutes another form in its place, that of placing the will of the person ahead of love for brother and neighbor, love of the sort that would cause the Christian to lay down his or her life for another … physical fasting is a corrective to indulging the flesh, the traditional pastime of the affluent, but physical fasting becomes idolatry when done to show-off a person’s righteousness. And the same can apply to feeding the poor when cameras are rolling.
Again, in the physical fasting is about the self; is self-centered; is about choosing to go without food and drink for some period of time of at least a day’s endurance. Fasting isn’t about missing a meal, or giving up chocolate for forty days. And going hungry because of want isn’t fasting. Rather, fasting is about “choice,” that of eating and drinking or of not eating and drinking. When there is no choice, there is no voluntary affliction of the soul. Hence, the person who has no food to eat isn’t fasting but starving. It is with this person whom the person with abundance should share what he or she has.
The desire of the flesh is to eat and be satisfied; is to indulge the palate as well as the appetites of the loins. The desire of the flesh isn’t to give away what can be consumed by the self …
For Christians, tithing and giving offerings is about afflicting the self; for no human person really knows whether another person truly tithes his or her increase, returning a tenth of the person’s increase to where the person believes God has placed His name by the work the ministry does. However, no Christian can claim that the temple of God no longer exists therefore the person is freed from any obligation to tithe; for Paul identifies Christian’s collectively and individually as the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27) and the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16). Thus, for Christians tithing is about whether the Christian will voluntarily choose to afflict him or herself by giving to God what God owns by prior claim, with the Christian retaining the prerogative of where to place the Christian’s tithe. But giving what isn’t the person’s (that is, the tithe of the person’s increase) is less about afflicting the self than about whether the person is honest before God. Nevertheless, the Christian will temporarily have the tithe of his or her increase in hand and under the Christian’s control: what the Christian does with what is under his or her control makes a statement before God about the inner workings of the Christian.
If a Christian feels that his or her abundance is insufficient to share with others, the corrective that God has traditionally used is to takeaway whatever the person has so that the person will truly have insufficient to satisfy the desires of the flesh. And from a historical perspective, the poor are disproportionally more generous than the newly prosperous; historically, the poor will give out of their want whereas the newly prosperous hesitantly give from their surplus. Why should this be? Does possessing “want” cause a person to better recognize “want” in others? Or is it as I once heard a person disparagingly say, They have nothing because they give away whatever they acquire. The content for the comment was a person working for day wages paying a few dollars to get his paycheck cashed at the consumer window of a box-store so the person could buy a gallon of milk … would it have hurt the person who spoke without understanding to have bought the other person that gallon of milk? The thought would never have occurred to the person who spoke.
The thought that a Christian should eat unleavened bread on the First Unleavened and during the Feast of Unleavened Bread doesn’t even occur to the vast majority of greater Christendom. Instead of eating unleavened bread and thereby outwardly afflicting the self, this majority of Christendom eats hot-cross bun and are as the house of Judah was prior to the reforms instituted by King Josiah …
Then all the men who knew that their wives had made offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: "As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her [because of the reforms of King Josiah], we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine." And the women said, "When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands' approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?" (Jer 44:15–19)
The problem that will confound greater Christianity following the Second Passover liberation of Israel is that Christianity will have begun to turn back to God, Father and Son, just prior to the Second Passover. It will seem as if the death of uncovered firstborns followed by the onset of the seven endtime years of tribulation will have come upon Christians because of the reforms the greater Church had begun to make, just as all that befell Jerusalem and the House of Judah following the reforms of King Josiah seemed to have come upon these remaining Israelites because they left off worshiping the queen of heaven, whom Israel had worshiped as the consort of YHWH.
Among educated Millennials, the generation that reached its legal majority close to the change in millenniums (2000 CE), there is a name, <Jeremiads>, for purveyors of doom and gloom: end-of-the-worlders. By this definition, believing Christians are universally Jeremiads; for the believing Christian holds that things will not continue as they are, but that Christ Jesus will return to usher in, here on earth, the kingdom of the heavens.
But believing Christians as Jeremiads have laid the foundation for their own condemnation through nearly two millennia of Christian lawlessness. Instead of centuries of neglect of the Law as was the case with both the northern House of Israel and the southern House of Judah, the greater Christian community has neglected the Law from this community’s inception. But then, no one should be surprised by Christian lawlessness; for the physically visible reveals and precedes the invisible spiritual things of God (cf. Rom 1:20; 1 Cor 15:46). Thus, outwardly circumcised Israel forms the physical shadow and type of spiritually circumcised-of-heart Israel, the assembly of inner selves [the spirit of the person, to pneuma tou ’anthropou, in the soul, psuche, of the person] that constitutes the Church that Jesus built, the Church against which the gates of Hades will not prevail. And as the physical king of Babylon [Nebuchadnezzar] prevailed but didn’t against outwardly circumcised Israel, the spiritual king of Babylon [that old dragon, Satan the devil] prevailed but hasn’t against inwardly circumcised Israel; for as Jesus’ earthly body was resurrected from the heart of the earth after three days, Jesus’ spiritual Body—the Church—will be resurrected to glory after the third day of the “P” creation account.
Whereas millennials, unwilling to believe God prior to the Second Passover liberation of Israel, become teachable after a third part of humankind—all legal or biological firstborns—are slain in a day, Christians within the greater Church become statistically unteachable. Whereas Muslims and Hindis and Buddhists, unwilling to accept Christ Jesus as God prior to the Second Passover, become teachable after roughly 2.4 billion human persons—all uncovered firstborns—perish in a day, Christians with insignificant exceptions will abandon the reforms being undertaken and will return to the traditions of the fathers of the faith, with none of the first disciples or the Apostle Paul being of these fathers.
Rabbinical Israel, like Christians of the greater Christian community, will NOT repent of their present idolatry following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, but will more tightly than ever cling to the traditions of ancestors, thereby opening the way for present unbelievers and non-believers to come to God through the destruction (via pollution) of the temple:
Then I [John] was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, "Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth." (Rev 11:1–3)
The holy city is New Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ, not earthly Jerusalem where no temple existed for a quarter century before John received his vision very late in the 1st-Century CE. And what does it mean for New Jerusalem to be trampled by spiritual Gentiles for the duration of the ministry of the two witnesses … forty-two months is 1260 days, with <days> representing the perspective of human persons and <months> representing the perspective of angels. In the same way, time, times, and half a time, as in Daniel 7:25, represents this period from the perspective of God.
It is always a declaration of spiritual ignorance to claim that the forty-two months during which spiritual Gentiles trample the holy city is a differing period of time from the 1260 days of the two witnesses’ ministry. Likewise, the spiritually ignorant refuse to recognize that the forty-two months during which the beast is allowed to exercise authority (Rev 13:5) after the single kingdom of this world has been given to the Son of Man (Rev 11:15–18; Dan 7:9–14) is the time, times, and half a time when the Woman [Israel] is nourished in the wilderness (Rev 12:14); whereas the 1260 days when the Woman is also nourished in the wilderness prior to when Satan and his angels are cast from heaven represents the time, times, and half a time of Daniel 7:25, a period that ends with dominion being taken from the four demonic kings making up the federated spiritual king of Greece. … In each period, the <wilderness> represents heaven, just as the Azazel being taken by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness where this goat bore the sins of Israel represents Christ Jesus bearing the spiritual sins of Israel in heaven.
Again, both goats on Yom Kipporim represent Christ Jesus, with the sacrificed goat representing the man Jesus dying at Calvary for the earthly sins of Israel and with the Azazel representing the glorified Christ bearing the sins of spiritual Israel—and yes, Israel can sin spiritually: “‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart’” (Matt 5:27–28).
The person who lusts but who doesn’t touch commits no adultery in this world, but Matthew’s Jesus said that the person who lusts truly has committed adultery, which only occurred in the mind and is therefore a sin of the spirit of the person, a sin the glorified Jesus will bear until judgments are revealed. Then He will either return the sin to the person or give the sin to the Adversary, who rightly owns this sin through his unbelief of God.
Who would be a spiritual Gentile, a person of the nations?
Today, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindis, atheists have no spiritual relationship with God, Father and Son. They are not spiritual in the same way that Christians within greater Christendom are, or in even the same way that Observant Jews are. Muslims are not part of the nations that will trample the holy city for forty-two months. Rather, Christians within greater Christendom—Christians that live as if they are Gentiles—form the nations that will trample the holy city throughout the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years. And these Christians will be as the poorest of the poor were that Nebuchadnezzar’s commanders left in Judea to work the land, in that they will not stay where they were left but will return to the idolatrous traditions of their Christian ancestors. They will return to sin, as represented by Egypt.
The preceding is a sad indictment of greater Christendom, but is also the reality that exists.
Precedent exists in Scripture for physical “fasting” to be manifested in forms other than going hungry when moving from physical to spiritual; for the soul [psuche] of a person isn’t fed through satisfying the appetites of the flesh.
Language usage is problematic: an English Royalist poet dying in the breach wasn’t repairing the breach, but was having the way of a man with a maid. Need more be said about dying, the status of a man no longer able to stand erect?
To feed the living soul of a person, the person “dines” on the body and blood of Christ Jesus, consumed annually by eating the Passover sacrament of unleavened bread and drinking from the blessed cup … how often does a son-of-God feed upon Christ Jesus? Only on one day a year—the Preparation Day that is to Christians also known as the First Unleavened—does the fruit of the earth (wheat and grapes) represent the body and blood of the man Jesus the Nazarene. On every other day of the year, the fruit of the earth is Cain’s offering, not that of righteous Abel. And Cain’s offering was not accepted by the Lord.
On every day of the year except the First Unleavened, blessed bread and wine represents Cain’s offering, the fruits of the earth. Only on the First Unleavened—that period which in type represents the entirety of the Christian era--
The holy day calendar—the High Sabbaths of the Lord—represent one harvest of humanity that has within the calendar two separate harvests, the spring harvest of firstfruits (the barley harvest of ancient Judea) and the autumn main-crop wheat harvest, with the spring holy days representing the entirety of the holy day calendar and with the autumn holy days also representing the entirety of this calendar, disclosing in the calendar what is revealed in John’s vision [the Book of Revelation], a resurrection to life at both the beginning of the Thousand Years and a resurrection to life at the end of the Thousand Years of the Son of Man’s reign over living creatures:
Then I [John] saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (Rev 20:1–6 emphasis added)
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And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison …. . Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. From His presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. [This resurrection is of souls and occurs outside of the physical creation.] And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:7, 11–15 emphasis added)
The problem Christianity has faced through this spiritual Preparation Day, the First Unleavened (the period when chosen human persons are to live without sin by having their sins covered by Christ’s righteousness), is that of two resurrections to life, the first for the Firstfruits, those to whom authority will be given to judge angels. Also in this resurrection will be those who willingly died for the prophetic word of God as well as all who endured to the end in the Affliction and Endurance without taking upon themselves the mark of the beast, the mark of death, the tattoo of the cross.
In the second resurrection to life will be those who are the sheep, those persons who fed the hungry and clothed the naked and comforted the afflicted, thereby manifesting love for neighbor and brother even when the afflicted prove themselves unlovable.
Outwardly circumcised Israel was a people chosen by the God of Abraham as His firstborn son (Ex 4:22) because of the love the Lord had for Abraham, who by his belief of God did what rebelling angelic sons of God refused to do: Abraham obeyed the Lord. When told to do whatever he was commanded, Abraham obeyed. Unfortunately, greater Christendom today refuses to obey.
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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."