Today, If You Hear - Repairers of the Breach - December 18, 2014

December 18, 2014

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Repairers

You shall be called the Repairer of the Breach (Isa 58:12)

Today, If You Hear

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Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are His house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.' As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'" [Citation is from Ps 95:10–11] Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Heb 3:5–13 emphasis added)

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As long as it is called “today” — the entirety of the Christian era, from Calvary to the Second Passover, is represented by one day, the Preparation Day for the great Sabbath of the Sabbath (from John 19:31), with all of the period when Israel was to be in Jerusalem to keep the early spring high days being Sabbath …

Three times a year all your males shall appear before [YHWH] your God at the place that He will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before [YHWH] empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of [YHWH] your God that He has given you. (Deut 16:16–17)

The first of these three season is Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread, with the entirety of the period between the 10^th of the first month to the 22^nd day being represented by the author of John’s Gospel as Sabbath … from when the children of Israel entered the Promised Land (Josh 4:19) on the 10^th day of the first month, the day the Passover lamb was to be selected and penned, to the resurrection of firstfruits (Rev 20:4–5) at the Second Advent is Sabbath, not what greater Christendom has traditionally been taught. Sabbatarian Christendom, in particular, has been taught that the Millennium [the Thousand Years when Christ Jesus rules as King of kings and Lord of lords] is the earthly Sabbath, when the land receives its rest. And indeed this will be the case. But as the physical land of Israel has its Sabbaths [the seventh year of a seven year cycle, plus the year of Jubilee], physical Israel—the descendants of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—received the Sabbaths of God long before the remainder of humanity will receive these Sabbaths in the form of the Millennium. In addition, spiritual Israel entered into the Sabbath when this assembly of inner selves was foreknown by God, predestined [selected], and penned in obedience through the indwelling of Christ Jesus, this indwelling giving spiritual life to the otherwise dead soul [psuche] of the human person. The remainder of humanity enters into the Sabbath when dominion over living creatures is taken from the present prince of this world, the Adversary, and given to the Son of Man, Head and Body, with this Sabbath coming from being filled with spirit and thus liberated from indwelling sin and death. And when liberated from indwelling sin and death, still mortal human persons will live long lives: barring mishaps, the person who is physically alive entering the Millennium will live for the entirety of the Thousand Years.

The Elect—those disciples foreknown and predestined by the Father, called, justified, and glorified by Christ Jesus—are chosen as metaphorical lambs of God through being foreknown and predestined to be born of spirit in the darkness of the First Unleavened.

The Elect precede the remainder of humanity into the spiritual Sabbath as physical Israel preceded the remainder of humanity in keeping the Sabbaths of God. Thus, they are to bear fruit of the spirit when it isn’t the season for fruit. As such, they are penned as selected paschal lambs in obedience to God through being one with Christ Jesus and the Father … a disciple cannot imitate Christ Jesus and live as a Gentile; a disciple in whom Christ Jesus dwells cannot walk contrary to how Jesus walked as a man. A disciple born of spirit through the indwelling of the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] in the spirit of the person/man [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] becomes the personification of Christ Jesus, and thereby being forced by conscience to walk as Jesus, the earthly man, walked. Hence, no disciple born of spirit can willfully transgress the Commandments. Transgressions only occur because of the weakness of the flesh and inevitably are unintentional.

The Christian who willfully ignores the Sabbath simply has not been born of spirit. So too, the Christian who lacks love for others, the umbrella that condemns most of Sabbatarian Christian … how hard is it to have genuine love for the unlovable, the neighbor that is your enemy or the brother absolutely convinced you worship God in error? In this end of the calendar year season, how hard is it for you to let your light shine when circumstances conspire to promote spiritual darkness? It’s not difficult to let your light shine for a day, but is that all of the spiritual oil you have to burn? If it is, you now have to trust Christ Jesus to keep your light shining as you navigate through a maze of seasonal reminders of greater Christendom’s pagan ancestry.

In Sir Thomas More’s Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, a half million words written as a Platonic Dialogue with More instructing Tyndale on the basics of Christianity, More argues that the Roman Church has authority over the man Jesus because the traditions and structure of the Church predate the birth of Jesus. More’s Confutation affirms the importance of the “mysteries” in Roman dogma, and perhaps—if of fewer words—would have better made Luther’s case Concerning the Babylonish Captivity of the Church than Luther made in his writings so titled.

The Christmas season isn’t when Jesus was born: Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t say when Jesus was born, and Luke’s Gospel has shepherds still in the field, meaning that Jesus’ birth occurred before the fall rains began (see Ezra 10:9 for an example of the severity of these rains that caused shepherds to pen their flocks). A study of the subject of Jesus’ birth will have the man Jesus conceived on or near the end of December, but born on or about the fall Feast season (Trumpets through Tabernacles, the third of the three seasons when all Israelite males were to appear before God). Hence, if the Gospel of Luke’s birth chronology has validity, Jesus was born on the high Sabbath beginning Tabernacles [the 15^th day of the seventh month of the sacred year]. But Luke’s Gospel has serious problems when it comes to why Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. (Luke 2:1–5)

Roman taxing authority pertained to Roman citizens, not to non-citizens—and Quirinius was not governor of Syria during possible years for Jesus’ birth. … Luke’s Gospel by its author’s admission is a redaction of earlier writings and witness accounts (see Luke 1:1–4). And the Book of Acts presumably by the same author is not a factual history of the early Church, but is a Second Sophist historical novel, complete with the stock motifs of period Greek novels. The abrupt ending of Acts would seem to come from someone early-on tearing off the end of the text: the ending would have had Paul martyred in Rome and united with the glorified Christ in marriage, thereby ending the Christian era before Christ actually returns.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples that He has only spoken to them in figures of speech; in metaphorical language (John 16:25). Thus, the Christian who argues for “literal” reading of Scripture is as unspiritual as Jesus’ first disciples were before they received spiritual birth via receipt of the divine breath of the glorified Christ.

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father."

His disciples said, "Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God."

Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." (John 16:25–33 emphasis and double emphasis added)

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld." (John 20:19–23)

Being scattered, each disciple to his own home, results in leaving Jesus alone; results in abandoning Jesus, denying Him, until the disciple receives the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] in the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou]; until the disciple receives the breath of Christ in a manner similar to the glorified Jesus breathing on ten of His first disciples … it is not recorded that Thomas, even after he came to believe based on evidence [“He said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe’” — John 20:25], ever received the spirit of God. There is no record of Jesus directly transferring the Holy Spirit to Thomas, who didn’t come to believe via faith.

It is important to come to belief of God by faith, not via hard evidence such as the Second Passover liberation of Israel when all of greater Christendom will be suddenly filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God following the death of uncovered firstborns. Belief based on evidence isn’t belief based on faith. Belief coming from reading Scripture and the foolishness of preaching isn’t—I’m sorry to say—belief based on evidence although that is how too much of greater Christendom perceives the Bible: irrefutable evidence of God and of Christ Jesus … the harmony of the Gospels is a fiction: what color was the garment Roman soldiers placed on Jesus when they mocked Him? Mark’s Gospel has the garment purple, the color of royalty, and the correct color for mocking a royal pretender (Mark 15:17). But Matthew’s Gospel has the color scarlet/red, not purple; for the author of Matthew’s Gospel established Jesus’ claim to royalty in his genealogy of Jesus (properly absent in Mark’s Gospel) and therefore was free to emphasize the shed blood of Jesus, the scarlet color being that of oxygenated blood (see Matt 27:28).

How many women came to the Garden Tomb on the day after the Sabbath, one (John’s Gospel), two (Matthew’s Gospel), three (Mark’s Gospel), or many (Luke’s Gospel)?

What did the Father say and to whom did He speak when Jesus was raised from baptism? In Mark’s Gospel and in Luke’s Gospel, the Father spoke to Jesus, but in Matthew’s Gospel, the Father spoke to John the Baptist and others present. And in the first copies of Luke’s Gospel, the Father spoke differing words, those of Hebrews 1:5 and 5:5.

Faith that runs contrary to evidence is the hallmark of Christianity, but far too often, this faith originates in ignorance, not in knowledge … in repairing the breech between man and God, ignorance isn’t helpful. The Christian disciple needs to understand that the Bible is a humanly written book about divine subjects, inspired by God but redacted by uninspired scribes, thereby producing a mishmash, a realization that will be offensive to the person who believes without evidence that the Bible is the infallible word of God—

Go to the temptation of Jesus account in Matthew’s Gospel: from what tall mountain can all of the kingdoms of this earth and their glory be seen? “Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’” (Matt 4:8–9). From what mountain can the other side of the earth be seen? From what mountain the Middle East or Near East could the glory of the Chinese Empire be seen? From what mountain could the glory of the empire in Chili be seen? And why doesn’t Mark’s Gospel confirm Matthew’s temptation account? Compare the temptation account in Luke’s Gospel with the account in Matthew’s Gospel [for that manner, compare Jesus’ genealogy in Luke’s Gospel with Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel, and Luke’s genealogy isn’t that of Mary as is sometimes argued], then compare these two accounts with Mark’s Gospel:

The Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And He was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to Him. (Mark 1:12–13)

In Mark’s temptation account, the Adversary tempted Jesus not after forty days but throughout the forty days. Likewise, angels ministered to Jesus not after forty days but throughout this forty day period.

To believe with knowledge that Matthew’s Gospel has validity requires understanding that Matthew’s Gospel is about the indwelling Jesus that gives spiritual life to the Elect, with the disciple becoming the personification of Jesus. Many Christians within the greater Church will ask, What would Jesus do, in whatever situation the Christian encounters. But the Elect need not ask this question for the inner groaning of the spirit tells these disciples what Jesus would do, this groaning—the traditional word used but perhaps not the best word for feelings that become awareness via realization, or revelation via realization—coming from the indwelling of the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] in the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] that is in the soul [psuche] of the person, with the soul being to the spirit of the person as a wife is to her husband, spirit and soul being one as Adam and Eve were one flesh.

Therefore, how a person comes to believe God and by extension, the words of Jesus, has significance. For a person to believe today, during the First Unleavened, the person will voluntarily keep the Commandments, thereby walking in this world as Jesus walked before being filled with spirit and thereby liberated from indwelling sin and death. This disciple will struggle against the desires of the flesh and the allure of this world—and this person will occasionally come up short, not delivering on the promise that lies within him or her. But this disciple “wears” as a garment the cloak of Christ Jesus’ righteousness so that from the perspective to God, the person sports the righteousness of Christ, and is righteous, this righteousness coming not from the deeds of the person but from the person’s belief of Christ Jesus. Eventually, deeds will follow as belief of God takes on ontological presence, existence in this material world.

If earthly deeds never come from a disciple’s belief of God, what is it that the disciple believes? Does the disciple believe that his or her belief differs from that of Abraham, whose belief was counted as righteousness but who nevertheless had his belief tested by works (his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, his son of promise)? What would have happened if Abraham, believing God that his heir would come from his loins and that Sarah would bear this son, had refused to sacrifice Isaac? Abraham’s belief of God was counted as righteousness: would Abraham’s belief of God still be counted as righteousness if he had refused to sacrifice the son of promise? What would the Lord have done? Ignore Abraham’s disobedience that would have been unbelief? How deep was Abraham’s belief?

Abraham’s belief was deep enough that he had the knife poised to slit Isaac’s throat before the Lord intervened.

And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of [YHWH] called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. (Gen 22:7–13 emphasis added)

For the Christian who believes that he or she is saved by faith alone—Martin Luther’s argument—why wasn’t Abraham saved by faith alone? Why was Abraham tested? What was to be gained by testing Abraham’s faith, his belief of God, if righteousness based on faith is sufficient for salvation?

And we return to Peter feeding the sheep—no longer lambs for these disciples now have “faith of equal standing with ours” (2 Pet 1:1) …

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. (2 Pet 1:3–7 emphasis added)

Faith alone has never been enough for the Elect who are given salvation through being foreknown, predestined, called, and justified while this inner self of the person still dwells in a tabernacle of flesh … the problem that has stymied greater Christendom since mid 1^st-Century CE is one of semantics: a Christian isn’t the fleshly body of a humanly born person, but is the living inner self that has been born of spirit through the indwelling of Christ Jesus.

No person is humanly born with a living soul [psuche]. Every person is humanly born with one breath of life, the breath that Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into the nostrils of the first Adam (Gen 2:7), this breath making Adam a nephesh, a breathing creature—a feminine noun that places the earthly body of the living creature in the helpmate position to the breath of life (received from the Lord) that animates the fleshly body.

Consider for a moment your fleshly body’s relationship to the breath of life that you breathe; that supplies oxygen molecules delivered via red blood cells to every cell in the body to support cellular oxidation, the dark fire that sustains physical life. Without this breath of life, there would be no life. Therefore, the fleshly body is dependent upon its breath for its life.

The relationship between Adam and Eve—between a man and his wife—visually demonstrates the relationship between the breath of a living creature and the living creature, the nephesh.

The wife serves as the body of the man …

Without the woman, man has no offspring. The man ejaculates “life” or his “life-force,” thereby expelling from himself that which gives life; whereas the woman receives the man’s life which unites with hers to form offspring, not in the man’s body but in the wife’s body, effectively causing the wife to serve as the body of the man.

Paul wrote, “But I want you [Corinthians] to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3) … the relationship of a man to his wife is analogous to the relationship between Christ Jesus and the Church; is analogous to the relationship between God the Father and Christ Jesus, with the spirit of the Father [pneuma Theou] having entered the man Jesus in the bodily form of a dove when Jesus was raised from baptism (Mark 1:10). Therefore as a man enters his wife for the purpose of procreation, the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] enters the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] for the purpose of divine procreation, bringing to birth sons of God.

Throughout this humanly long period that is, with God, today (the physical dark portion and the spiritual—post Resurrection—light portion), Israel has been the firstborn son of God, which unfortunately doesn’t mean that all of Israel, physical or spiritual, is saved. Rather it means that Israel is sanctified, that is made special.

If the outwardly circumcised nation of Israel believed God, believed enough to obey God, then salvation was possible for this people. If the inwardly circumcised nation of Israel believed God through hearing the voice and words of Christ Jesus, this nation of inner selves would be saved. But without belief of God manifested ontologically so as this belief has presence in the deeds of the Believer, the person lacks faith and cannot please God and simply will not be in the kingdom.

Regardless of what Christians have been taught about faith alone is sufficient for salvation, faith as expressed by the Greek word pisteos has ontological presence through works done by the Believer that visibly express the inner belief of the Believer. These works are not those of slaughter or bloodletting, but those of expressing love for neighbor and brother through feeding the hungry and giving shelter to the homeless; those of expressing love for God by keeping His Sabbaths, not blaspheming His name, having no other gods but the Most High God.

Manifested love for God, brother, and neighbor requires works as the outer reality of inner belief of God, inner faith.

Do not permit Christian teachers of lawlessness to bottle-up Christian faith in clay vessels as if faith were home-canned fruit to be opened on winter nights … if faith is not interactive, the Christian’s faith is dead, spoiled, toxic to the Believer. Unexpressed faith is expressed unbelief.

As it is said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. (Heb 3:15–19 emphasis added)

Elsewhere, Moses recorded,

And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt." Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, "The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them." Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of [YHWH] appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And [YHWH] said to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they." (Num 14:2–12 emphasis added)

To not believe the Lord [spiritual unbelief] is to despise the Lord. And what do you suppose the chances are for the person who despises the Lord being saved?

Actually, the chances are better than you might imagine; for the justification for the Affliction, followed by its mirror image, the Endurance of Jesus—collectively, the seven endtime years of tribulation—is to change minds and hearts, transforming stone into flesh and flesh into spirit. But these years will be unlike any humankind has previously experienced.

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