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January 28, 2007
©Homer Kizer Commentary — From the Margins
What’s
absent from Scripture?
Plain Talk! Before examining Christ’s justification for His Sabbath saving activities, attention should be drawn to the verb “answered—άπεχρίνατο” used by John to introduce Christ’s defense. Mario Veloso, in his incisive analysis of this passage, notes that this verbal form occurs only twice in John (Veloso, Mario. El Compromiso Cristiano. 1975; pp 118-119). The first time when Christ replies to the accusation of the Jews (5:17) and the second time when He clarifies the answer given (5:19). The common form used by John over fifty times is “άπεχρίθη” which in English is also translated “answered.” The special use of the middle voice of the verb “άπεχρίνατο” implies, on the one hand as Veloso explains, a public and formal defense and on the other hand, as expressed by J. H. Moulton, that “the agent is extremely related to the action” (Moulton, J.H. A grammar of the New Testament Greek. 1908; pp. 153, 157). This means not only that Christ makes a formal defense but that He also identifies Himself with the content of His answer. The few words of Christ’s defense deserve, therefore, careful attention. —Samuele Bacchiocchi Ph.D. (From Sabbath to Sunday. _____________ This
Commentary will be first of several that address the issue of scholarship. To
keep these Commentaries from becoming too long, they will be broken into
approximately six to seven thousand word lengths. 1. At
the time of the Feast of Dedication, Jesus, in the temple, was asked by the
Jews, ‘“How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the
Christ, tell us plainly’” (John 10:24). But Jesus did not then even
speak to His own disciples plainly. On the Preparation Day, the day of His
crucifixion, Jesus said to His disciples, ‘“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’”
(John 16:25-26). So that day was not
the Preparation Day as His disciples then thought (v. 29); for the period when the first disciples would ask the
Father directly in Jesus’ name did not begin until after Calvary, until
after they were born of Spirit through receipt of the divine Breath of God. After Jesus told the crowd that followed Him a
series of parables, Matthew records, “All these things Jesus said to the
crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. This was
to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in
parables; / I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the
world’” (Matt 13:34-35; cf.
Ps 78:2-3 — note Ps 78:4. The dark things of God will not be forever
hidden from However, when Jesus’ disciples asked Him why
He spoke in parables, He answered, ‘“To you it has been given to
know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them [the gathered crowd] it
has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will
have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken
away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see,
and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand’” (Matt
13:11-13). The hidden things of God are not to be revealed to
human beings who have not been born of Spirit; for without being born of
Spirit, no person can understand these hidden things of God … circular
reasoning certainly, but the logic for why even those who are born of Spirit wrestle
to understand earthly examples [i.e., metaphors] of heavenly things. And
perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to understand is that the man Jesus,
entering His creation as His son, His only (John 3:16), did not speak His own
words during His earthly ministry, but spoke the words of His spiritual Father,
the Most High God, Θεον, previously not known to Israel.
His actual Father, Θεος, was the Logos [Λογος], the spokesman for the Most
High. Their relationship is disclosed by Moses being as God to Aaron (Exod
4:16), two brothers according to the flesh, with Aaron delivering the words of
Moses to Israel, the two functioning as one entity in a manner analogous to how
a man and his wife become one flesh through unity even though they are two. For
YHWH Elohim made humankind in the
image of YHWH Elohim; “male and
female he created them” (Gen 1:27). So the “female” aspect of
God is contained in the Logos, who
came as the man Jesus. The hidden things of God that cannot be understood
through human intellect have the Woman speaking not her own words but the words
of her Husband yesterday, today, and tomorrow, changing not (Heb 13:8). This
“Woman” or Helpmate[1]
caused the physical universe to come into being (John 1:3), then brought life
to the first Adam (Gen 2:7) before entering His
creation as the man Jesus (John 1:14). Gender-specific nouns and pronouns
hinder understanding the hidden things of God, those things that are concealed
by the physical creation, and concealed within the patriarchal structure of Judaism
and Christendom. The man Jesus did not avoid women, nor did He socially
discriminate against women. Rather, He was in the company of women while
leading about twelve male disciples, chosen by the Father (John 6:44; 17:6).
Therefore, within the scope of the Apostle Paul’s instructions in his
epistles, the prevention of a woman by men other than her husband from speaking
the words of the Father exists as an affront to the Creator of all that is, the
Woman or Helpmate of the Most High God. But for the sake of the angels who know
that Theos [Θεος]
was the Helpmate of Theon
[Θεοn] before He “died” in the heavenly
realm by entering His creation as His Son, biological women are not to exercise
authority over biological men. Theos did
not exercise authority over Theon;
nor does the glorified Son exercise authority over the Father. So women are to
learn quietly at home until the one under whose authority they are sends them
forth to speak the husband’s words … as a Christian, the only words
that are to be spoken are those of the Father. When sent forth as Theon sent Theos into His creation, the woman can speak all of the words of
her husband as long as those words are also the words of the Father. A wife is not in subjection to many men, but to her
husband as the husband is in subjection to Christ Jesus. Therefore, the woman
without a husband is not in subjection to strangers, but to Christ Jesus. She
is not to speak unless given permission to do so by Christ, a situation that
occurs when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh and a condition that can
be manifest before the baptism of the world in Spirit. But because of the
potential abuse of this latter condition, the one (male or female) who claims
to have been sent by Christ to speak but has not been condemns him or herself
to the lake of fire. No amount of worldly acclaim or fiscal security is worth
condemnation, especially when humankind is this close to the return of Christ
Jesus. A woman should carefully consider coming under the
subjection of her husband before she marries; for once she marries, she agrees
that her husband shall be her lord, an archaic idea fully supported in
Scripture— When Jesus asked His disciples who do people say
that the Son of Man is, He received answers that reflected popular concepts
within Israel: ‘“Some say John the Baptist, other say Elijah, and
others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’” (Matt 16:14). Jesus then
modified His question, asking, ‘“But who do you say that I
am’” (v. 15). Peter
answered, ‘“You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God’” (v. 16). Jesus then
said that no human being had revealed that knowledge to Peter, that the Father
had made this known to Peter, and He said, ‘“And I tell you, you
are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it’” (v.
18) … what did Jesus mean when He said that the gates of Hades would not
prevail against the called-out ones? He certainly did not mean that there would
not be a falling away from Truth, for all in Asia had left Paul (2 Tim 1:15),
who laid the foundation for the heavenly house of God, this foundation being
Christ Jesus (1 Cor 3:10-11), while Paul still lived. Plus, those in Called-out disciples form the spiritual Body of the
Son of Man, with Christ Jesus being the uncovered Head of this Son of Man. The
Apostle Paul wrote, Therefore, as the trespass of one led to
condemnation for all men, so the act of righteousness of one leads to
justification and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience the
many were made sinners, so by the one’s obedience the many will be made
righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass [no sin was counted
against humankind before the coming of the law – Rom 5:13], but where sin
increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace
also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace
may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you
not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in
order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom 5:18-6:4) Wedged
in the lacunae between Calvary and
when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Father and His Son
(Rev 11:15; cf. Dan 7:9-14) halfway
through seven endtime years of tribulation is the entirety of the Church era or
Church age, the period of time that began when Jesus breathed on ten of His
disciples and said, ‘“Receive the Holy Spirit [Πνευμα
Άγιον or Breath Holy]’” (John 20:22), and
that ends when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28), thereby
ending being “called-out.” The
έκκλησία or Church was baptized into
Jesus’ death in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead, the
Church could walk in newness of life; i.e., in a new life of obedience to God.
Thus, the Apostle Paul continues, For if we have been united with him in a death like
his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know
that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be
brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who
has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we
believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from
the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the
death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to
God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you
obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for
unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from
death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For
sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under
grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under
grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as
obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which
leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Rom 6:5-17) Sin
is, simply, the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). The person who breaks
the law in one point breaks the law, and is a sinner, having presented him or
herself as a willing servant to sin. Before being born of Spirit, every
disciple was consigned to sin (Rom 11:32) as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2-3).
The person had no choice, but was condemned to disobedience because of one man.
However, the new creature born of Spirit is born free, and sin has no dominion
over this new creature unless this new creature voluntarily presents itself to
sin as its willing servant. So, since sin no longer has dominion over the
called-out ones, the Church, these called-out ones can be raised from the dead
as the glory of the Father raised Jesus from the dead, with this resurrection
from the dead to occur when judgments are revealed (1 Cor 4:5) upon
Christ’s return. But once Jesus was made sin on the Cross, His body
died, and He laid dead in the heart of the earth for three days and three
nights. And the body of Him who was without sin, yet who voluntarily took sin
onto Himself, serves as the shadow and copy [the type] of disciples domiciled
in tents of flesh in which sin and death continue to reside. Collectively,
disciples form the Body of Christ. So when this sinless Body—made
righteous through grace—voluntarily takes sin into itself, it too will
die as Jesus died; for it too has been crucified on the Cross with Jesus. And
without here constructing an elaborate argument, this Body voluntarily took sin
into itself when it ceased keeping the Sabbath commandment. If the Body of Christ voluntarily returns to
disobedience, this Body will die! The gates of hell, however, will not prevail
over the Church just as the gates of hell could not prevail over the earthly
body of the man Jesus. What was buried as the perishable body of the man Jesus
was resurrected to become the imperishable body of the glorified Christ Jesus.
What was buried in spiritual Three and a half days occur between when Jesus dies
on the Cross (about the 9th hour of the day portion of the 14th
of Abib, the Preparation Day for the first High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread)
and when He appears before the Father as the reality of the Wave Sheaf
Offering, offered about the 3rd hour of the weekly Sabbath that
occurs within the week of Unleavened Bread. For three days and three nights of
these three and a half days, He lies dead in the Garden Tomb. As the sun sets on the 14th of Abib,
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take the body of Jesus from the Cross, bind
it in linen cloths with spices, and place it in the Garden Tomb. Thus, Jesus
lies in heart of the earth all of the 15th of Abib, the first high
Sabbath of Unleavened Bread, and all of the 16th of Abib, the day when
the women who had come with Him from Galilee saw the tomb and how his body was
laid and went to prepare spices and ointments (Luke 23:56), work they would not
have done on the high Sabbath. Jesus continued to lie in the Garden Tomb all of
the 17th, the weekly Sabbath, when the women rested according to the
commandment … three days and three nights were up when the weekly Sabbath
ended at the beginning of the 18th of Abib, the first day of the
week. Daylight was still twelve hours away. But according to Jesus’
prophecy of Himself, and according to the Hebraic story of Jonah in which
linguistic ambiguity as to how long Jonah was in the belly of the fish does not
exist, Jesus was resurrected at the beginning of the first day of the week,
hours before Mary Magdalene found that the stone had been rolled from the
tomb’s entrance. What did Jesus do during those twelve hours between
when He was resurrected and when dawn came? And what do these twelve
unaccounted-for hours signify? During the three hours between when Jesus died and
when His body was placed in the Garden Tomb, the body of Jesus was visible to
all in Jerusalem to see if they so desired. His dead body was then concealed in
the heart of the earth and in darkness for three and a half days. Only when the
sun rose after three days was the body of Jesus again visible, but not
immediately recognizable. His voice, though, remained recognizable. And even
after He had ascended to His Father and had returned, He was not recognizable
to the two disciples going to Emmaus. Everything recorded in Scripture forms the shadow
and copy of the heavenly Book of Life in which the lives of disciples are
epistles written with Spirit on tablets of flesh. The Body of Christ Jesus—the called out
saints—was visible in Jerusalem for three plus decades after Calvary, but
once the visible Body of Christ flees to Pella, the Body becomes invisible in a
manner similar to how Jesus’ body was buried for three days and three
nights. Oh, Christian fellowships continued to visibly exist, especially the
ones that left Paul while he yet lived. But these fellowships failed to
understand grace as the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness. These
fellowships were predominantly Greek; they had Greek values, Greek assumptions,
Greek traditions and practices. They began to spurn everything Jewish. And they
died spiritually—those individuals whom the Father had made alive by
causing called-out human beings to be born of Spirit voluntarily returned to
being bondservants to sin and death. But the gates of hell would not prevail against the
Church. As the earthly body of the man Jesus was
resurrected after three days and three nights, the spiritual Body of the Son of
Man will be resurrected on the year of Jubilee after a period spiritually
equivalent to the three days and three nights. The suggestion of Scripture is
that this resurrection to life occurs on the Second Passover liberation of The gates of hell will not prevail against the
Church because the spiritual Body of Christ will be resurrected from death as
the physical body of Christ was resurrected some twelve hours before dawn, with
spiritual dawn to occur when the Lord fights against armies surrounding
Jerusalem on a day of battle (Zech 14:3-4). In all things pertaining to Scripture, the visible
reveals the invisible (Rom 1:20), and the physical precedes the spiritual (1
Cor 15:46). Thus, what happens to Jesus’ visible, physical body forms the
shadow and copy of what happens to His invisible, spiritual Body, the assembly
of called-out disciples that began the afternoon of the day Jesus ascended to
the Father after His resurrection from the bowels of the earth. Jesus’ physical body hung visibly lifeless on
the Cross before being concealed in the Garden Tomb. It is difficult to
contemplate that despite the flourish of activity recorded in Acts, the early
Church—between the Circumcision Factor and those fellowships that left
Paul—was not the living, vibrant Body of Christ, but the spiritual
reality of His crucified body before being anointed with spices. For too long,
the smell of anointing spices has wafted through historical narratives,
concealing from the senses what was plainly evident: the Body of Christ was
dead in its lawlessness. Only a disciple here and one there had life. God dwells in timelessness. All units of time
pertain to this world. So saying how long the physical twelve hours of darkness
on the first day of the week represent spiritually might not be yet possible.
Needless to say, the unit of time is much shorter than the period during which
the Body of Christ laid dead in the heart of the earth. And the plain speech of
Jesus, unrecorded in Scripture, would have conveyed knowledge to the first
disciples that will not again be available until the Body is resurrected from
death, or immediately preceding this resurrection. 2. Two
concepts concealed from Judaism and from Hellenist disciples by the
physicalness of the creation are that (1) the heavenly realm or dimension is
timeless, and that (2) Genesis “P” creation account is the abstract
of the plan of God, which is not a redemptive work but is a creative
work that will not be finished until the great White Throne Judgment is
complete. This latter concept is open to being refuted by Jesus, for on the
Cross and immediately before He died, He said, ‘“It is
finished’” (John 19:30). Yes, Jesus’ work of creating was
finished, but Jesus was born the natural Son of the Logos who was Theos
[Θεος], not Theon
[Θεον] (John 1:1-2). He became the beloved Son of Theon when the divine Breath of the Most
High descended upon Him as a dove (Matt 3:16-17). So again, before receiving a
second life from receipt of the Breath of God, the man Jesus was the only Son
of Theos, who created the physical
universe and all that is in it (John 1:3), so Theos’ work of creating was finished on the Cross. But the
work of Theon had only begun: the
work of Theon is that of the
spiritual creation foreshadowed and anticipated by the physical creation. Thus,
two births become the model for fulfilling all righteousness (Matt 3:15), with
this second birth being of Spirit. Jesus was not born with an immortal soul: there
would have been no need to visibly receive the divine Breath of God
[Πνευμα Άγιον] to
fulfill all righteousness if the descendants of the first Adam were born with
immortal souls … when resurrected from death, Jesus ascended to the
throne of Theon, His Father and His
God (John 20:17), where He was accepted as the First of the firstfruits, the
first sheaf of the early barley harvest. And the called-out ones, the
έκκλησία, form the remainder of this
spring barley harvest, but before they can be accepted [or rejected] they must
first be born of Spirit (John 3:3-8), grow, mature or ripen, and be harvested. Before any human being enters the kingdom of
heaven, the human being must be twice born, and twice given life spiritually.
The first birth is of the water of the womb; the second birth is of Spirit,
with this birth coming from the Father giving spiritual life that will be
domiciled in a tent of flesh. The second giving of spiritual life comes from
the glorified Son (John 5:21) when He causes the mortal flesh to become
immortal, changing from perishable to imperishable. Thus, the first birth comes
from Elohim [singular in usage]
breathing physical life into the nostrils of the first Adam (Gen 2:7), with
this one member of the plural Elohim
being Yah or Theos, the front half of the Tetragrammaton YHWH, which deconstructs to the radicals /YH/ + /WH/, agreeing in
number and quality with what John writes at the beginning of his gospel. Elohim is the regular plural of Eloah, which deconstructs to /El/ + /ah/, with the radical /ah/
linguistically representing breath or aspiration (the radical /El/ is the Hebrew linguistic icon used
for /God/, as seen in El Shaddai, God
Almighty). The Apostle Paul separates the Breath of Christ
[Πνευμα
Χριστου] (Rom 8:9) from the Breath of the
one who raised Christ from the dead [Πνευμα
του έγείραντος
Ίησουν έκ
νεκρων] (Rom 8:11). Therefore, what the early
Christology debates failed to incorporate (because the Body was dead in sin) is
what Jesus came to reveal, the Father. The Logos
as Theos was the only deity that
ancient Israel knew although King David understood that Yah represented only the visible or revealed portion of YHWH (Ps 146:1; 148:1; 149:1). The Apostle Paul began his epistles with some form
of saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.” He does not give personhood to the Breath of either Jesus or to
the Breath of the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead. It is the dead Body
of Christ that assigns personhood to the Breath of God; it is the dead Body
that denies that Theos was the only
God Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew. So for Christians God is neither a trinity,
nor a single entity: God is two that function as one, with the
“female” half of the two doing the actual work of creating the
physical universe, a work finished on the Cross when the pathway between the
creative work of Theos and Theon was completed. And in a
visualization of the work of these two, physically living human beings prior to
be born of Spirit can be perceived as the unfertilized ovum in the womb of a
woman. The womb now becomes the creation. Fertilization is birth by Spirit,
coming from the Father. Incubation is the period when this spiritual life
remains domiciled in a tent of flesh. Birth becomes glorification, but this
birth comes to those who have already been made spiritually alive. Hence, prior
to being born of Spirit, the ovum [the living person] has no spiritual life, no
immortal soul, no anything but the life received from the cellular oxidation of
sugars. The flesh is activated dead clay. A genuine Christian is a Binitarian, for Jesus has
revealed the Father to His disciples. And the redemption of Over the centuries, much scholarship has been
produced about the work of God being a redemptive work, a redeeming of fallen
humankind from sin. Contained within all of this scholarship is the assumption that human beings are born
with immortal souls, but this assumption comes not from Moses or the Prophets,
but from Hellenist philosophy which borrowed the idea from the Egyptians. And
as the first Eve believed the serpent when it said, ‘“You will not
surely die”’ (Gen 3:4), the last Eve believed that old serpent,
Satan the devil, when he said, “You will not surely die; you have an
immortal soul.” Thus, the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “I do not
permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man … For Adam
was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was
deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim 2:12-14). The last Adam,
Christ Jesus (1 Cor 15:45; Rom 5:14), was created first, and He was not
deceived by Satan, but overcame Satan. However, the last Eve, the Church, was
deceived and became a transgressor, dead in her sins even after being made
alive by the Father. 3. When
it comes to plain talk, referencing the scholarship of those who have
voluntarily made themselves bondservants to sin is not particularly helpful.
Likewise, the scholarship of those natural Israelites who have not yet been
born of Spirit is not terribly helpful. And what a person is left-with is hearing
the voice of Jesus, an unreliable source of knowledge as far as academia is
concerned. A little modern work has been done by Dr. Samuele
Bacchiocchi, who was treated as a separated brother while he completed his
graduate studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome; but even Dr.
Bacchiocchi suffers from assigning personhood to the divine Breath of God, and
from the dead Body’s historic acceptance of the Serpent’s lie that
human beings will not surely die. Therefore, while Dr. Bacchiocchi raises valid
objections to the lawless church’s practice of worshipping God on the 8th
day, his conclusions are either seriously flawed, or incomplete at best.
Nevertheless, because he raises valid objections, and because he records how
others have noticed the connection between the Sabbath and Passover, some of
his scholarship will be cited. Before proceeding, though, one important scriptural
passage needs examined: Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to
the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for
you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed
me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They
asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and
walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus
found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more,
that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the
Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were
persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus
answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to
kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling
God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:9-18) As Aaron spoke only Moses’ words to Israel
[with the notable exception of the golden calf incident], Yah as the Logos spoke
only the words of the Father to Israel before He came as His Son, His only, and
He spoke only the words of the Father after He came as the man Jesus of
Nazareth. He did not speak His own words. Words come from the modulated breath of a person.
The words of God come from the modulated Breath of God. The utterances of the
Father through the modulated divine Breath of God [the Holy Spirit], however,
are not limited to the movement of air in sound waves. Rather, the words of the
Father are speech-acts that include performance as well as sound. Since Jesus
did not speak any of His words, but only the words/speech-acts of the Father,
the miracles Jesus performed become the speech-acts of the Father, who dwells
in timelessness. Without the passage of one moment to the next
moment in heaven, all activity takes place within the same moment …
heaven, itself, is represented by the Sabbath rest. Therefore, the
Father’s delivery of His speech-acts on a particular day within the
created universe causes special significance to be assigned to that day; for
the Father could have delivered His speech-acts on any day of the week or month
or year. He does all of His work within the same moment; so He has to make a
concerted effort to have His speech-acts delivered on a particular day if they
are not to be delivered on any changing moment within time. In plainer speech,
if the Father did not choose to figuratively deliver a sermon on the Sabbath
through His speech-act of healing the invalid, He would have caused the invalid
to be healed on another day, or most likely, healed without any attention being
attracted by the healing. Therefore, by Jesus delivering the speech-acts of
the Father on the Sabbath, the Father does more than connect the Sabbath to the
redemptive work of God. The Father places His stamp of approval on the Sabbath,
thus transferring the holiness of YHWH
Elohim resting on the seventh day to the work He does through the man
Jesus, this work the on-going activity of giving life to that which is dead—and
this work had only begun with the man Jesus. Understand: the man Jesus as the
last Adam was the first human being to be twice born. Because His natural
Father had not descended from the first Adam but was Theos, the Spokesman for the Father, Jesus was not born consigned
to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as all other human beings had been since the first
Adam was driven from the garden of God; and because Jesus was not born the
bondservant of lawlessness, He was free to keep the commandments of God, which
He had uttered from atop Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments are His
commandments, just as they are the Father’s. Jesus was born of water from the womb of Mary, a
woman greatly honored, but nevertheless a human being who had not yet been, at
the time of Jesus’ birth, born of Spirit. Jesus was born of Spirit when
the divine Breath of the Father descended upon Him as a dove. He was first. He
was, at that moment when the dove lit, again given life in the heavenly
realm—and this is what He meant when He said He must fulfill all
righteousness. This is what John the Baptist did not understand. And this is
what those early Church fathers were never able to grasp during their
Christology debates. Jesus had been twice made alive when He was
crucified; yet, He still did not have the glory He had before He entered His
creation as His only Son. Thus, His prayer just prior to being taken was that
the Father should glorify Him in the Father’s presence, returning to Him
the glory He had before He “died” in the heavenly realm by entering
His creation as His Son [if He had come as Himself, He would have come in a
glorified body, not in a tent of flesh] (John 17:5). The body of the man Jesus, which would again be
given glory, died on the Cross at But the body of flesh only had one of the two
lives Jesus possessed when crucified. What happened to this other life is a
little vague, for the Apostle Peter says, “For Christ also suffered once
for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh but made
alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
because they formerly did not obey” (1 Pet 3:18-20 emphasis added). And
the question emerges: can life without a body or a tent, mortal or immortal,
proclaim obedience to imprisoned spirits, or fallen angels? Jesus, who spoke
plainly to Peter during the forty days, apparently told Peter something that
Peter only partially addresses or develops. However, for disciples who had no
life in the heavenly realm prior to being born of Spirit, this spiritual life
“sleeps” as described when the fifth seal will be opened by the
Lamb on the Lord’s day: When he [the Lamb] opened the fifth seal, I saw
under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and
for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O
Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our
blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white
robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow
servants and brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they
themselves had been. (Rev 6:9-11) At death, the body every disciple had prior to
being born of Spirit will return to dust. The life that animated this body will
dissipate into nothingness, but the life that came from being born of Spirit
will return to God, where it has been recorded in the Book of Life. It is this
life that now awaits the hour of judgment, either in a tent of flesh or under
the altar. The historic Sabbatarian Churches of God have
taught that the physical breath of the person returned to God when a person
dies, but this physical breath came only indirectly from God. What came
directly from God—and what these Churches deny that saints possess—is
life in the heavenly realm, this life coming through being born of Spirit
… prior to be drawn by the Father from the world, a person is [shallow]
breath and body, “psuche and soma—ψυχήν
καί σωμα.” But after being drawn and
being born of Spirit, the person is [deep] breath and [shallow] breath and the
body, “πνευμα καί ή
ψυχή καί τό
σωμα” (1 Thess 5:23). Life from deep breath is life
from being born of Spirit, whereas life from shallow breath is life coming from
the first Adam and first Eve. Thus, every disciple has been born of Spirit, but
only those whom the Father has drawn from the world, the
έκκλησία, presently have life in the
heavenly realm, or in that portion of the heavenly realm within the void formed
when the fabric of heaven ruptured. And what becomes readily apparent is the
lack of spiritual understanding possessed by the Sabbatarian Churches of God. * Allow me to here
pause—I’ll pick up this third section when I return to this
extended Commentary after putting wood in the fire. But I would like to place
as much of this piece as has been completed on the Web as soon as possible, the
advantage of electronic publication, so I’m now giving this to my
spokesperson, my wife, who delivers my words to those who read or listen. * * * "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." [ Current Commentary ] [ Archived Commentaries ] [ Home ] [1]. With God, there is no biological gender, male or
female, but the spiritual relationship contained within the metaphor of Husband
and Wife was first applicable to Theon and Theos before Theos entered His creation as His only Son. This metaphoric
relationship will apply to the glorified Son and to glorified saints when the
Bridegroom “marries” His Bride. |