January 29, 2004 ©Homer Kizer
Commentary – From the Margins
Is a New War Scroll Needed?
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When God sets His hand to recover Israel a second time, He brings His holy nation out of the north country (Isa 11:11–16 & Jer 16:15). But this holy nation is no longer circumcised Israel. It is spiritual Israel. And north is not a compass direction. North doesn’t reference a magnetic North Pole, or the North Star, but rather, darkness. It signifies an absence of light. North is the realm of death. And Assyria is a mental landscape, not the modern nation of Germany as has been taught by the prophets pundits of Israel. After three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, Jonah went to Nineveh in the physical nation of Assyria. After three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, the glorified Christ went to the spiritual nation of Assyria, which didn’t have geographical coordination, but was the spiritually unenlightened, mental topography of humanity. After a century and a half, physical Nineveh no longer believed Jonah, but returned to its evil ways. As a result Assyria was defeated and captured by Babylon. Likewise, spiritual Nineveh and by extension spiritual Assyria went into Babylonian captivity when the Church, as the second Eve, swallowed the serpent’s lie that she would not die just as the first Eve had swallowed the same lie (Gen 3:4).
The linguistic problem of mixing metaphors becomes inescapable when transferring phenomena from the visible, physical universe into the invisible, supra-dimensional realm usually identified as heaven. It is through these mixed metaphors that the activities of human beings, governed by their mental landscapes, form the shadows of (or reflect) events in the timeless, supernal realm. And the mental topography of humanity is just as real as is the physical geography of the earth. It is merely more difficult to visualize a grid of thought stretching from person to person than it is to see physical landscapes.
If human thoughts did not cross dimensions and appear as substance in the heavenly realm, then unspoken prayers would not, nor could not be answered. The essence of understanding the relationship between spiritual and physical is in comprehending the relationship between the spiritual laws of God written on hearts through receipt of the Breath of God and the physical laws of God that entered physical Israelites through their ears hearing the uttered Breath of YHWH from atop Mt. Sinai. Jesus said, ‘“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 uttered Breath of YHWH, in producing the visible (in this case, audible) physical shadow of the invisible spiritual law of love, said, No adultery, one of the Ten Commandments. The Holy Spirit or Pneuma ’Agion [Breath Holy] transforms intent, or thought into the spiritual equivalent of action. Mental anger or hate is the spiritual equivalent of the physical act of murder. So Jesus didn’t magnify the physical Ten Commandments, He reveals through two key commandments the relationship between the spiritual laws of God that have been written on the hearts and mind of drawn disciples and the old written code. Disciples are to be ruled by these spiritual laws— disciples are to be ruled by their minds, not by the appetites of their flesh. Therefore, all Ten Commandments address the outward actions of disciples, actions that will or won’t occur as disciples are ruled by the laws of God written on their hearts and minds.
In the preceding portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount — the spiritual equivalent of the Logos as the Spokesperson for YHWH uttering the physical Law from atop Mt. Sinai — Jesus said,
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:17–20).
The scribes and Pharisees were hypocrites (Matt chptr 23). They had the Law, and they knew to keep it, but none of them were (John 7:19). The scribes and the Pharisees were not keeping the law of Moses; they were never obedient; they never walked in the ways of God. They were men-pleasers. They sought to establish their own righteousness (Rom 10:3). They never took advantage of God’s offer to them of spiritually circumcised hearts and minds [naphesh] made in the second covenant of Moses (Deu 29:1 & 30:6).
All that is required for salvation if to hear the words of Jesus and to believe the One who sent Him (John 5:24). Nothing more is asked of a person. And Jesus said that whoever relaxes the least of the commandments contained in the Law will be called least in the kingdom, if the person is not a hypocrite. If the person knows to keep the commandments and doesn’t, the person’s righteousness doesn’t exceed that of the Pharisees. And in the person’s judgment, he or she can explain to Jesus why He doesn’t mean what He seems to say. But if the person when resurrect is experiencing judgment, the person wasn’t resurrected to life (v. 29). The person will go into the lake of fire — salvation is just this simple. Hear with the mind the words that are spiritual, and believe by putting into physical practice what the mind has heard. Disciples have spiritual life inside a body of flesh. The spiritual maturation process is a disciple learning to rule his or her flesh by the person’s thoughts. And the demonstration of successful rule will be for the disciple’s flesh to keep the physical commandments of God.
Jesus said the test would be whether the disciple keeps the least of the commandments. And perhaps the least important commandment is the Sabbath, so whether a person will keep the Sabbath reveals whether the person will keep the weightier matters of the laws of God, written on hearts and minds. The Sabbath is really of great importance as a visual referent for all to see of whether a person believes the Father. It is a commandment that can be dismissed with the person still appearing to be spiritually good, but failing to keep the Sabbath demonstrates rebellion toward the Father and Son. So you decide whether you want to hear the words of Jesus and believe them, or tell Him in your judgment that He really didn’t mean what He said. He will be your judge; He knows what He said. And so do you.
Biblical literalists are not really literalists at all. The are, rather, physically minded disciples who remain fearful of the excesses of the equally physically minded Alexandrian allegorists. Two centuries after Christ brought spiritual enlightenment to the mental topography of drawn disciples (John 6:44), very few disciples were still hearing His words and believing the One who raised Him from the dead. The allegorists sought enlightenment through flights of imagination rather than through living within the laws of God. And it is their theological descendents that have controlled Christian orthodoxy ever since.
In Qumran’s War Scroll, the Sons of Light fight against the sons of darkness. The Apostle John uses the Light versus Darkness metaphor. And in a theological context, light doesn’t represent as much as it does life, with darkness representing death as opposed to evil. Of course, the extension from good to life and from evil to death exists: Jesus said not to be surprised when those who have done good are resurrected to life and those who have done evil are resurrected to condemnation (John 5:29). So doing good leads to life and doing evil produces death, with both good and evil being defined within the context of resurrection from death. Again, doing good is hearing the words of Jesus and believing the One who sent Him. Belief doesn’t mean acknowledging Jesus (even the angels believe), but the conscious application of the words of Jesus.
A new war scroll needs written, this one about the saints of Philadelphia’s fight against the prophets of darkness, Satan’s disguised ministers of righteousness. The spiritual birth process has two steps, spiritual maturation within time in a body of flesh, and receipt of a glorified body when Christ returns and the judgment of disciples is revealed (1 Cor 4:5). Likewise, the saints’ fight against the sons of darkness and their spiritual overlords assumes the qualities of science fiction, as the saints fight within the realm of ideas for control of the metal topography of humanity. Their fight is against both physical opponents with nearly unlimited physical resources, and against adversaries of another dimension, adversaries that cannot be seen or measured. These adversaries are the puppeteers for the sons of darkness, with the principle Adversary able to rule human mental landscapes from his position as the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2). Until the second Passover, this Adversary is also able to effect the mental landscapes of the Sons of Light, thereby causing many to abandon the fight as a lost cause— and sending many more down the deadend trail that has a German-led European federation attacking the United States, Britain, and modern-day Israel. This Adversary is the spiritual prince of Babylon (Isa 14:4–21), the nation that overwhelmed back-sliding Assyria. Babylon reels under the slaughter of firstborns at the second Passover, when the household of the Father is liberated from spiritual bondage, but this spiritual kingdom doesn't fall until dealt a second body blow of another slaughter of a third of humanity. The blow that finally knocks it down is the defeat of Death, when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Messiah.
The fight between the Sons of Light, led by their elder brother Christ Jesus, and the sons of darkness, led by the king of Babylon, will leave two-thirds of humanity dead (Zech 13:7–8). Jesus said in His Olivet discourse that if these days were not cut short, no human being would be left alive (Matt 24:22). They will be cut short by the Father’s intervention (Rev 11:15), when the court of the Ancient of Day convenes to sit in judgment of the four beasts of Daniel chapter 7 (vv. 9–12). Satan will be cast from heaven (Rev 12:9), and will come as the true antiChrist. But all of humanity will have received the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28). All will be liberated from bondage to sin. But many will accept the mark of Death, the tattoo of the Cross (Chi xi stigma).
The Sons of Light fight, and will fight from within time to prevent as much of humanity as possible from accepting the mark of Death, the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse and the spiritual king of the North. They fight with their elder brother to rescue Israel from the north country— and they will not be as successful as they pray, for the many rebellious sons of darkness will continue to prove worthy adversaries. Although these sons of darkness will go into the lake of fire believing that Christ will not really do this to them because of the good and mighty works they have done in His name (Matt 7:21–23), they are truly ministers of evil disguised as ministers of righteousness. They are ministers that teach their disciples to commit spiritual suicide by erasing the laws of God written on their hearts and minds.
Did Jim Jones appear to his followers as a minister of death? The Adversary’s disguised ministers of righteousness are a legion of Jim Joneses. And the Sons of Light’s mission, if they choose to accept it, will be from within time to rescue the followers of this legion of Jim Joneses. The Sons of Light form the edge of the spear with which Christ deals Death his mortal wound.
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