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June 20, 2007 ©Homer
Kizer Commentary — From the Margins
Circumcision & the Synagogue of Satan ___________ The entire course of
the history of Martin Luther (On The Jews and Their Lies. Trans. Martin H. Bertram.) _____________ Nor
can anyone who reads the Bible draw any other conclusion than that the
Christian Church, judging it by history, is a wanton murderer and an enemy of
God’s Word; that the Christian Church has committed the same abominations
Luther condemned in Israel and Judah. When has the state Church not persecuted,
tortured, and killed disciples holding “heretical” beliefs? It
wasn’t Islam or Judaism that hung Andreas Fischer for his Anabaptist
Sabbatarian beliefs, or twelve years later, lopped off his head to finish the
work the hangman’s noose could not complete. No, it wasn’t Judaism
that pursued Anabaptists through Alpine mountain communities until only the
“quiet folk” remained alive. It wasn’t Judaism that drowned
Anabaptists. It was the followers of Luther and of the Swiss Reformers. It was
Christians who believed in a two-kingdom doctrine—and in the left-hand
kingdom, it was perfectly acceptable to hunt down my ancestors because they
practiced “Believers’ baptism.” Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this
world, nor from this world (John 18:36) … this heavenly kingdom has not
yet been delivered to Jesus even though He qualified to receive it two
millennia ago; this kingdom that is not of this world is what Luther identifies
as the right-hand kingdom of God. And the Son of Man will not receive this
kingdom until spiritual This is not an issue from the past that is not
likely to again plague Christianity; rather, this issue will be in the
foreground, alive and bloody, throughout the seven endtime years of
tribulation. Now is the time to begin a frontal assault on Luther’s
two-kingdom error—and this assault must begin with identifying the
synagogue of Satan, a body of sincere believers who lie to men and God; for the
synagogue of Satan will regain control of the reins of Luther’s left-hand
kingdom once the Tribulation begins. And circumcision of the heart will divide
humanity as circumcision of the foreskin once did. In the 16th-Century CE, the old and the
new Church compared infant baptism to circumcision of natural Israelite males
on the eighth day. Neither understood what circumcision signified (nor did most
of Judaism); for circumcision is, perhaps, the least understood ritual within
all of religiosity. Therefore, Anabaptist theologians will not employ the
argument that would have vacated the validity of Protestant Reformers’
objection to Believers’ baptism. If circumcision were primarily an inclusionary
rite, as Reformers’ taught, why clip the foreskin of the penis and then
conceal the evidence of this ritual by the modest apparel of daily wear? Other
primitive rites of inclusion include facial tattoos and cuttings, distinctive
attire or adornment. So why separate a man from the remainder of humanity in a way
that is only visible when the man is naked? And what role does
“nakedness” play in the ritual? The Lord God—YHWH Elohim—created a man from red clay, the dust of the
ground, and breathed life into the nostrils of His creation, thereby
transforming base elements into a breathing creature, a nephesh. There was then
neither another living creature, nor any vegetative life, contrary to what is
popularly taught by “Christian creationists.” The first Adam, the
man of mud, was not created on the fifth or sixth day of a seven day creation
week, but on “the day that the Lord God made the earth and the
heavens” (Gen 2:4), and after the Lord God made this first breathing
creature, God “planted a garden in Eden, in the east” (v. 8), and there He put the man He had
formed. There He gave the man the single command: “‘You may surely
eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely
die’” (vv. 16-17). What kind of a “tree” bears knowledge
of good and evil? Not any tree listed in today’s nursery catalogues, nor
recognized by an arborist. So this tree
has about it a symbolic quality that asks the reader to assign an unusual
referent or linguistic object to the linguistic icon. Now, understanding that
God covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness with garments of skin, and
understanding that Adam was the covering for Eve, a concept that will be
addressed shortly, assigning a similar referent to the skin garment God made as
would be assigned to a tree bearing
knowledge of good and evil causes the foreskin of the penis to symbolically be
this animal skin covering God made for Adam in the garden. Thus, when this
covering foreskin is removed, a man is naked before God as Adam was when
covered by his obedience to God—Adam was naked without realizing that he
was naked. However, once he was no longer covered by obedience, he realized his
state. He became as the Apostle Paul writes of himself: What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no
means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would
not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall
not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment,
produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. I
was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came
alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to
me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and
through it killed me. (Rom 7:7-11) For Paul, knowledge of the law equated to Adam eating
forbidden fruit, and sin coming alive to slay him equates to Adam realizing
that he was naked. Thus, being naked before God—that is, not being
covered with the garment of obedience—produces death, or is death, so
every circumcised person, whether of foreskin or of heart, must have a covering
of obedience. The person who is only covered by his or her obedience loses his
garment and becomes naked before God with his or her first knowing
transgression of the law. Therefore, the letter of the law kills, and the
commandments carved in letters on stone form a ministry of death (2 Cor 3:6-7);
whereas the Spirit gives life through Israelites circumcised of heart putting
on the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness, thereby covering
themselves with Christ’s obedience. Hence, physical circumcision after
being born of Spirit becomes a shedding of Christ’s obedience and
reliance upon the person’s own obedience to cover his nakedness before
God. It is important to remember, according to the
second Genesis creation story, that the man was created outside of There was no “light” in this world
before the Logos (7@(@H) as Theos
(1,@H) entered this world (John 1:14) as His Son, His
only Son (John 3:16). The man Jesus of Nazareth said, The light is among you for a little while longer.
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in
darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in
the light, that you may become sons of light. (John 12:35-36) He
identified Himself as “the light” and His disciples as “sons
of light.” Those who do not hear His words and who do not believe the one
who sent Him have no eternal life dwelling within them (John 5:24); they are
spiritually lifeless; they are sons of darkness, who inevitably believe the lie
of the old serpent, Satan the devil, that they shall not surely die (Gen 3:4)
for they have an immortal soul. These sons of darkness include those
individuals that form the synagogue of Satan. The world can fairly be divided into sons of light
and sons of darkness or disobedience. All of the sons of light were at one time
sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2-3; Rom 11:32). They did not, at birth, become
sons of light; rather, they became sons of light when they were born of Spirit. Within the great classification of sons of darkness is a subset that lies
to man and God: this subset claims to have been born of Spirit, hence they
claim to be Jews [“Christians” – Christianity began as a sect
of Judaism; it should still appear as a sect of Judaism]. But their lawlessness
proves that Satan is their true father. Unknowingly they have lied to
themselves by convincing themselves that they have been born again or born anew
and that God is their Father; yet, they do not submit to God’s law.
Instead of submitting, they voice their profound ignorance by saying that since
Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets (Matt 5:19), they do not have to keep
the Law … they are not the children of God. If they were, they would, by
faith, attempt to cover themselves with obedience. Thus, they remain the
children of disobedience, bondservants to sin, and enemies of God. The Judaism of the Qumran Community [Dead Sea
Scrolls] foresaw an endtime conflict between the sons of light and the sons of
darkness, a cataclysmic conflict that would leave most of humanity dead. This
community perceived that a struggle between good and evil would see good
prevail. The sons of light will prevail, but not through
physical warfare. Lawlessness or sin is not defeated with swords or battle
tanks. It is defeated with obedience, and it can only be defeated by obedience
to the laws of God. Unfortunately, the Qumran community was also
without spiritual understanding even though they were not far from
enlightenment … when sin and death entered the world through Adam eating
forbidden fruit, this man of mud took to himself the determination of both good
and evil: human beings now define “good” within their understanding
of the concept, and this includes the ancient Qumran Community. According to God, eating the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil made a person evil … “evil” is
nothing more than determining for oneself what is good. Making such a
determination causes the person to be a judge of God, and of His commands.
Determining for oneself what is good causes the person to rebel against God as
Korah rebelled against Moses in the Wilderness (Num chap 16). After all, do you not have a good mind? Are
you not capable of determining what is right and what is wrong? You are,
aren’t you? So hasn’t God taken too much onto Himself when He tells
you that, say, homosexual activity between consenting adults is evil? According
to the great horn, the first king of Greece, God has taken too much onto
Himself. Sounds plausible? Seems reasonable? What did Korah do that Democrats don’t do
when Republicans have the Presidency? If Luther’s teaching about a
left-hand The person who determines for himself or herself
whether he or she will obey God is a rebel of the same type as Korah was and as
the anointed cherub in whom iniquity was found (Ezek 28:14-15) is. This person
is of Satan, the father of rebellion and the father-figure of the first
spiritual king of the rebelling coalition that is the king of How, you
ask, can a person who keeps the commandments of God be evil? It is not keeping the commandments, the reasonable
expectation of all who are of the household of God, that produces
righteousness, or that cleanses hearts so that they can be spiritually
circumcised. Faith and belief, two sides of one coin, are counted to a person
as righteousness; the journey of faith from this world and its great city of Korah was a Levite. He had the “right”
to come near God. So his complaint that Moses and Aaron had gone too far, that
‘“all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord
is among them’” (Num 16:3) had a logical basis …
doesn’t Korah’s complaint sound legitimate and like something that
should be discussed? It does, doesn’t it? So why should God do a
‘“new thing”’ (Num 16:30)—unless, of course, this
new thing reveals how and what happened in the heavenly realm when iniquity was
found in an anointed cherub? The essence of democracy (self-determination) is
the essence of evil. Democracy itself is a “cultural construct”
that comes from the spiritual king of Yes, you,
Christian, you who claim to be born of Spirit are of the synagogue of Satan if
you still present yourself as an obedient servant to sin. By your acts, you
reveal that you have not been drawn from this world and set free from the
disobedience to which God consigned all of humanity (Rom 11:32). Yes, you can know that you are of the
synagogue of Satan by whether you keep the precepts of the law: “the mind
that is set on the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to
God’s law; indeed it cannot” (Rom 8:7). So what you, as a member of
the synagogue of Satan, disclose about yourself even when you
“decide” to keep the commandments is that you cannot. You cannot
because you are still the bondservant of the prince of this world; hence you
are of the synagogue of Satan. All those
who say they are “Christians” but who do not keep the laws of God
(i.e., the commandments the 7@(@H as 1,@H uttered
from atop Sinai and repeated by Moses in the second covenant) are liars.
Collectively, they form the synagogue of Satan … it’s not enough to
keep eight of these commandments, or even nine; for all ten of these
commandments form the law of God, and when one of these commandments is broken,
the person breaks the law of God (Jas 2:10). And those who are of the synagogue
of Satan will break the commandment they consider least (Matt 5:19), the
Sabbath command; for they reject liberation from bondage, which under the
second covenant is the reason for remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy
(Deu 5:15). The person who is of the synagogue of Satan, a son
of darkness who has broken into the household of God as a thief, will
inevitably keep Sunday as his or her Sabbath; for this person must break one of the commandments. This
person cannot—on the authority of the Apostle Paul having laid the
foundation for the house of God in heavenly Writing with boldness and comparing the gospel of
Christ with Moses, saying that unlike Moses who put a veil over his face after
descending from talking with God disciples reflecting the glory of the Lord are
transformed into the same image of Christ, one degree to another, the Apostle
Paul said, And even if our gospel is veiled, it is only veiled
to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the
minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of
the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not
ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for
Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of
darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 4:3-6) Where
does God say, Let light shine out of
darkness? Does He not say this on the first day (Gen 1:3)? And is this
light not seen in the face of Christ Jesus, the image of God? Is, then, Christ
Jesus not the light of this world, the light of the first day of a creation
week which has the Spirit of God hovering over the waters of humanity? As no air breathing creature was created prior to
the man of mud, no human being had spiritual life, received from the divine
Breath of God [A<,L:" U(4@< – or Pneuma
’Agion], prior to when the Holy Spirit descended as a dove upon the
man Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, the lifeless corpse of Adam—the
elemental elements of this earth [mud] formed into flesh and bones and
appearing as a man but without the breath of life—is the type and shadow
of the living man, Jesus of Nazareth, circumcised of flesh, before the divine
Breath of the Father descended upon Him as a dove. Thus, God placing the man of
mud in His garden, a type and shadow of heaven, is analogous to the man Jesus
entering the temple, where God had created spiritual beasts that the last Adam
would name: Hypocrites, blind guides, serpents (Matt chap 23). To get inside the physical temple, a man had to be
physically circumcised. (He had to be a Levite to get into the sanctuary.) But physical
circumcision only placed the person in the spiritual equivalent to the Eve does not say that she was naked after eating
forbidden fruit. The sparse account has both of them realizing they are naked
after Adam eats. A beast is naked before God but without knowledge
of being uncovered. Its hair coat (if it has one) is its only covering; so
beasts are clothed as Esau was (Gen 25:25) in the womb of Rebekah—and
Esau is hated [disrespected] while still in the womb … Esau’s
circumcision on the eighth day nevertheless made Esau naked before God despite
his natural hair covering; thus, as a man, Esau covered his nakedness with
clothes (Gen 27:15). But again, Esau was hated by God while still in the womb
(Mal 1:2; Rom 9:13); he was hated before he had done good or evil. He was
rejected as if he were a beast rather than a son of God. Sadducees and the Pharisees, naked before God
because of their circumcision but without awareness of their nakedness (they
sincerely believed that the works of their hands made them righteous), are the
spiritual equivalent to the beasts the first Adam named in the Natural Israel was, with a few exceptions, rejected
by God as Esau was rejected—and as the greater part of those who have
been born of Spirit (i.e., true sons of light) will be rejected because, while
under Grace, equivalent to the womb of Rebekah, they covered themselves with their
own righteousness, their own bloody coat of hair. They claim to be covered by
the blood of Jesus, but if this were true, they would use this garment of
Christ’s righteousness to practice walking as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6),
and Jesus walked as an Israelite of His day, keeping the annual Sabbaths as
well as the weekly Sabbaths. There is what has not been previously recognized:
Esau does not symbolically or spiritually represent lawless Christendom, those
self-identified disciples who claim to be born of Spirit but who, by resisting
God and refusing to keep His commandments, show that they are liars (1 John
2:3-4). Rather, Esau represents Sabbatarian disciples who cover themselves with
their own righteousness by not taking the Passover sacraments on the night
Jesus was betrayed. Together, Esau and Jacob represent Sabbatarian Christendom. Composed mostly of one super denomination that has
chosen a particular prophetess, Sabbatarian Christendom chooses for itself who
will wear the hair coat of a prophet. It chooses whom it will obey, and too
much of Sabbatarian Christendom has obeyed con men, ad men, and a channeling
woman … the one great denomination within Sabbatarian Christendom has
prospered in this world by gradually making itself a part of this world, a
process that began a half century ago. This denomination, seeking converts from
the synagogue of Satan, has adorned itself as a worldly woman. It became a
member of national and international religious associations; it added the cross
to its logo. It became “respectable,” but its teachers are liars. Its
god has become the prince of this world. And no one should be surprised, for those
who have been born into this great Sabbatarian denomination have made no
journey of faith for two, three, four generations; they have not cleansed their
hearts. So this denomination is now led by Satan’s servants disguised as ministers
of righteousness (2 Cor 11:15), with these ministers teaching generation upon
generation not to be like Jesus, who covered His nakedness produced by His
circumcision with obedience to ‘“every word that comes from the
mouth of God’” (Matt 4:4). Yes, Sam,
the woman prophetess you defend prevents you from keeping the high Sabbaths of
God … where do you go to show when the Sabbath day begins? Do you not go
to the command to keep Yom Kipporim (Lev 23:32)? You do, don’t you? So
why don’t you also keep the holy day, which is, certainly, “a
shadow of the things to come” (Col 2:17) but a shadow of that which has
not yet been completed; for Christ Jesus, as the reality [substance] of the
Azazel goat, still bears the sins of Israel in a far land. He will continue to
bear these sins until spiritually circumcised Israel is liberated from the
indwelling sin and death that presently resides in the members of every
disciples (Rom 7:21-25). Only then, when the second Passover liberation of Because disciples of Christ Jesus are covered by
the garment of Christ’s righteousness (this garment identified as Grace),
when they sin they are as the first Eve was when she ate forbidden fruit. They
are as one of the two sons of promise born to Isaac: Esau or Jacob. No sin is
imputed to them; they are not naked before God. They form the now covered Body
of the Son of Man[1].
But—and here is the caveat—disciples of Christ Jesus have all been
born of Spirit. They are all sons of light. They are not part of the synagogue
of Satan, for they willingly submit to God’s law. In fact, they eagerly
submit to too many teachers of the law, each speaking his or her words. They
are as the saints at When the first Adam named the beasts, there was no
other man; when the last Adam named the spiritual beasts that frolicked in the
spiritual garden that was Herod’s Now, do disciples today need to be physically
circumcised … no, for these disciples are the living stones (1 Pet 2:5) that
form the Although entrance into heaven is the reality of
entering into God’s rest, the only one who has so far entered heaven is
the one who came from heaven and has since returned. Everyone else awaits
resurrection and the revealing of their judgments (1 Cor 4:5), or waits being
born of Spirit when resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment (Rev
20:11-15). Today, all sons of darkness wait receipt of the Holy
Spirit—the defining characteristic of a son of darkness or a son of
disobedience is not being born of Spirit; whereas those who are of the
synagogue of Satan are self-identified Christians who have not been born of
Spirit. Thus, with pedagogical redundancy, the synagogue of Satan is a subset
of individuals within the larger grouping identified as the sons of darkness. Now, to the problem: Martin Luther’s
left-hand The synagogue of Satan is not the hated son Esau
born to the last Isaac (the Apostle Paul identified disciples as children of
promise as Isaac was a son of promise – Gal 4:28); rather, this hated
son, like endtime Jacob, is of promise, but because he is covered by his own
righteousness and has chosen his own prophets and prophetesses he does not
strive or wrestle with God. He does not have the spirit of prophecy. He falsely
teaches the ways of God, and he will die either physical or spiritually during
the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years of tribulation. Sadly, even
though spiritual Esau publicly teaches disciples to keep the weekly Sabbath,
this Esau will be rejected because he will not keep the high Sabbaths of God.
He will not cover himself with the Passover blood of the Lamb of God. The bloody hairiness of Esau at birth forms the
shadow and type of Sabbatarian Christians who, when the tribulation begins,
refuse to keep the Passover or to take the Passover sacraments on the night
that Jesus was betrayed. Spiritual birth for both Esau and Jacob occurs when
the Son of Man is revealed. Until then, disciples constitute spiritual Isaac.
Thus, many Sabbatarian Christians who today struggle in the womb of Isaac
(Rebekah’s womb is Isaac’s womb) are hated or disrespected by God.
Few are those who are truly loved by God as Jacob was loved. How can
that be true, that God doesn’t love everyone? The Apostle Paul wrote, “What if God,
desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much
patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the
riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for
glory” (Rom 9:22-23) … is a vessel of wrath prepared for
destruction loved by God? How about by the God that inspired,
“‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Rom 9:13; Mal
1:1)? The problem really is in human understanding of abstract words like /love/, /good/, /evil/, /fair/; for human understanding comes
from the disobedience broadcast by the prince of this world. When sons of
darkness assign referents to abstract words, God will always appear unfair and
unjust. This comes directly from how God is perceived by demons. Returning to what has previously been stated: for
the past five years, lawless Christians have been identified as spiritual
Esau—this was giving these lawless Christians more compassion than
Scripture gives them. Lawless Christians form the synagogue of Satan, for they
say they have the Holy Spirit and have been born of Spirit, but they lie. They
have not made a journey of faith; they have not cleansed their hearts. They
remain spiritually lifeless, but because none of them have the Holy Spirit nor
even know what it means to have been born of Spirit, they do not realize what
they lack. They cannot comprehend keeping the commandments by faith because
they love God. Therefore, they label those disciples who keep the commandments
as Judaizers, to them the most
derogatory label they can attach to a Christian. But really, this label
testifies to the Judaizer’s righteousness
before God. * * * "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] The Son of Man will be revealed (Luke 17:30) when the seven endtime years of tribulation begin. Christ Jesus, the Head of the Son of Man, was revealed in the 1st-Century CE when He covered His nakedness with His obedience to His Father, but His Body was not then formed so His Body could not then be revealed. But now, nearly two millennia later, His Body having grown fat and soft while cloaked in the garment of His righteousness awaits being revealed so that it, too, can be sacrificed as an accepted offering to God. It, too, will cover itself with its obedience to God, or it will die spiritually in the lake of fire. Biblical prophecy is about
the transition from the kingdom of this world being ruled by the humanoid image
Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision, this image called Babylon with its king being
Satan, the spiritual king of Babylon (Isa 14:4), to the single kingdom of this
world being ruled by the Son of Man, Christ Jesus being this image’s Head
and glorified disciples forming this image’s Body. This transition of power
began when Jesus of Nazareth defeated Satan by fulfilling the Law and the
Prophets, but the conclusion of this transition had/has to wait until the
fullness of both Jews and Gentiles come to God, thereby completing the
formation of the Body, grown large in the darkness that settled over this world
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