November 24, 2004 ©Homer Kizer
A New War Scroll
Preface
When Daniel appeared before Nebuchadnezzar to reveal and interpret the king’s dream, he said, ‘“[T]here is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days’” (Dan 2:28). Daniel concludes his session before the king by saying, ‘“The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure’” (v. 45). So every understanding of what will happen in the latter days begins with understanding Daniel's interpretation of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision.
Daniel's interpretation of the image is familiar to Bible students. The king saw a standing figure of man that had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of mingled iron and clay. Five discernable elements are present in the image, and remain present when the image’s feet are crushed by a stone cut without hands. This stone becomes a great mountain that fills the entire earth; this stone is the kingdom of God. So, altogether there are four metals that have economic value, clay that is the stuff of which men are made, and stone that forms the base upon which all kingdoms of the earth are constructed.
Daniel identified Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold, then said, ‘“Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these’” (Dan 2:39–40). Traditionally, Daniel’s divine interpretation has been interpreted by men to mean that four world ruling, human kingdoms shall successively supercede one another, and shall continue from ancient Babylon until Christ returns to begin His millennial reign. Traditionally, those nations have been identified as Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. But this tradition is woefully disrespectful to China, which has been and is a great nation, a perennial world power that never came under domination by Babylon, Persia, Greece, or Rome. So either Daniel interpretation is figurative, or it is wrong, which isn’t the problem. The problem lies in the traditional assignments of nations.
Traditional interpretations of all of Daniel’s prophecies require the insertion of a secular history textbook into Holy Writ. So before going farther, return that history book to its shelf. If God needed additional revelation to be given so that Daniel’s sealed and secret prophecies could be unsealed in the latter days, He would have given that revelation through another prophet. But no additional revelation is needed for the visions were sealed with their visible, physical shadows.
Daniel tells the king that his vision is of what will be in the latter days, a phrase that needs remembered considering that the four metals and the clay are present when the stone cut without hands crushes the image. But Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold won’t be present. He died at a relatively young age. However, Isaiah identifies Satan as the spiritual king of Babylon (Isa 14:4–21), and Satan will be present when spiritual Babylon falls, which happens when Satan is cast from heaven (Rev 12:7–13).
Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was a theocracy, as evidenced by the gold statue the king tried to require Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to worship. Persia was a theocracy, and Alexander’s mother claimed he was the son of God. So each kingdom named in the visions of Daniel physically reigned over both the civil and religious affairs of the empire.
Jesus, however, told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36), that if it were His servants would fight. So the kingdom of God over which Christ Jesus will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords is not a kingdom of this world as Alexander’s Greece was, as even as Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was. Christ Jesus will not reign from the spiritual realm over vassal kings and lords that in turn will reign over humanity in the manner that Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander did. Rather, He will reign by replacing Satan, who, today, reigns over the sons of disobedience as the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2–3). Christ Jesus will reign over sons of obedience through the same means that Satan reigns over the sons of disobedience. So the four metal kingdoms of Daniel’s interpretation are not secular regimes, but the kings and lords over which Satan reigns. They are his inferiors. And their physical shadows had spiritual or religious aspects to their establishment of dominion.
From Scripture, the four metals are identified: Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that he is the gold head. The inferior kingdom that arises after Babylon is Persia, as, again, seen in Scripture: “That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old” (Dan 5:30–31). This second kingdom has two arms of silver— and Daniel, in vision, saw “a ram standing on the bank of the canel. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but the one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last” (Dan 8:3). The angel Gabriel tells Daniel that, ‘“As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia”’ (v.20). So from Scripture, the silver shadow of Nebuchadnezzar’s image can be identified as Media Persia.
Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, ‘“[A]nd yet a third kingdom of bronze [shall arise], which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things’” (Dan 2:39–40). Notice that the fourth kingdom doesn’t receive rule of all the earth. Rule is never taken from the third kingdom before the image is crushed. And the division of the image occurs during the bronze portion, not in the iron portion. The iron portion is a divided kingdom, with one half being the mirror image of the other. Its feet are iron mixed with soft or miry clay. Therefore, neither half reigns over the world even though it crushes the three previous kingdoms— and wisdom is required to understand how this can be.
Rule of the earth is given to the image’s belly and loins, the bronze kingdom, an alloyed metal that is a mixture of copper and tin analogous to the king of Greece being a federation of spiritual kings. This federation rules over the earth through the appetites of humanity. So the king of Greece is an alloyed kingdom as sin and death are combined in Apostle Paul’s law of sin and death (Rom 7:25). And the great horn is first in this federation of spiritual kings.
The fourth kingdom is a derivative kingdom from the bronze portion of the image. It emerges when the mighty king or great horn of Greece is broken and his kingdom divided— and the breakage of the great horn can be dated to the emergence of the four beasts of Daniel chapter seven, and to the appearance of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. And the wisdom required to understand this dating is the subject of this new war scroll.
From Scripture, both the bronze and the iron portion of Nebuchadnezzar’s image are identified. The ram identified as the kings of Media and Persia became strong, but out of the west flew a he-goat, with one conspicuous horn between its eyes. “He came to the ram with two horns… and he ran at him in his powerful wrath.” He “struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him.… Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and instead of it there came up four conspicuous horns towards the four winds of heaven” (Dan 8:6–8). Gabriel identified the goat as the king of Greece (v. 21), then adds, ‘“As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not of his power”’(v. 22).
So the physical shadow of the bronze kingdom that shall rule the world in the latter days is Alexander’s Greece. The four horns, or four kingdoms, though, are not two iron legs. However, they quickly become two. A mighty Greek king arises and ‘“as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken and divided towards the four winds of heaven, but not to his posterity, nor according to the authority with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be plucked up and go to others beside these. [paragraph break] Then the king of the south shall be strong, but one of his princes shall be stronger than he and shall rule, and his authority shall be a great authority’” (Dan 11:4–5). Thus, the kings of the North and of the South that were together become the two legs. And in a preview of what is to come, spiritual Israel will be liberated from bondage to sin at a second Passover, just as physical Israel was liberated from physical bondage in Egypt. Typologically, Pharaoh is the king of the South— and Egypt represents sin. The king of the North was one of this spiritual Pharaoh’s princes. Therefore, with Egypt representing sin and with the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse named Death, the iron legs are, together, the Apostle Paul’s law of sin and death, which breaks and shatters all things. This, then, makes the black horseman with the balance in which the wheat and barley are weighed sin. And sin and death are the two kings against which the sons of light fight throughout the first half of the Tribulation.
The four metals of Nebuchadnezzar’s image are gold/Babylon, silver/Media Persia, bronze/Greece, and iron/the kings of the South and of the North. And the kings of the South and of the North spar against each other through the time of the end. These two kings, then, are historically present when the court of the Ancient of Days sits in judgment, and dominion is given to the one like a son of man.
Traditional assignment of meaning identifies the iron as the Roman Empire, but Roman is never mentioned in Scripture whereas Babylon, Media Persia and Greece are. So identifying the iron legs as the Roman Empire is adding to Scripture. But rather then introducing non-Scriptural text to Daniel’s prophecies, disciples should add from Scripture what has so far been left out of the narrative. Nebuchadnezzar’s vision was for the latter days. Daniel’s second vision is ‘“for the time of the end”’ (Dan 8:17). It was sealed ‘“for it refers to many days”’ (v. 26) from when it was given. Daniel’s long vision was sealed and secret until the time of the end (Dan 12:4, 9). And Jesus said the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet (Dan 11:31) was for the time of the end (Matt 24:15). And it is the addition of Jesus’ words that completes the wisdom necessary to unseal Daniel’s endtime prophecies.
What disciples see in Nebuchadnezzar’s image is the shadow of a great conflict (Dan 10:1) that brings Satan’s reign over humanity to an end. This shadow is a segment of historical narrative stretching from Nebuchadnezzar’s reign to Antiochus Epiphanes’s reign. The invisible conflict (just as Satan coming before God at the beginning of Job’s trials was invisible to Job) is between the spiritual princes of Persia and the king of Greece. And the prophecies of Daniel were given so Israel would know about this conflict. These prophecies were sealed with their shadow so that saints would not await liberation from Sin and Death, but would continue to battle these iron kings that break and crush all things.
The great first horn of the king of Greece is suddenly broken because it is the king’s firstborn heir. This horn is broken at the second Passover slaughter of spiritual and physical firstborns. A hard date can be, thus, established for when the four horns emerge— they emerge at the beginning of seven years of tribulation, the reason why they do not rule the earth. Spiritual Israel is liberated from bondage to sin at the second Passover just as physical Israel was liberated from physical bondage to Pharaoh. All of the earth is not available to be ruled by the appetites of the flesh.
The four horsemen of Apocalypse emerge when the Lamb of God removes the first four seals of the scroll. They emerge at the beginning of the Tribulation. They emerge when the four horns grow from the stump of the broken first horn on the head of the king of Greece. And we are ready to begin a new war scroll, one that opens the endtime sons of light’s fight against Death. This iron horseman on his pale stead, rearing high, skylined on the horizon like the Cross on Bald Knob1, will be defeated just as David slew Goliath. [The Cross on Bald Knob is a conspicuous landmark near Carbondale, Illinois, in the section of the state known as Little Egypt.]
Chapter One
“This is the message we… proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). And with these words, repeated for two millennia, the endtime sons of light launch a war not of this world, but a war fought across dimensions— a war fought in the supra-dimensional realm identified as heaven. These sons of light fight for control of the mental topography of humanity. They spar with ideas, parry with the words of Christ Jesus, joust with the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2), all within the minds of the holy nation of God. And these sons of light fight while still outwardly enslaved by sin and Death. If victory were determined by a body count, their war is hopelessly lost, for these sons of light fight against their own deaths.
The Apostle John doesn’t use the light/darkness metaphor as a contrast of good versus evil as the writer[s] of Qumran’s War Scroll used the metaphor. Rather, John writes, “But if we walk in the light, as he [God] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:7–8). Thus, being cleansed from sin by the blood of Christ Jesus places a person in light, even though this person still has sin. Therefore, John’s use of this metaphor differs from how it has been used by a host of literary writers, and lately, moviemakers. He uses light to represent the supernal, or heavenly realm. God is in heaven, and if the sons of light, cleansed by the blood of Christ, walk in heaven, they have fellowship with one another; they are one with the Father and the Son (John 17:21, 23). And if cleansed or covered by the blood of Christ, the sons of light will mentally walk in heaven even though their bodies remain here on earth. To be born-from-above or born again is to be born of spirit— and spirit goes where it will as the wind does (John 3:7–8). A son of light is mentally able to go where his or her body cannot. A son of light can mentally walk with Christ and with the Father in a dimension that is poorly understood at best. And if a person is not born of spirit, the person has no fellowship with God, and is actually hostile to God (Rom 8:7). So the initial difference between a disciple and a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3) is spiritual birth while the person remains in a body of flesh. But Jesus said He will deny knowing teachers of lawlessness in their judgment regardless of the good works they did in His name (Matt 7:23). They will not be resurrected to life. Rather, they will be resurrected to condemnation (John 5:29) for teaching lawlessness, or disobedience to the laws of God. Hence, born again disciples divide themselves into sons of light that are one with the Father and the Son, and sons of darkness that remain one with the world even though they have received spiritual birth.
John uses darkness to represent the world and the things of the world. A son of disobedience is, by extension, a son of darkness. Disobedience is lawlessness, so a son of disobedience is a son of sin (from 1 John 3:4 where sin is defined as lawlessness). And the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). Therefore, the born again teachers of lawlessness that Jesus will deny knowing (they are as Judas Iscariot, whose feet Jesus washed, was) are Satan’s disguised ministers of righteousness (2 Cor 11:15). They appear righteous; they do mighty deeds in the name of Christ; they are Christian ministers; but they serve Satan in that they teach lawlessness. They teach disciples to erase the laws of God that are written on their hearts and minds through spiritual birth; they teach disciples to commit spiritual suicide. So for John, light represents heaven and life everlasting, and darkness represents the world and death. Everyone who is of the world, regardless of how righteous appearing or of many mighty deeds done in the name of Jesus, is a son of darkness. Death resides in this person.
Traditionally, the light/darkness metaphor has been used to pit good against evil, with these two opposing forces wrestling like schoolboys for dominance over humanity. In Qumran’s War Scroll, God creates both the angel of light and the angel of deceit or darkness, a theologically troublesome position that makes God the source of evil, and a position that anticipates Bishop Arius. However, the conclusion of the Genesis temptation account has Elohim, in plural usage, saying that man has indeed become like God, knowing both good and evil (Gen 3:22). Then Elohim proceeds to drive man from Eden before Adam can eat of the tree of life and thereby live forever, for evil is nothing more than disobedience, with the ultimate evil being self-determination of what is good.
A simplistic overview of Ellen G. White’s Great Controversy has Christ Jesus wrestling Satan for the souls of humanity in a manner similar to how the War Scroll’s angel of light fights against the angel of darkness. In the case of Ellen G. White and other American prophets, this contention is a resurrection of Bishop Arius’ error that has the Father creating Jesus either in the womb of Mary, or at some moment prior to the creation of the universe. In these variant scenarios, God the Father created Jesus and Satan as brothers, or equals, and is letting good fight against evil to win as much of humanity as has been predestined to be saved. And if score were kept, the clear winner of this fight is evil.
But Christ Jesus, penned in Jerusalem on the 10th of the first month and sacrificed on the afternoon of the 14th of the first month, was the paschal Lamb of God sacrificed from the foundations of the universe for the household of God the Father. Jesus’ blood, taken by disciples in the Passover sacraments, covers the sins of this single great household that will, when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Messiah (Rev 11:15), include all of humanity. The battle between good and evil was won on the Cross, with the shedding of Christ’s blood. As the Apostle John wrote, disciples still commit sin or are lawless (1 John 3:4), but they have a covering in Christ Jesus for that sin. And when that sin is covered, they mentally walk in heaven, one with God. Their walk anticipates glorification, which comes with Christ Jesus’ return and the revealing of the judgment of saints (1 Cor 4:5).
The three crosses on Calvary represent all of humanity in judgment. The first lawbreaker to speak blasphemed Jesus, accusing Him, ‘“Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’” (Luke 23:39). This lawbreaker demanded that Jesus save physical life, which was placed in subjection to death when Adam was driven from Eden (Rom 5:12). Plus, the words of Jesus are that He came to die (John 12:27–32), and with His death, He ‘“will draw all people to myself’” (v. 32). He said that ‘“whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it’” (Matt 10:38–39). So the lawbreaker— all of humanity has come short of perfection and are lawbreakers— who seeks to save his or her physical life doesn’t seek that which is above, or is of the heavenly realm. The person has not taken up his or her cross to follow Christ, and is not worthy of Christ. Rather, this person continues to hang on his or her cross, tethered to death, seeking to find or keep the person’s life. This person is as the first lawbreaker was. This person will acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, but this person will not hear the words of Jesus, nor believe the One who sent Him (John 5:24). This person will not cover his or her sins with the blood of the Lamb of God. Instead, this person will attempt to tell Christ how and when the sacraments are to be taken.
Again, all disciples sin even after being born from above. But those sins are covered by the blood of Jesus of Nazareth, who said "drink of this cup, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matt 26:28). Sins are covered by the blood of the covenant. The wages of sin is death. Since disciples sin, disciples are under the sentence of death, but this sentence is covered by blood for disciples in covenant. The gift of God is everlasting life in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:23). All who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal 3:27). Their sins are covered by the blood of Jesus, this covering to be annually renewed by all disciples by drinking of the cup. Those disciples who voluntarily do not drink of the Passover cup remove themselves from the covenant. They now have no covering for their sins. Their death sentences are no longer covered. They willingly surrendered life to return to death, for by them neglecting to renew the covenant, they tell the Father and the Son that they, the disciples, made a mistake when they chose life. The terms of the second covenant have life and death placed before every spiritually circumcised Israelite, with instructions to chose life. But choosing life requires taking up one’s cross and following Jesus, who established the example for how the cup should be taken.
The second lawbreaker to speak rebuked the first: ‘“Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation. And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong’” (Luke 23:40–41)). This second lawbreaker asked only that he be remembered when Jesus received His kingdom (v. 42), and this second lawbreaker was justified. This second lawbreaker received the promise of everlasting life.
The second lawbreaker was just as guilty of transgression as the first, but he acknowledged God and Christ Jesus, and he acknowledged his own guilt and the justice of his sentence to death. In doing so, he demonstrates that he knows God, knows that Jesus is unworthy of death and is as such being sacrificed, and he demonstrates that he knows the law is good. The Apostle Paul writes that the Israelite who lives by the second covenant mediated by Moses (Deu chptrs 29–31) has only to confess with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in the heart that God raised him from the dead to be saved (Rom 10:6–9). So when the second lawbreaker confesses the justice of his death, he places himself into the second covenant mediated by Moses. So when asking to be remembered, this second lawbreaker acknowledges with his mouth that Jesus is Lord, an acknowledgment that conveys his belief in his heart that God will raise Jesus from the dead. All that remains for this second lawbreaker to receive everlasting life is for him to have his sins forgiven, which is what Jesus does when He tells this second lawbreaker that this day [the day of him being raised up to judgment] he will enter Paradise.
The second lawbreaker knows what his judgment shall be; his judgment has been revealed. He is one of a few exceptions whose judgment is revealed prior to Jesus coming in power as the Messiah. But this lawbreaker doesn’t precede Jesus to Paradise, thereby making him the first of the firstfruits. Jesus will lie in the grave three days, so He will not be in Paradise the day of His death. Rather, the cross represents death. Taking up one’s cross is to take hold of one’s death, to break one’s tether to the world, and to carry one’s death as the person follows Christ, that death now covered by the blood of the Lamb of God.
At Calvary, the three men raised on Roman crosses retained physical life for a short while after their official deaths. Figuratively, they live after death as if resurrected. And while still alive but bound on a cross, they were as humanity will be in the great White Throne Judgment when every word uttered determines the person’s fate. For the mass of mankind has not been afforded the opportunity to take up their crosses and follow Jesus. They never had the choice of life or death placed before them. They were created from dust (Gen 2:7), given the same breath of life as given to beasts (Eccl 3:18–20), and died because sin and death dwelt in their hearts and minds and flesh. Adam was driven from Eden before he could eat of the tree of life and live forever (Gen 3:22–24).
Judgment, however, is today upon the household of God (1 Pet 4:17), and every word uttered determines the disciple’s fate, the reason for yeas to be unadorned yeas, and nays to be nays. But if judgment is upon a disciple today, and if the disciple is given the criteria by which he or she will be judged, then the disciple has also been given control of the disciple’s fate. So yes, a provision of the spiritual second covenant has judgment being given to disciples, who have had life and death set before them. They are told to choose life, which comes down to hearing the words of Jesus and believing the One who sent Him. But believing is more than acknowledging, for even the demons believe that God is. Believing for born-from-above disciples is living by the laws of God written on hearts and minds through receipt of the Holy Spirit. It is the way by which born-out-of-season disciples acknowledge that the law is good, just as the second lawbreaker acknowledged the justice of his death. And Grace is Christ Jesus bearing the failures of disciples to overcome the law of sin and death that dwells in their members. Grace is not a license that allows disciples to jettison the laws of God written on inner tablets of flesh.
Ultimately, since all disciples sin, a disciple’s judgment is reduced to whether the disciple will cover his or her sins by the blood of the Lamb of God. If the disciple will drink from the cup as Jesus established the example, then the disciple chooses life. If the disciple determines for him or herself what is good and either doesn’t drink of the cup or drinks from an alien cup, the disciple chooses death. The disciple would not hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent Him.
Death by crucifixion differs from other forms of civil execution in that physical life was extended beyond legal death. A beheaded person died instantly. A person drawn and quartered died within moments or minutes of being drawn. But a person crucified could hang around for a day or longer before he tired enough he could no longer raise himself on the nails to breathe. And crucifixion kills by taking away breath. A person lives by receiving the physical breath given to Adam. A son of God lives by receiving the spiritual Breath given to the last Adam (Matt 3:16). So crucifixion is the one form of execution that physically symbolizes a spirit being or a born-from-above disciple losing spiritual life by being cast into the lake of fire. The symbolism of crucifixion works far better than burning at the stake. But equally important, this form of execution allows for conversation after legal death, which came with being raised up. As such, crucifixion becomes a graphic representation of spiritual life imprisoned in time.
The battle between good and evil isn’t a wrestling match between Jesus and Satan; it isn’t a war of strategic maneuverings between the angel of light and the angel of darkness. It is, simply, acknowledging Jesus before men (Matt 10:32) as the second lawbreaker on the cross did, as opposed to mocking Jesus as the first lawbreaker did. Both lawbreakers asked Jesus for what was possible for Him to do. Jesus could have saved Himself (John 19:11), but His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). It was necessary that He be made sin in order for Him to die, for though tempted in all things as all of humanity has been, He never sinned. He never placed Himself in bondage to sin and death. The Cross had no lawful claim to His life, as the second lawbreaker acknowledges. Jesus voluntarily accepted death on a cross, thereby making Himself His Father’s sacrificial Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
The reality of the human experience hasn’t been a battle between good and evil, for none are good but God alone, but the struggle for life against the inevitability of death. The Apostle Paul writes, “Did that which is good [the law], then bring death to me? By no means! It was sin [lawlessness — from 1 John 3:4], producing death in me through what was good, in order that [lawlessness] might be shown to be [lawlessness], and through the commandments might become sinful beyond measure” (Rom 7:13).
The Apostle Paul says that which is good, spiritual, and holy produced death in him by revealing to him the nature of the lawlessness in which he was enslaved. He writes elsewhere that death through lawlessness entered the world through one man and spread to all of humanity, but that this lawlessness is not counted against humanity where there is no law (Rom 5:13). Sin isn’t revealed to be exceedingly sinful where there is no law, and as such isn’t counted against humanity. A person is judged by what has been revealed to the person.
All of humanity will experience judgment, with judgment today being upon the household of God. The second covenant mediated by Moses forms the visible shadow of the spiritual second covenant. Under this physical second covenant, Moses told Israel that the Lord had placed before the nation life and good, death and evil (Deu 30:15). Moses said, ‘“If you [uncircumcised Israel — the nation will not be circumcised until after it crosses the Jordan] obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live’” (v. 16).
When the mediator of the second covenant changed from Moses to Christ Jesus, the old written code was abolished (Eph 2:15), and the laws of God were written on hearts and minds (Jer 31:33; Heb
8:10 & 10:16) of disciples born of spirit. A disciple is no longer under an outer law, but should be ruled by the internalized laws of God. And judgment of the disciple has been given to the disciple— and this judgment will be true. A disciple knows whether he or she lives by what the disciple knows is right. If the disciple doesn’t, the disciple is a hypocrite. The disciple’s righteousness doesn’t exceed that of the Pharisees. The disciple will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20). The disciple will have judged him or herself unworthy. And this will be the judgment revealed when Christ returns.
A disciple has not been given permission to grant him or herself an unworthy award of life. But (and a most important but a covering of Christ Jesus’ blood can be put on as a cloak. A disciple, by wearing this cloak, walks from death to life in the heavenly realm.
All who have been drawn by the Father (John 6:44, 65) have received the Holy Spirit. Without being born of spirit, no son of disobedience will leave the world. The person will remain hostile to God. The person won’t have anything to do with God. So when a person initially receives the Breath of the Father is a widely misunderstood subject. Accepting Jesus can only occur after the Father has drawn the person from the world by giving this person a puff of His Breath [Pneuma ’Agion]. For a born again disciple, baptism is unto judgment, a subject addressed in a later chapter. The direct transfer of the Breath of God through laying on hands was only necessary until baptism by the Spirit came to that group, to the Jew first (Acts 2:2–4), then to the Gentile (Acts 10:44–47), and finally to the twelve (Acts 19:1–7) that represent the 144,000.
Every person who has received spiritual birth is a disciple of Christ Jesus regardless of whose water the disciple was baptized in. All disciples are sons of God. But disciples then divide themselves into the sons of light that wear the cloak of the Lamb, and the sons of deceit or darkness who have become more fashion conscious and dress in business suits, or Chanel gowns, appearing in public with so few spiritual clothes a person might think they are on their way to the beach.
Understanding that spiritual judgment has been given to those upon whom judgment resides becomes a most important concept in the sons of light’s war against the sons of darkness, for the war is between life and death, between Christ Jesus and the Cross on which He was crucified. The same Cross will deliver all of humanity to the grave or Hades. Judgment occurs when raised up after death— no person came down from the Cross alive. The day of the person’s death was when raised up, not the day when the person actually expired. Again, the person might, through strength and determination, live for a day or more when crucified, but death was inevitable when the person was impaled to the crossed beams. The length of time between being raised up and expiring was the distance between Death and Hades.
When the Lamb of God, appearing as a slain Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes (Rev 5:6), removed the fourth of seven seals on the scroll of God, John looked and beheld “a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth” (Rev 6:8). And in the presentation of this scene, attributes have become appearance. The key to unlocking this scene is in the phrase, “with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (Rev 5:6). These spirits are all of God; they are as breath. And in this scene they appear as actual eyes— they serve as the eyes of God. Their usefulness is as the eyes of God. So in this scene, they appear as eyes instead of as breath [pneumata]. Likewise, the glorified Christ Jesus didn’t appear as a slain lamb when earlier seen by John in this vision (Rev 1:13–15). Jesus of Nazareth didn’t appear as a paschal lamb when hanging on the Cross; yet He was the paschal Lamb sacrificed for the household of God the Father, a lamb chosen that was appropriated to the size of the household (Exod 12:3–5). Therefore, the fourth beast loosed when the Lamb removes the seal from the scroll doesn’t really appear as a pale horse with a rider named Death. Rather, as the role Christ performed in dying on the Cross was that of the paschal Lamb, the rider and pale horse appear in the role this beast performs in the plan of God. This pale horse is no more a world condition than the Lamb of God is a world condition.
The teaching that the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are world conditions that lead up to the Tribulation is a misreading of both Revelation and Jesus’ Olivet discourse. They are four beasts characterized by the colors of the four horses, and Bible students will readily recognize three of them when their masks are removed. It is the appearance of the fourth beast— Death— that has been effectively concealed by Scripture until the time of the end. He is the enemy with whom the sons of light wage war, but he is the beast that will be publicly slain by the breath of the Lamb.
The Apostle Paul said that “the law of the Spirit [Pneuma or Breath] of life has set you [me] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). The Spirit or Breath of life is the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, received when a disciple is born-from-above in Christ Jesus. Paul had previously asked, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Rom 7:24–25). So within Paul’s usage of the phrase the law of sin and death, death is of the body. The war between life and death is fought within a disciple’s body. It is war between a disciple’s mind and his or her flesh. And Paul says that the law of sin dwells in his members (v. 23). Paul was in fleshly bondage to the law of sin. Receiving the Holy Spirit initiated a war of liberation fought entirely within Paul, with the liberator being Christ Jesus who will come in the future to reveal the judgment of disciples. Being born-from-above didn’t liberate Paul, but only started a war that this disciple would have to fight for the remainder of his physical life, for he remained in bondage to the law of sin and death that dwelt in his body. And if Paul quit fighting before his physical demise, Death would win. There would be no battling son of light to liberate when Paul’s judgment was revealed.
The law of sin or lawlessness opposes the law of God, which makes logical sense, for a state of disobedience precludes obedience. Since Kant, the Western psyche cannot accept a paradox. Two or more things cannot occupy the same space and time. The logic of this observation seems, today, self-evident. But Medieval Christianity, of which Puritanism was a derivative, understood Christ Jesus to be fully man and fully God. This understanding, still heard today in watered down Puritan theologies, is an actual denial of the divinity of Jesus rather than the affirmation of His divinity that those who hold this teaching intend it to be. For if Jesus as the last Adam did not receive spiritual birth when the Breath of God descended upon Him as a dove, then disciples are without hope of salvation. If Jesus were born as God inside of time, then His death on the Cross would be needless and useless. He had already defeated Satan outside of time; there would have been no need for Him to also defeat Satan inside time. And if Jesus were not born of flesh and blood as every person has been since Adam was created— if Jesus were God clothed in flesh— then He would not have been tempted in all things as human beings have been. He would not, then, be under sentence of death through birth. Only by being born as a human being with no other life than what every other human being has can Him living without sin make Him the acceptable sacrifice for the sins of humanity. So all who say that Jesus was fully man and fully God make of themselves antichrists. They are actually against Christ, who as Theos (the / YH / radical of YHWH, and one Eloah within the plural Elohim) came as His (Theos’ as opposed to Theon’s) son, His only.
In Greek, the Holy Spirit or Breath Holy [Pneuma ’Agion] is assigned the signifier representing deep breathing [pneuma] as opposed to shallow breathing [psuche] or the breath of physical life. But in Hebrew, the presence of the Holy Spirit is revealed by adding the signifying radical / ah / for vocalized or voiced breath as opposed to silent breath. This addition is seen in the name of Abram being changed to Abraham when the covenant ratified by circumcision is made with him (Gen 17:1–14). Then, interestingly, what’s seen is the twisting of this covenant from physical to spiritual by changing Sarai’s name to Sarah. Penises are not needed to receive the Holy Spirit; they are only needed for the physical covenant that promises Abraham a physical offspring from which will come many nations. The spiritual offspring, Christ Jesus, brings forth only one nation, spiritual Israel. The Apostle Paul understood this— whether by revelation through realization through the Holy Spirit, or by direct revelation from Christ Jesus, he doesn’t say.
Therefore, the tetragrammaton YHWH can be deconstructed to reveal Theos and Theon and their respective Breaths (Rom 8:9–11 — note, two Breaths or Spirits: the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead). Elohim is the regular plural of Eloah, which is, when deconstructed, the name of deity / El / plus voiced breath / ah /. The multiple that makes Eloah into the plural Elohim is two, with these two functioning as one as in the tetragrammaton.
In the tetragrammaton is a characteristic of the supernal realm, which Jesus addressed in His prayer to the Father before being taken:
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given tothem [His disciples], that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me,that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:2–23)
This characteristic is also seen in marriage where a man and a woman become one flesh, just as Theon and Theos were one deity. And this characteristic is coexistence, an actual law (the signifier law used as a self-evident postulate) of coexistence, or oneness. It is unity elevated to a dictate. And this unity or coexistence is based upon the absence of time in the supernal realm.
Scripture reveals a sudden creation of the universe. Matter comes into existence suddenly. And with matter comes mass and gravitational attraction. Time can be written as a function of gravity; therefore, space-time has a small amount of mass resulting from the decay of heavy-mass particles and revealed through the consistency of temperature (three degrees Kelvin) in all quadrants of space. So a characteristic of the heavenly realm can now be understood: time doesn’t exist. There is no space-time. There is only the present, so whatever is, or presently exists must be compatible with what will be, and vice versa. Outside of time, a moment lasts forever regardless of the activities within the moment (a secular literary exploration of this is found in Borge’s short story, “A Secret Miracle”). Because this moment lasts, coexistence is mandatory, or the problems of a paradox emerge.
The above can be glossed over by not grasping the science. The problem of a paradox begins with the physical structure of matter— its solidness. If my keyboard occupies space on my desk, then my wife’s keyboard cannot occupy that same space at the same time. But the solidness of matter is really an illusion even though it is absolutely real for us. In the supra-dimension of heaven, matter doesn’t exist. So the first three dimensions of length, width, and height, all created by the soldiness of matter, are not necessary. The fourth dimension, space-time, made necessary to allow for movement of solid matter is, then, also unnecessary in heaven; it doesn’t exist. Rather, without time to allow for movement of opposing units of mass, the entire concept of opposition cannot exist. All must be one, even if this one is like a pomegranate. Individualism as presently valued by Western societies cannot exist in the supernal realm. Individualism in heaven can only exist as two being one in marriage, where both individuals remain but the one submits to the other and the other defers to the one— and the two become one, not in a child as some denominations teach, but one in complete unity. The problem with marriage in America and Western Europe is the concept of independent individualism. Whereas marriage should be the basis for practicing oneness, or the law of coexistence, it has become, at best, a truce to end a civil war, with each side suspicious that the other might use the truce to make territorial gains.
So all that is in heaven must coexist with everything else as if perfectly married. The absence of time dictates this oneness through complete unity. The absence of time doesn’t allow for strife to be created, which is why finding lawlessness in a anointed cherub (Ezek 28:15) created a cascade of events that bring us to where we are inside time, and inside a narrative flow of events.
The flawed Christology of the early Church was the direct result of perceiving eternity to be endless time, as if time were a lateral line stretched infinitely far beyond the horizon of the earth. Because heaven wasn’t visualized as a timeless dimension the theologians of the early Church were as blind men describing an elephant. And because heaven is not today commonly perceived to be a timeless dimension, the errors introduced into Christianity by early theologians continue as received truth through historical exegesis. Elephants look like trees, or like ropes, or like snakes, or however the blind description goes.
Love is the defining expression of coexistence. As such God is Love, as are His laws. Through His laws, coexistence or compatibility is possible. And this principle of compatibility/incompatibility is perhaps best shown by the light/darkness metaphor. Darkness requires the total absence of light. Any light, no matter how tiny, defeats the darkness. So darkness and light cannot coexist. Thus, since God is light, no darkness can exist in God. Likewise, death cannot exist in God. Evil cannot exist in God, for lawlessness or sin cannot coexist with adherence or obedience to the laws of God, again, defined as love. Therefore, finding iniquity or lawlessness in an anointed cherub began a civil war in the supernal realm that has given Western cultures marriage with women’s rights and men’s unfaithfulness gutting oneness as if marriages were floundering fish. This lawlessness of the anointed cherub had to coexist with obedience until its sinfulness was revealed. A change of states from obedient to disobedient within a moment is exceedingly difficult, but not so within time, which through its passage mandates change.
Absolutes are words in a classification that excludes all degrees (all grayness). A person is either alive, or dead. A person cannot be a little bit alive, or partially alive, or mostly alive. The person is either alive, or not. Same with pregnant. A woman isn’t almost pregnant, or nearly pregnant. She is either pregnant, or she isn’t. And the word obedient is such an absolute. A person cannot be mostly obedient and still be obedient. All deviation from obedience makes a person disobedient. Even the slightest deviation makes the person disobedient.
The above seems extremely self-evident, but through absolutes, a characteristic of the anointed cherub’s lawlessness can be determined: this anointed cherub’s iniquity or lawlessness appears as righteousness. It could not appear otherwise and still coexist with obedience.
The answer to how lawlessness can appear as righteous is in the temptation account: Adam had been told he could eat of every tree in Eden, including of the tree of life, except for one tree. The fruit of this tree was knowledge of good and evil. And taking this fruit was taking onto himself, a son made in the image and likeness of God, knowledge of good and evil. Henceforth, Adam would, through knowledge, determine what was good and what was evil. And as long as Adam’s determination of good was identical to God’s determination, Adam would practice righteousness. This state could have continued but for Adam realizing his nakedness once he threw off his covering of obedience; his changed status was shocking.
Let’s pause for a moment: sin entered the world through Adam, but Eve ate first of the forbidden fruit. Usually some variation of Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn’t is used to explain this apparent textual inconsistency. But Adam was a son of God. Eve was created from Adam. And Adam was Eve’s covering just as the last Adam is the second Eve’s covering. Obedience to God was Adam’s covering, just as obedience to God was the last Adam’s covering. Christ Jesus as the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45) had to be made sin in order to die. He took on the sins of the world when He was made sin. For His obedience to God covered Him from Death; He did not deserve to die, what the second lawbreaker said. So the first Adam covered Eve’s sin. She was guilty, but Adam covered her disobedience by being her husband. However, Adam’s covering was obedience to God. So when Adam ate of the fruit, he lost his covering— and death entered the world.
During the passage of the four millennia between when Adam lost his covering of obedience and Christ Jesus became the spiritual covering of the sons of light, Satan’s reign over humanity’s mental topography went nearly undetected. Evil was made to appear ugly, as a disgusting, frightful thing. Evil was also outside of oneself. It was the enemy camped across the valley. It wasn’t deciding to obey God because they person thought that obeying God might be a good idea.
Even the ancient nation of Israel didn’t perceive that burning their firstborns as an offering to God was evil (Ezek 20:25–26). God said the firstborns belonged to Him (Exod 13:2). These Israelites who tossed their firstborn infants into fire were merely giving back to God that to which He had prior claim.
So burning firstborns was, to ancient Israel, a good thing to do, and an act that they believed was pleasing to God. However, the Greeks were appalled by the practice. What kind of a god do those Israelites serve? And the same can be said about America and Western Europe— what kind of a god do these Western nations serve that has them killing their babies before they are even born?
In the two millennia since the last Adam became the covering for the second Eve, carnally minded men have used the covering of Christ to wage war against non-believers, and against other believers. Christ’s blood covers many of the greatest atrocities ever committed against human beings. Well, maybe His blood does. This is for Him to determine. And we see the unholy coexistence of obedience to God’s laws and disobedience in John Brown, the righteous rebel hung after the Harper’s Ferry incident. What’s seen is that the end never justifies the means. What is of God will occur by means that are also of God.
Satan didn’t change from being perfect in knowledge and wisdom to being the grotesque dragon portrayed by Medieval artists. That change is not possible in the supernal realm, where compatibility restricts what can exist to what will coexist. Rather, his lawlessness had to appear as righteousness in order to maintain coexistence. Thus, he appeared as an angel of light even to other angels as lawlessness through vanity was at work in him. He truly deceived those angels he dragged into rebellion against the Most High. And his means of deception were those he used against Eve.
The Apostle Paul writes in the context of not taking tithes from the saints in Corinth,
And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do.For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles ofChrist. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is nosurprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Cor 11:12–15).
Paul sought to undermine the future activities of ministers whose spiritual descendants today preach the Prosperity Gospel— he did this by taking no moneys from the saints at Corinth. He took no moneys to reveal to the saints where these false ministers’ hearts were.
Satan appears as an angel of light, and his ministers appear as servants of righteousness. Neither Satan, nor his servants appear as humanity has been conditioned to think of evil. Rather, concerning the end of Satan’s servants, Jesus said,
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but theone who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day [when judgments arerevealed] many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and castout demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will Ideclare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matt 7:21–23)
So biblically, evil appears as righteousness mingled with lawlessness. Evil passes as righteousness in this world, but in the timeless supernal realm, obedience cannot long abide with disobedience. They are not one, and can never be one. So the person who is determined to do things his or her way as in the Sinatra song might, indeed, appear righteous, but this person is a worker of iniquity whom Jesus will deny knowing in his or her judgment.
The above needs repeating: Jesus is one with the Father and one with His disciples. They coexist as one. And in all things, Jesus was obedient to the Father. His disciples are obedient to the Father. And those who are not obedient but who will determine for themselves what is good and what is evil are not one with the Father, nor one with Jesus, nor one with the disciples who cover themselves with the blood of the paschal Lamb of God. And this disobedience is revealed through not keeping the least of the commandments, and through whether the disciple drinks from the Passover cup as Jesus established the example.
The endtime sons of light and sons of darkness are all sons of God. Satan appears as a minister of light; his servants appear as ministers of righteousness. They do not appear evil. And the difference between a son of light and a son of darkness is whether the son of God covers his sins by putting on Christ, this putting on annually renewed by drinking from the Passover cup as Jesus established the example.
An equally important observation can now be made: Satan has deceived his servants into truly believing that his servants serve the Father and the Son. His servants truly believe they are ministers of God. However, most of them can be unmasked by using the same means Paul used at Corinth— let the congregations give them no moneys. Let them earn their living with their hands. Disciples are under obligation to do business with their knowledge of God until Christ returns. If disciples do not want to directly do business, the least they should do is tithe. So let the disciples of Christ now begin to do business for themselves. Let them put their moneys and energies into their own ministries. And within a short period of time, most of Satan’s servants will rebel against their master, the devil. With few exceptions, they will not labor long for no monetary gain.
Satan appeared as an angel of light to the angels he deceived. His color didn’t suddenly change to black, or red. The change was masked with the appearance of righteousness. And the angels who joined him in rebellion against the Father and Son initially joined with no intention of rebelling.
What servant of Satan casts out demons in Christ’s name while knowing that he or she serves Satan? None, or few? Again, Satan appears as an angel of light. This must be grasped. Evil is lawlessness. It doesn’t always appear evil; it usually doesn’t appear ugly. It normally seems reasonable, and logical. So the only reliable way to determine whether a minister of righteousness is genuine or a disguised servant of Satan is by what the minister teaches, not by how the minister appears. All genuine ministers will teach a disciple to live within the laws of God that have been written on the disciple’s heart and mind. Genuine ministers do not teach lawlessness; they are not workers of lawlessness.
Once again, sin is lawlessness, and even a tiny bit of lawlessness is incompatible with obedience. Human beings are, today, in bondage to sin and death. They can appear extremely righteous, but lawlessness still dwells in their flesh. If they engage this lawlessness in a real war, fought with casualties taken, with the object being to crucify the flesh— literally, to kill the old man— then they have a liberator in Christ Jesus. A half-hearted war won’t defeat any enemy, let alone one as powerful as sin and death. And the person who surrenders to lawlessness isn’t worthy of Christ. So a person can lose battles (Grace covers these losses), but the person has to continue fighting.
George Washington and the Continental Army took on perhaps the most powerful army in the world. It wasn’t possible for Washington to defeat the British in a single all-out battle, but he developed the strategy of just keeping an army in the field and letting the British make enemies of their allies. This is the essence of guerilla warfare. Win once in a while so that your force appears viable, and just stay in the field. Stay fighting. Keep the fight going. And this is the essence of Christianity. Keep fighting against lawlessness. Do what is right. Lawlessness doesn’t have to be defeated in a day, but over a lifetime. So keep the fight going. Win once in a while, and never, never surrender. Never accept a defeat, even when one occurs. Keep battling away. A liberator is on His way. In a Christian’s walk with God, there are many more winters spent in Valley Forge than actual skirmishes fought where shots are fired. Those winters are called living by faith.
Time can be written as a mathematical function of gravity, thereby demonstrating that time, or space-time is part of the created universe. Heaven is not part of the universe, but exists as the domain in which the four unfurled dimensions of the universe have been constructed as if the universe were a spaceship. Therefore, there is no time in heaven as we perceive the construct. There is no past, nor future. There is only the present, as conveyed linguistically in the phrase, I AM. Existence means the presence of life. Death is the absence of life. And the presence of life and the absence of life cannot coexist at any particular moment. The passage of time is required for the change of states from life to death. Thus, every being with life in the supra-dimensional realm of heaven has everlasting life. Its status as a living being cannot change— unless it is cast into time, as Satan and his angels will be (Rev 12:9).
The universe, now, assumes importance in the aftermath of the civil war fought after lawlessness was found in an anointed cherub. The wages or penalty for lawlessness is death (Rom 6:23). But death doesn’t exist in the supernal realm, for the presence of life and the absence of life are incompatible states. Thus, God cast lawless angels into outer darkness, or Tartarus, the outer most region in the Greek conception of an underworld (2 Pet 2:4). The Apostle Peter isn’t establishing the validity of the Greek underworld, but is expressing a concept for which he lacks a better signifier. Peter wishes to convey the action of God casting lawless angels into death, where they remain alive until their judgment. Lawless angels are now spiritually as the two lawbreakers were physically when raised on Roman crosses. They have been restrained in time; they lack the power they would have if not bound. In relationship to their potential power, they are as helpless as men nailed to crosses— and they will die just as assuredly if mercy is not extended to them in their judgment, which for them remains in the future now that they have been cast into time. And the evidence of them being bound in time is the frequency with which Jesus encountered demons that manifested themselves to him.
To be consistent, the use of the phrase civil war conveys concepts of Union and Confederate troops at Gettysburg, or Cromwell’s Puritans against Charles’ Catholics. But a civil war exists within an individual when the laws of God implanted through the Breath of the Father into the mind of a disciple struggle against the appetites of the flesh, in which the law of sin and death dwells. No conflict existed within the individual until God drew the individual from the world. And in this model, we see the reverse of how Satan’s rebellion began in heaven. Within angels that Satan cast down, he planted rebellion in their minds and hearts. His rebellion warred with the obedience of the body until it finally overcame that obedience. So the civil war fought in the supernal realm was not skirmish lines against skirmish lines, but thoughts overcoming the habits of the body. It wasn’t seen until it was internally won by the rebels— only the rebels didn’t win. They were restrained and held when the rebellion became apparent.
For far too long, human beings have believed that angels cannot die— and they cannot as long as they remained in the supernal realm. The assumption has been that God cannot or would not deconstruct that which He assembled. This assumption has no basis in fact, and is actually contrary to Scripture. Yet it has been so widely held that even the demons probably believed it. Therefore, the reality of time’s potential for change has never been seriously explored. As a subspecies, theologians have traditionally been academically ignorant and spiritually immature. The exceptions are notable for being exceptions. And more disciples than should have taken pride in not being “wise according to worldly standards” (1 Cor 1:26). Yes, God certainly uses the foolish in the world to shame the wise. But once a person has the Breath of God, the person is no longer of the world. The person has obtained the mind of Christ, a fact about which the person has no right to boast. But this fact allows for spiritually mature disciples to mentally push beyond where the world has ever gone. The person with the mind of Christ is a disciple of Christ. As a disciple, the person is a mental pioneer following a trail blazed by the Son of Man. And in this essay, the disciple rides shotgun on the first coach over this last stretch of the run through the wilderness of sin. The Way to spiritual Jerusalem lies open before us.
The universe exists as an attractive death chamber in which rebelling angels can be executed (Ezek 28:18–19), or can change (the reason for the sons of God to judge angels). It also exists so potential heirs of God can develop the habit of obedience, for, again, obedience and disobedience, or vice versa cannot coexist at the same moment. They are not one. And the sons of light and the son of darkness are not one, and can never be. They war against each other today, a situation that will not change until Christ returns to reveal judgments. Then the righteous-appearing teachers of lawlessness will accuse Christ Jesus of being unfair for not having told them that they were serving Satan. But the Book of Deuteronomy has existed since Moses as one witness against them (Deu 31:26). Jesus’ words are the second witness. And upon the words of two witnesses, a case is established. The teachers of lawlessness will perish without further excuses being made.
Human beings have been created in the image of God; they need to develop the attitude of obedience before they receive everlasting life, or an incorruptible body in the supernal realm. And they do this today by striving against the law of sin that dwells in their members… human beings have been placed in bondage to sin and death for the development of righteousness. They have been in bondage since Adam ate forbidden fruit. This bondage is spiritual and was foreshadowed by Israel’s physical bondage in Egypt. But this bondage will end with the second Passover slaughter of firstborns.
The truism of the human experience has been that all things continue as they have, that since the fathers fell sleep, the coming of the Messiah has been promised but hasn’t happened. Why should someone now believe that the evidence of experience is meaningless? That the end of the age is finally upon humanity?
The focus of God has been, from the beginning, on the dual harvests of humanity, the early barley harvest and the later wheat harvest. This focus is patterned after the agricultural growing season of the promised land, with the resurrection of firstfruits [the barley harvest] to occur upon Christ’s return, and the maincrop harvest [the wheat harvest] to occur in the great White Throne Judgment. Typology is the key to understanding the Bible. The Judean promised land is the visible, physical shadow of the invisible, spiritual promised mental landscape of liberation from the Apostle Paul’s law of sin. Paul said that with his mind, he served the law of God, but with his flesh he served the law of sin (Rom 7:25). He was spiritually as physical Israelites were in Egypt— he was indeed part of the holy nation of spiritual Israel whereas the scribes and the Pharisees had no spiritual life. They were spiritually as Egyptians were physically, while Gentiles were spiritually like the livestock of Egypt.
The above can be read without any assignment of meaning to the words. In physical Egypt, there were Israelites, Egyptians, and livestock. The Egyptians were in control of the nation, but the Israelites had a relationship with YHWH, this relationship coming through a covenant made with the patriarchs. Israelites were I AM’s firstborn son (Exod 4:22). Spiritual Israel is today the firstfruits of the harvest of the earth, with Christ Jesus the first of the firstfruits. So in the world today, spiritual Israelites have replaced physical Israelites as God’s holy nation. These spiritual Israelites are born-from-above, or born again Christians in whose minds the laws of God reign as these laws reigned in the Apostle Paul’s mind.
The scribes and the Pharisees were in the 1st-Century like Egyptians, in that none of them kept the law even though they had it; therefore, they did not have a relationship with God even though they believed themselves to be spiritual. They were out of covenant with God, but they had control of the civil government. And their endtime equivalents are the sons of darkness, who have the Holy Spirit, but grieve it through unbelief, this unbelief revealed through disobedience. They are not of the world, but they kick the world around as if it were a soccer ball, for they are spiritual servants of the king of Babylon.
Gentiles in 1st-Century Judea were as the livestock was in physical Egypt, when even the firstborn of beasts were slain by the death angel. They have no spiritual life, and they are today, the greater world; they are all of humanity that doesn’t identify itself as Christian.
When the death angel passed throughout Egypt slaying firstborns of men and beasts that first Passover night, Israel had covered itself with the blood of a paschal lamb, one or more for a household, depending upon the size of the household. Firstborns of Israel escaped death. And within hours, Egypt demanded that Israel leave, taking with them their livestock and possessions— and much of the wealth of Egypt.
The harvest of the earth has taken, from human perspective, a very long time to ripen; yet, from the foundation of the universe, God knew that the early barley harvest would not ripen for six thousand years. The main wheat crop would take another thousand years. Christ’s rest would be the spiritual seventh day, the equivalent of the hot summer months in Judea when little work was done. And God also knew that the early barley crop would need hardening off before it could be harvested.
Grain farmers understand this hardening off process, where the crop is left in the field to dry before being combined. If the seed grain is too wet, it will mildew, or rot. It will have to be dried before it can be stored— and the Tribulation is the hardening off of the firstfruits before the harvest of the earth is reaped (Rev 14:15). This hardening off process will be actual living by faith, excluded from the economy of spiritual Babylon. It will be trusting God to supply the disciple’s needs, and it will not be easy. It will take more faith than disciples have ever imagined possessing.
The analogy is exact: the death angel passed throughout Egypt at midnight, the end of the sixth hour. The death angels will again pass through spiritual Egypt at midnight, the end of the sixth millennium. And the creation has been groaning in anticipation of spiritual Israel giving birth to many heirs of God— the hardening off of the grain is also the hard labor pains of the Church, who is the second Eve giving birth to the many heirs of God. The Christian Church will not escape the labor pains of childbirth; it will not be raptured to heaven at the beginning of seven years of tribulation. Rather, all of the Church is the firstborn spiritual son of the Most High. And a third of the Church will die the night of the second Passover, because spiritual Israel refuses to cover her sins with the paschal blood of the Lamb of God. The Christian Church will not take the sacraments as Jesus established the example. Instead, it chooses how and when it will take the sacraments, which is akin to Israel in Egypt telling Moses that the elders of the nation decided the 14th of the first month at even was not a good time to sacrifice a lamb, that some of them would sacrifice a lamb on the first day of the week, and others would sacrifice a lamb quarterly, that Moses had no business telling them how to worship God or how often to make a sacrifice.
What would have happened if Israel in Egypt had not smeared the blood of a paschal lamb on doorposts and lintels? The Israelite household would have been treated as if the household were Egyptian— and among the Egyptians, there was weeping in every household, from the Pharaoh down. There will be weeping in every Christian household if the Church doesn’t take the Passover as Jesus established the example, for the born-from-disciple who doesn’t take the Passover is a spiritual Egyptian.
The Tribulation begins with the second Passover slaughter of approximately a third of humanity. Many false prophets in spiritual Israel will identify this mass slaughter of humanity as the sixth trumpet plague— and indeed, this slaughter foreshadows the sixth trumpet plague. Many other false prophets will attempt to pull an even more insidious con on the holy nation of God. They will say that the dead of the Church have been raptured to heaven, that they were wrong about a bodily rapture, that just the souls of saints were spirited away to heaven where they will escape the Tribulation. Of course, this makeshift explanation of a third of the Church dying in one day will not withstand critical scrutiny, but neither does the rapture in its present construction.
The liberation of Israel will be from the Apostle Paul’s law of sin. No longer will humanity be in bondage to sin; no longer does the Church need this legal taskmaster as saints spiritually harden off by having control of their minds and bodies. However, to help this crop of firstfruits toughen up, they will have been physically delivered into the hand of the little horn of Daniel chapter 7 (v. 25). They will have been delivered into the hand of the man of perdition. And the resistance against which these saints fight to develop spiritual strength will no longer reside in their flesh, but in an outside civil and theological power. If these saints seek to save their physical lives, they will lose their spiritual lives. Judgment will be upon them just as if they were nailed to a Roman cross. They are to pick up their crosses, break whatever tethers them to spiritual Babylon, and follow Jesus. With their liberation from lawlessness, they have the power to do this.
With the liberation of Israel from bondage to sin, the war that the sons of light fight against darkness will go from being between their mind and their flesh, to being between themselves and the physical and spiritual sons of darkness. Finally, this war between life and death will appear as real war. The wise will turn many to God, but they will take casualties (Dan 11:31–35). Satan’s disguised ministers of righteousness will support the man of perdition. They will return most of Israel back to the Cross and to bondage to lawlessness (2 Thess 2:3), manifest openly by which day they observe the Sabbath.
The sons of darkness— Satan’s disguised ministers of righteousness— are as spiritual Egyptians. They expel the sons of light from Babylon. They are the miry clay of the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s image.
The liberation of Israel at the second Passover will be the Church’s liberation from bondage to sin and by extension, death. Sin will no longer have any claim on disciples; it will not reside in disciples’ members [flesh] as it did in Paul’s, and as it has in everyone else’s flesh since Adam ate forbidden fruit. Therefore, disciples will have to be delivered into the hand of Death, which because of their liberation, also has no claim on disciples. The good news that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations before the age concludes is that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13–14). They will be saved because Death will have no inherited claim on them.
And in a concept too alien for many to seriously consider— in a concept that could not be perceived prior to human understanding of the timeless nature of the supernal realm— the creation of the universe with change mandated allows for fallen angels to change, to repent of lawlessness. Darkness represents death. Rebelling angels have been imprisoned in outer darkness; they have been imprisoned in their death chamber. They will die, not something they ever saw when in the supernal realm. But they will see an angel die when the first horn or great horn of the king of Greece is suddenly broken the day of the second Passover. Then the reality of their imprisonment in darkness will be fully realized. They will know with certainty that they swallowed a lie when they believed an anointed cherub in which lawlessness was found. They will realize that they, too, are like the two lawbreakers on either side of Christ Jesus at Calvary. Their deaths are just as certain as were the deaths of men raised up on a Roman cross.
Satan, the beast, and the false prophet are under sentence of death. They are sure to die. Their judgment has already been determined and revealed. But the judgments of the remaining fallen angels haven’t been revealed (1 Cor 6:3), other than they are under sentence of death and are confined to their death chamber. Rather, the glorified saints will judge these angels— judgment would not be necessary if their fates were sealed, just as no further judgment comes upon disciples who hear the words of Jesus and believe the Father. These disciples’ outcome is assured.
Judgment is not a rubberstamping of death warrants.
For disciples, the key to salvation is enduring to the end when liberated from bondage to sin and death. Disciples will know what is right, and will have the power to choose and do what is right, even if that means surrendering their physical lives to civil and ecclesiastical authorities.
Once liberated from bondage to sin, disciples will have no excuse for not doing what is right. They will not be deceived. Their minds will have control of their bodies. They will no longer need a sacrifice for sin. Their covering will be the Body of Christ, the Church— and they are the Church. They will have become their own covering. Their obedience to God will now be their covering just as it was for Adam, and for the last Adam.
Was that shouted loud enough? If a disciple liberated from bondage to lawlessness returns, as a dog does to its vomit, to lawlessness, the disciple will cover his or her sin with his or her blood. Christ will no longer cover the person’s sins in the spiritual realm— that sacrifice will have been taken away for the remainder of the growing season.
Now the good news that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations (Matt 24:14), since death will no longer reside in the flesh of Israelites, is all who endure to the end shall be saved (v. 13). In order for any of them to die, they will have to be killed by an outside source. And many will die, which will actually seal them from failure in the hour that is to come, the hour that will try all the earth.
God will give the saints into the hand of the man of perdition, the little horn on the head of the fourth beast (Dan 7:25). This little horn will wear out the saints as he makes war against them. He becomes an external power that is like the appetites of the flesh. And he will have to be fought just as a disciple’s head and heart fought against the disciple’s belly and loins. And more about this fight later.
Besides delivering the saints into the hand of the little horn, God gives to the fourth horseman or beast, divine authority to kill a fourth of remaining humanity: a billion plus individuals. The math is truly frightening. An approximate third of humanity will be killed at the second Passover. A fourth of remaining humanity will be given over to Death. Then a third of the remainder will be killed in the sixth trumpet plague, leaving a third of humanity alive after three and a half years, exactly the number that Zechariah prophesied (Zech 13:7–8). It is no wonder Jesus said that if these days were not shortened, no person would be saved alive (Matt 24:22).
Let’s put some meat on those numbers. The second Passover will occur when approximately half of humanity identifies itself as Christian. This is not far in the future. The world population will be approximately 7 billion people. So in one day, two plus billion people will supernaturally die, with a disproportional amount of them in China and Western Europe. The nation of China will be virtually abolished. China is not a significant factor in endtime prophecies for this reason. Then over the course of the next three years, another billion and a half will die, with most of these being in the marginalized areas of the world. Then again in one night, another billion and half or so will die because humanity still refuses to quit worshiping the works of its hand, idols and demons. Humanity continues to refuse to cover itself with the blood of Christ even though now all of the world has become the firstborn son of God. And plenty of people will say that they won’t worship a God that will kill so many. They are right, they will not worship Him. They have determined for themselves what is good, and what is evil. To them, God is evil. Their god would not do this. And again, they are right. Their god won’t, but only because the Most High won’t allow him to. For their god has been a murderer from the beginning. It was their god who brought death through disobedience into the Garden of Eden. It is their god who has killed every previous human being that has ever drawn breath. Yet they will worship him because he is the god they know and have always worshiped.
Although the numbers of dead are too large to be real, it is, however, the alien concept of fallen angels being able to return to obedience within their death chamber that has the greatest theological ramifications. Angels have long desired to know what will be revealed by the Holy Spirit to endtime disciples (1 Pet 1:12), and what has been revealed is their fates are not sealed. If they do not return to absolute obedience, they will surely die. They will be ashes under the feet of glorified saints, who each chose to obey the laws of God even when they were in bondage to the law of sin and death. If, however, they use time as a tool to wrench their character back into obedience (which will be even tougher for them than it is for human beings who have a Savior extending them Grace), and if they bring forth works worthy of obedience, then they need to realize their judge will be someone who also had to overcome disobedience, someone who also needed mercy, someone who would not be in the position of judging the angel if Christ had not died for the saint. What the Holy Spirit has revealed is that it is possible for fallen angels to repent, but that they have only a single chance to live, and only a short while to return to obedience. They have only until the saints are glorified. So those who truly regret joining Satan’s rebellion need to immediately return to obedience to the Father. They have no covering for their sins. They are as disciples will be when liberated from bondage to sin. So those saints who judge them will have a comparable basis from which to judge, just as Christ Jesus has a comparable basis for judging the saints.
Obedience to God means abandoning Satan, and joining the other side… my German professor taught English in the university in Vienna before the War. When the Nazis drafted him and gave him a rifle, he began walking toward the English front lines. He dropped his rifle when he crossed the front, raised his hands in surrender, and kept right on marching, not even breaking stride. Anything less for a fallen angel will be difficult to explain in the angel’s judgment, which is sure. Again, those who truly regret their decision to determine for themselves good and evil need to immediately bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. They need to form insurgency squads of righteousness within Satan’s ranks, as real war is being fought in the supernal realm between the spiritual princes of Persia and Greece.
Chapter Two
The prophecies of Daniel are frequently cited in Qumran’s War Scroll— and it is to these prophecies that the endtime sons of light turn to understand what will happen in their war with the prophets of darkness. Both sides will use these prophecies. Both sides will believe they alone possess understanding of these prophecies. And one side will add an uninspired history textbook into Scripture, thereby teaching disciples that the sealed and secret visions of Daniel can be unsealed and revealed by uninspired men (and women).
If someone identifies the iron legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s image as Rome or the Rome Empire, or if someone identifies the fourth beast of Daniel chapter seven as Rome, the Rome Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire, the person is a false prophet! The visions of Daniel are no longer sealed with their shadow. They are open for all to read.
Jesus said that many false prophets would come, which means there are still more of them coming, for the timeframe for these false prophets is the first three and half years of the Tribulation. Throughout Paul’s ministry, he fought the circumcision faction. Throughout the ministry of the Philadelphia Church, the sons of light will fight the false prophets who sincerely believe that they serve Christ. If they serve Christ, then let them acknowledge that neither Rome, nor the Roman Empire is mentioned in prophecy. If they will not, they are of Satan, said without caveats.
Before disclosing the battles to be fought, the nature of the war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness needs to be so well understood that obedience to God never becomes at issue as the faith of saints is severely tried. Again, the war goes from being mind against flesh, fully inside all sons of God, to being outside of themselves once liberated from bondage to sin. Jesus said to clean the inside of the cup, then all of the cup will be clean. And what will be revealed with Israel’s liberation from bondage to sin is the lawlessness in the hearts and minds of the sons of darkness. These disguised ministers of righteousness will, through the actions of their flesh, show the world the lawlessness of their hearts and minds. No longer will darkness hide in light by being inside a born-from-above disciple.
Again, when the mind reigns over the flesh, the contents of hearts and minds will be revealed by what the person does, a simple enough statement. Yet someone will claim not to understand, that the logic is oblique and the writing circuitous. Both claims might well be true.
Today all born-from-above disciples are imprisoned in sin. Receiving the Holy Spirit liberates the heart and the mind through receipt of the laws of God, but the belly and loins remain in bondage to the law of sin and death. Thus, with receiving the Holy Spirit, a war begins within the disciple, a war that pits intellect and emotions against physical appetites. These appetites sneak into the emotions to launch strong counterattacks of lusting for that to which the disciple has no right. These appetites sneak into the mind to stoke the fires of vanity. But the mind fights back by withholding from the appetites that which they desire most. A reason for fasting is for the mind to demonstrate its power over the appetite of the belly. A reason for observing the Sabbath is for the mind to force the body to rest. And a reason for marrying for love is for the heart to defeat the appetites of the loins.
However, when a disciple is liberated from the law of sin and death that dwells in his or her flesh, the mind and heart will rule the entirely of the body. Whatever the mind wills, the body will do. So the content of the mind and heart will be revealed through the actions of the body. Character will become action. Therefore, to continue providing a resistance against which the disciple must strive to further develop character, the saints will be given into the hand of the man of perdition for three and a half years. The battle between obedience and disobedience moves from inside the saint to outside the saint, who will have to strive against civil governments to practice true faith.
The many prophecies about taking away the daily [sacrifice] have been understood to mean the stopping of animal sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple. These sacrifices were stopped when Rome sacked Jerusalem ca. 70 C.E.. They haven’t yet been reinstated although that possibility exists. A temple will have to be built, and a priesthood purified. A red heifer is needed, and finding one has been problematic. But these are all physical difficulties that can be overcome. The bigger problem is that circumcised Israel no longer has a covenant relationship with God; the Sinai covenant has been abolished (Eph 2:15). Circumcised Israel killed the Covenantor. Christ was free to marry another (Rom 7:1–4). So even if temple sacrifices resume in Jerusalem, the prophecies aren’t about those renewed sacrifices being again stopped.
Israel goes from being the physical nation that gave birth to the man child who will rule the world (Rev 12:5) to the spiritual nation whose offspring keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus (v. 17). The visible physical nation forms the shadow of the invisible spiritual nation. Animal sacrifices foreshadow a reality that is Christ Jesus, the paschal Lamb of God sacrificed one time for the entirety of the household of God. Spiritual Israelites put on Christ Jesus as their spiritual covering (Gal 3:27), just as Elohim killed animals in Eden to make skin clothing for Adam and Eve (Gen 3:21). Sin requires a covering of blood. The skin clothing Elohim made for Adam and Eve were daily reminders of the price of lawlessness. And Christ Jesus as the last Adam made for disciples a covering of Himself as the daily reminder of the wages of sin. He is the daily sacrifice of Israel, and the daily putting on of Christ Jesus is the reality of the daily sacrifice in the temple. The stopping of the daily— the prophesied taking away of an already missing daily sacrifice— will be the prophesied great rebellion of Israel when obedience is the only covering for sin that Israel wears.
Daniel, in vision, sees the great horn of the he-goat [the king of Greece] broken, then four horns emerge from the great horn’s stump, and a little horn emerges on the north horn. This little horn “became great, even as great as the Prince of the host. And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him [the Prince of the host], and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown. And a host will be given over to it [the little horn] together with the regular burnt offering because of [an act of rebellion, alternate reading], and it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper” (Dan 8:11–12).
The Apostle Paul writes to the saints in Thessalonica,
Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day [the Lord’s day] will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.… And you know what is restraining him now that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery oflawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will killwith the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. (2 Thess 2:3–8 emphasis added).
The lawless one exists until the appearance of Christ’s coming. He kills this lawless one with His breath, or Spirit. And the one who presently restrains this lawless one is also Christ Jesus, who restrains him until He is out of the way. Christ Jesus is out of the way when He no longer bears Israel’s lawlessness in the spiritual realm. He takes Himself out of the way by liberating Israel from bondage to sin. Now the body of Christ, the Church, is Israel’s covering, meaning that the only covering Israel has is the same one Abraham had— obedience by faith.
The timeframe for Paul’s explication of his earlier teaching to the saints at Thessalonica is the arrival of the Lord’s day, and the coming of the Lord. The timeframe for Daniel’s vision of the little horn is the sanctuary of God being ‘“restored to its rightful state’” (Dan 8:14). The coming of the Lord will restore the sanctuary to its rightful state. So Daniel’s little horn and Paul’s lawless one come to their ends at the same time. It is their arrival, however, that is of the most interest to the sons of light.
Daniel’s vision ‘“concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression [rebellion] that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled underfoot”’ (Dan 8:13) is for ‘“2300 mornings and evenings”’(v. 14), the expression generally taken to mean 2300 days. The morning and evening sacrifices constituted the required sacrifice for one day, or for the daily. Gabriel tells Daniel that this 2300-day date is true, so this number can be considered one of the hard numbers by which events in the Tribulation are dated.
The lawless one has been a restrained spiritual force outside of disciples since the time of Paul. If the lawless one were a human being, then the linguistic gymnastics necessary to erase the intervening two millennia stretch credibility beyond its breaking point. What has prevented earlier pundits from recognizing the lawless one as a spirit being is that Christ Jesus will kill him with the Breath [Holy Spirit] of His mouth. The assumption has been that angelic beings cannot die, an assumption clearly contradicted by Scripture. They cannot die outside of time, but once cast from heaven or imprisoned in outer darkness, they cannot escape death unless mercy is extended to them. Satan’s judgment has already been revealed: he will die. So when he is cast into time, he knows he will only live for a short while longer (Rev 12:12). His wrath will, indeed, be great— when cast into time, though, Satan will become like a man just as king Nebuchadnezzar lived and thought like an ox for seven years.
Today, disciples put on Christ Jesus to cover an inner war between the disciple’s mind and flesh. The law of sin and death dwells in each disciple, thereby taking the disciple captive prior to when the disciple received spiritual birth through receipt of the Holy Spirit. The disciple becomes in him or herself a representation of all of humanity in the manner of a brain cell being a hologram of the entire brain. The disciple was taken captive by sin and death long before the disciple reached twelve years of age (said for those who believe in a bodily rapture). The disciple is like a British Colonial child taken captive by Native Americans. He or she is reared as an Indian, a member of whatever tribe took the child captive. In this case, the child is taken captive by sin and death, and reared as a captive of lawlessness, doomed to death. And certainly many infants have died at birth or prior to birth, for death entered the world through Adam. So the child’s captivity begins with the child’s conscious thoughts, as seen by a two-year-old child’s temper tantrum. The child has already learned rebellion, but hasn’t yet learned to either use or control that rebellion. And the child really had to learn nothing, for the child was given over to the law of sin and death since Adam and Eve were driven from Eden. Satan has been the prince of the power of the air, so with physical breath— the inhalation of air— Satan has reigned over humanity, enslaving all of humanity through the law of sin and death.
The laws of God oppose the law of sin and death, for with receipt of the laws of God received through the Breath of God [Pneuma ’Agion], the disciple has received spiritual birth and life in the supernal realm although the disciple remains imprisoned in flesh and in time. So while the disciple’s physical body lives through breathing air, over which Satan reigns, thereby continually refueling the law of sin and death that dwells in the disciple’s flesh, the disciple’s mind lives on the Breath of God. War now exists between the disciple’s mind, fueled by the Breath of God, and the disciple’s flesh, fuel by the sir over which Satan reigns. So what the Father and the Son do when the Father draws a disciple from the world (John 6:44, 65) and Christ calls the disciple is start a backburn or brushfire inside Satan’s domain. They have literally planted a guerilla warfare cell inside spiritual Babylon. They have done to Satan what he did to them when he instigated rebellion in the supernal realm. It is for the Father and the Son payback time, with obedience to the laws of God waging guerilla war against Satan’s reign of lawlessness.
Every born-from-above disciple who has tried to live by the laws of God written on his or her heart and mind knows how difficult this fight of obedience against disobedience is. Sure, some of the fight happens outside the disciple, but the primary battles have been and will remain, until liberation, inside the disciple. When the inner battle is won, the outside body takes care of itself although it has been said that no good deed goes unpunished, a truism that reflects how Satan reigns over Babylon.
An outside man of perdition or lawless one hasn’t been needed since sin and death has enslaved humanity, thereby making spiritual liberation as necessary for a spiritual Israelite as physical liberation was necessary for circumcised Israel in Egypt. In typology, Egypt or south now represents a disciple’s flesh. So without need for an outer foil against which a saint will practice righteousness, the lawless one— who had already appeared while the Apostle Paul remained alive— has been restrained. And jumping ahead of ourselves, we will see that this little horn, when no longer restrained, is a spirit being who will possess a man, an Arian Christian who truly believes that the angel inside him is Christ Jesus. So he will declare himself God in good conscience.
Paul continues in his epistle to the saints in Thessalonica, “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders” (2 Thess 2:9). Daniel’s little horn “grew great, even to the host of heaven. And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them” (Dan 8:10). It was Satan who rebelled against the Most High, and who caused a war in the supernal realm. So the little horn is, indeed, Satan, the spiritual king of Babylon. He comes as the lawless one, comes empowering a human being because Christ no longer restrains him. Rather, Christ has sent Babylon reeling with one blow, the second Passover. Spiritual Babylon is doubled over in pain when the firstborns not covered by the paschal blood of the Lamb of God are slain. And Satan, as the little horn, comes at the beginning of the seven years of tribulation as his own shadow— when cast from heaven halfway through these seven years, he will come as the true antiChrist, the second beast of Revelation chapter 13.
For disciples, the second Passover brings liberation from sin and death dwelling in their members; their Liberator will have come. The inner war of mind versus flesh will be won, finally! But there will be no victory celebrations. It will now be time for the sons of light to engage the lawless one, and to engage Death, both as outside ecclesiastical powers and civil authorities.
The true tragedy of the endtime scenario is the story of the sons of darkness, men and women whose desire is to serve Christ Jesus. Most have felt the calling of God since they were youths. Many have wanted nothing else but to serve God. But because they will not hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who raised Him from the dead, they teach Satan’s masked doctrine of lawlessness— and they paid good money to go to school to learn this doctrine of lawlessness. So it isn’t as if they haven’t studied the Bible. They know the Book, but they cannot accept the idea that so many have been wrong for so long. So when they are liberated from bondage to sin, they will return, like the dogs that they are, to their own vomit. And among them will be members of my extended family who would better serve themselves by truly serving God.
Following liberation, the sons of light will live by faith in a world rocked by the second Passover. They will be truly hated for Christ’s name’s sake. They will be betrayed, excluded from jobs; they will lose reputations, entitlements, privileges. Churches that are charitable corporations will lose control of the messages. And keeping the Sabbath will became a major test of faith, for the spiritual Egyptians will drive out spiritual Israel.
Today, a disciple puts on Christ as his or her daily covering for sin. The daily sacrifice in the supernal realm continues unabated since the glorified Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples and said, ‘“Receive the Holy Spirit [Pneuma ’Agion]”’ (John 20:22) the evening following His Ascension. With Him breathing on these ten disciples, He created the second Eve— Elohim caused a deep sleep to come upon Adam, and from Adam’s side, Elohim took a rib and fashioned the first Eve. Jesus is the last Adam. His three days in the grave correspond to Adam’s deep sleep. His wound in his side corresponds to the rib being taken from Adam. And His breathing on those ten disciples corresponds to Elohim presenting Eve to Adam. The Church begins not at Pentecost, when the Church is filled by the Breath of God as a wife is filled with her husband’s seed and gives birth to three thousand children, but the evening following Jesus’ Ascension. It began at approximately the same time as when Elohim presented Eve to the first Adam.
The spiritual daily sacrifice continues without interruption, just as the holy nation of Israel continues/continued without interruption in its transformation from being a physical nation to being a spiritual nation. The daily sacrifice has not yet been taken away. And endtime prophecies about the daily sacrifice being taken away reference this putting on of Christ to cover the disciple’s sins.
The lawless one through rebellion takes away the spiritual daily sacrifice, this putting on of Christ. And the assumption that the lawless one appears evil through ugliness will cause the rebellion to be philosophically linked to Satanic rituals and black arts instead of linked to the determination of good and evil for oneself. Lawlessness entered Eden when Eve believed the serpent that she would not die, and took for herself the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She ate a single piece of fruit that contained knowledge of both good and evil as if these two opposing states were yin and yang symbols. In time, disobedience can curl around obedience, as the serpent curls around the woman in the painting the Temptation, the reason why the fruit of this tree was prohibited food. But they cannot coexist in the timeless supernal realm, for evil is nothing more than lawlessness. It doesn’t necessarily appear ugly although it always is. It is ugly simply because it cannot coexist with obedience to the laws of God.
Since the minds of disciples should be ruled by the laws of God, or by obedience to God, then evil can appear as righteousness when the lawless person’s determination of good agrees with the laws of God. Again, Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and his servants disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. Outwardly, Satan looks like an angel of light and his servants look like teachers of righteousness. A person will, likely, see no evil when looking at either Satan or his servants, for the stars or angels that Satan cast down through his rebellion didn’t choose to be evil. Rather, as in the case with Eve, they chose to determine for themselves good and evil. Their choice, thus, moved them from obedience to disobedience without any outward perception of change. As long as their determination of good agreed with the Most High’s laws, they were obedient to those laws, but they were no longer being ruled by those laws. They were, rather, in voluntary compliance with the Most High’s law of love. As such, the anointed cherub could spread lawlessness without detection until disagreement occurred. Then lawlessness or iniquity was found in this anointed cherub.
In Eden, Elohim placed a tree that became a test of whether humankind would determine for itself knowledge of good and evil. No such tree existed in the supernal realm. Lawlessness had to be discovered through rebellion or violence (Ezek 28:16). It was not observable until it manifested itself. Thus, evil is hard to detect without a litmus-type test for it. Eating of the tree was that test. But since humankind was driven from physical Eden, an additional litmus-type test was required, one easily recognizable by everyone. This test is the Sabbath commandment, which is not an exact determiner of evil but a test accurate enough to disclose evil in high levels.
Chickens raised in commercial operations used to be fed arsenic in their feed to cause blood vessels to dilate, thereby promoting more rapid growth. In low levels, living organisms are tolerant of arsenic. At higher levels, they are quickly killed by the poison. But arsenic is cumulative. A low level fed over time kills the organisms. And so it is with lawlessness. A little lawlessness tolerated over time kills disciples.
Since Satan and his servants appear righteous as long as they are in agreement with the Most High, they promote rebellion against the Most High through their appearance of righteousness. But the Most High gave seventy (70) Sabbaths a year to humanity— and a disciple can determine the extent to which the disciple rebels against the Most High by how many of these Sabbaths the disciple presently observes. There are fifty-two (52) weekly Sabbaths. Do most Christians observe these weekly Sabbaths? No! Most Christians do not observe any of these weekly Sabbaths; yet these non-observing Christians are genuine disciples upon whom judgment has come. They will remember how their grandfathers, perhaps, absolutely refused to work on Sunday, which isn’t the Sabbath, but at least was being kept as a Sabbath-day. (Christ bears the sins of disciples, so the person who kept Sunday as the Sabbath only caused Christ to bear one more sin than necessary, whereas the person who doesn’t refrain from doing his or her will on even Sunday doesn’t keep any Sabbath-day.) So the first discovery made is that the vast majority of the Christian Church practices evil in high levels by not keeping the weekly Sabbath. This vast majority has determined for itself whether it will observe the laws of God written on the hearts and minds of born-from-above disciples— that determination is, No, it will not. It will worship God however and whenever it wants. Celebrating the resurrection weekly seems, to this vast majority, more important than obedience to God. So in its appearance of righteousness, this vast majority practices lawlessness.
The second discovery revealed by the test of the Sabbath is that among seventh-day Sabbath keeping organizations, most do not keep the seven (7) annual High Sabbaths, one of which is a new moon. Most of these organizations don’t keep the annual Sabbaths through ignorance, often willful. They will not go beyond what a man or a woman taught them at some point in the past. They place a person between themselves and Christ Jesus.
To the fifty-two weekly Sabbaths and the seven annual Sabbaths, disciples need to add eleven (11) additional new moons, making a total of seventy (70) annual Sabbaths normal years. And when a disciple looks for what organizations keep all seventy Sabbaths, the disciple finds, really, only the Philadelphia Church in its autonomous fellowships. It will be these fellowships that fight as the sons of light against the prophets of darkness following the liberation of all disciples from bondage to the law of sin and death. This placing of their lives at risk against Satan’s disguised ministers of righteousness is what justifies the name Philadelphia, or brotherly love.
Brotherly love means actually fighting for Christ Jesus as David fought Goliath. The ancient Asia Minor city named Philadelphia, now named Alesehir, Arabic for “City of God,” was named in honor of Attalus II, the younger brother of Eumenes II, king of Lydia. The city wasn’t named to honor this king for him accommodating the enemies of his elder brother, but for him successfully fighting against those enemies, then unselfishly giving his victory to his brother. And it is to saints in the spiritual city or church named for this king that Christ Jesus begins His letter, ‘““I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut’”” (Rev 3:8). By reading this, you are entering that opened door.
Again, following liberation the sons of light’s war against darkness changes arenas, as the appearance of the daily covering for sin changes from an inner covering to an outer covering, the Church, or rather, the seven named churches in Revelation. Following liberation at the second Passover, persecution and martyrdom will become everyday occurrences— as the battle between life and death assumes a cultural perspective, with the lawless one controlling the dominant culture. Again, in a manner similar to how the sons of light, with the laws of God in their minds, fought a difficult war against their flesh, the liberated sons of light, living by the laws of God, will fight an even more difficult war against civil and ecclesiastical authorities. They will not battle with physical weapons, for Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. Rather, they will fight with faith put into practice as authorities put pressure on the Christian Church. The lawless one figuratively belly-bumps the Church back into lawlessness. But the sons of light will live by the words of Jesus, while believing the One who sent Him. And the sons of darkness who would have them surrender to lawlessness will use the same words of Jesus against them.
The war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness will be fought with the words of Jesus— and the winner will appear to be the loser. The sons of light will be labeled legalists, Puritans, teachers of salvation by works. And many more disciples will join with the sons of darkness whose righteousness is revealed by the cars they drive and the clothes they wear, the buildings they own and the power they possess. The sons of light will barely have a pot to boil porridge in.
The Apostle Paul writes that a great rebellion against God will occur (2 Thess 2:3) with the coming of the man of perdition. This son of lawlessness comes through the activities of Satan because liberated Israel refuses “to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (vv. 10–12).
Again, following liberation the daily covering for sin moves from an individual disciple secretly putting on Christ every morning to the disciple publicly proclaiming Christ by living by the laws of God. With some exceptions, cultures do not, today, greatly hinder or persecute disciples for openly living as Christians although most Christians live in open conflict with the Christianity of Christ Jesus. But the coming of the lawless one isn’t restricted to a few cultures or nations. This lawless one is a world-reigning power that appears righteous. He doesn’t appear ugly or evil as human beings perceive evilness. Rather, with the support of the false prophet, he appears as a type of the messiah. But he makes it as difficult for liberated disciple to openly live by the laws of God as it was for the disciple’s mind to previously defeat the appetites of the flesh. To live by the laws of God will place the disciple in active conflict to the lawlessness of the man of perdition who attempts to change seasons and the law (Dan 7:25 — this little horn is the same as the other).
About eight months after liberation from bondage to sin, the majority of spiritual Israel will succumb to the lawless one; they will be spiritually and physically defeated by him. They will rebel against Christ and the Father. They will quit living by the laws of God although they will still appear righteous to themselves. And the lawless one will have stopped the daily sacrifice 2300 days before Christ’s returns as the Messiah. Daniel’s prophecy is just this simple to understand.
For the sons of light, the fight against darkness becomes a matter of salvation for both themselves and for all of Israel. Disciples while still in bondage to sin would lose battles with their appetites. Likewise, the liberated sons of light lose battles to save Israel. But as the sons of light became increasingly better at defeating the lusts of the flesh, so too will the sons of light become better in the fight to save Israel. “And the wise among the people shall make many understand, though for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder” (Dan 11:33). The sons of light are the spiritually wise. They take casualties, but they will have some victories along the way.
From the comfort of their television studios, Evangelical spokespersons cite statistics about how many Christians are today being persecuted and martyred for their consciences’ sake. The conclusion their audiences are expected to draw from these statistics is that persecution is an ongoing reality, that in places such as the 10-40 window, persecution of Christians today is as bad as it was in the 1st-Century. This might be true, but Paul was in bondage to the law of sin and death that dwelt in his members. The level of persecution changes following Israel’s liberation from bondage to sin. The Church will not be raptured away to escape this persecution. Rather, the majority of the Church will rebel against God to escape what Paul had to endure, or what a Christian in Saudi Arabia endures today. And because they rebel, God will send a strong delusion over them so that they cannot repent.
This needs to be well understood. Because Christians rebel against God when they have no need for a covering for sin— when the sacrifice has been taken away (this is the spiritual reality of prophecies about stopping the daily sacrifice)— God sends them a delusion that is the spiritual equivalent of the earth swallowing Korah and his supporters in physical Israel’s rebellion against Moses in the wilderness of Sin. These rebelling Israelites will have condemned themselves to the lake of fire, and God makes sure that they cannot repent by sending a strong delusion.
Understand, when a liberated spiritual Israelite rebels against God, the Israelite commits spiritual suicide. The second death is just as assured as physical death is when a person blows his or her brains out. For this liberated Israelite will not be allowed to repent of this rebellion— God will send this Israelite a strong delusion that precludes the person from ever realizing what he or she has done until the person’s judgment is revealed. So rebellion after liberation is an extremely serious matter. God will not take this rebellion lightly. And all repetition and shrillness is justified in an attempt to stop an Israelite from rebelling. Eternal life is at stake, the Israelite’s. A lot of lives are at stake. As much as ninety percent of Israel will die between being out of covenant by not covering their sins with the blood of Christ or by rebelling against the Father and the Son.
A tithe of Israel will be taken into the storehouse— an undetermined one out of every ten Christians. Delivering the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13) is the most important work the sons of light can do prior to the great falling away, for prophecy can fail (which isn’t a good translation of what Paul wrote). But the sons of darkness have the money they need, and the control of the media they need to figuratively deafen Israel, so that this holy nation of God will not hear the voice of Jesus, uttered quietly through the sons of light. Without televised praise music or powerful evangelistic campaigns, the sons of light fight with much more faith than facilities to bring even the tithe of Israel into the storehouse. Today, less than a tithe of a tithe keep the Passover as Jesus established the example. Israel does not hear the words of Jesus, nor does this holy nation believe the Father. They will believe Augustine, or Martin Luther, or Billy Graham, but they will not believe Christ Jesus. Even the small percentage of Sabbath-keeping Christians will believe Ellen G. White, or Herbert Armstrong, but not God.
The immediate objection is that God wouldn’t send a delusion upon His people so that they cannot repent… is Paul wrong? Does Paul make a mistake in his epistle, or has he been mistranslated? Or is it that those who object haven’t read what God did to circumcised Israel when that holy nation refused to walk in the ways of God after being liberated from physical bondage. The prophet Ezekiel, quoting YHWH, writes:
Moreover, I swore to them [the uncircumcised children of Israel] in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries, because they had not obeyed my rules, but had rejected my statutes and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their fathers’ idols. Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborns, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the Lord. (Ezek 20:23–26 emphasis added)
All of the above happened to circumcised Israel as examples for spiritual Israel— happened because the physical nation formed the visible shadow of the invisible, spiritual nation. And if God could give the physical nation statutes by which they could not live (all firstborns of Israel belong to God— Exod 13:2— so He can do with them as He wishes), He certainly can send a strong delusion over rebelling spiritual Israelites, for Israel is His firstborn son (Exod 4:22).
Consider for a moment, the firstborns belong to God. If the whole nation of Israel worships demons, what will this nation’s fate logically be in the great White Throne Judgment? They had the law. They were offered circumcised hearts and minds upon obedience; they could have received spiritual life. They were really without excuse for what they were doing. So, since firstborns belong to God, for whom it is no more difficult to resurrect a person from death than it is for a human being to raise another from the baptismal pool, isn’t it better to seal firstborns in death early rather than let firstborns mature in idolatry. And who better than to seal the firstborn than the firstborn’s parents?
Yes, the logic is perverse, but God’s ways are not the ways of human beings. We would not deliver a nation, or an individual over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (1 Cor 5:5). God will, for the flesh, really, is only important to human beings. God can make more whenever He needs more. What God desires is the character or will of obedience. Without obedience generated from love, generated because this is who the person has become, the person can never be one with the Father and the Son. The person will not be glorified.
From personal experience and from the collective experiences of today’s sons of light, bringing a person out from under a spiritual delusion is impossible. A demonstrable example of this would be trying to convince someone who believes in a bodily pre-Tribulation rapture that the person’s belief has no support in Scripture. God must release this person from the delusion. The person cannot be argued free from the delusion. In the case of the rapture, being left behind with dead loved ones who were firstborns will make a more persuasive argument than any words that can be written. God will powerfully drag the person out from under the delusion, but the person who swallowed this poisonous doctrine will never again believe God. He or she has been effectively slain by a teacher of lawlessness.
Sons of light need to remember that once liberated Israelites rebel against God, renewing them to repentance isn’t likely to occur. Christ will not be crucified a second time. They will have spurned His sacrifice for them. They have no sacrifice left other than their own lives. Therefore, the sons of light in their fight against darkness need immediate victories. In the bloom of enthusiasm that will initially follow liberation, all of Israel will be receptive to living within the laws of God. Because God has revealed through His prophets what will occur, the sons of light can have early success while the righteous-appearing ministers of darkness regroup and attempt to grasp what happened the day of the second Passover.
Today, there are, unfortunately, few sons of light and many scoffers, which is as it was in the days of Noah. Jesus spoke in parables. He revealed all of the mysteries of God, but He revealed them so that Israel could not understand them. He spoke to His disciples in figures of speech so that they could hear, but not then understand what He said. Understanding wasn’t given until after His glorification. If His disciples had not believed by faith, they would not have been assembled together to receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). And Thomas wasn’t there. He had doubts. So what’s revealed is that belief by Israel, by disciples, must precede understanding. Disciples today see through a glass darkly. When they teach what they darkly see, the matter becomes more easily seen. The darkness disappears. When an Israelite demands understanding before he or she will act, the action isn’t of faith, but of knowledge. And the decisive test of Israel, and especially of the teachers of Israel will come at the second Passover.
The teachers of lawlessness are unvaryingly physically-minded. They do not understand the plan of God, for they do not keep the Sabbaths of God. They do not understand the prophecies of God, for they do not keep the laws of God. They do not hear the words of Jesus, nor do they believe the One who sent Him. And the test of whether they hear the words of Jesus is in how they worship Him.
Understanding the relationship between spiritual and physical requires 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 audible shadow of the invisible spiritual law of love, said, Thou shall not commit adultery, one of the Ten Commandments. The Holy Spirit or Pneuma ’Agion [Breath Holy] transforms intent, or thought into the spiritual equivalent of action. To think lustful thoughts is letting the law of sin that dwells in the flesh rule a disciple’s mind. The disciple has sinned. The disciple lost a battle to lawlessness without ever a muscle being moved. So Jesus didn’t magnify the 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, which disciples are no longer under. Disciples are to be ruled by these spiritual laws— disciples are to be ruled by their minds, not by the appetites of their flesh. Whereas all Ten Commandments address the outward actions of disciples, transgression of the spiritual laws of God occur within the mind. And if the minds of disciples are ruled by these laws of God, the bodies of disciples will fulfill the Ten Commandments when ruled by the disciples’ minds.
The Sabbath-keepers who cannot comprehend how someone worshiping on Sunday can possibly be a genuine Christian need to realize that the law of sin and death still dwells in the flesh of all Israelites, including themselves. The laws of God written on the hearts and minds of drawn disciples who worship on Sunday haven’t yet won their battle with the law of sin and death that dwells in the disciples’ flesh. And victory might well not come until Israel is liberated from bondage to sin. But upon liberation, disciples will keep the Sabbaths, all of them, or disciples will rebel against God by returning to Sunday observance. The outward test of obedience to God following the second Passover will be Sabbath observance. And this test of keeping the Sabbath foreshadows taking the mark of the beast during the second half of the Tribulation. If a disciple returns to worshiping on Sunday once a disciple is liberated, the disciple’s return will mark the disciple for spiritual death, just as accepting the tattoo of the beast will mark a person for death after Satan has been cast from heaven.
All of the above becomes extremely important for a disciple can delude him or herself into thinking, especially in the case of a male, that it is okay to look a little long at an attractive female, that no harm was done. There is a soft drink commercial that turns the table and has the girls looking a little long at a construction worker. Well, these long looks are not okay, but explaining why they are not is never entirely satisfactory. All explanations get dismissed with some form of It’s only a look, or, It’s biology. The biology explanation is correct. The look is of the flesh, of the law of sin and death.
To repeat an earlier point, there is one commandment, however, that disciples ruled by the laws of God written on their hearts and minds will keep or will not keep that cannot be concealed within an explanation about youthful biology. This is the Sabbath commandment.
Prior to Jesus revealing the relationship between the spiritual and physical commandments in His 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 teachesthem will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless yourrighteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter thekingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:17–20).
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. 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). And it is here where the teachers of lawlessness go astray, for inevitably, these teachers will identify the scribes and the Pharisees as the ultimate lawkeepers. Yet if a person hears Jesus’ words, the person will know that the scribes and the Pharisees were not keeping the law, not even the Sabbath commandment, for the law was entirely outside of a Pharisee. It began at his skin and extended outward toward others, what Jesus referenced in them binding burdens on others that they were not willing to bear.
The scribes and the Pharisees were not keeping the law of Moses; for they did not understand that a second covenant had been made with the uncircumcised children of Israel, a covenant made in addition to the Sinai covenant (Deu 29:1). They were under that second covenant, by which, upon obedience, they would receive circumcised hearts and minds (Deu 30:6). But they were never obedient. Moses, quoting YHWH, said, “‘And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul’” (vv. 1–2). And therein was the problem. The scribes and the Pharisees did not worship God with heart and mind [naphesh]. They did not walk 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 this second covenant of Moses.
Jesus said the test of disciples 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 the visual referent for all to see of whether a person believes the Father. It is a commandment that can be dismissed with the Christian still appearing to be spiritually good, but failing to keep the Sabbath demonstrates rebellion toward the Father and Son.
If you, as a disciple, feel a need to object and say some variation of Christians are not required to keep the Sabbath, bite your tongue, for your words will be held against you. Your body is just as much under the obligation to keep the Sabbath as Paul’s was— and Paul kept the Sabbath throughout his ministry. Jesus kept the Sabbath. Peter kept the Sabbath. And the bishops who began keeping Sunday rather than the Sabbath demonstrate through this action alone their inward rebellion against Father and Son, as will you if you return to Sunday observance once you are liberated from bondage to sin. You can then expect God to place a great delusion on your mind that you will not be able to detect, unless you return to the laws of God and see how far astray you have gone. Only by looking into the mirror of the perfect law can you even begin to see the extent that you have been deceived.
There you are, you decide whether you want to hear the words of Jesus and believe them, or whether you want to tell Jesus 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. And if you are experiencing judgment, you were not resurrected to life (John 5:29). Your words will do you no good, for you had the chance to demonstrate belief, to exercise faith, but you proved faithless. You will go into the lake of fire — salvation is just this simple: hear with your mind words that are spiritual, and believe by putting into physical practice what the mind has heard.
If you know to keep the commandments and do not, your righteousness does not exceed that of the Pharisees. You are, by definition, a hypocrite. Good works will mean nothing, for obedience and disobedience cannot coexist together.
And in a literary transgression that makes Composition instructors cringe, you need to again read the words of Jesus in His prayer to the Father immediately before being taken into custody:
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that youhave given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in themand you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20–23)
Being perfectly one is being in unity, and is the best expression for the principle of coexistence required by timelessness. Those disciples who return to lawlessness when liberated from sin have ceased being one with the Father and with the Son and with disciples who remain obedient. Those disciples have placed greater value on their own determination of good and evil than upon hearing the words of Jesus and believing the One who sent Him. And the visible evidence of their rebellion during the first half of the Tribulation will be their rejection of the Sabbath.
Is the above said bluntly enough? The war of light against darkness goes from being an inner fight to overcome oneself to being an outward fight to live by faith in an increasingly hostile world while striving to bring as many liberated Israelites into living within the laws of God as possible. Rebellion will be returning to the Christianity of the Cross once Israel has been liberated from the Cross, a.k.a. Death.
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.
Chapter Three
In order for the sons of light to understand the prophecies of Daniel, these prophecies required unsealing, for these prophecies were spiritually sealed and held secret from when they were given until the time of the end. They could not be understood by Qumran’s sons of light, or by Ellen G. White, or by Herbert Armstrong. They are not understood by Perry Stone, or by any other Evangelical pundit. In fact, the many teachers of lawlessness cannot understand them even though they are now unsealed, for understanding requires comprehending the plan of God, revealed through the annual high Sabbaths. Understanding requires realizing that God’s focus has been, from the initial creation of Adam, the dual harvests of humanity. Understanding requires knowing what it means to be born-from-above, knowing how the spiritual birth process works, realizing that a person cannot experience a second death until the person has been born a second time. Understanding requires jettisoning the salvation-by-works theology of both conversion and sanctification being processes. Conversion occurs instantly, occurs when the Father gives a person a puff of His Breath. Sanctification is Christ Jesus bearing the disciple’s sins in the spiritual realm; sanctification is putting on Christ as the saint’s covering; sanctification is represented by the Azazel goat bearing the saint’s sins. Justification is the initial forgiveness of lawlessness represented by the goat sacrificed on the altar on Yom Kipporim. It comes with receipt of the Holy Spirit and knowledge of God.
Three things happen when a person is drawn from the world. The person knows God (Heb 8:11), represented by being baptized in the name of the Father when the person accepts judgment upon him or herself. The person has his or her sins forgiven (v. 12), represented by being baptized in the name of the Son. The person has the laws of God written on his or her heart and mind (v. 10), represented by being baptized in the Holy Spirit. No works are involved, other than for the disciple to do what the disciple knows is right whenever faced with a decision. The disciple’s name is written in the book of life when the disciple accepts judgment upon him or herself. If the disciple never accepts judgment, then the spiritual Israelite has been stillborn and will experience that judgment on the great last day.
Salvation is just this easy… if doing what is right whenever faced with a decision is easy. This means that the saint’s heart and mind must defeat the appetites and lusts of the flesh. And the disciple puts on Christ as the disciple’s covering for sin, for the disciple’s appetites and lusts win their battles with the mind and heart far too often. This is why the disciple needs liberated from sin. But again, with liberation comes responsibility. The disciple’s obedience to the laws of God now becomes the disciple’s covering for sin. Unfortunately, the majority of Christianity will find these daily acts of obedience either too restrictive, or too contrary to their long established traditions. After a little over seven months, this majority of Christianity will abandon these daily acts of obedience that continue the morning and evening sacrifices. And the man of perdition will have taken away these daily sacrifices, these daily acts of obedience. The great falling away will have happened. And if there were any words that could be written to stop this rebellion, I would write them. But if Israel wouldn’t listen to Moses, they won’t listen to one raised from the dead. And if Israel won’t listen to Christ, this holy nation will not listen to His disciples. The nation is lawless; it has been taught lawlessness by the sons of darkness. It will not take up its crosses and follow Jesus. It will have judged itself unworthy of salvation.
Because the Church as the second Eve swallowed the same lie that the first Eve swallowed, that she would not die (Gen 3:4), the fate of humanity hasn’t been well understood. The rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to receive eternal life. A lawyer testing Jesus asked what he should do to inherit eternal life. Nicodemus didn’t understand what Jesus meant when Jesus said, ‘“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). (The Greek word translated as born again is ambiguous and can also mean born from above. Both readings are appropriate, for a disciple must be born a second time, and this second birth is from above.)
The scribes and the Pharisees didn’t believe they had eternal life, and didn’t know how to obtain it. They knew it was possible, for King David had the promise of it as did Daniel, Noah, and Job. But the scribes and the Pharisees were ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God. They sought to establish their own righteousness. And in doing so, they did not pursue righteousness by faith but by works— and their works were always outside of them, as was the righteousness they hoped to obtain. Their covering was their works.
God is not a respecter of persons. The Apostle Paul writes concerning circumcised Israel,
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe.For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will be spare you. Note then thekindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’skindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. (Rom 11:17–22)
After liberation from bondage to sin, spiritual Israel’s covering will be the Body of Christ, will be themselves, through their obedience to God, obedience based on faith that all who endure to the end shall be saved. Although a spiritual gulf exists between obedience based upon faith and seeking righteousness based upon works, the gulf is in the mind. It will not be revealed through the acts of one’s hands. The severity of God towards circumcised Israel will multiply into even greater severity towards spiritual Israel when this holy nation does not continue in His kindness, but rebels against Him. And continuing in His kindness means obedience to His laws, that obedience based on love for God, that obedience as the disciple’s acceptable offering made to God. Obedience based upon faith doesn’t seek to obtain what has already been given to the disciple. Rather, obedience based upon faith is the disciple’s sole means of expressing oneness with the Father and the Son.
To the outside observer, obedience based upon faith will look a lot like attempting to obtain salvation by works, just as David’s slaying of Goliath looks a lot like the triumph of technology over physical strength. Abraham’s faith in God caused the Lord to tell Isaac, ‘“In your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge [ordinances], my commandments, my statutes, and my laws’” (Gen 25:4–5). Paul identifies this offspring as Christ Jesus, who came by promise rather than by the law. Yet the promise came because of Abraham’s faithfulness in keeping the laws of God. So motive for obedience to God determines the kindness or severity of God towards the Israelite. But without obedience, every branch will be cut off.
Endtime salvation will not come from the law, but from enduring to the conclusion of the age in faith. This is truly good news. But enduring once liberated from bondage to sin— all of humanity will be liberated by the middle of the Tribulation— means living by the laws of God that have been written on the hearts and minds of every Israelite. Enduring means obedience. Salvation comes from enduring, which manifests itself as obedience to God.
Early Greek coverts to Christianity, unfamiliar with the Hebraic concept of resurrection to eternal life from the elements of the earth (Dan 12:2), dragged, as if it were a trophy deer, the concept of an immortal soul into the Church. These converts swallowed the serpent’s lie that they would not die long before they heard the name of Christ Jesus. This lie was the cornerstone of what they would, over the course of the next three centuries, determine to be sound Christian doctrine. But this lie was also the stone that would drown them, and this stone was much too heavy for them to vomit up. So, instead of paying the boatman to ferry them across the river, they crossed the Styx on the back of Christian Grace, a lady far too polite to dump them in the middle.
Actually, until liberation from bondage to the law of sin and death, doctrine hasn’t had the importance that has been assigned to it. The war to do right was inside the person, so as long as disciples strove to do what the disciple believed was right, the gates of Hades would not prevail against the church. Disciples put on Christ, and Christ covered bad doctrine, poor understanding of doctrine, false organizations for all have all been outside of the disciple. The laws of God were, with receipt of the Holy Spirit, written on hearts and minds, the conscience of the person. The hypocrite didn’t do what he or she knew to do; the faithful disciple did do what he or she knew. So a Gentile convert believing he or she had an immortal soul didn’t really affect the convert’s struggle of the law of God that was in the convert’s mind against the law of sin and death that dwelt in the convert’s flesh. Likewise, whether a convert kept the Sabbath or kept Sunday as the Sabbath didn’t really affect the convert’s struggle of mind against flesh. However, all of this changes when the disciple is liberated from bondage to sin. Disciples won’t privately put Christ on as the disciples’ daily covering for sin. The flesh has been liberated. The battle to ripen and harden off the harvest of the earth (Rev 14:15) will move outside the disciple. Again, the Body of Christ — the Church — becomes the disciples’ covering. Doctrine will matter, the reason for the restoration of all things. The rebellion against God will be liberated disciples returning to churches teaching errant doctrines, especially the immortality of a nonexistent soul.
Early Greek converts exercised the authority of financial support to establish what they determined to be sound doctrine. The Apostle John writes to Gaius, “Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers… .You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles” (3 John vv. 6–7).
Money was, at the close of the 1st-Century, the means by which one doctrine superceded another. If the finances were not available to teach the Hebraic (and Godly) concept of resurrection from the dead, and if money were available to teach the immortality of the soul— the economy of the world was, and still is controlled by spiritual Babylon— then most new disciples heard messages about going to heaven. For an immortal soul has to go somewhere upon death. It can’t lie in the dust of the earth until called forth in a resurrection. And the folly of this concept, two millennia later, is clearly seen in teachings about a bodily, pre-Tribulation rapture. This doctrine allows for millions of Evangelical Christians to reveal their lack of love for humanity while they await having their fleshly bodies (in which the law of sin and death still dwells) caught up to heaven. These Christians, upon whom judgment lies today, ponder whether false teeth and replacement joints will go with them, or be left behind. They should be contemplating how to better live within the laws of God, for sin truly reigns in their flesh. Their desire is for Jesus, just as Eve’s desire was for her husband (Gen 3:16), and they will experience great pain in childbirth, the bringing of many heirs of God to glory. The Tribulation is the hard labor pains of the second Eve giving birth to the sons of God. Unless these Evangelicals die in the second Passover, they will experience being left behind, and being caught unprepared, with their faith clinging to a Texas barbwire fence. At least one Arian Christian denomination that doesn’t believe in the rapture but has taken having an immortal soul to a different extreme, teaches its members to stockpile a year’s worth of essentials. Members of this denomination should probably make it into the second year of the Tribulation before they have to begin trusting God. And again, the great falling away will be liberated disciples returning to the Cross when they know better. The lawless one will use lying signs and wonders to convince liberated disciples that human beings really do have immortal souls.
Those early Greek converts to Christianity lacked even a rudimentary understanding of the spiritual birth process, but then, so have the teachers of spiritual Israel from Augustine to Herbert Armstrong. Pneuma ’Agion, literally, Breath Holy [of the gender neuter Most High God, or Theon] is the Greek signifier that is translated into English as the Holy Spirit, or formerly, as the Holy Ghost. When Christology debates between Ephesus and Alexandria were settled by Emperor Constantine in favor of Alexandria, the godhead become three persons of one substance: the trinity. Personhood was assigned to the Breath of God— and this assignment of personhood precluded continuance of any understanding about the spiritual birth process.
Adam was created from dust of the ground, or from the elements of the earth. He was created as a man, a lifeless corpse that looked like an adult male. He had inner organs, a brain, eyes, teeth, fingernails, but no life until Elohim “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature [a naphesh]” (Gen 2:7). This man was created outside of the Garden of Eden— Adam was placed into Eden (v. 8). And this man was driven from Eden before he could eat of the tree of life (Gen 3:22–24). He and all of his descendants were as beasts. Solomon wrote, “I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return” (Eccl 3:18–20). Indeed, Adam was driven from Eden before he could eat of the tree of life and receive immortality. Adam and the children of Adam (or man) had exactly the same breath and life as animals. Unless or until a human being is born-from-above, or born again, the man or woman has no life except that given him or her through physical breath.
The Apostle Paul writes, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:44– 45). Jesus of Nazareth was the last Adam, and typology unlocks the Bible through the visible revealing the invisible (Rom 1:20), and the physical preceding the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46). The creation of the first Adam, then, reveals what can be known about the birth of the last Adam, the progenitor of the sons of God.
The first Adam was created as a physical corpse; the last Adam was born as a human being. The first Adam received the breath of life breathed through his nostrils; the last Adam received the Breath of God the Father [Pneuma ’Agion] descending like a dove and coming to rest on Jesus (Matt 3:16). The first Adam became a living being outside of Eden; the last Adam became the first born-from-above Son of God in a spiritual wilderness analogous to Nineveh where Jonah went to preach— the last Adam becomes the high priest of Israel. The size of Eden was reduced to the acreage of the temple mount by the 1st-Century. Disciples are today the temple of God, and the mind of Christ has been placed in the minds of disciples. So the last Adam was placed in spiritual Eden. And after being placed in Eden, Adam found no helpmate among the animals he named; the last Adam found no helpmate among the animals he named in the temple (Matt chptr 23). And the ways the first Adam forms the shadow of the last Adam continue, but the important aspect of what is revealed by the shadow is that Jesus was not a life-giving spirit when He received spiritual Breath and life. He was still a man, but the firstborn Son of God. To be born again is to be born of the spirit (John 3:5). A disciple’s first birth is of water when the disciple draws the breath of life on his or her own— previously, the disciple received life through his or her mother’s breath. (An argument can be here made for that water being baptism, but baptism is into death, with being raised from the baptismal pool symbolizing resurrection from death as a new creature.) The disciple’s second birth occurs in the spiritual realm when the disciple receives the Breath of God. The disciple has life in the spiritual realm even though the disciple remains imprisoned in time, and in a body of flesh. Upon Christ’s return, disciples who are resurrected to life will receive glorified or incorruptible bodies in exchange for their bodies of flesh. Disciples who are resurrected to condemnation (John 5:29) also have life in the spiritual realm, but instead of receiving an incorruptible body, they experience the second death— they are cast into the lake of fire
Disciples resurrected to life or changed from corruptible to incorruptible at Christ Jesus’ return face no further judgment than they experience day by day as they choose life over death. Every disciple knows whether the decisions he or she makes are governed by the laws of God, the great law of Love, or whether the disciple knows better than to do what he or she will do, or did. If the disciple knows better, the disciple is a hypocrite, and his or her righteousness doesn’t exceed that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20). The disciple will not enter the kingdom of heaven; the disciple judged him or herself unworthy. And this judging occurs through repentance, meaning that the disciple who knowingly failed to do what was right asks for forgiveness and thereby covers lawlessness.
But in order to enter either the resurrection to life or the resurrection to condemnation, the person needs to be a disciple; the person must have received the Breath of God and life in the heavenly realm. Unless the person has been born again, the person is as a beast. The person doesn’t come under judgment until after the person is resurrected. The person will be resurrected into the great White Throne Judgment (Rev 20:11–15), at which time the person will receive the Holy Spirit.
A person prior to receiving the Holy Spirit or Pneuma ’Agion is of two parts: the breath Adam received [psuche], and flesh [soma]. Born again disciples, though, have three aspects: physical breath [psuche], spiritual breath [pneuma], and flesh [soma] (1 Thess 5:23).
An apparent inconsistency, however, exists in Scripture. When Jesus sent His twelve disciples out, they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Scripture plainly reveals when they received the Holy Spirit: “And when [Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit [Pneuma ’Agion or Breath Holy]’” (John 20:22). So Jesus, in Matthew’s account, ascribed to their physical breath [psuche] the qualities that rightfully belong to spiritual breath [pneuma]. In the context of Jesus saying that the twelve would not go over the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Matt 10:23), He said, ‘“And do not fear those who kill the body [soma] but cannot kill the soul [psuche]. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul [psuche] and body [soma] in hell [Gehenna — the lake of fire]”’(v. 28).
The Son of Man comes at the end of the age. Jesus’ disciples probably knew this, but they did not then realize how far in the future that would be. The gospel that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations before the end of the age comes (Matt 24:14) is, “‘the one who endures to the end shall be saved’” (Matt 10:22 & 24:13). These are Jesus’ words about patient endurance that the endtime saints in Philadelphia keep (Rev 3:10). Plus, Jesus’ disciples were not, then, ‘“hated by all for [Jesus’] name’s sake’” (Matt 10:22). And what is seen when examining the entirety of Jesus’ instructions to the twelve is that Him sending the twelve out foreshadowed Him spiritually sending twelve out prior to the Passover liberation of spiritual Israel. Thus, this long instruction given to the twelve is actually endtime prophecy. Therefore, to typologically fulfill the prophecy, Jesus sent His disciples out before they received the Breath of God, and He made their physical breaths do double duty. He assigned to their physical breath the properties that belong to spiritual breath.
But the saints at Thessalonica had received the Holy Spirit. They had three aspects: physical breath [psuche], spiritual breath [pneuma], and flesh [soma]. And all disciples since have had physical and spiritual breath in a body of flesh.
In order to have life in the heavenly realm, a person must be born of water and of spirit. No person will receive everlasting life in the heavenly realm until the person is born of spirit, which doesn’t anymore mean that the person has become Breath [Pneuma] than it would mean to say that the person is today breath [psuche]. Life, both physical and spiritual, is imparted through breath. Physical breath is of the four unfurled dimensions. Spiritual breath is of a supra-dimension, and spiritual breath cannot be detected by holding a cold mirror to a person’s mouth. Because it is of another dimension, it comes and goes as it will— and it is only seen through spiritual understanding, and a lack of hostility toward God (Rom 8:7). The teacher of Israel who demands a pin-test is a spiritual novice. A son of God, born of Spirit, will still bleed until the disciple reaches his or her spiritual majority and receives an incorruptible body. A son of God is neither male nor female, yet this son of God still occupies a body that possesses biological plumbing as one or the other. The plumbing, though, doesn’t cross dimensions. And the redundancy of the second section is somewhat justified in driving home the concept of mind versus flesh. It is the mind that receives spiritual birth. The flesh never will. However, the flesh makes a suitable housing for the newly born son of God until such time as the disciple has matured sufficiently to judge him or herself worthy or unworthy of being one with the Father and the Son.
Again, flesh and blood does not cross dimensions to enter heaven— and for Evangelical teachers to dupe disciples by telling them that they will be bodily raptured to heaven is spiritually criminal. These loveless teachers are booking reservations for themselves in the lake of fire. They are spiritual infants in need of thinned Pabulum; they are hardly developed enough to digest the milk of the Lamb. The meat of the Word will surely gag them whenever they encounter it. Yet they have the audacity to declare themselves men [and women] of God. They mock the Father and the Son, and their end will be what they fear the most— others shall be saved while they, themselves, are burned to oblivion.
The loveless teachers of lawlessness turn to one passage more often than to any other to prove that human beings have immortal souls— this passage is the Lazarus/Dives parable (Luke 16:19–31). Understanding this passage requires placing it in its context: Jesus is teaching, and tax collectors and sinners are drawing near to listen (Luke 15:1). Pharisees and scribes, the self-righteous of Israel, grumble about Jesus receiving sinners and eating with them. So Jesus addresses parables at the reason for their grumbling, telling of first the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one lost sheep, then of the woman who loses one of ten coins and rejoices when she finds it. Jesus then tells the story about the prodigal son. This story is identified as a parable, but it is really a short, short story. And so far these parables and stories are about recovering the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt 10:6), to whom Jesus had sent the twelve. The Pharisees could, in all of these parables, identify themselves as the ninety-nine, or as the nine, or as the good son. Their self-righteousness was still fully in tact. The focus of the parables had been on the recovery of what was lost, and the Pharisees certainly couldn’t see themselves as being lost.
Because the scribes and Pharisees were remaining smug in their self-righteousness, revealed by them grumbling about Jesus receiving sinners (which they did not consider themselves), Jesus now tells a parable that hits closer to home. His intent is to show the Pharisees that they, themselves, are the lost of Israel. He is, in this time of teaching, formally evaluating the animals in a search for a helpmate— and He will find no helpmate among these hypocrites and vipers. His naming of these animals remains their names to this day. Thus, Jesus tells the parable of the dishonest manager, who is actually commended by his master for his dishonesty (Luke 16:8). And this parable was well enough understood by the Pharisees for them to realize that Jesus had just said that they were of the world, and their master was the ruler of this world. They were not now grumbling; they were angry.
Immediately Jesus teaches that the person faithful in little will be faithful in much and vice versa. He continues by saying that a person cannot serve two masters, one master being money or by extension the world, and the other God. This, the Pharisees did not believe at all, for their money was the proof of their righteous. Their money was the measurable blessings God had bestowed upon them for their faithfulness. So they begin to mock Jesus. They ridiculed Him (Luke 16:14).
But Jesus will not be mocked by these self-righteous hypocrites. He says first that ‘“what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God’” (Luke 16:15). The Pharisees were the exalted in Israel, and Jesus just said they were an abomination to God.
Without giving the Pharisees a chance to respond, Jesus continues, saying, “‘The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it’” (Luke 16:16). This statement has been maligned by unenlightened legalists, and misused by the loveless teachers of lawlessness. The referent is the Sinai Covenant, which has been abolished in its entirety (Eph 2:15). No longer is circumcised Israel the holy nation of God. The Pharisees killed the Covenantor at Calvary, and they are free to marry another if any deity will have these faithless hypocrites. So the reference is to spiritual Israel replacing the physical Israel as the holy nation— and to many trying to force their way into spiritual Israel. But Jesus said that no one can come to Him unless drawn by the Father (John 6:44, 65). And what we see is the history of spiritual Israel in a clause: many converts to Christianity have never been drawn by the Father. They never received spiritual birth. Rather, they have forced their way into the Church, and many of them have derailed the Church by introducing heresies such as human beings having immortal souls.
Legalists fear acknowledging that the old written code has been abolished, that disciples are to be governed by the laws of God written on hearts and minds (Jer 31:31; Heb 8:10 & 10:16), that disciples are no longer under the law. This is correct. The old written code was always outside of an Israelite. The second covenant of Moses (Deu 29:1) offers spiritual circumcision of hearts and minds [naphesh] (Deu 30:6) upon obedience. This spiritual circumcision is a euphemistic expression for the equally euphemistic expression of writing the laws of God on hearts and minds. Both expressions mean receipt of the Breath of God, and spiritual birth. So the Holy Spirit was actually offered to uncircumcised Israelites (these children of the Israelites that left Egypt were not circumcised until after they crossed the Jordan, Josh 5:2–7) after these Israelites demonstrated obedience to God. The better offer of the spiritual second covenant (which the physical second covenant foreshadowed) when the mediator changed from Moses to Christ Jesus is the Holy Spirit prior to obedience.
Obedience remains the expectation of the second covenant. Christ Jesus bears the lawlessness of drawn disciples as they learn obedience. A disciple’s refusal to learn is a full surrender to the law of sin and death that dwells in the disciple’s flesh. Such a disciple is not worthy of Christ, for the disciple will not fight to do what is right. So legalists really have no reason to fear the second covenant as they do. The disciple who is ruled by the laws of God written on the disciple’s heart and mind will outwardly keep the commandments of God— and they will be grieved when they fail, for they will fail at times. The great gift of Christ Jesus is Grace, which is His willingness to bear those failings in the spiritual realm.
However, the disciple who leaves the covenant — who surrenders to sin and death — will be resurrected to condemnation. So never allow a teacher of lawlessness to tell you that you don’t have to keep the commandments. Nor let someone tell you that you have to keep the commandments perfectly. All you have to do is what you know is right, and repent when you fail to do what you know is right. Christ carries your failures and will gladly give them to Satan when Yom Kipporim becomes a reality as long as you remain in covenant.
Returning to the narrative flow leading up to the Lazarus/Dives story: Jesus adds that it will be easier for heaven and earth pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void (Luke 16:17). And disciples need to remember at Sinai, circumcised Israel became the holy nation of God on two conditions: (1) that Israel ‘“obey [ YHWH’s] voice,’” and (2) ‘“keep {YHWH’s] covenant’” (Exod 19:5). The Ten Commandments were spoken by YHWH. It was His voice through uttered sound waves that entered the ears of Israelites, just as it is the Breath of God (i.e., the Holy Spirit) that writes the laws of God on the hearts and minds of drawn disciples. And the Ten Commandments became the visible or audible physical shadow of the invisible spiritual law. So what has been abolished is the Sinai Covenant, not the uttered words. What has replaced this abolished covenant is hearing the words of Jesus and believing the One who sent Him. The Logos spoke from atop Sinai, and the Logos became flesh and dwelt among men (John 1:14). Hearing the words of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount is the spiritual reality of the Commandments uttered from atop Sinai. So not one dot has been abolished from the law even though the Sinai covenant has been abolished.
After telling the mocking Pharisees that the law was fully in effect, Jesus addresses the granting of divorces. Apparently the Pharisees were, for money, granting illegal divorces. The narrative structure will have Jesus telling the Pharisees where and how they are breaking the Law, and that the Law remained fully binding. Jesus’ teaching elsewhere on divorce places a very narrow meaning on porneia, a meaning much more restricted than fornication, a meaning closer to an illegal marriage or a marriage that should never have taken place such as between siblings. So a lax divorce granting policy would be breaking the Commandments.
Now Jesus tells the story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus. The story can be read so it doesn’t need retold here. It is a stock story, meaning that it fits a particular narrative paradigm. It is a Greek Stoic after-death-fortune-reversal story. There are hundreds, if not tens of thousands of such stories told among Greek Stoics. And because of the scribes and Pharisees’ education, they would have immediately recognized the story structure.
Jesus turned the mocking of the scribes and Pharisees back upon themselves by telling them a Greek story. The act of him telling them a Greek story placed Him in the role of a Stoic teacher, and them in the position of being Greek pupils. The content of the story told them that they were not sons of Abraham, the claim they valued most, and the structure of the story identified them as Greeks, as Gentiles, as uncircumcised dogs. So Jesus used the Pharisees’ education in His mocking of them, a mocking not recognized by even the other disciples. Only Luke, the educated physician, recognized just how effectively Jesus flipped the Pharisees mocking back upon themselves— and Luke presents the narrative sequence without comment. But when Jesus next tells a parable, the Pharisees are no longer present. Thus, Luke does tell us how effective Jesus was with His Cynic narrative.
The Lazarus/Dives story has been broken apart before, as done in A Philadelphia Apologetic, if a person wants a more detailed analysis of the story itself. Jesus wasn’t, in this one parable, negating the long Hebraic tradition of resurrection from the dead. Rather, He was setting the loveless teachers of lawlessness up for condemnation. By them glomming onto this story as a proof text, they identify themselves as spiritual Greeks— and they aren’t even angry about being labeled Gentiles.
Typology shows that Jesus’ earthly ministry is the visible shadow of His invisible spiritual ministry in the period immediately prior to the Passover liberation of Israel from bondage to sin. Therefore, the greater Christian Church is as the circumcised nation was, with the teachers of lawlessness as the scribes and Pharisees were. So for Jesus to deliberately use a Cynic narrative to tell the mocking Pharisees that they were Gentiles and not Abraham’s seed, Jesus produced the shadow of Him telling the loveless teachers of Israel that they are spiritual Gentiles, and not of the holy nation of spiritual Israel. This is a subtle yet powerful warning to these teachers of lawlessness that they need to return to the covenant by which Jesus bears their sins. Their time is short. Soon, they will be utterly rejected.
So, in review up to this point: spiritual birth is required before a person becomes a disciple and has life in the supernal realm. Prior to the giving of the law, Scripture records that only a handful of individuals proved obedient by faith: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Job, Abraham, and Sarah. If there were others, the mention of them is obscure. Then following the giving of the law and the second covenant of Moses, a few additional individuals received spiritual circumcision of the heart and mind [naphesh], with Moses and King David being among the most prominent. But still, the harvest of the earth was too few to even be a statistical asterisk in the number of human beings that lived and died with no life in the spiritual realm. These individuals are not now in hell, living life in a rotisserie. They didn’t go to heaven where they were judged by the content of their conscience. They are dead, figuratively asleep in the dust of the earth in that they will be resurrected to life in the great White Throne Judgment, where they will receive the Holy Spirit and birth in the supernal realm. They will become part of the holy nation of Israel when they are resurrected, and their resurrection is as certain as is the resurrection of the whole house of Israel (Ezek 37:1–14). God is not a respecter of persons. Although it is His prerogative to make of people vessels of common use and vessel of special use, the vessels of common use are also used within the household of God. They are not discarded unless they are flawed, the same rule that applies to vessels of special use. So everyone who has lived prior to the Logos coming as the man Jesus will have one chance to obtain everlasting life. This chance is foreshadowed by the two lawbreakers on the near crosses to Christ Jesus on Calvary.
With the birth of the second Eve, the eternal covenant was placed in effect. Salvation was offered to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. It was offered to the Jew by the second covenant mediated by Moses. It was offered to the Gentile by the spiritual second covenant mediated by Christ Jesus. And just as few Jews fulfilled the terms of the physical second covenant, few Gentiles have fulfilled the terms of the eternal second covenant. Most have sought to save their physical lives, and as such are not worthy of Christ (Matt 10:38–39). They haven’t taken up their crosses and followed Jesus. Rather, they have bowed down to the Cross, prayed to the Cross, and offered alms to the Cross. Their god is the Cross, not Christ Jesus.
Following Jesus’ glorification, the Holy Spirit was given to everyone that the Father drew from the world. But the Father didn’t draw everyone in the 1st-Century, nor has He yet drawn everyone. However, this will change halfway through seven years of tribulation. The kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ (Rev 11:15) when Satan is cast from heaven (Rev 12:9–10), and the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh (Joel 2:28).
Since Jesus’ earthly ministry, far more people haven’t been drawn and haven’t received the Holy Spirit and birth in the heavenly realm than have. These people are not roasting in hell, ever searing but never being done enough for demonic tablefare. They are also asleep in the dust of the earth, waiting to be called forth in the great White Throne Judgment. They are the maincrop harvest of the earth; they are the wheat harvest. And they will not be ripe until after Christ’s millennial reign.
But those individuals who the Father has drawn from the world and has given a second birth through receipt of His Breath will ripen and be harvested upon Christ’s return. They are the firstfruits of the earth; they are the early barley harvest; they are the vessels created for special use.
Again, typology unlocks the Bible through the visible revealing the invisible, and the physical preceding the spiritual— and typology shows that the focus of God has been from the creation of the earth the dual harvests of the earth, the early barley harvest and the latter main harvest of wheat. The promised land of Israel is the physical geography that brings forth these two annual crops. It is not a land watered with one’s foot [irrigated lands] (Deu 11:10), but is a land dependant upon the early and latter rains to gather in the grains, oil and wine (v. 14). It occupies the same geographical coordinates as Eden. Adam was created outside the promised land and relocated there. Jesus of Nazareth was born of the tribe of Judah as a son of David, about whom nothing is written of this tribe living in the temple; yet Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple as if He owned this building, which He identified as His Father’s house. As the last Adam, Christ Jesus is the high priest of spiritual Israel and has been relocated to the temple of God. So what’s seen is the Garden of Eden going from being geography to being the minds of drawn disciples. The Apostle Paul asks saints at Corinth, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit [Pneuma] dwells in you. If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor 3:16–17). Thus, from the minds of humanity— and by extension, from humanity— will grow two crops, the early barley harvest and the later wheat harvest.
In Deuteronomy, Moses, when describing the promise of the land that these then uncircumcised Israelites were about to enter, asked, ‘“And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul [mind], and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?’” (Deu 10:12–13). Moses continues: ‘“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul [mind], he will give you rain for your land in its season”’(Deu 11:13–14). Moses’ instructions to these uncircumcised Israelites are the audible or visible shadow of the invisible, spiritual words of Christ Jesus that are conveyed by His Breath to spiritual Israelites. They are part of the eternal covenant.
A linguistic peculiarity of Hebrew that allows the physical landscape of the promised land to be linked to the mental landscape of disciples is that that same signifier [word] means both rain in its season and a teacher of righteousness. Rain makes the barley and wheat grow to maturity. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual life and causes disciples to grow. There was an early rain for the barley harvest, and there was a later rain for the wheat harvest. Both rains are the same falling of water droplets, but they come at different times. Likewise, disciples receive the same Spirit of God, but the early harvest receives the Breath of God before the later harvest, or maincrop harvest receives the Holy Spirit.
Physical Israelites left physical bondage in Egypt, passed through the Sea of Reeds, which Paul identified as baptism (1 Cor 10:2), encamped in the wilderness of Sin. This physical nation refused its only chance to enter a physical promised land, thereby foreshadowing spiritual Israelites’ great rebellion against God once the spiritual nation is liberated from bondage to sin. Forty years after the Israelites that left Egypt refused to enter the promised land, their uncircumcised children (Josh 5:2–7) crossed the Jordan on the 10th of the first month. This uncircumcised nation was then the firstborn son (Exod 4:22) called out of Egypt (Hos 11:1). It foreshadowed Jesus being this firstborn Son (Matt 2:15), and Jesus being the first of the firstfruits, the firstborn of many brethren (Rom 8:29). And this nation was penned in the promised land as the paschal Lamb of God was penned in Jerusalem. This nation now sacrificed its foreskins; its covering was physical circumcision, a covering that will return during the Millennium. Therefore, the children of the Israelites that left Egypt foreshadow the half of humanity that will not self-identify itself as Christian when the Tribulation begins. The greater Christian Church will become the reality of the Israelites that left Egypt once this nation is liberated from bondage to sin— the 40 years of wandering ends with the defeat of Death. It will be the greater Christian Church that dies in the spiritual wilderness of Sin for its refusal to enter the promised land. The great falling away is directly anticipated by the Congregation in the Wilderness believing the report of the ten spies who said entering the promised land was too difficult a task for the nation to accomplish (Num chptr 14). Moses and Aaron foreshadow the two witnesses who will see the Christian Church spiritually die under the great delusion God sends on the holy nation of Israel, and will then lead the other half of humanity (foreshadowed by the uncircumcised children) to the edge of the promised land.
Only Joshua and Caleb from the generation of Israelites that left Egypt enter the promised land— prophecy has only a tithe of Israel entering the promised land. Whether this tithe is of the children of the spiritual Israelites that leave spiritual Egypt, or of the spiritual Israelites who will be liberated from bondage to sin cannot be well determined. Regardless, few human beings will actually hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent Him. Because the beginning number is large, the concluding tithe will also be large. There is room inside this tithe for every single person who will today believe the Father and the Son. No one has to be left out. Many will be, but because they believe today and will believe in the future the evil report of the sons of darkness who tell Israel that a person cannot keep the laws of God. Would God ask more of a person than the person can stretch him or herself to do? Yes, learning obedience is difficult. But if salvation comes from enduring in faith to the end, then obedience to the laws of God will be no more difficult spiritually than occupying the physical promised land would have been for the circumcised Israelites that left Egypt. God intended to send bees ahead of the nation so that the Canaanites couldn’t fight Israel. He was going to do the driving out, but the circumcised nation lacked faith in God. Likewise, the spiritual nation lacks faith in God. Even the idea of actually living by the laws of God is frightening to the nation.
As barley is the firstfruits of the geographical promised land, the many glorified brothers of Christ Jesus are the spiritual firstfruits of the earth (Heb 12:23). Their teacher is Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit, Pneuma ’Agion or Breath of God. Thus, the rain that gives spiritual life is the Word. All that is required for salvation is to hear the words of Jesus and to believe the One who raised Him from the dead. However, to believe is not only to acknowledge, but to walk in the ways of the Lord.
At Christ Jesus’ return, all spiritual Israelites who have died in faith will be resurrected to glory. So the many glorified brothers of Christ Jesus will be a number much larger than the tithe of the holy nation of Israel that comes through the Tribulation. The wedding feast will be well attended. The tragedy is that every spiritual Israelite that is alive today could be in the wedding feast. But a third of this nation will be killed the day of the second Passover because the Christian Church absolutely refuses to drink from the cup as Jesus established the example. Then 2300 days before Christ returns, the majority of the Church rebels against the Father and the Son. This is the day that corresponds to circumcised Israel believing the report of the ten spies. This is the day that seals the doom of today’s greater Christian Church. This is a day that doesn’t have to happen, and certainly doesn’t have to happen to any individual. For once spiritual Israel rebels, the great delusion is sent. The nation cannot then repent, but will spiritually die in the wilderness of Sin.
The journey of physical Israel from liberation to physical bondage to the Judean promised land is the visible shadow of the Christian Church during the Tribulation. The Church, living without sin during these spiritual Days of Unleavened Bread, is an oasis of righteousness in a spiritual wilderness of lawlessness. But the holy nation that is liberated from sin dies in this wilderness because of unbelief. They never enter the promised land. They are slain by the sons of darkness, by ten sons in particular.
Again, the Judean promised land annually produced two harvests, as represented by the annual High Sabbaths. The importance of the first, or early harvest has overshadowed the larger maincrop harvest about which there is little Scripture. But little is needed, for the barley harvest foreshadows the wheat harvest in the same manner as the physical harvest foreshadows the spiritual harvest. What can be known about the barley harvest can be seen spiritually in the reality of the Passover, the Wave Sheaf offering, the Days of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of Weeks. What can be known about the wheat harvest can be seen in the reality of Trumpets, Yom Kipporim, Tabernacles, and the Great Last Day. Christ is the reality of all the High Sabbaths (actually, He is the reality of the entirety of Scripture). He is the paschal Lamb of God penned on the 10th and sacrificed at even on the 14th of the first month. He is the Wave Sheaf offering presented to God on the morrow after the weekly Sabbath during Unleavened Bread. He is the first to live without sin, represented by removing leavening during the seven days of Unleavened Bread. He liberates Israel from bondage following the Passover, what the first High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread represents. Two liberations, thus two Passovers. The first liberation physical and from physical bondage. The second liberation spiritual and from spiritual bondage. And Christ Jesus leads Israel into the promised land, what the second High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread represents. Joshua leads the uncircumcised physical nation across the Jordan and into the geographical promised land. Jesus leads the uncircumcised spiritual nation into the spiritual promised land; i.e., glorification [Glorification comes with Christ Jesus' return. Crossing the Jordan is analogous to crossing the Sea of Reeds. It represents actual baptism (1 Cor 10:2) of the half of humanity that becomes Israel when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh. All of the greater Christian Church not represented by Joshua and Caleb has been rejected. Only the half of humanity that wasn't previously taught that the laws of God cannot be kept is willing to fight to live by them. The two witnesses bring this half of humanity to the edge of baptism when the two witnesses are killed and resurrected three days later. It remains for the seven named churches or seven pairs of clean animals [Joshua] and the single pair of every unclean specie [Caleb] to actually lead Israel to victory in the promised land in an Ark of Faith. This fight to secure the promised land is represented by the countdown of weeks from Jesus' Ascension to the Feast of Weeks/Pentecost. And the reason Christ denies knowing the teachers of lawlessness in their judgment becomes apparent: these teachers of Israel have slain the entire holy nation by insisting that the laws of God cannot be kept. By faith, they can be. Abraham kept them by faith. And the children of Abraham will keep them by faith, or these children will perish as their spiritual parents do.]. And the Feast of Weeks represents this glorification. What happened that first Pentecost was the second Eve being filled with the Breath of God and conceiving children that day. The Holy Spirit wasn’t first given on Pentecost— that teaching is of spiritual novices— rather, spiritual birth was given to many. And the reality of this High Sabbath will be Christ Jesus giving gloried bodies to many.
The above Sabbaths and festivals represent Christ Jesus bringing the barley harvest to glory; they represent Israel or the Church giving birth to the firstborn sons of God. But attaching the qualifier firstborn to the sons of God implies the birth of additional sons. However, before looking at how the autumn High Sabbaths reveal this maincrop harvest, the parallel between spring and fall needs developed.
Ezekiel, prophesying about the details of the sacrifices during Christ Jesus’ millennial reign, reveals that the spring holy day offerings will become the same as the fall holy day offerings (Ezek 45:21–25)
and burnt offerings will return, for Christ Jesus rests from bearing the sins of Israel on this spiritual seventh day. No sin sacrifice should personally be needed during His Millennium reign, for humanity will receive His nature, not Satan’s nature. Christ Jesus will now be the prince of the power of the air. The mental topography of humanity will be His to rule. All of humanity will have received the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28) when Satan was cast from heaven and the kingdom of the world became the kingdom of the Father and of the Son (Rev 11:15 & 12:9–10). No person will any longer be in bondage to sin and death. Literally, human nature will have changed.
Too many would-be intellectuals glibly claim that human nature cannot or will not change, but this is the promise of Christ’s millennial reign. Sin will no longer be a problem. Lawlessness won’t happen. By giving the Holy Spirit to all of humanity three and a half years before Christ returns as the Messiah, the Father and Son offer salvation to everyone while at the same time identifying all rebels. This is a reason why the endtime gospel is a message about patient endurance. All who endure to the end shall be saved. Those who will not endure accept the mark of the beast, and are thus marked for death. But for whatever reasons— mostly because of youth— some individuals who do not accept the mark of the beast also do not get baptized. They do not come under judgment; they do not ask for judgment to come upon them. As such, they will physically enter the Millennium. And there will not be a single rebel among them. Their human nature will be the nature of Christ Jesus. Lawlessness will not be a problem.
But Satan will not yet be destroyed. He will have only been bound for a thousand years, and he will be loosed for a short while (three and a half years) at the end of Christ’s reign. God is not a respecter of persons. Since all of humanity that has been born in the Millennium will never have had to overcome sin, God will allow Satan to again introduce sin to the holy nation of God. So an animal sacrifice will continue throughout the Millennium to keep alive knowledge of sin, and of the necessity of covering sin with shed blood. Although the blood of bulls and rams doesn’t adequately cover lawlessness, it does remind the nation that a covering is necessary— and this covering will be their blood if they succumb to Satan’s post-Millennium blandishments. Christ Jesus will not bear their sins. Human beings born in the Millennium who succumb to lawlessness will be as the fallen angels are, but without any time to bring forth works worthy of repentance. Their judgment will be a fearful time for them.
Again, during the Millennium, the same animal sacrifices offered in the spring will be offered in the fall. This sameness allows spring High Sabbaths to be kept in their season in both the northern and southern hemispheres. In other words, disciples in Australia are to keep the Passover in the spring of the year, not at fall harvest season, as revealed through the new moons Sabbaths. But this sameness in animal sacrifices also fills in many of the details concerning individuals resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment, the resurrection to judgment of the mass of humanity representing the maincrop wheat harvest.
Because of the importance of the concept and despite it having been repeatedly said, it will be said one more time: the Christian Church as the second Eve swallowed the same lie that the first Eve swallowed, that she would not die. The Church must reject this lie. Christians must accept an underlying truth: everlasting life is the gift of God (Rom 6:23). Human beings do not have ever-lasting life within themselves until they receive it as a gift. A human being doesn’t get everlasting life from conception in the backseat a Chevrolet. No one gets everlasting life from biological fathers or mothers. Everlasting life is obtained only one way— by receiving it as the gift of God the Father when He draws the person one at a time from the world by giving the person His Breath [Pneuma ’Agion]. Not until the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh will this drawing from the world not be one at a time.
The fall High Sabbaths begin with Trumpets, which represents the coming of Christ Jesus as the Messiah. Its spring counterpart is the Passover, which represents Christ coming as paschal Liberator.
Following Trumpets is Yom Kipporim, too often written as Yom Kippur. The name means Day of Coverings [plural, hence Kipporim]. And two coverings are needed as evidenced by the two goats that were sacrificed on this day before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, one goat killed on the altar, and one goat, the Azazel, led into the wilderness by the hand of a fit man. And because of the covering of these two goats, Israel lives sin-free.
Jesus of Nazareth died as the paschal Lamb of God at Calvary, and thus represents the goat sacrificed on the altar on Yom Kipporim. Christ Jesus, then, bears the sins of Israel in the heavenly realm as the reality of the Azazel goat. And Christ Jesus will give these sins back to Satan upon His return as the Messiah. All of Israel will be free from sin. Every sin committed in the physical realm is covered by the blood of Jesus of Nazareth. This includes the sins of those individuals who have not yet received spiritual birth. So resurrected humanity in the great White Throne Judgment truly is represented by the two lawbreakers on Calvary. Their sins are already covered, if they will accept that covering. And because they never had spiritual life, they were unable to sin in the spiritual realm. They do not need a covering for sins in the spiritual realm. Thus, until they receive spiritual life, they cannot experience the second death. Resurrection to judgment is their sure promise. But any lawlessness after their resurrection will send them into the lake of fire, for no additional sacrifice remains for them.
Until a human being receives spiritual birth, the human being hasn’t been offered salvation. The person is as a beast. The atheist is what the atheist thinks he or she is. The person is a spiritual corpse waiting the receipt of the Breath of God. So resurrection to judgment in the great White Throne Judgment is not a second chance at salvation. It is the particular person’s first and only chance.
It is the height of arrogance and the epitome of lovelessness to believe that accepting Jesus as my personal savior will guarantee acceptance into heaven while the person who never heard the name of Jesus is doomed to fry forever in hell. This is the underlying doctrine of the Evangelical Church, and this is blasphemy!
The person who will enter the kingdom of God will hear the words of Jesus and will believe the One who raised Him from the dead. It is the Israelite who already keeps the laws of God who only has to profess Jesus with his or her mouth, for believing the Father means actual living by the words of Jesus. And to believe that the person who has never heard the name of Jesus is forever doomed due to original sin makes God a respecter of persons. Where can love be found in such a belief? It’s not there, and its lack reinforces the parallel between the Pharisees and the endtime teachers of lawlessness. Jesus said the father of the Pharisees was the devil. The same can be said about the teachers of lawlessness, Satan’s disguised ministers of righteousness. And the synagogue of Satan is the spiritual fellowship led by these loveless teachers of lawlessness. You are of that synagogue if you follow these sons of darkness.
Although prophecy can fail (or better, be fulfilled), prophecy reveals that only a tithe of spiritual Israel will enter the kingdom of heaven… only a tithe! This is all. And this should not be. But consider, how many Pharisees became disciples? A few. And then, what happened with these Pharisees? Read Acts chapter 15, and the Paul’s epistle to Galatians. They caused more problems than they were apparently worth, but they were necessary to determine who was genuine (1 Cor 11:19).
Returning to the fall High Sabbaths, after Satan has received back the sins Christ has been bearing on the reality of Yom Kipporim, the Feast of Tabernacles begins. These seven days represent Christ’s Millennium reign, but most importantly, they represent the seven weeks between the Wave Sheaf offering and the Feast of Weeks, that period when the barley ripened and was harvested. These days are the ripening time needed for the maincrop wheat harvest to see, when resurrected, the difference between life under Satan’s reign and life under Christ’s reign. The wheat’s ripening occurs when they see the difference between disobedience and obedience, and exactly how incompatible disobedience is with itself let alone with obedience.
The last High Sabbath is the Great Last Day, which represents the great White Throne Judgment. And it is in this judgment that most of humanity will appear. John writes,
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to what they had done. Then Death andHades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And ifanyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:12–15)
Again, God is not a respecter of persons. No lawless person will enter the kingdom, either in the first resurrection, or in the great White Throne Judgment. And everyone is offered one chance for salvation. Everyone determines whether he or she enters by what he or she does. Judgment will happen to every person, but only after the person receives life in the spiritual realm. Judgment isn’t on dogs or donkeys, beetles or birds. Judgment is of human beings, created in the likeness of God. And human beings are not like God until they receive life in the spiritual realm. They are also not like God if they are lawless. Rather, the father of lawlessness is Satan, and he will have fire come out from his belly to consume him. So human beings who are lawlessness will perish in fire just as Satan, their father, does.
A person in his or her life determines whether he or she will live according to the rules of society, or whether the person will assist others, or whether the person cheats at life. Over time, the person determines his or her own personality— and it will be this personality that answers for what the person has done after the person accepts Christ as Savior.
All of the above leaves a few dangling ends, the foremost of which is the fate of infants that died before being accountable for their actions. Scripture is somewhat silent about the fate of infants, so typology must be brought to bear on the problem. Thus, a return to the spiritual birth analogy:
Physical Israel was a nation of circumcised males. Females needed the covering of a male— and a digression is required. Israel was the firstborn son of YHWH. As such, Israel foreshadows Christ, who is the covering for the Church, who is the second Eve. Thus, the females in the physical nation were extensions of the first Eve, covered by a circumcised male who foreshadowed Christ. But within the Church, there is neither male nor female. All who put on Christ are the sons of God. Therefore, there is only one woman covered by one man. This woman is the Church, and this woman is not allowed to speak. Disciples are to hear the words of Jesus, not the words of the Church. The second Eve is to remain silent. But biological women who put on Christ are sons of God who have the inherited right to utter the words of Christ. Thus, the Church, with no right to speak, cannot make or establish doctrine. The power claimed by the Pope to speak for God is a spiritual abomination. The same for the power claimed by Joseph Smith. These two giants of trinitarian and Arian Christianity would have the woman rule the man, and that ought not be. However, the post-liberation rebellion of Israel will center around the speech of the woman, who will become drunk on the blood of the martyrs.
A male child born into the household of a physical Israelite foreshadowed a disciple being drawn from the world by God the Father. Physical birth is analogous to the spiritual birth of a son of God. Glorification is the son reaching his or her majority; it isn’t the birth of the son. For the son of God spends his or her spiritual adolescence in a corruptible body, or as some Christians have said, in a man-suit. So the growing to adulthood that a physical Israelite male experienced foreshadows the spiritual growth to adulthood of a spiritual Israelite, with a difference noted. Spiritual growth has no time marker. This growth is in the timeless spiritual realm. Unlike biological growth that occurs over a set number of years, with only a small amount of variation in the number of years required for growth, spiritual growth can be compressed or stretched depending upon the son of God. A son can linger as an equivalent two-year-old for decades, or a son can, because of previous experiences and trials, zip through the spiritual growth process in hours. Deathbed professions of faith can be valid. The determiner of their validity is Christ Jesus, not another human being.
When a physical Israelite male was eight days old, the male was circumcised— the Great Last Day is the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles week. This is the day representing the great White Throne Judgment, and this is when the vast majority of humanity will receive inclusion in the holy nation of spiritual Israel by finally receiving the Breath of God and spiritual birth. So a Hebrew male from drawing his first breath to his eighth day of life was physically as the mass of humanity presently is and has been spiritually. But without consulting this male infant, on the eighth day, the infant was circumcised and made part of God’s holy nation. His father made the determination that infant would be circumcised, and there was nothing the infant could do to prevent the clipping of his foreskin.
The model of circumcision fits the maincrop wheat harvest of humanity exactly, but the early barley harvest has a wrinkle in this model. Spiritual birth occurs when the disciple is prematurely drawn from the world, as one born out of season. The disciple would not leave the world if the Father didn’t insert His Breath into the disciple, for the world is hostile to God (Rom 8:7). Therefore, the disciple was made a part of spiritual Israel without experiencing circumcision (what the Circumcision Faction could never grasp). Judgment is today on the household of God (1 Pet 4:17), so judgment would be on this prematurely born disciple without the disciple ever experiencing death if the model for inclusion were identical. However, the tweaking of the model occurs in baptism, a ritual that physical Israelite proselytes underwent prior to Jesus coming as the Son of Man. A physical Israelite proselyte was physically circumcised, then baptized, then he made an offering to the temple before the male was considered part of the holy nation. And again, no provision was made for women. Penises were required. So Ruth was made a part of the holy nation through being covered by Boaz, her kinsman redeemer. And uncircumcised disciples are as Ruth was in that they need covered by Christ Jesus, their kinsman redeemer. They need to put on Christ, the reason for Paul’s use of this odd expression.
When a disciple is drawn from the world and receives spiritual birth while uncircumcised, the disciple needs to put to death the old man before judgment comes upon the person. Since judgment today is on the household of God, death or figurative death becomes the rite of passage from being a spiritual Israelite of less than eight days age to being a full member of the holy nation of God. Baptism, then, replaces circumcision as the inclusionary ritual for membership into the holy nation of spiritual Israel.
The flip side of this is its mirror image: all who are baptized in the name of Jesus are under judgment. They have voluntary placed themselves under judgment, and if they now erase the laws of God written on their hearts and minds, they will have committed spiritual suicide. So the person who is baptized into Christ, puts on Christ, and in doing so, commits him or herself to living by the laws of God. This person will be liberated from bondage to sin at the second Passover. But if this person is a firstborn who doesn’t cover his or her sins with the blood of the paschal Lamb of God, this person will die out of covenant, and will go into the resurrection to condemnation. So for a spiritual Israelite not to take the Passover as Jesus established the example is playing Russian roulette with the disciple’s spiritual life.
Now concerning infants resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment: since judgment is upon the household of God following baptism, and since baptism should not occur until the person understands the significance of judgment, infants should not be baptized, and judgment should not be upon infants. Thus, amid too few Scriptures to make definite assertions, it appears that the great White Throne Judgment will last long enough for newborns to grow to accountability. But again, there is no good Scriptural support for this idea. Therefore, additional revelation is needed— and if needed, will come. The Scripture (Isa 65:20) that was used by the former Radio Church of God to indicate that the great White Throne Judgment is one hundred years long doesn’t say what it was purported to say.
From all of the above, Christians must accept an underlying truth: everlasting life is the gift of God (Rom 6:23). Human beings do not have everlasting life within themselves until they receive it as a gift. A human being doesn’t get everlasting life from conception in the backseat of a Chevrolet. No one gets everlasting life from biological fathers or mothers. Everlasting life is obtained only one way— by receiving it as the gift of God the Father when He draws the person one at a time from the world by giving the person His Breath [Pneuma ’Agion].
Chapter Four
As long as disciples put on Christ in the privacy of prayer, the environment in which the disciples live cannot, or should not prevent the disciples from worshiping God in truth and sincerity. Certainly disciples will be inconvenienced and occasionally persecuted for their beliefs, but in Western Europe and North America especially, martyrdom is rare. Disciples are not really ‘“hated by all for [Jesus’] name’s sake’” (Matt 10:22). Rather, disciples are ridiculed, or grudgingly tolerated, but disciples are not hated (John 15:18–21). This, however, doesn’t apply to Arab nations where disciples are hated by many Muslims, and yes, Chinese dissenters are persecuted by that nation’s government. But Jesus’ use of hated is more inclusive than simply being hated in so-called non-Christian nations. His use of the signifier will have disciples being hated wherever they live, with no exception being made for so-called Christian nations. So something happens between today and the end of the age. This something is the Passover liberation of the Church from bondage to sin.
For a moment imagine the morning after scenario in a typical American suburb, in your neighborhood. An unexplainable worldwide catastrophe has occurred. The nation is in national grieving. The President, a firstborn, is dead. Many Congressmen are dead. Businessmen and civic leaders are dead. Every house along your cul-de-sac has lost a loved one. Some houses lost both parents and a child. Yet, you lost no one. And for a little while it is hard to make the connection between when you took the Passover a month ago and what happened during the night. Your neighbors know you are odd, but nice, the expression most often used to describe Sabbath-keeping Christians. However, when they find out that you experienced no deaths in your household, they become enraged— and they will. The nation is in shambles. The city is devastated. The neighborhood in is mourning. And everything is as normal as it can be with you. Now ask yourself, will you suddenly be hated for Christ’s name’s sake when your neighbors realize why you haven’t experienced a lost loved one? Will you be hated because you openly keep the Sabbath? Will you be hated because you are different? You know you will be. And this is the scenario that is sure to happen. There will be no bodily rapture of loveless Evangelicals to heaven. All of the Church left alive will be left behind. But a third of the Church will have died, but locally the number is higher because the Christians in your neighborhood refused to cover their lawlessness by taking the Cup when and how Jesus established the example. They determined for themselves when they would take the sacraments. And as spiritual Gentiles, they left themselves uncovered when the death angels passed through spiritual Babylon.
But you have been liberated from sin. You find that you can truthfully answer questions you would have fudged on before. Physical addictions are gone. Whatever you want to do, you can. You are free— and so is your neighbor who lost a wife and a son, and so is another neighbor who lost a daughter, and another neighbor who lost a husband and her son, and another neighbor who lives alone with thirteen cats. They want to know why all of the death, why did so many die, why would God allow this to happened. And you have the answers to their questions. So while some of your neighbors want to burn you out for being a witch, others want you to teach them— or at least, want you to answer questions for them.
What will you teach them? What will you say to them? Can you answer their questions about what will happen next? The answers are in Scripture.
You as an endtime son of light might not today realize that this is who you are, but the morning after the second Passover liberation of Israel, you will be thrust suddenly into the local, regional, national spotlight. And for seven months, amid the chaos and carnage following the death of a third of humanity, you and other sons of light will teach all who will listen to live within the laws of God. And Christians of all denominational flavors will agree with you. Then come the emissaries of the lawless one, ministers of righteousness, demanding to know by what authority do you and the other sons of light teach the word of God. Who ordained you? Who gave you the right to teach? And the Acts of the Apostles — the Book of Acts — forms the visible shadow of the endtime ministry of the sons of light during the first three and half years of the Tribulation.
The endtime course of history was sealed and held secret in the visions of Daniel. The unsealing of these prophecies doesn’t occur, didn’t occur until knowledge increased— and the unsealing occurs because of the increase in knowledge. The prophecies were sealed by their shadows. This sealing occurred through the prophecies being given prior to the occurrence of their visible, physical shadows, which then appeared as the fulfillment of the prophecies. The unsealing occurred when the Father through His Breath caused disciples to realize how the prophecies of Daniel were sealed. The prophecies, themselves, are about invisible phenomena in the timeless supra-dimensional realm of heaven, phenomena impossible for humans to realize or observe. An example of such a phenomenon is recorded in the beginning of the Book of Job. Neither Job nor his friends could know that Satan had brought the calamity upon Job, and that YHWH had allowed the calamity to happen as a test of Job. As a result Job protests his innocence, and demands an accounting— and finally realizes that for all of his obedience, he had never really known YHWH.
Endtime prophecies are given by Christ Jesus to His friends so they will be aware of why events are occurring, and what will happen next. His friends cannot yet observe Satan appearing before the Most High, but Christ Jesus can tell His friends about Satan’s judgment, and about the breaking of Satan’s federation of fallen angels. These phenomena cast shadows across the mental topography of humanity, and they have filtering-down effects, which, taken together, will seem to be earlier and latter physical fulfillment of the prophecies.
Shakespeare in King Lear links the tempest or storm occurring outside in the natural world with the tempest or madness occurring in the old king’s mind. So the concept of a mental landscape similar to the physical landscape is not a novel idea, but one dating back at least to the English Renaissance. And the Apostle Paul wrote that the prince of the power of the air is the spirit at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2). This prince of the power of the air is Satan, who is the spiritual king of Babylon (Isa 14:4–21) and who reigns over the mental landscape of the children of wrath. These children live by the passions of the flesh in which dwells the law of sin and death. The desires of the body and of the mind are united in these children of wrath (Eph 2:3) rather than at war with each other.
Human nature is governed by the price of the power of the air— and in the sons of disobedience or lawlessness, a person sees Satan’s nature. And what a person sees in these sons of disobedience isn’t usually outward evil, but a reigning self-interest that does good some of the time while always being hostile to God (Rom 8:7). And it is over this broken topography of lawlessness and self-interest that the shadows of phenomena in the supra-dimensional realm of heaven are cast. These shadows animate the mental landscape of the human beings upon whom the shadows lie. Instead of the madness in old King Lear’s mind appearing as a frightful thunderstorm over physical hills, the warring between the spiritual king of Greece and the spiritual princes of Persia in the supernal realm casts a shadow that causes Alexander to counterattack Xerxes. And comprehending the relationship between heavenly events and a physical world, or better said, how events in the timeless realm of heaven effect spiritually lifeless creatures inside time is the spiritual wisdom required to unseal the prophecies of Daniel. The abiding characteristics of shadows are that they exist in one less dimension than their reality, and that they are lifeless. Inside of time, shadows are linked to their reality, for both have to exist at the same moment, but not so when the reality is in a timeless supra-dimensional realm. Time is a fluid, and the passage of time is like the slow flow of a stream. A shadow of a spiritual reality lies across the mental topography of the sons of disobedience as the shadow of a fisherman lies on the surface of a stream. This shadow of the spiritual reality imparts motivation or action to the spiritually lifeless sons of disobedience in a manner akin to the Breath of God empowering born-from-above disciples. Although this comparison isn’t perfect, it is close enough for a disciple to understand, when the disciple considers how his or her mindset has physically changed with spiritual growth in grace and knowledge, how the shadow of the spiritual princes of Persia could cause Xerxes to attack Greece. Or how the shadow of the king of Greece flying out of the west to attack the spiritual sar of the kingdom of Persia caused Alexander to carry his fight against Persia into Afghanistan and beyond.
Again, on the occurrence of Adam’s disobedience, human beings were placed in bondage to the law of sin and death (Rom 5:12 & 7:25). This law dwells in the minds and bodies (Eph 2:3) of every person until the person receives spiritual birth. Human beings were created in the image and likeness of Elohim, but they are spiritually as Adam was physically prior to receiving the breath of life. They are spiritual corpses awaiting spiritual animation through receipt of the Breath of God. And just as a physical corpse will twitch and kick when muscles are stimulated with electrical impulses, so too will a spiritual corpse twitch and launch wars against other spiritual corpses when stimulated by the shadows of spiritual realities. These spiritual corpses remain spiritually lifeless: they only have physical life through physical breath. Yet all of the synapses are in place awaiting birth from above which will occur either prior to their physical deaths or after resurrection from physical death. The person will remain in a body of flesh, and will remain subject to destruction in the lake of fire even though the person has received spiritual life; for spiritual birth remains the two-level procedure modeled by Christ Jesus. Again, the two-level procedure is physical birth, then spiritual birth through the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:16), followed by physical death, resurrection and glorification, or receipt of a spiritual body to go with the spiritual life acquired through having of the Breath of God.
The prophetic comparison of physical and spiritual is seen throughout the Bible. 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, the uncircumcised children of physical Israel who have received spiritual birth. Physical Israel is a rejected nation, this rejection initially seen in the Wilderness of Sin. When all but Joshua and Caleb of the circumcised nation that left physical bondage in Egypt died in the wilderness for refusing to enter the promised land when commanded (Num 14:1–4), the circumcised nation was replaced by their uncircumcised children (Josh 5:2–7).
Circumcision returned after Israel crossed the Jordan. For the journey of Israel from Egypt to Judea through the wilderness of Sin formed the shadow of spiritual Israel’s journey from bondage to sin to glorification during the Tribulation, with the rejection of the circumcised nation that left Egypt foreshadowing the rejection of Church following the great falling away. The newly circumcised nation in the promised land, beginning with Joshua and going through Jesus’ earthly ministry, formed/forms the shadow of spiritual Israel from its inception to the yet future second Passover slaughter of uncovered firstborns. For once across the Jordan and in the promised land, the uncircumcised nation of Israel used flint knives to literally cut away foreskins. This act of circumcision foreshadowed the spiritual circumcision of hearts and minds of born again disciples. Beginning on the morrow after the weekly Sabbath during Unleavened Bread— when Jesus breathed on the ten, and when Israel under Joshua could eat the grain of the land they entered— manna ceased. Jesus identified Himself as the true bread that came down from heaven. He wasn’t again eaten (used figuratively as Jesus used the concept) by Israel until His disciples ate the bread and drank from the cup with Him at the Passover before He was taken.
The geographical promised land, through captivity, was reduced in size to the acreage of the temple mount, with born-from-above disciples now being the temple of God. So the scribes and Pharisees who tried to force their way into the kingdom of God (Luke 16:16) were foreshadowed by the circumcised nation trying to enter the promised land the day following their rejection (Num 14:39–45). They were physically turned back, as will be the endtime circumcised nation spiritually turned back. This endtime circumcised nation— rabbinical Judaism— is one of two rejected nations. It was initially rejected in the Wilderness of Sin when they were the firstborn son of YHWH (Exod 4:22), then rejected a second time when it was represented by the Pharisees. Jesus of Nazareth became the spiritual firstborn Son of the Father (Matt 2:15 & 3:17). And the circumcised nation will be rejected yet again (Rom 8:29) if they resist being grafted onto the true vine.
But the rejected scribes and Pharisees foreshadowed endtime spiritual Israel, which will also be rejected when it rebels against the Father and the Son following its liberation from bondage to sin, from the king of the South.
Circumcised Israel is the woman who gave birth to the man child who will rule the world (Rev 12:5). The physically uncircumcised children of this circumcised nation is the woman who gives birth to offspring who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus (v. 17). One woman: Israel. But the visible physical nation was unable to obtain righteousness for this nation sought its own righteousness; it sought righteousness through spiritual ignorance. It sought righteousness through the law, as if the laws of God were a lever with which this rejected nation could pry open salvation. It never perceived the relationship between physical and spiritual, a relationship that has compliance with the physical commandments being the result of desiring to live by the inner laws of God written on hearts and mind through receipt of the Holy Spirit and spiritual birth. When seeking the righteousness of God, keeping the commandments is the result of seeking this righteousness by faith. Keeping the commandments can never be the cause of righteousness. Rather, keeping the commandments produces self-righteousness. Yet every disciple pleasing to God will keep the commandments, but keep them from being ruled from the inside out rather than from the outside in.
Spiritually, 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 an unenlightened mental landscape within this realm. Salvation isn’t of the corruptible body. Flesh and blood will not enter heaven. And spiritual Israelites are not defined or determined by physical circumcision. Therefore, when Jesus gave the sign of Jonah as the only proof that he was the Son of Man, Jesus established another juxtaposition between physical and spiritual other than the two Commandments murder and adultery. The sign of Jonah was the three days and three nights Jonah spent in the belly of the great fish. Nineveh worshiped Dagon, the fish god. So after the great fish spewed Jonah ashore, he became the visible physical spokesman for their god, regardless of whether anyone saw him being cast ashore. And Nineveh, upon hearing the preaching of Jonah, repented.
After saying that He would give only one sign that He was the Son of Man, that sign being the sign of Jonah, Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, ‘“The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here’” (Matt 12:41). Both the men of Nineveh and the men of Judea were spiritual corpses; both would receive spiritual birth in the great White Throne Judgment, so both nations would rise up together. Thus, with Jesus’ juxtaposition of both nations, Jesus establishes a link between the men of Nineveh in Assyria and the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem, or more specifically, of the temple. This link allows Jonah’s three days in the belly of the fish to be the shadow of Jesus’ three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jonah being spewed out of the belly of the fish becomes the shadow of Jesus being resurrected from death. Jonah is then told a second time to go to Nineveh, and to call out against it the message YHWH gave Jonah, this message being, ‘“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown’” (Jon 3:4).
The language is interesting: Jonah’s warning contains no caveat. After forty days, Nineveh is sure to be overthrown. But this no-caveat message wasn’t initially delivered by Jonah. Only after being spewed out and when told a second time did Jonah deliver this no-caveat message. And since Jesus established the juxtaposition between Jonah and Himself, disciples should find the story of Jonah foreshadowing the reality that is Christ Jesus.
Before being crucified, Jesus told His disciples, ‘“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will not longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father’” (John 16:25). His disciples thought Jesus was then speaking plainly, but this isn’t what Jesus said. That hour remained in the future. That hour had not yet come. And that hour would not come until after His disciples had received the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). Therefore, when, after being resurrected, the glorified Jesus presented Himself alive to “the apostles whom he had chosen… appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:2–3), the hour of speaking plainly came. During these forty days, Jesus speaks plainly to His disciples, just as Jonah spoke plainly to the men of Nineveh after being spewed forth. These men of Nineveh repented, and the city wasn’t overthrown for a century and a half. But after forty days of Jesus appearing to His disciples, spiritual Nineveh was overthrown. The no-caveat message was fulfilled just as Jonah prophesied. The scribes and Pharisees— the men of Judah— did not repent, and it is this nation that then represented the spiritual darkness of Assyria.
Again, the woman of Revelation chapter 12 is Israel, who goes from being the physical nation that gave birth to the man child who will rule the world to being the spiritual nation whose offspring keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. This spiritual nation was created when Jesus, the evening following His Ascension, breathed on ten of His disciples and said, “‘Receive the Holy Spirit”’ (John 20:22). But spiritual Nineveh was not yet overthrown. The weeks were being counted away. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost is fifty days after the Wave Sheaf offering. Jesus’ Ascension to the Father is the reality of the Wave Sheaf offering, an observance that should be kept by disciples. And with the Ascension, a countdown began for the two harvests of the earth. Christ Jesus is the firstborn of the firstfruits, and the firstfruits of the maincrop harvest. The disciples who form the early barley harvest live without sin beginning with Israel’s liberation from spiritual bondage. Their crossing into the promised land, or crossing Jordan is represented by the last High Sabbath of the feast of Unleavened Bread. Then comes the countdown to the ripening of the maincrop wheat harvest, represented in the fall High Sabbaths by the Great Last Day and represented in the spring High Sabbaths by the Feast of Weeks. Again, two harvests of the earth. Both harvests are twice represented by the annual High Sabbaths: Trumpets and the Last Great Day— the second High Day of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Weeks. The details of the early barley harvest are in the spring High Sabbaths. The details of the maincrop wheat harvest are in the fall High Sabbaths. And the annual High Sabbaths taken together represents the entirety of the plan of God.
This has not been taught before in the Churches of God: the spring Holy Day season mirrors the fall Holy Day season, as revealed through the sacrifices made during the Millennium. Christ comes. The firstfruits live without sin. The firstfruits enter the promised land of glorification. Then the remainder of humanity receives the Holy Spirit and comes into judgment. The Passover corresponds to Trumpets. The first High Day of Unleavened Bread corresponds to Yom Kipporim. The second High Day of Unleavened Bread corresponds to the High Day beginning Tabernacles. Pentecost corresponds to the Last Great Day. And the early barley harvest corresponds to the maincrop wheat harvest in the same manner as the spring High Days correspond to the fall High Days. So not a large amount of Scripture is needed for much to be realized about the great White Throne Judgment.
Spiritual Nineveh’s overthrow after forty days places this overthrow of spiritual darkness in the late afternoon of the sixth day, if each week between the Ascension and Pentecost were a creation day. Christ Jesus has been sacrificed from the foundation of the earth, so the spiritual creation does, indeed, consist of seven one-thousand-year-long days. Adam was created the afternoon of the sixth physical day of creation, and he is placed in the Garden of Eden at the equivalent of forty days if the spiritual harvest of the earth were seven weeks long, from the Wave Sheaf Offering to the Feast of Weeks. Therefore the significance of the number forty is its importance in conveying the overthrow of death. Spiritual Assyria is overthrown when the last Adam, Christ Jesus, is placed in spiritual Eden, the temple of God in the form of the minds of disciples being that spiritual temple or promised land.
Spiritual Nineveh, then, becomes the spiritual darkness of the men of Judea who had the law that none of them kept (John 7:19). Nineveh was the capital of Assyria; therefore, spiritual Assyria doesn’t have geographical coordinates, but becomes the spiritually unenlightened mental topography of greater Israel, first circumcised then uncircumcised. Eventually, when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, humanity becomes the holy nation of Israel, the single great nation promised to the patriarch Abraham (Gen 12:2). So salvation is offered to the circumcised Jew first, then to the uncircumcised children, then finally to the Greek. Salvation was first offered to physically uncircumcised Israel through the second covenant mediated by Moses at Moab (Deu 29:1). It was next offered to the spiritually uncircumcised children of the physical Israelites that crossed the Jordan and were circumcised in the promised land. Ten years, approximately, passed between that first Pentecost and the baptism of Cornelius, when the model for receiving the Holy Spirit changed. But with the baptism by fire of Cornelius and his household, salvation was finally offered to uncircumcised Greeks. And in each case, the nation did not, or could not take advantage of the offer of salvation, with few exceptions.
With each offer of salvation, the timing for when a person received spiritual birth changed. Under the second covenant mediated by Moses, captivity and demonstrated obedience by a physically circumcised Israelite preceded spiritual circumcision. Baptism wasn’t needed. Obedience was. So obedience determined when this Israelite received the Holy Spirit. Judgment only came upon this Israelite after he or she, like Abraham and Sarah earlier, proved to God the person’s faithfulness.
Under the second covenant mediated by Christ Jesus, spiritual circumcision was initially offered to physically circumcised Israelites prior to demonstrated obedience. But baptism preceded this offer of the Holy Spirit, thereby making baptism the marker within circumcised Israel between who had asked for judgment by receiving the Holy Spirit and who had not.
But with the calling of Cornelius, spiritual circumcision was offered without the necessity of physical circumcision. A person no longer needed to previously be an Israelite. A person was made a spiritual Israelite through receipt of the Holy Spirit— and the only distinction between the uncircumcised disciple and his unconverted brother was possession of the Holy Spirit. Baptism now followed the person being made a spiritual Israelite; baptism occurred when the spiritual Israelite knew to ask for judgment to come upon him or herself.
However, without a physical marker to separate a spiritual Israelite from his Gentile brother, both ended up in fellowship. And the early Church did what Nineveh did following the city’s repentance.
After a century and a half, physical Nineveh no longer believed Jonah. The men of Nineveh returned to their evil ways. As a result Assyria was defeated and captured by Babylon. However, spiritual Nineveh [physical Jerusalem] and by extension spiritual Assyria never repented, but became the lost tribes of Israel. They have disappeared into the spiritual flotsam of history. They only exist physically.
The above needs repeating for many Sabbath-keepers place considerable importance upon the modern nation of Israel having a large nuclear arsenal. Circumcised Israel — the modern nation of Israel — ceased being the holy nation of God when the men of Judea killed on Calvary the Covenantor of the covenant by which they were made that holy nation. The Sinai Covenant was utterly abolished (Eph 2:15) with the death of the Covenantor (Rom 7:1–4). So when Christ Jesus was resurrected and ascended to the Father, He was free to marry another. And this is what is seen in both Jonah’s prophecy and in the narrative detail of Christ appearing to his disciples for forty days. He married the second Eve, with the wedding ceremony to be celebrated upon His return as the Messiah. And by marrying the second Eve, He overthrew spiritual darkness. So all endtime prophecies about Israel do not pertain to the circumcised nation, but pertain to the greater Christian Church. There is only one woman in Revelation chapter 12; there is only one Israel. And it isn’t the endtime circumcised nation. Therefore, every prophecy pundit that looks for endtime prophecies to be fulfilled by the modern nation of Israel will be disappointed, as they should be. These pundits are spiritual novices.
But Jesus in His earthly ministry does send the Twelve to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. In His endtime ministry immediately prior to the second Passover, He will again send His disciples to the lost sheep of spiritual Israel. So these sheep are primarily Christian denominations, but the physically lost sheep is rabbinical Judaism. He will also send disciples to these lost sheep, and from these sheep come the 144,000.
After the glorified Jesus appeared to His disciples for forty days, spiritual Nineveh was overthrown. Jesus didn’t go to a geographical location to overthrow spiritual Nineveh. He commanded His disciples to remain in Jerusalem. And again is seen the juxtaposition of Jerusalem with Nineveh, for He appeared to His disciples in the city. The overthrow of spiritual darkness was occurring under the noses of the scribes and Pharisees. The second Eve or spiritual Israel was being enlightened, but enlightenment was only in the Church. The remainder of Jerusalem remained in spiritual darkness as the scribes and the Pharisees were being invisibly overthrown.
In the historic shadow, physical Assyria was overthrown by Babylon. Jerusalem was overthrown by Roman legions. So by Jesus linking the men of Nineveh with the men of Judea, Jesus established the juxtaposition of Rome being Babylon, a connection frequently expressed in the 1st-Century Church. Therefore, 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, the Church joined the men of Israel in Babylonian captivity. But this invisible spiritual captivity doesn’t become readily apparent until the Roman Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicea ca. 325 C.E. determined what sound doctrine for the Church would be.
The greater Christian Church at Nicea formally surrendered to the king of Babylon. She became a captive nation, a vassal nation of spiritual Babylon. As a spiritually captive nation, she has worked for the king of Babylon as his servant ever since. The Church needs long overdue release from spiritual bondage, but she has grown comfortable in her lofty position of being the favored concubine of the king.
When God sets His hand to recover endtime Israel from Assyria, He brings a spiritual nation out of a spiritual land, which is a mindset or a mental landscape. This mindset is lawlessness, or sin, the wages of which is death. So the physical nation of Assyria forms the visible shadow of spiritual death. And a thread within the biblical tapestry needs pulled. Beginning a trail of circuitous logic, the historic nation of Assyria took the northern kingdom of the house of Israel (Samaria) captive. They displaced Samaria, and replanted these peoples along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, from where they migrated east and west. This northern kingdom of Israel becomes the lost ten tribes, which were never truly lost, but these tribes disappear from visible history because they gave up the Sabbath. And this northern kingdom’s disappearance into history foreshadowed the disappearance of Arian Christianity into history.
When the Church as spiritual Israel wandered away from God, neglecting His laws and profaning His Sabbaths as the circumcised nation had (Ezek chptr 20), a schism developed that can be roughly summarized as Ephesus and typology versus Alexandria and allegory. Unfortunately schisms are seldom over one issue, and this one wasn’t. These issues have been kept alive for nearly two millennia as the Church divided into a northern house and a southern house. These two houses became the spiritual reality of Oholah and Oholibah (Ezek chptr 23), for the Church, or the Body of Christ becomes the endtime covering for saints after liberation from sin. Both names incorporate the concept of covering, or tent, with the received Breath or Spirit of God in their names’ / ah / radicals.
Oholah and Oholibah played the prostitute until they were worn out by their whoring— the word that came to Ezekiel concerning Oholah and Oholibah was explanation for why the house of Israel and the house of Judah went into national captivity. But that explanation had already been given in chapter 16. The repetition of explanation coupled with deconstruction of these two female names have the unfaithfulness of these two ancient houses of circumcised Israel foreshadowing a north/south division of the Church, a division that resulted in Arian Christians sacking trinitarian Rome.
Historic Babylon took the southern kingdom of Israel captive, and spiritual Babylon formally took the Church captive at the Council of Nicea. But all that remained of the Church was a remnant of spiritual Israel, for as the Church grew geographically, it shrank spiritually— and it is spiritual growth that matters, not geographical or physical. And spiritual growth had peaked when spiritual Nineveh was overthrown. Spiritual growth didn’t peak with the writings of Paul, who says of his writings that they are milk (1 Cor 3:1–3).
As long as there exist jealousy and strife and disciples behaving in a human way, the Church is not ready for solid food. And how does the Church behave today? It is filled with jealousy and strife and disciples behaving in a human way as evidenced by the animosity that exists between the Universal and Orthodox churches, between the Universal church and her protesting daughters, and between the Universal, Orthodox and Protestant churches and the Arian churches, especially the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons. Each denies that the others are of Christ. Each spends more time and resources attempting to convert disciples in another church than it spends trying to convert the unchurched. Each, by its actions and its expenditures, demonstrates that it is not ready for spiritual meat. So what is seen when surveying the panorama of mental landscapes within the greater Church is great expanse, but a dry, barren flat land of no depth, no peaks, and little worth. And this is the landscape of Babylon.
After the house of Samaria was taken captive by Assyria, and after Nebuchadnezzar takes most of the house of Judah to Babylon, the prophet Ezekiel identifies Jerusalem as Israel (Ezek 12:9–10, 19, 24, 27), for Jerusalem was really all that was left of Israel in the promised land. Jesus then limits the men of Judea to the scribes and the Pharisees; thus, the geography of the former Garden of Eden had shrunk to the confines of the Jerusalem temple. The moneychangers represent the economic system of the world, or spiritual Babylon. Therefore, when Jesus drives the moneychangers out of the temple, He casts Babylon out of promised land. And when spiritual Israel became the holy nation of God, the individual disciple became the temple of God.
Returning now to the Church as covering, Christians of every flavor do not entertain the idea that they could look to God like Oholah and Oholibah. The idea is truly inconceivable. For, as in the case of the Evangelical Church, the saints perceive themselves to be truly saintly, so righteous that God couldn’t possibly subject them to the woes of the Tribulation. As a blanket statement to which exceptions exist, Christians do not see themselves as the Father and the Son see them. They do not see themselves because they do not take the Passover as Jesus established the example; they do not examine themselves before taking the Passover. Therefore, the liberation of saints from bondage to sin is absolutely essential in the ripening of the firstfruits. When the inner person is no longer in subjection to the law of sin that dwells in the disciple’s flesh, the inner person will be fully visible through the actions of the person. Who the person is spiritually will become who the person is physically. The invisible laws of God written on the heart and minds of disciples will become visible through how the person lives— and what will be seen is Ohalah and Oholibah. The Arian sects and denominations are Oholah; the trinitarian denominations are Oholibah. And protest today will do no good. Time will be the verifier of the disciple’s identification— God, through Ezekiel, has already described what will be seen when the mental landscapes of greater Israel become observable by the saints themselves.
Following liberation from bondage to lawlessness, both God and angels will easily see how many of His laws the disciple has erased from the disciple’s heart and mind. God and angels will also see if the disciple quickly writes in the erased commandment[s]. And the most insidious doctrine that exists in the greater Church today is the teaching that makes the most sense physically.
After forty days, the glorified Jesus overturned spiritual Nineveh, but spiritual darkness has a way of not staying overturned as ancient Samaria learned. Historic Assyria took the northern kingdom captive, and spiritual Assyria took Arian Christianity captive. When Christ sets His hand to recover Israel a second time, He brings Israel out from Assyria— and the innocence of the language conveys the effectiveness of the most insidious doctrine, the storage of one year’s supply of food.
The leading Arian denomination today is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints… once, when teaching a Composition course in Paducah, Kentucky, I was asked by a student if I thought Mormons were Christians. The question took me by surprise, for there was no context from which the question might logically emerge. And the immediacy of my answer also surprised me. I said, “Southern Baptists might not recognize Mormons as Christians, but the Apostle Paul wouldn’t recognize Southern Baptists as Christians.” I then spent the remainder of the class discussing hypocrisy, and relating the example of inadvertently leaving an opened tool box sitting overnight on the endgate of my pickup along a city street in a small L.D.S. town in southeast Idaho, and having nobody take anything. I asked if that could be done in Paducah. The universal answer was, No. The follow-up question was, “Then who is living by the laws of God?”
The question remains, Who lives by the laws of God? When disciples are liberated from bondage to lawlessness, who among all disciples will live by the laws of God? And one of the laws pertains to the Sabbath— the Apostle Paul kept the Sabbath every week of his life, and he taught converts to live as spiritual Judeans, not as spiritual Greeks. To say otherwise is to misunderstand or misteach Paul.
The lawless one, or man of perdition will attempt to change times and the law (Dan 7:25). This lawless one comes by the activity of Satan, with lying signs and wonders. And the coming of this lawless one is closely linked to the great rebellion of the Church (2 Thess 2:3); he is the catalyst for the great rebellion. And what will be seen is the endtime ascendancy of Arian Christianity as the king of the North wars with the king of the South in an actual return of bloodshed between Arian and trinitarian Christianity.
Because the Prophet said to store food, the L.D.S. Church will be in a good position to physically survive the chaotic conditions immediately following the Passover liberation of Israel. They will not see themselves as Oholah, but will find their belief in the office of the Prophet validated. Therefore, they will retain their dogma at a time when Evangelicals are disillusioned. The entire Evangelical Church that is left alive will be left behind— and will be left hungry, as will be the Roman Church. Food can now be leveraged into discipleship. So when the lawless one, an Arian Christian, comes, the northern house of spiritual Israel will lead the way into lawlessness, all the while appearing righteous. A person will be able to leave an open toolbox overnight alongside a city street. But the Sabbath will be officially changed to Sunday, as the Church decides for itself what is good and what is evil. It will fail the test commandment. Thus, Christ will have to recover Israel from Assyria upon His return.
The good news that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations before the end of the age comes is that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13–14). The good news isn’t a message about the soon-coming millennial reign of Christ Jesus, nor is it a message about the miracles Jesus performed. It is Jesus’ words about patient endurance. And the sons of light will take these words about patient endurance to a physically hungry and spiritually broken Church, with the exception of the sect that has stored enough food to ride out the uncertainty. It will be difficult to tell a person who has lost loved ones and is now hungry that salvation will come from enduring, from having faith in God, not from accepting a bowl of soup and a copy of the Book of Mormon. And God and angels will, indeed, see the faith of the saints as the firstfruits ripen under mental pressure and physical pain.
From the comfort of regular meals and a heated office, it is easy to write that the endtime gospel is Jesus’ words about patient endurance— but the words are virtually meaningless today. Delivery of these same words when the context changes will be exceedingly difficult. When the son of light is him or herself hungry, and when food is available by just a little surrendering of principles, telling a friend or a neighbor not to accept the bait on this most effective mousetrap will take conviction, will take faith put into practice. So the importance of today delivering Jesus’ words about patient endurance exceeds any work hereunto done by saints. Yet few saints are interested in delivering these glamourless words. The reasoning seems that, surely, there must be more glory in casting out demons and prophesying about nations against nations than in repeatedly saying that all who endure to the end shall be saved. Yet when it comes down to what message will cause more liberated saints to openly live within the laws of God, the hands down winner is Jesus’ words about patient endurance.
Should the sons of light keep and maintain a stockpile of foodstuffs? This certainly seems prudent, but the danger is the tendency to trust in what is observable rather than to have faith in God. With that caveat, yes, disciples should maintain the type of food supply that would be appropriate in an agrarian economy. Additional discussion of what this means will be developed on the web site 7 Lean Years.
Chapter Five
The prophecies of Daniel begin with a dream that troubled Nebuchadnezzar, but a dream he couldn’t remember. Most Bible students are familiar with the details of the story. The king demands that both the dream and its interpretation be told to him. His magicians acknowledge that only God can do what the king demands, and the king threatens all of the wise men with death if they are unable to satisfy his demand. Daniel reveals the dream and its interpretation to the king, and Daniel tells the king that the dream is of “what will be in the latter days” (Dan 2:28), that the dream is certain and its interpretation sure. So every understanding of the latter days begins with solving the interpretation given the king, an interpretation that satisfied the king for Daniel identified him as the head of gold.
But Daniel’s interpretation contains within itself the same juxtaposition of physical/spiritual that the endtime identity of Israel holds, for the God of heaven doesn’t establish a kingdom of this world like the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. The kingdom of heaven reigns over the mental topography of humanity. Christ Jesus will be Lord of lords, and King of kings, but His Millennium reign over the earth is also His Sabbath rest. Human nature will be changed in the manner similar to what Isaiah reveals about the nature of beasts being changed. When the Holy Spirit or Breath of God is poured out upon all flesh,
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, / and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, / and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; / and a little child shalllead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; / their young shall lie down together; /and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. / The nursing child shall play over the hole ofthe cobra, / and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. / They shallnot hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isa 11:6–9)
When the root of Jesse reigns over all nations, the thought patterns of humanity will have changed. The topography from which the thoughts of human beings and beasts spring and grow as wheat or weeds will change so that war and killing, lawlessness and disobedience no longer exist. Thus, if a predator will no longer kill to satisfy its need to eat, Ishmaelite mothers will finally love their children more than they hate the sons of Isaac. There will be genuine peace and harmony, for the coexistence of timelessness will be established upon the physical earth. The ripening of the maincrop wheat harvest that will be resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment requires these men and women who lived with Satan’s reign over their mental topography to preview what everlasting life will be like by being able to see an example.
The most difficult concept a person can grasp is what a changed mental landscape will be like, and the most explainable example is that of maturing from infancy to adulthood. A thirteen-year-old girl will start physically developing, and will suddenly start to think about boys, often going boy-crazy. She will not realize how much of a child she mentally remains. But by the time she is seventeen, she will understand that four years earlier, she was a child in a young woman’s body. She will not at seventeen, though, realize how much more mental maturing she will experience before she reaches thirty, or fifty. And the same goes for boys, with a few years difference in the ages when mental platforms of maturity are reached. If a person can now translate the experience of mentally maturing to another dimension, this mental maturing revealed through bodily maturing, the person will begin to grasp what it means to receive the Holy Spirit and spiritual life, which begins a new mental maturing process under Satan’s reign. And if the person has experienced this second mental maturing process, the person can use this experience to project what it will be like to live in a world filled with the knowledge of the God, with Christ Jesus’ nature being broadcast as the basic nature for human beings. The projection will be imperfect. But when it is coupled to the great predators lying down with their former prey species— we see all omnivores becoming herbivores— a glimpse of how human nature will manifest itself during the Millennium is revealed. We see in the changed diet of predators the law of coexistence at work. The Millennium will be a literal preview of life in the supernal realm, with love revealed as it is defined and established by God.
When the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ, all of humanity will have received the Holy Spirit. All of humanity will be the single great nation promised to Abraham (Gen 12:2). All of humanity will be the holy nation Israel, recovered from spiritual Assyria. And the glorified David will reign over Israel (Ezek 37:24) now that both spiritual houses are united in Truth. And this kingdom is what ‘“shall stand forever’” (Dan 2:44). Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world. Jesus’ kingdom is not of rocks and barbwire fences, stillborn calves and gullied fields. Without understanding the comparison of the laws of God written on the hearts and minds of drawn disciples with the old written code, a person cannot understand the nature of Jesus’ reign as Lord of lords and King of kings. A born-from-above disciple is not under the old written code; yet by being ruled by the internalized laws of God, the disciple will keep the Commandments, all of them, especially the Sabbath commandment which is the weekly foreshadowing of the coexistence of the supernal realm reigning here on earth.
The continuing pedagogy of this chapter requires that additional time be spent with the changes that will occur during the Millennium— the foremost outward change will be the absence of civil government. Joshua did not establish a national government over Israel when he led the nation across the Jordan. The nation was ruled by judges until the time of Saul. And since all of humanity will have become Israel three and a half years prior to Christ Jesus’ return as the Messiah, Christ Jesus will not establish a top-heavy, top-down government upon His return. Read Ezekiel’s account of the Prince, and what his duties and responsibilities are. There is no United Nations type of government in Ezekiel. As Lord of lords, and King of kings, Christ’s rules mental landscapes and nations. And because He rules through the Holy Spirit, there will be no need for a government structured after any model presently seen on earth. Democracy isn’t of God, nor is the type of autocratic government administered by the Roman Church, or even by the former Radio Church of God. The principle of oneness contained in the law of coexistence will not have problems develop that require governmental intervention. Pollution won’t occur when it has to coexist with a clean environment— and the implications of coexistence is a subject all of its own. Can resources be extracted without marring the environment? Of course they can. The problem with resource extraction today is the necessity of making a profit. Resources aren’t extracted because they are needed to do a job, but they are extracted because a market exists for them, a subtle but poignant distinction.
Everything written about Christ Jesus’ millennial reign has been from a physically-minded perspective. And all that has been previously written will not coexist with Christ Jesus’ actual reign. None of it will be preserved. Today’s literature will go the way of pre-Flood art and literature. When an age concludes with baptism, all that was of that age also concludes. And all of humanity will be baptized, or immersed in the Holy Spirit when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ. Three baptisms: water, spirit, and fire— these are the three birth-stages of the sons of God, with the second and third baptisms representing the two stages of spiritual birth.
The greater Christian Church today gives some form of lip service to the laws of God, and inevitably labels the person attempting to live by these laws as a legalist. The greater Church is often correct: the person attempting to live by the law is a legalist, a disciple who seeks to establish his or her own righteousness. But all disciples who are in covenant with God and Christ are legalists. Christ Jesus is a legalist. And God the Father is the ultimate legalist. For the signifier /legalist/ has no meaning but that which is assigned to it by the language user. A legalist is someone who is legal, as opposed to illegal. The person who pays his or her taxes because it is the right thing to do is a legalist. This person believes in being legal. But the person who pays his or her taxes because he or she fears government prosecution is also a legalist. This person does what is right for fear of the consequences of doing wrong. Although each person acts from differing motives, the public appearance of each person is the same. And this is what Jesus references when He said, “‘If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me, but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father”’ (John 10:37–38). Belief leads to belief; obedience leads to obedience. With belief in the works of Jesus comes belief in God the Father. With obedience to the commandments of God comes obedience to God the Father. With belief in God the Father will come understanding of the plan of God. With obedience to God the Father will come understanding of godly love. With understanding of the plan of God will come understanding of the Son of Man. With understanding of godly love will come conviction of why obedience to the commandments is the physically manifested expression of godly love. So the person who pays his or her taxes from fear will eventually pay the same taxes because it is the right thing to do. The disciple who is today a legalist trying to establish his or her own righteousness has the Holy Spirit (unlike the Pharisees) and will eventually understand that righteousness must be sought by faith, with faith causing the disciple to keep the Commandments for they are the physical expression of inner godly character. This disciple to today spiritually immature, but this disciple is also on the path to maturity, whereas the disciple who does not keep the Commandments is in the process of committing spiritual suicide.
Christians will be legalists at some level of spiritual maturity, or their end will be the lake of fire. They have no other options. And if you are a teacher of lawlessness, albeit very moral and righteous appearing, your end will be the same as your master’s, Satan’s. Lawlessness cannot coexist with love in the supernal realm.
Once again, Satan doesn’t appear sinister. He appears as an angel of light. And his servants do not appear evil. They appear as ministers of righteousness. You might well be one of these ministers. Your desire is to serve Christ Jesus. Your desires are honorable. Yet you teach disciples that they do not have to live as spiritual Judeans, but are Gentile Christians.
There is no such beast as a Gentile Christian. They have never existed. The naming phrase is an oxymoron. When a person is drawn from the world and receives spiritual birth, the person is made a spiritual Israelite. The person is born as a spiritual Israelite infant, who will be as the uncircumcised children of the Israelites that left Pharaoh’s Egypt were. This uncircumcised spiritual Israelite will not eat what is common, but will eat what is holy so he or she can be holy as God is. For the inner nature of being a spiritual Israelite will rule (or should rule) the outer flesh in which the law of sin and death dwells. Two laws. The laws of sin and death had ruled both the mind and the body (Eph 2:3). And under the laws of sin and death, common food was entirely appropriate, for the person was of the world and in the world. The person was a beast with no distinction between him or herself and the person’s dog. But then God the Father drew this person from the world, gave this person His Breath and spiritual life, wrote His laws on the heart and mind of the person, and gave the person to Christ Jesus who became the spiritual covering for this person. God did not ask the person for permission to draw him or her from the world; He did it because He could, and because He wanted to. And when He did this— all without consulting the person— He started a war inside the person by making this person holy as He is. Now, He waits to see if this person will live as a person made holy, or if this person will, as a dog returning to its vomit, go back to living as a Gentile. The person isn’t a Gentile and can never again be a Gentile. All the person can be is either a live, or a dead spiritual Israelite. The person has no other choice. And whether the person regrets being drawn and made holy and thinks that God is unfair, or rejoices for the opportunities given the person is immaterial. The drawing has already occurred, and the person has to live with being made special. The person has been taken from being a beast wandering the face of the earth and made into a son of the Most High. If the person truly wants to return to being a beast, God the Father will honor that decision by resurrecting the person to condemnation. The person’s fate will be that of the beast that he or she wanted to be. But if the person doesn’t want to return to being a beast, then the person needs to begin living as a spiritual Judean.
So you, as a teacher of lawlessness, need to repent of teaching disciples to seek condemnation. You have time, and can use time to effect a change in you. But you do not have unlimited time, especially if you are a firstborn, spiritually or physically… spiritual Israel as the firstborn son of God must, in the Church’s entirety, cover itself with the blood of the paschal Lamb of God. Every born again disciple needs to take the Passover as Jesus established the New Testament example. To not cover oneself with the blood of Jesus in a traditional Passover service is making a wager with God on whether He will accept the sacraments taken however and whenever the disciple determines. The odds of winning this needless wager are low.
Hopefully with a good understanding of the physical/spiritual juxtaposition of worldly kingdoms over which human beings reign and the spiritual kingdom here on earth over which Christ Jesus will reign when this kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of the Most High and of His Messiah (Rev 11:15)— this spiritual kingdom reigns over humanity by controlling its mental topography through which it establishes what human nature shall be— disciples will approach the image Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision with wisdom. The king’s vision was for ‘“what will be in the latter days’” (Dan 2:28). And the vision and its interpretation was sealed until these latter days by Daniel telling Nebuchadnezzar that he was the head of gold (v. 38). Thus, the image the king saw has been interpreted as a representation of a series of human empires or kingdoms that stretch horizontally across time until Christ Jesus returns as the Messiah. Christ Jesus’ millennial reign has been traditionally perceived to be a final kingdom of this world, which Jesus said was not the case. And this must be understood by the endtime teachers of spiritual Israel: Christ Jesus’ millennium-long reign is not another kingdom of this world. It is not established upon any written code. The Ten Commandments will not be the legalistic code of the land. Adherence to the Ten Commandment, though, will be absolute, but will come from citizens of this kingdom being ruled by the inner laws of God written on hearts and minds. Citizens will no longer need an old written code. The dreams of anarchists and Marxists will finally be achieved, for citizens will be ruled by inner good and love coming from Christ Jesus being the prince of the power of the air. Liberation will have come from the laws of sin and death. No harm shall be done with the sole exception of the animal sacrifices that keep alive knowledge of sin and its need for a covering of blood.
The former Radio Church of God began keeping the annual High Sabbaths seventy years ago. Every year during its Feast of Tabernacles services, its ministers presented varying descriptions of what they thought Christ’s Millennium reign would be like. As usual, some of these descriptions were more spiritually useful than others. But all of them were centered round a physical understanding of the plan of God. None of them grasped the essence of timelessness, with its law of coexistence (again, law used as a descriptive signifier for a self-evident postulate as Paul uses law in the law of sin and death). None of them addressed the significance of a changed human nature. In fact, most of them involved some variation of how the best aspects of the reigning kingdom of the world (i.e., spiritual Babylon) could be combined or incorporated into a new regime. None of them perceived Christ’s reign to be anything other than a human kingdom of the earth ruled by the glorified Christ rather than by a human king and lord.
Christ Jesus’ Millennium reign will be the physical manifestation of the supernal realm, with this manifestation revealed through human beings rather than angels. Christ will be to this manifestation as God the Father is to the angels in the supernal realm. Everything that is done must coexist with everything else as a lion lying down with a lamb coexist. If an activity or a decision will not coexist with what is, the activity or decision will not be attempted or made. Therefore, all understandings of Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision that do not realize the stone that becomes a great mountain filling the earth (Dan 2:35) is literally heaven on earth are problematic. A doctrine that has the saints going to heaven for a thousand years, then returning with the New Jerusalem is not of God, and reveals ignorance of the plan of God.
Historically, Daniel’s interpretation has been grossly misread. Tradition assigns the image’s division to the iron legs, with Rome’s eastern Byzantium Empire (beginning in the 4th-Century) being one leg, and the Western Empire capitaled in Rome being the other leg. This assignment has a single Roman Empire overturning a unified Greek Empire represented by the bronze portion of the image. And these traditional interpretations actually demonstrate just how sealed and secret even the king’s dream had been. For the division of the image occurs in its bronze portion— the belly and thighs are bronze (Dan 2:32). And to this bronze portion is given rule of the world (v. 39). The two iron legs form one divided kingdom that never rules its other half until the image itself is broken by the kingdom of the world becoming the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ.
The image that king Nebuchadnezzar saw was of invisible spiritual Babylon, the soon-to-be broken kingdom of the world. This spiritual empire has Satan as its king (Isa 14:4–21), and this kingdom reigns today over humanity through Satan being the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2). It doesn’t reign as a national government, with an army of professional soldiers flying fighter jets and firing artillery pieces. Rather, it reigns and will continue to reign over the mental topography of humanity until it is supernaturally broken. Human nature is, today, Satan’s nature. This nature often appears good, while ever determining for itself what is good and what is evil. It rebels against authority when not in control, then becomes heavy handed in its rule when it receives authority. It is seen in the works and in the teachings of the Nicolaitans. But rule of the earth was given to the image’s belly and loins, where the lusts and appetites of humanity reign over individuals. So as the chest and heart of the image are inferior to its head as silver is inferior to gold if numerical value were assigned to the qualitative differences between body parts, the belly and loins are inferior to the heart and lungs as bronze is inferior to silver.
The head can want to rule the body, but the biological functions of the belly and loins will inevitably determine the actions of the sons of disobedience. When God draws a disciple from the world, He overthrows Satan’s reign over the head and heart. But He leaves the disciple in bondage to the law of sin and death, which reigns from the belly and loins. Therefore, as disciples wrestle Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s image into subjection, disciples need to remember that the image appears as a man, with Nebuchadnezzar being its head, and with rule of the earth being given to the bronze belly and loins. Again, rule is never given to the iron legs, or to the mixed iron and clay feet and toes. And since the gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay are together when the feet are crushed, there is no reasonable justification for believing that the bronze belly and loins ever surrender rule of the kingdom of the earth. The better understanding is that the iron legs and mingled iron and clay feet rule as derivatives of the bronze belly and loins, exercising authority derived from physical appetites. And even this understanding doesn’t anticipate Israel’s liberation from the law of sin and death— from the bronze belly and loins. The real reason the iron legs do not rule the world is because the world is no longer available to be ruled. At the second Passover, half of the world is liberated from bondage in spiritual Babylon. So until Israel’s rebellion, the most that remains available to be ruled by Babylon is two of four parts.
Whereas rebelling angels have been imprisoned in darkness to await judgment, Satan and a few of his cohorts have been allowed at least limited freedom. This restricted freedom is seen in the initial chapters of Job. It is additionally seen in the prince of Persia who, for 21 days, withstood the angel bringing Daniel knowledge of a great conflict. It is further referenced in the prince of Greece being even more powerful than the prince of Persia.
The image Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision stood upright like a man— and as a standing man’s shadow lies horizontally across the topography of a vegetable garden, the shadow of Nebuchadnezzar’s image lies horizontally across the fabric of time. This shadow stretches from Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon to Antiochus Epiphanes’s setting a statue of Zeus in the Holy of holies. This shadow doesn’t include any of the Roman occupation of Judea, and doesn’t continue forward through the Holy Roman Empire’s reign over Europe through the Middle Ages. It doesn’t stretch, as if it wore elastic hose, through the Protestant Reformation, or into the 21st-Century. Jesus, in His Olivet discourse, identifies the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel (Matt 24:15) as an end of the age phenomenon. This endtime abomination of desolation isn’t a statue of Zeus, but the lawless one, coming by the activity of Satan, declaring himself god (2 Thess 2:4). Christ Jesus breaks the reign of this lawless one, the spiritual king of the North, differently than the Maccabees broke the Seleucid Empire’s reign in Judea. Christ breaks this lawless one with the Breath of His mouth (v. 8). His breath imparts life. So the shadow, or visible physical reality of the standing image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision ends with the conclusion of Daniel’s long prophecy about the conflict between the kings of the North and of the South. The shadow doesn’t continue beyond Antiochus Epiphanes’s reign, but the spiritual reality is present with all of its pieces intact until the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ. Therefore, Rome and the Roman Empire have no place in the prophecies of Daniel. They are not named, and to insert them into the prophecies is adding to Scripture.
So many prophecy pundits have used an uninspired history textbook to insert Rome, the Roman Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire into the visions of Daniel that listing these spiritual culprits would produce a Who’s Who of charismatic evangelists. All who have done so will be held accountable. They will have to explain their presumptiveness, and they will have no good explanation for why they, on their own authority, added to Scripture. They were not sent by God to unseal Daniel’s visions.
Again, the spiritual reality of the shadow stretched across time is spiritual Babylon, with its hierarchy disclosed by its shadow. At the time of the end (Dan 8:17), a war will occur within this vertically structured empire. This is the great conflict revealed to Daniel (10:1), and because of the law of coexistence mandated by the timelessness of the supernal realm, spiritual Babylon’s place will no longer be found in heaven. This civil war will require that Satan and his angels be cast into time where the other fallen angels have been imprisoned while awaiting judgment. Satan had been free to come and go as revealed in the temptation account of Jesus. However, Jesus said, concerning His death as the paschal Lamb for the household of the Father, ‘“Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out’” (John 12:31). The seven years of Tribulation will bring judgment upon the world, for half way through these seven years, all of the world will become the holy nation of Israel. All of humanity will become the household of the Father and of His Son, and judgment today is on the household of God (1 Pet 4:17).
The above needs more closely examined: Jesus linked coming to die as the paschal Lamb of God with the judgment of the world and with Satan being cast out. But Satan wasn’t cast from heaven when Jesus was sacrificed, nor did judgment then come upon the entirety of the world. Satan will be cast from heaven when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ (Rev 11:15; 12:9–13). He can then no longer reign over the sons of disobedience as the prince of the power of the air. And what is seen in Jesus’ juxtaposition of His 1st-Century death at Calvary with Satan being cast out of heaven halfway through the Tribulation is the liberation of humanity from bondage to sin.
Jesus’ juxtaposition of Him coming to die as the paschal Lamb of God and with Satan being cast out from heaven, with judgment coming upon the world— Jesus told Nicodemus that He had not come to condemn the world (John 3:17)— pushes Calvary up against the end of the age, as if God were rearranging furniture. And in this juxtaposition lurks the second Passover, conveniently hidden from sight and from all who will not hear His voice in His disciples’ utterances.
Judgment is, today, only upon individuals who have received a second birth through receipt of the Holy Spirit. Everyone experiences death, then judgment (Heb 9:27)— and the household of God experienced death in the baptismal pool, with resurrection to physical life as a spiritual Israelite occurring when they are lifted from their watery graves. And for all who are not of the household of God, judgment will occur in the great White Throne Judgment. So between Jesus saying that He had come to die (John 12:27), and Jesus saying now is the judgment of the world (v. 31), the Father says, ‘“I have glorified [my name], and I will glorify it again”’(v. 28). This repetition of phrasing covers the time that lapses from when the paschal Lamb is sacrificed to when Israel is liberated from bondage to sin by Satan being cast from heaven. The Father glorified His name when He called His Son to life. Jesus was the first of the firstfruits; spiritual Israel represents the firstfruits of the harvest of the earth. And the Father will call spiritual Israel out of spiritual Egypt or Babylon when He again glorifies His name.
Said another way, the king of spiritual Babylon is Satan, who continues to reign until cast from heaven. He doesn’t fade away to be replaced by the spiritual princes of Persia or Greece. Rather, the image Nebuchadnezzar saw stands erect, with the king of Babylon as its spiritual head. Daniel said Nebuchadnezzar was that king, but he also said that God had given, wherever they dwelt, the children of men, beasts and birds into the king’s hand for him to rule over them (Dan 2:38). And this clearly didn’t happen, for Nebuchadnezzar ruled no one in Chile or China. Nor did he rule over the birds that migrated where their instincts directed them. Nor did he rule over the wild beasts, or even over the mice that ate from his table after he went to sleep. However, Satan has reigned over the sons of disobedience worldwide. He reigns by placing his nature in men and beasts— and his nature does not allow a lion to lie down with a lamb. So Satan does reign over beasts and birds and men wherever they dwell. He is the king of Babylon who will remain its spiritual head until the image is toppled. He is the gold that will be present at the end, not Nebuchadnezzar— ‘“Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors’” (v. 35). Neither Darius the Mede, nor any part of his reign is present when the image is struck by a stone cut without human hands (v. 34). Alexander the Great isn’t present when the image is struck. So the silver at the end of the age isn’t the Media Persian Empire; the gold isn’t Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon; the bronze isn’t Alexander’s Greece. But Satan and his angels will fight against Michael and his angels (Rev 12:7). Satan is defeated, and he and his angels— the silver princes of Persia (Dan 10:13) and the bronze prince of Greece (v. 20) and the iron horns (Dan 8:8 & 11:4)— are cast to earth.
Jesus compressed the two millennia between when He would be sacrificed as the paschal Lamb for the household of the Father and when this household would be released from bondage into the hours between the even of the 14th of the first month when paschal lamb was killed and midnight of the 15th when the death angel passed throughout the land, slaying firstborns not covered by the blood of a paschal lamb. Since Jesus was slain from the foundation of the universe (i.e., the plan for humanity’s redemption existed from the beginning), the six hours between even and midnight represent the six days of the spiritual creation week, with each day of this week representing a thousand years. So the six hours represent six thousand years, with a whole roasted lamb not being ready to eat until nearly midnight. The paschal lamb was eaten at the typological hour when Adam was placed in Eden, the hour at which humanity has presently arrived in its recorded history.
The spiritual reality of all things is Christ Jesus. It is His blood that has been poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin (Matt 26:28)— and Jesus drank from the cup a day earlier than circumcised Israel would eat a physical paschal lamb. Yet Jesus identifies this last meal He would eat with His disciples as the Passover. Earlier in the afternoon, Jesus told disciples, ‘“Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, “The Teacher says, ‘My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples’”’” (v. 18). The Apostle John’s Gospel gives the chronology for the week: Jesus was crucified on the “day of Preparation” (John 19:31) for the High Sabbath of Passover (John 18:39). He was dead and in the tomb before sundown of this “Jewish day of Preparation” (John 19:43). And it was twenty hours or so earlier during the night portion of this preparation day that Jesus washes His disciples’ feet.
Jesus breaks the bread and drinks from the cup with His disciples a day earlier than the remainder of Israel eats a physical paschal lamb. When He eats the Passover, His twelve disciples have not received spiritual life— the last Adam is not yet a life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45). They won’t be bornfrom-above until the glorified Jesus breathes on them and says, ‘“Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). And when Jesus passes the cup, He says, ‘“I tell you I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom’” (Matt 26:29). Jesus will be that nobleman who goes into a far country to receive a kingdom and then returns (Luke 19:12). This nobleman gives a coin to ten servants; Jesus breathes on ten disciples to give spiritual life to the second Eve.
When it became time to eat the Passover the second year the Congregation was in the Wilderness, certain men were unclean from touching a dead body. They asked Moses about keeping the Passover, who in turn asked the Lord. And a second Passover was established one month after the first for those Israelites who were unclean or on a long journey (Num 9:10–12). The language seems innocent enough. The reason for establishing a second Passover was logical. But Jesus as the firstborn Son of God and as the first of many brethren (Rom 8:29) is an Israelite on a long journey. He will keep the Second Passover.
Jesus will not, on the second Passover, drink from the cup for the forgiveness of sins. The covering of Israel for sin will not then need to be renewed, for the Passover of the night He was taken hasn’t yet been completed— and won’t be completed until the death angels pass over spiritual Babylon.
The paschal lamb sacrificed for each household by circumcised Israel was done in remembrance of that nation’s release from physical bondage. The bread and the cup of the New Testament Passover are taken in remembrance of Christ Jesus (1 Cor 11:24–25). He died as the paschal Lamb of God for the household of Israel, but the liberation from bondage to sin hasn’t yet occurred. Jeremiah prophesies that the Lord bringing Israel out from bondage in the north country will cause Israel’s liberation from bondage in Egypt to no longer be remembered (Jer 16:14–15). The paschal lamb sacrificed during the Millennium won’t commemorate liberation from physical bondage, but liberation from sin and death— liberation from sin, then liberation from death. Two liberations. Death will be dealt a deadly wound when the two witnesses are publicly resurrected to life (Rev 11:7–12). By the testimony of two witnesses a thing is established— the resurrection of the two witnesses testify to Death’s defeat. But before Death is defeated, Israel will be liberated from bondage to sin.
Disciples drawn from the world were spiritually unclean. They were unclean until the Father drew them. That drawing makes them clean, or holy, or sanctified— each word conveys aspects of being set apart for God’s use. They are to keep the Passover at its time. YHWH told Moses to tell Israel, ‘“But if anyone who is clean and is not on a journey fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin’” (Num 9:13). The Passover sacrifice is a covering for sin. It has an appointed time. And physically uncircumcised Israelites who have been made holy through receipt of the Holy Spirit will bear their sins if they do not keep it at its appointed time. Jesus as the Logos or Spokesperson for God had the authority to move the appointed time from the end of the day to the beginning. He spoke the words of the Father; He and the Father were one. And disciples who keep the Passover at its appointed time are one with Jesus and with the Father.
Again, spiritual Israelites do not keep the second Passover on the 15th of the second month unless there are extenuating circumstances. Rather, they will keep the Passover as Jesus established the example. For when Jesus ate this Passover early, He moved the observance of the New Testament Passover from the even between the 14th and the 15th of the first month, to just after the even between the 13th and 14th. No additional killing is required, for the Lamb of God was slain on the 14th. Thus, the intervening day between the taking of the Christian sacraments at the beginning of the 14th and when circumcised Israel ate the lamb in remembrance of its release from bondage on the 15th represents a first and a second Passover. Spiritual Israel remains in bondage to sin (Paul’s imprisoned by the law of sin and death). The spiritual birth process has two stages. Spiritual Israel has been mentally released, but the new man created in Christ remains in bondage to the appetites of the flesh. The flesh of this new man will not be released from bondage to sin until a second slaughter of firstborns not covered by the blood of Jesus occurs.
Is the logic understandable? Spiritual birth has two stages. A son of disobedience who is perfectly satisfied stockcar racing every Saturday during the summer, then spending October and November Saturdays hunting deer, then turkey hunting and bass fishing in the spring— a good ol’ boy— is suddenly drawn from the world by God the Father, given the Holy Spirit, and sent reeling into church services. Sure, he has attended before, but never with much enthusiasm. More to satisfy first his mother, then his wife. But now he’s interested. Enough to get baptized. Even thinks he might want to go to seminary.
He always has sort of lived by the laws of God. He remembers when he was thirteen and shoplifted a carton of .22 shells. He felt bad about that for a month, even though he needed them to go coon hunting that night. Otherwise, he never has stolen anything. He’s always paid for everything. He hasn’t even bounced a check since he dumped his first old lady— she was bad about spending what they didn’t have. So what exactly does he need to repent of? Cutting brodies in the school lawn the night he graduated? He married his first wife when she came up pregnant; he did the right thing by her.
Well, he’s determined to do better than he ever has before— and to witness for Lord Jesus. He won’t have a testimony like some of those ex-addicts on television, but he’ll have enough to say that maybe, just maybe, he can bring some of the younger generation to the Lord.
And never once does it occur to our good ol’ boy that he must actually read the words of Jesus for himself, and then believe the One who sent Him by putting those words into practice. It never occurs to our good ol’ boy that he is now under obligation to take the Passover as Jesus established the example. It will not occur to our good ol’ boy’s widow that he died the night of the second Passover because he didn’t bother to cover his sins with the blood of the paschal Lamb of God. Actually living by the laws of God just didn’t seem necessary or that important to our good ol’ boy, who will now appear in the resurrection to condemnation— and he really was a good guy.
The two stages of the spiritual birth process are, first, receiving spiritual birth through receipt of the Breath of God, then, second, receiving a glorified body when the disciple’s judgment is revealed. First, the mind is liberated from bondage to sin and death through receipt of the Holy Spirit. Then the physical body is liberated from sin and death just as physical Israel was liberated from physical bondage. The liberation of the mind begins a war inside the disciple. The second liberation pits the disciple against the world— and as long as the disciple follows the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, the disciple will arrive in the promised land of glorification.
Two stages to the spiritual birth process; two Passover liberations from bondage to sin and death. One of the mind and heart, one of the belly and loins.
The Preparation day that occurs during which Jesus takes the Passover with His disciples and is crucified and buried represents a disciple’s life between being drawn from the world and dying in faith. Truly, all human beings will figuratively hang as lawbreakers on the two additional crosses on Calvary. Release from bondage to sin has, for the past two millennia, come with death. The question of why saints die if their sins are not counted against them is answered in understanding what happened when a disciple is born again. The disciple’s heart and mind have the laws of God written on them, but rule of the body was given to the belly and loins when Adam was driven from Eden. Thus, for all of the disciple’s spiritual life, he or she lived in bondage to sin and death. The mind and the heart fought valiantly (hopefully) against the appetites of the flesh. The Prosperity Gospel is a doubly accursed gospel, for it would have a spiritual Israelite serve these appetites and lusts of the flesh— and no one can serve two masters. A person cannot desire the prosperity of the world and walk with God. The Apostle John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions— is not from God but is from the world” (1 John 2:15–16). Therefore, a spiritual Israel needs liberated from bondage to the law of sin and death that dwells in the flesh. Death, now, becomes that liberation, for the disciple’s name has been recorded in the book of life. The disciple has life, and will be resurrected in a glorious body when his or her judgment is revealed. The dead know nothing (Eccl 9:5). They experience no sensation of time passing. They have, with absence of physical breath, unconsciously entered a timeless realm. Thus, from the disciple’s perspective, death brings instantaneous liberation from bondage to sin, regardless of how much time passes without calling attention to itself.
But for disciples that remain alive when the Tribulation begins, release from bondage to sin comes with the second Passover. The slaughter of firstborns that occurred in Egypt will be repeated when God begins to recover Israel a second time. The Passover initiated at Calvary will be competed at the conclusion of the sixth hour— about now, or in the next few years. And the changed hour for when the New Testament Passover is eaten reveals the duality of God’s recovery of Israel.
What can be seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s image is the similarity between spiritual Babylon and a son of disobedience, over whose head and heart Satan reigns. This similarity is the basis for understanding endtime fallen Babylon and Christ Jesus’ millennial reign. As the prince of the power of the air, Satan has bestowed upon humanity his nature. As a born again son of light, a disciple has the mind of Christ, but remains in subjection to the law of sin and death that dwells in his or her flesh. And by continually drawing disciples from the world, God the Father initiated and now fuels a rebellion within Satan’s Babylon. Satan has been judged, and his judgment is revealed (Ezek 28:11–19). Just as Satan started a rebellion against the Father, the Father uses Satan’s broadcast of rebellion against him. By writing His laws on the hearts and minds of drawn disciples, the Father inserted cancer cells, little fellowships of saints practicing righteousness, into the bloodstream of Babylon. These cells are colonies of clay vessels created for special use. And the gates of Hades can never prevail against the Father continuing to draw called out ones from the world. Satan cannot stop the Father’s use of righteousness to undermine the strength of the feet of spiritual Babylon.
The feet of the image Nebuchadnezzar sees in vision are mingled iron and clay. Human beings are made from clay; the sons of God are made from clay. And the sons of darkness cling to spiritual Babylon as miry clay clings to iron— and herein lies a mystery of God. As disguised ministers of righteousness, the servants of Satan have helped him maintain his reign over humanity. But, beginning with the second Passover, God turns His hand against two thirds of humanity. This turning occurs over the next three and a half years when the little ones are refined as silver is refined, and tested as gold is tested (Zech 13:7–8). Silver is refined with heat— the hearts of the little ones are tested with fire. And when fired, clay vitrifies. It now will cut iron. Ceramic whetstones sharpen steel faster than any natural stone But it is also brittle. And gold is tested against a touchstone; it is tested by applying pressure. So the minds of the little ones will be put under great pressure.
Fired clay under pressure will withstand tremendous compression, but even a light blow will shatter it. Spiritual Babylon will be doubled over from the second Passover slaughter of firstborns. It will wobble like a man hit below the belt, for God will suddenly break the erect great horn or first horn of the king of Greece. Figuratively, Babylon will have to put its head between its knees to keep from passing out, this action seen when Satan comes as the little horn. He will possess an Arian Christian as he comes as the man of perdition. And as the head of Babylon, he will be with the feet of iron and clay to keep the empire from being knocked out with one punch.
But God isn’t done with Babylon. He keeps the empire reeling by giving over a fourth of humanity to Death to be killed every way possible. He then delivers a second blow, nearly as hard as the first— the clay of Babylon’s feet will shatter when God releases the four angels bound at the river Euphrates. The clay will not withstand the blow dealt by the sixth trumpet plague. The clay of the feet shatters, and Babylon starts to fall as a boxer hit one too many times. In an attempt to keep the inevitable from happening, the man of perdition will declare himself god 1290 days before Christ returns as the Messiah, and 30 days before the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Father and of the Son. Those thirty days will form the most difficult month in all human history. Those thirty days represent the three days and three night Jesus was in the grave. The war the sons of light have been fighting seems lost. Finally, even the two witnesses lie dead for all the world to see… and then Death is defeated when the two witness are resurrected. There are still three and half years remaining before Christ Jesus returns, but all of the world is now Israel. And Death has no power over them. If they endure to the end, they shall be saved. To now die, a person has to be given over to Death by God, or the person has to willing take the mark of the beast. There will be no accidental deaths, or incidental deaths, or natural deaths. Death will come either through martyrdom, or by taking the tattoo of the Cross.
Coupling the humanness of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw to God writing His laws on the hearts and minds of drawn disciples, then adding to this welded image God turning His hand against the little ones, refining them as silver is refined and testing them as gold is tested, the focus of the image becomes the belly and loins. The use of coin metals, with the metals presented in the scale of their economic worth— without additional Scripture— strongly suggests that spiritual Babylon rules the world’s economic system. A link has now been established between world economics and the appetites of the flesh. We should not be surprised to find that sex sells automobiles in this world.
But the suggestion of Daniel’s interpretation is that the king below Satan is inferior in authority to him as silver is inferior in economic value to gold. Likewise, the kingdom below the silver is inferior as bronze is economically inferior to silver. Again, however, rule of the world was given to the bronze kingdom.
Visual learners can comprehend the hierarchical structure of spiritual Babylon by observing their own shadows stretching across a lawn. Lateral distance now becomes the passage of time. The shadows of their heads emerge dark in the surrounding light shining on the lawn; their heads are farthest away. But closer and connected to the head are the chest and arms, belly and thighs, legs and feet. If the sun is nearly overhead, even toes will cast short shadows. And it is the toes and feet of the image that are crushed. If a person were toppled by having his or her feet crushed, all of the person will fall in a pile. The head arms, belly, and legs will form one heap, thereby accounting for the gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay to be jointly present when Babylon falls.
Because spiritually Nebuchadnezzar’s image is not a series of kingdoms but one kingdom with its hierarchy disclosed, the descending economic valuation of coinage made from the four metals (especially when coupled with the description of Babylon in Revelation) identifies Babylon as the theocracy ruling through control of the world’s economy. Satan’s kingdom is not a giant tied down by many Lilliputians, with its feet dangling free to be crushed. Rather, it rules the world through a Greek structure of free-market economics, coupled to political democracy. And the United States with her Puritan restraints impaled on the pike of political correctness provides the spiritual king of Greece with the muscle, economically and militarily, to rule from the invisible supernal realm. What hasn’t been as discernable is the animosity between the princes of Persia and the confederation identified as the king of Greece. Satan introduced rebellion into the supernal realm, and God introduced rebellion against spiritual Babylon into the visible, physical realm— that is what living within the laws of God means, rebellion against the world. Satan’s authority over the world originates with his introduction of death following the temptation of Eve, the mother of human life. And Christ Jesus overcame Death and Hades. The crushing of spiritual Babylon’s feet will include the mortal wound delivered to Death through the public resurrection of the two witnesses. Satan will no longer have inherited authority over humanity. No human beings will any longer be in bondage to sin and death.
The ten horns on the head of the fourth beast of Daniel chapter seven are ten kings that teach humanity to commit spiritual suicide by ignoring the laws of God, or by erasing the laws of God written on hearts and minds of spiritual Israelites. These ten horns are not ten resurrections of the Roman Empire as was taught by the former Radio Church of God. They are not ten European nations in a federation led by Germany. They are, rather, empowered agents of death, three of whom are overturned by the little horn who attempts to change times and the law. Thus, the juxtaposition of the changes that the little horn attempts to make and the overturning of the three horns suggests that these three horns are Sabbath-keeping organizations. The implications of the suggestion should cause all Sabbath keepers to reexamine their relationship with Christ Jesus— and if they don’t have one, to begin one centered round living within the laws of God. It will do a rabbinical Israelite no good to accept Christ, then to jettison the laws of God, especially the Sabbath.
Spiritual Babylon will reel from the blow delivered by the death angels on the second Passover. The empire will, literally, be doubled over, its head between its legs to keep from passing out— its head, Satan, comes to earth through possessing a human being, the man of perdition. The Passover blow will break the first or great horn of the king of Greece. The saints will be liberated from bondage to sin, from bondage to their flesh, from bondage to the world’s economic system (a liberation they won’t necessarily appreciate). Figuratively and literally, the Passover blow God delivers is a punch to the belly and loins of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw.
An aspect of spiritual Babylon that isn’t well appreciated is the connection between fallout in the physical realm from what happens in the supernal realm, and with the spiritual events themselves. This fallout is not the shadow cast by these spiritual events, but the immediate physical effect the events have when filtered through the mental topography of humanity. This immediate endtime effect will usually be similar to the shadow, but occurs as a response to the event.
Within the Church of God, it has been taught that prophecies have earlier and later fulfillment. This can seem to be true. When an event in the supernal realm occurs, it casts a non-time-linked shadow that reveals the event— the earlier fulfillment. Then because Satan reigns over the mental topography of the sons of disobedience, events that involve him are transmitted to the sons of disobedience as they occur. In a somewhat unstructured way, this transmission of what is occurring as an ongoing action in the supernal realm can seem to be a latter fulfillment. The problem is the prophecy was given to reveal the event in the supernal realm. So the idea of a latter fulfillment is technically wrong. And it is wrong because of the unstructured manner that events in the supernal realm effect human landscapes. Elements of the prophecy will seem to repeat while other elements do not.
Roman Jakobson writes about allusions expanding a text in an unstructured manner, causing meaning in a text to spill over as an over-filled wineglass might spill its red contents onto a white linen tablecloth. These seeming latter fulfillments of prophecies behave in the same manner. They are not reliably predictable, for they are not what the prophecies are about. A paved road won’t be bulldozed from Germany to the modern nation of Israel to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa 11:16). There wasn’t one constructed for Israel from Egypt to Jericho. If there had been, its engineer needed fired, for it doesn’t take forty years to walk that distance. Rather, what was constructed was a pathway to righteousness. The journey out of Assyria will be from spiritual darkness to everlasting life. This is a mental or spiritual journey; it isn’t a trek over a geographical terrain.
Imagine a person becoming angry with the person’s dog. Extremely angry. This anger isn’t seen through the shadow cast by the person as long as the anger remains inside the person. However, the dog senses the anger and will usually cringe without a blow being struck. The shadow will reveal the dog cringing for no apparent reason. But dogs don’t cringe without cause. So the person observing this shadow who possesses wisdom will realize what is happening with some level of accuracy. Everyone else will wonder what is wrong with the dog. For the dog and its master have a level of communication that conveys unspoken and unacted upon information. This communication is real, just not discernable in the shadow. And if the observer only had the shadow of the dog upon which to judge the situation, the observer would say something stupid about the shivering dog, or the urinating pouch.
Two-dimensioned shadows formed within the physical creation are time-linked to the three-dimensioned realities that cast them. So the person angry with his or her dog and who strikes the dog is betrayed by his or her shadow when the blow is delivered. But place oneself in the position of a farmpond bluegill, with the person angry with his or her dog standing on the pond’s bank. The sun is behind the person, and the shadow of the person and of the dog lie across the surface of the pond. As a bluegill, you are aware of this shadow. But when the person stomps his or her foot, the bank vibrates— and you as a bluegill feel the vibrations, but these vibration don’t exactly match what is occurring in the shadow. They somewhat match action for action. But not enough information is conveyed through these vibrations to realize that the dog had jumped up on the person with muddy paws and had soiled, with red Georgia clay mud, the person’s white silk suit. Only through a narrative is this additional information conveyed. And now, our bluegill will understand why the dog cringes in a shivering manner.
Prophecy is the revealing narrative of events that occur in the timeless supernal realm. The shadows of these events allow context and understanding to be supplied to the revealing narratives. The latter effect of the supernal event will also be felt, sometimes powerfully. But this latter effect doesn’t convey enough information without the shadow and the revealing narrative to be understood. Therefore, teachers of Israel who expound an earlier and a later fulfillment of Bible prophecies really lack understanding of prophecy. They are spiritual bluegills, suffocating for lack of spiritual breath.
Applied to the image Nebuchadnezzar saw, the shadow of dog jumping up with muddy feet is a pushing by the spiritual princes of Persia against the king of Greece that looks like the historic campaign of Xerxes trying to conquer Greece. The vibrations of the dog jumping up— of the spiritual princes of Persia pushing against the spiritual king of Greece— assume the form of an oil embargo, or more recently a terrorist attack. The shadow of the spiritual king of Greece’s response is Alexander’s conquest of Persia. The vibrations felt are of the United States’ intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, with old Europe (including the United Nations) opposing this intervention, old Europe being part of the spiritual king of Persia’s reigning power base.
The United States’ quick overturn of the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq— and probably of Syria and Iran in the near future— is the fallout of the spiritual king of Greece flying out of the west to trample the ram that is the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Alexander’s conquest of Persia is the shadow. And what is seen is that the United States, possessing traditional Greek values, becomes a second Alexander, but with a difference. The war is now worldwide, and is fought as a clash of values and mental landscapes.
Again, because the endtime fallout of spiritual events appears somewhat similar to the earlier prophesied fulfillment that formed the visible shadow of these events, the many physically-minded teachers of spiritual Israel teach a doctrine of earlier and later fulfillment of prophesied events. What they teach contains a facet of truth, but is a very inadequate explication of prophecy. If a weather forecaster in Newport, Oregon, forecasted rain, the forecaster would be correct most of the time. Likewise, if an endtime prophecy pundit prophesies in the name of God, saying that the United States will experience great sorrow because of the spiritual lawlessness within the nation, this pundit will be correct. That will indeed be the case, just as rain along the Oregon Coast is sure to occur. The problem of the pundit not really being sent by God, though, becomes apparent when this pundit is pressed for details. Vague generalities will spew from the pundit’s mouth as rain does from November storm clouds along Oregon’s coast. The pundit’s generalities verify that he or she hasn’t been sent by God, but explicates prophecy on his or her own authority. And if the pundit successfully gets spiritual Israelites to return to living within the laws of God, the pundit will have stored up treasure in heaven. Unfortunately, the pundit will mislead many disciples, and endtime pundits will set disciples up to worship Satan when he is cast from heaven. They are doing, and have already done this. And most Sabbath-keeping Christians have been set up to worship Satan when he is cast from heaven.
Teachers who insist that the United States and Britain will go into national captivity are false, but almost correct. For when the death angels pass through these two nations that refuse to take the New Testament Passover as Jesus established the example, a great slaughter will occur, one that will leave these nations staggered. Many Americans, Canadians, Britons will needlessly die. But the great nation of China will virtually cease to be because of its one-child policy coupled with its suppression of commandment-keeping Christianity. Western Europe will be devastated. However, the cultures and nations that have traditionally had larger families, though heavily impacted, will survive this body blow from God far better than industrialized nations. And they will likely mistake the meaning of them enduring this blow. Islamic nations will attribute this destruction of the United States and Western Europe to Allah. They will attack Western Europe. The physically-minded pundits will exclaim, See, I was right! The man of perdition will, however, rally northern and western forces round the Cross. This will be Satan in the spiritual realm trying to squelch the war occurring between his princes, but the fallout of his efforts will have the man of perdition spreading the Christianity of the Cross to the remaining half of humanity. This will include the conversion of Islam to Arian Christianity.
The test of anyone who explicates prophecy is in the details. Coastal rain is sure to fall. But the second Passover liberation of Israel from spiritual bondage to sin isn’t a common dinner topic, not even within spiritual Israel. The vast majority of Christians do not believe that this holy nation is in any kind of bondage despite statistical evidence showing otherwise. The Christian Church doesn’t significantly differ from the world in frequency of divorce, or drug addiction, or disappearing fathers. God has drawn disciples from the world (John 6:44), but these disciples dragged the world into the Church, thereby causing Israelites to crossdress as spiritual Gentiles. For too much of the world, Christianity is merely the faltering belief system of Western Europe. However, by continually erasing the laws of God from the hearts and minds of disciples, the greater Church continues its march towards having half of the world self-identify itself as Christian. The second Passover can occur any year after that happens.
Again, the test of those who explicate prophecy is in the details. Between the second Passover and the middle of the Tribulation— a three and a half years period— two-thirds of humanity will die, but all of the remaining third will profess being Christians (Zech 13:8–9). They will be the holy nation of God. But the second half of the Tribulation is foreshadowed by the first half. The great falling away of the Church occurs with the coming of the man of perdition (2 Thess 2:3). About seven months after the second Passover liberation of Israel— about Christmas time— the majority of the Christian Church will return to the Cross. They will quit or refuse to live as spiritual Judeans, and they will return to living as spiritual Gentiles. They will return to Sunday observance, and to taking the sacraments whenever and however they choose. The Christianity of the Cross will return after appearing all but dead immediately after the second Passover.
In a similar manner, the sixth trumpet plague followed by the fall of Babylon two and a half months later produce the same liberation as occurred at and following the second Passover. For a few months, all of remaining humanity will live as spiritual Judeans. Satan will have been cast from heaven when Babylon fell. He will no longer be able to come and go as portrayed in the initial chapters of Job. He and his angels were not bound in outer darkness when the other rebelling angels were, for they were needed as foils in the spiritual maturation of the sons of God. But when cast into time, he will know that his days are limited. He will seek to devour as many Christians as he can— and when, as the antiChrist, he becomes organized enough to require all who would buy and sell to take the mark of the beast, the vast majority of Israel will accept this mark. Their desire will be to worship Christ, and they will hate those who refuse the mark.
Israel accepts the mark of the beast for the same economic reasons that Israel rebelled against God and followed the man of perdition back to the Cross. God couldn’t possibly require them to truly live by faith. If they cannot work, how will they eat— and doesn’t Paul say that anyone not willing to work, let him not eat (2 Thess 3:10). So a person has to work, even if that (in the first half of the Tribulation) means working on the Sabbath, or taking the mark of the beast (in the second half). And this will be preached from pulpits around the world. Support the returned messiah, take the mark, turn in those who refuse— once cast from heaven, Satan will come as a man posing as the returned Christ Jesus. He will be as Nebuchadnezzar was when the human king lived as a beast. His seven years will be split, three and a half before Christ’s return, and the remaining three and a half years after a thousand years.
Because the test of those who explicate prophecy remains in the details, the mark of the beast needs read— and everyone warned against accepting it. So before further decoding Nebuchadnezzar’s image and identifying the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, the infamous mark should be better understood, for the mark is mistranslated.
A prominent local man asked that I speak to his wife about the mark of the beast. While reading the Left Behind series of novels, she has become frightened by remaining humanity’s inability (in the novels) to refuse this mysterious mark. And if she has been frightened, so have others been. Thus, the mark of the beast needs demystified. Spiritual wisdom is required, and that remains the domain of the remnant of Israel that has left spiritual Babylon to rebuild the temple in spiritual Jerusalem.
First, the mark is not 666, or any variation of the number such as 616. The mark is not an Arabic numeral. In koine Greek, the number of the man is chi xi stigma, which in Strong’s is #5516. These are the 22nd, 14th, and an obsolete (in the time of the Apostle John) letters of the alphabet, and while Greek letters were used as numerals, these letters are not. For in Greek, six is hex— Greek is an Indo-European language. A characteristic of Indo-European languages is words representing six carry the /x/ sound, such as hex. So the middle letter can represent a single six, but stigma cannot represent a six. Rather, stigma means “to tattoo.” Stigma comes from the root /stei/, which is usually assigned the signified [or meaning] of sharpened sticks, as in two sharpened sticks. An action taken — /ma/ — with sharpened sticks is traditionally tattooing, or making a mark on a body. So the best assignment of a signified to the signifier stigma remains its traditional meaning of tattoo, or tattooing, not an /x/.
Chi is written as an /X/, but it doesn’t carry that sound image. It is the signifier that is most commonly used as a short form of Christ, such as in Xmas. That is how it is used to produce the name of a man in the mark of the beast. And the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet is not represented by a Roman character, but requires two letters to represent its sound / xi. In Greek, this lowercase character appears as an uppercase script /e/ with a tail on its bottom.
Indo-European languages use characters to represent sound, not visual images. Letters placed close together to produce numbers still retain the principle element of each sound image. Thus, wisdom, both physical and spiritual, preclude using the first and last letters [chi & stigma] as visual representations of the /x/ sound necessary to convey a six in an Indo-European language, while ignoring the visual image of the middle letter [xi] but excepting a distorted sound image. And for a modern writing team such as the authors of the Left Behind series to use such a poor translation in works of fiction in a brazen attempt to scare readers into accepting the writing team’s theology has precedence, but not ethicality.
The three letters [chi xi stigma] when presented as a single numeral cannot be directly read, the probable reason for their truly odd translation as 666 . Spiritual wisdom is required to read them— and even if that wisdom were present when these letters were initially translated from Greek, it is doubtful if the translation would have seemed credible. The Roman Church dominated Western Christianity. Its defining icon is the Cross Thus, presentation of the translation from Greek to Latin would have been problematic, and from Latin into English would have been doubly so, with public acceptance of the translation being the main difficulty. Acceptance remains problematic even in these end times, for the mark of the beast reads as “the tattoo of Xx,” or “the tattoo of Christ’s cross.”
Although the mark of the beast as a signifier can be rather easily read, believing the reading is, indeed, difficult, for the Cross has come to represent all of Christianity, not just the Roman Church. No other icon is more widely recognized across cultures, languages, and nations than the Cross. So reading the mark of the beast as the tattoo of the Cross seems heretical. Many will ask, How can God allow such a situation to exist? Well, why did He allow His beloved Son to be crucified on a cross? Why not have His son killed with the sword, or by some other means? Why the Cross, if not for this means of death producing an icon that visually represents how or why all of humanity will be killed? Remember, in the conclusion of the Temptation account, the serpent was condemned to crawl on its belly. Serpents have shoulder girdles. At one time, they had arms like lizards. How would a standing serpent with arms appear?
The Cross is the universally recognized icon pertaining to Christ Jesus’ victory over death, but it is a poorly thought-through symbol. For Jesus is either absent in the symbolism, or hanging dead on the Cross. But the mark of the beast is used by the antiChrist to compel acceptance of his imitation millennial reign during the last forty-two months of the Tribulation. It is not used until after Satan and his angels are cast from heaven. It is not used until Satan comes pretending to be the Christ, borrowing the authority to reign that properly belongs to Christ Jesus. So a misused icon is entirely appropriate considering the use to which Satan will put it.
Words carry no meaning of their own. Rather, meaning is assigned to words by language users. And the same can be said for other icons (words are icons). So a word or a cultural icon has a particular meaning because a particular group of language users has assigned that particular meaning to the icon. Within the group, everyone agrees to this meaning. And the group becomes a reading community, as per Stanley Fish’s understanding of community.
Historically, when the Cross began to represent Christ can be reasonably determined, and it wasn’t in the 1st Century. As the icon for Christianity, the Cross is a late comer, an extra-textual assignment made long after the Christian Church quit teaching converts to live as spiritual Judeans, or spiritual Israelites. In fact, a tracking of the early Church’s iconography shows the Cross replacing the Sabbath as the strong expression of the Hellenization of Christianity; i.e., of Greeks replacing Hebrews as the dominant ethnic group of converts. These Greeks squeezed out Hebrew thought and social constructs, and inserted traditional Greek concepts such as human beings having immortal souls that go either to heaven or hell immediately after death. And herein lies the problem: Israel remains the holy nation of God, not Greece. Disciples are to become spiritual Israelites; they are not to become spiritual Greeks. They are not to drag Greek concepts into the Body of Christ, and palm them off as Pauline theology. But that has been the history of Christianity.
While the sons of God are neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free, male nor female (Gal 3:28), until glorified, the sons of God still dress appropriately for their biologically determined sex. A man’s or a woman’s physical appearance doesn’t change until glorification, nor does the Sabbath day, nor does what an Israelite eats. So a spiritual Israelite, with the laws of God written on his or her heart and mind, will be ruled by his or her mind to the extent possible while the law of sin and death still dwells in the disciple’s members. But everything becomes more interesting when the spiritual Israelite is liberated from bondage to sin: a spiritual Israelite will then be able to rule his or her flesh. All spiritual Israelites will live as Judeans in Babylon. If they return to living as Gentiles, they will have rebelled against the Father and the Son. They will have made themselves part of the great falling away.
For the record, and so there is no mistake, the mark of the beast is the tattoo of the Cross. The person who accepts this tattoo is marked for death, physical and spiritual. The body of the beast is cross-shaped; its image is the Cross; and this beast is dealt a mortal wound when the two witnesses are resurrected from death. All disciples can then ask, O Death, where is your sting?
Chapter Six
Spiritually immature teachers of Israel, all of whom have read fourteen or more books about prophecy, really need to be quiet until they have grown enough that they don’t continue to embarrass themselves. They can repeat, as if counting cadence on a drill field, what other men have said about Daniel’s sealed and kept secret visions. They can click off Scripture references almost as fast as they can add up offerings extorted from their television viewers. They spit these references out as if they were grape seeds, but the references do no one any good for they are taken out of context and applied with Scotch tape and mucilage to the headlines of the Jerusalem Post.
Physical Babylon hasn’t existed in any form since Alexander overran the Persian Empire, and Alexander’s kingdom hasn’t existed in any form since his four generals squandered away a legacy. The king of the south isn’t an Arab prince pickled in oil money, and the king of the north isn’t a German nation eager to unite Europe under the banner of the Holy Roman Empire. The next pope won’t be the man of perdition, and the Roman Church isn’t the scarlet whore that rides the beast. The Laodicean Church isn’t the last era of God’s true Church, and Herbert Armstrong isn’t God’s essential endtime man. Come on, Saints, grow up! Think spiritually for a change. If you don’t, you won’t make it into the kingdom of heaven. Your righteousness will not exceed that of the Pharisees. Keeping the Sabbath won’t do it. Neither will flying off to the coast of France to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. You have to do some work with your knowledge, while growing in grace and knowledge. And saints, you aren’t growing.
There is today, February 2004, a battle going on in one of the splinters of the former Radio Church of God over church by-laws, with both factions swearing that they will never spiritually grow one little bit beyond when the by-laws were written. Another splinter promises its members that it will not grow beyond where it was in 1986. Well, if the leadership of the organization promises its members that it will not grow spiritually, then what we have are voluntary spiritual runts.
Often runts are cute as the struggle to do what their larger siblings can do easily. People will take them home as pets, but why would a son of God choose to be a pet rather than an heir? Pets won’t be glorified.
The seven named churches of Revelation coexist when the Lord’s Day, the seventh day of the spiritual creation week, begins. All seven of them will be (are) able to call each other on the telephone. They will be able to read each other’s publications, and today, they will not tolerate the other, which is horribly sad but reveals what being under bondage to sin is all about. And for a Sabbath-keeping Christian today, the task is to keep growing spiritually while waiting for liberation. Hear the words of Jesus and believe the Father, which means periodically jettisoning what men and women have previously taught, especially about prophecy. None understood Daniel. The book hadn’t been unsealed.
The seven named churches house— as Noah’s ark did the seven pairs of clean animals— disciples who will be glorified. These Churches as the Body of Christ will become these saint’ spiritual covering for sin during the first half of the Tribulation. The foundations of all seven now exist, with the last two beginning in 2003. And all have come from a common root: the remnant of spiritual Israel that, during the Reformation, left spiritual Babylon as Ezra left Babylon/Persia.
The typology of Noah’s ark reveals that spiritually the eight are Christ and the seven angels to the seven named churches. And from greater spiritual Israel will come one pair of every species of spiritually unclean Christians— not thousands of pairs. The one pair is all that God will let out from under the delusion He sends upon the rebelling saints who follow the man of perdition. So if the seven pairs of clean animals represent the seven churches, and say if, for instance, the Church in Thyatira are today’s Seventh Day Adventists, then millions of Christians can be represented by the pair. The size of these churches today are not representative, though, of membership following the second Passover, especially not for the Adventists. The little horn of Daniel 7 overturns three horns on the head of the Cross. These three horns are lumps of clay that had clung to the iron in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. And the little horn overturns them by attempting to change times and the law, so the implication is that these three horns are Sabbath-keeping denominations that have become part of Babylon, or of the world. This doesn’t mean, though, that they are Christian sects. It does suggest that they are part of a world council of religion, that they have sought and temporarily received acceptance from Babylon.
Therefore, with a law of coexistence revealed (I can now hear the snickering of certain teachers of lawlessness about finding a new “law”) the Sabbath-keeping fellowships of today need to understand that they will exist as one, in unity with Christ Jesus, the Father, and each other. Or they will not enter the kingdom of heaven— and this is from someone who has leveled some heavy broadsides at saints in these fellowships. But return to Paul and reread the 3rd chapter of 1st Corinthians. You have been spiritual infants far too long. The time is short. Daniel’s visions have been unsealed. A second Passover liberation from sin is sure. This liberation will, indeed, mean that the death angels pass over the world, slaying all firstborns, spiritual and physical, not covered by the blood of the paschal Lamb of God. All of spiritual Israel is a firstborn son of God. And the carnage done to the greater Christian Church will be horrific if the seven churches that will be housed together in the ark of the Body of Christ cannot work together now to get greater Christianity to take the Passover.
The ministries of the seven churches have focused on grape seeds, or on other such doctrines that will take care of themselves once Israel is liberated from bondage to sin. Certainly there is room for discussion about whether a disciple leaving lawlessness needs to learn the nuances of living as a spiritual Judean before the disciple enters a Sabbath-keeping fellowship. There are pros and cons about having novices in fellowship with mature Christians, but the standard established by the Jerusalem Conference was a very low barre. Congregations of the Philadelphia Church will use that low barre for inclusion— and three of the four qualifiers have culturally taken care of themselves. Fornication, however, is a large problem in Western cultures. Living together without benefit of marriage will have to be addressed before allowing fellowship. For marriage is the ultimate human expression of oneness. It is the best training course for coexistence that could possibly be devised. And marriage has fallen on tough times even within the Churches of God.
In a chess match, the object is to checkmate the opponent’s king; it isn’t to capture the most number of pieces, or the pieces of highest value. And in bringing many sons of God to glory, the object is to keep spiritual Israelites alive until they are liberated from bondage to sin. Yes, a perverse argument can be made that it might be better for Sabbath-keepers if all out-of-covenant Christians died the night of the second Passover. These out-of-covenant Christians will be the primary persecutors of Sabbath-keeping disciples. But, No! doubly no. Where is any love in that argument? There might well be logic to it, but without love, no saint enters the kingdom. So a war has to be fought to save those who will, for the most part, rebel against God seven/eight months later. But they will have then had an honest chance to accept salvation. And if a disciple refuses to be saved, the disciple him or herself determines that he or she isn’t worthy of Jesus. So the most important thing is to get all Christians to take the Passover. After that, worry about the Sabbath and meats, those things that pertain to the physical body. When disciples are ruled by the laws of God written on their hearts and minds, Sabbaths will be kept— and in the Millennium, human beings will eat as Adam ate in Eden when there was no death. The coexistence of life with life as in a lion lying down with a lamb will cause dietary changes.
Today, the foundational fellowships of the seven named churches of Revelation won’t allow a disciple regularly attending a different fellowship to take the sacraments. Instead of the bread and the cup symbolizing the body of Christ and the covenant by which He covers disciples’ sins, taking the sacraments has become a membership renewal ceremony. A disciple isn’t genuine until he or she has been baptized in their water. And the pettiness about which Paul chides the saints in Corinth is alive and well in the Body of Christ.
The patriarch Jacob (his name changed to Israel) had led seventy (seventy-five counting Joseph’s grandchildren born in Egypt) from the famine-plagued promised land down to Egypt as free persons. His favorite son was the favorite of the Pharaoh. Yet, four centuries later, the nation descended from him had become an enslaved people. But then, even when Joseph ruled as second in command in Egypt, he ruled as a favorite slave. So once Israel entered Egypt, the nation was never truly free. Once Israel left the promised land, the nation was physically enslaved.
Jesus sent seventy (seventy-two in some translations) out from a famine-plagued spiritual promised land to wherever He was to go. Yet, four centuries later, the spiritual nation descended from Him were a spiritually enslaved people, as reflected in the physical practices of the Christian Church. However, they had never been a truly free people, in that they were never free of the bondage to sin and death as the Apostle Paul writes about himself. Paul, though, was one of only a few teachers of Israel who was spiritually mature enough to recognize that he was in bondage to the law of sin and death. Many teachers even of 1st Century Israel could not recognize how enslaved they were. And the situation hasn’t changed in two millennia, as evidenced by the Prosperity Gospel and the teaching of a bodily Rapture.
But as physical Israel was liberated from physical bondage, spiritual Israel will be, following a second Passover slaughter of uncovered firstborns, liberated from spiritual bondage to sin. All firstborns, physical and spiritual, not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God in an annual Passover ceremony patterned after how Jesus established the example will be slain. And a third of the greater Christian Church will die this day as the death angels pass through uncovered households— households where born again Christians thought that they could dictate to God how and when they would take the sacraments.
The truly good news is that since all of spiritual Israel as the firstborn of spiritual Eve needs to cover itself with the paschal blood of the Lamb of God, and since a very small percentage of this holy nation today keeps the Passover, many born again disciples will begin to keep the Passover. The endtime twelve that Jesus sends to the spiritually lost sheep of the house of Israel will have some success, as did the twelve Jesus sent out during His earthly ministry.
The reality of human existence has been its subjection to sin and death. But humanity’s liberation from death is the essence of Christ Jesus’ gospel. He has overcome Death and Hades (Rev 1:18). Through Him, all of humanity that hear His words and believe the One who sent Him will be saved from Death (John 5:24). But following the second Passover liberation from sin, the holy nation of Israel will be given into the hand of the little horn for a time, times, and half a time (Dan 7:25). Israel will be liberated from sin, but given into the hand of the king that emerges from the head of Death.
The four horsemen of the Apocalypse aren’t men at all. The context in which they appear has Christ Jesus appearing as a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. These eyes are identified as the seven spirits. Thus, attributes or characteristics manifest themselves as appearance in this passage. And the first horse and horseman looks a little like Christ— the horseman is the false prophet that will be thrown into the lake of fire upon Christ’s return. He is the first beast of Daniel chapter seven; hence his attributes are human-like when his wings are snapped off and he is made to stand like a man and given the mind of a man. But he is not a human being. He is a powerful demon, who rides a white horse, going forth conquering and to conquer, and he is the mouth of the first beast of Revelation chapter thirteen. He is the lion in the amalgamated first beast, seen after Death has been dealt His mortal wound. He is one of the four horns that emerge from the stump of the broken first horn of the spiritual king of Greece. And he disappears from the war between the kings of the South and North because his conquering is of liberated saints.
The false prophet is, today, part of the king of Greece’s ruling coalition under the first horn, so his appearance can be dated to the beginning of the Tribulation. The war between the king of Greece and the kings of Persia is being presently fought in the supernal reign. And Alexander as the shadow of this first, great horn on the head of the king of Greece took ten years to win his war with Persia. It is doubtful that the spiritual king will, by human reckoning, take longer.
The second horseman of the Apocalypse rides a red horse and is given a great sword. He is the king of the bottomless pit. He is Apollyon. He is the bear of Daniel chapter seven. The three ribs he cannot devour are Christ Jesus and the two witnesses. He can attack them to destroy them, but he cannot keep them dead. And he represents the feet of the dominionless first beast of Revelation chapter thirteen.
Dominion is taken from the four beasts when the court of the Ancient of Days sits in judgment (Dan 7:9–14). This is when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ (Rev 11:15). And after power is taken from the first three beasts, the lives of these three are continued for a season and a time. So between these three coming as the amalgamated first beast of Revelation chapter thirteen, with forty-two months given to them (v. 5), and Satan being cast from heaven and pursuing the woman for a time, times and half a time (Rev 12:14), all events in the Tribulation can be dated.
The third horseman of the Apocalypse that can buy and sell the wheat and the barley— the two harvests of the earth— has been prohibited from harming the oil and the wine, the two pressed or refined commodities of the promised land. This third beast of Daniel chapter seven, the four headed leopard, deserves a book of its own, such is its wickedness that appears as righteousness. Dominion over the Christian Church has been given to this beast. He is the spiritual king of the South, or of the flesh. He rules over spiritual Egypt, the fleshpot of the world. From him comes bondage to the flesh. His gospel is the message about Prosperity being the gauge for righteousness. And he rules through the laws of sin and death.
Death rides a pale horse. His is the head that has been dealt a mortal wound, that wound delivered when the two witnesses were publicly resurrected. He is the beast of whom the antiChrist makes an image (Rev 13:14–15). The mark of the beast is of his image, and he looks like a cross. He is the spiritual king of the North, who is separated from the king of the South when Israel is liberated from bondage to sin. This separation is seen in Daniel 11:5. And for the first three and a half years of the Tribulation the king of the South shall fight with the king of the North, with Sin initially prevailing over Death as the Ptolemaic Empire did over the Seleucid Empire (physical Jerusalem here representing the minds of disciples). The greater Christian Church’s rebellion seems not to initially have consequences when it occurs on day 2300. The rebelling Church does choose a new leader (Num 14:4); the rebels return to Egypt. But Death overtakes all of them. God sends a great delusion. And the man of perdition, the little horn on the head of Death, slays them as Arians again fight against trinitarians, with the trinitarians losing both their physical and their spiritual lives. God will not be mocked.
The man of perdition will reign over Arian Christianity; he is an Arian. And he will have to declare himself god on day 1290 in a futile attempt to reestablish a semblance of order once God delivers His second blow to Babylon, the sixth trumpet plague. Babylon is on its way down. One more punch delivered on day 1260— when the court of the Ancient One sits in judgment— and Babylon falls. Then fallen Satan, with no authority of his own, steals Christ’s authority to reign over Israel; he comes as the antiChrist, and he attempts to put Humpty-Dumpty together again. But there shall be war until the end, the means by which Israel should realize that this Christ is false, an impostor that from the beginning has appeared as an angel of light.
The four horsemen are the four horns that emerge on the head of the spiritual king of Greece after the first, great horn is supernaturally broken in the second Passover slaughter of uncovered firstborns. These four horns or kings are the four beasts of Daniel chapter seven— and they have seven heads, one of which has been dealt a mortal wound. The body of the fourth beast was given over to be burned, so the bodies of the three remaining beasts plus the wounded head of the fourth beast form the amalgamated first beast of Revelation chapter thirteen. The false prophet and the Cross or Death are thrown into the lake of fire alive upon Christ’s return. Satan is captured and bound for a thousand years. And all of this occurs without a single European nation being named by God.
As physical Israel was a slave nation in Egypt, spiritual Israel has been a nation enslaved by sin and death. These two archenemies of life ruled Paul’s flesh, which, like all flesh, was of the dust of the earth. And again, spiritual wisdom is required to comprehend that the universe was created as a death chamber, for within time (or rather, space-time) all life dies, a characteristic of change through the passage of time. This will include Satan and his angels when they are cast into time (Rev 12:7–9 coupled with Ezek 28:18–19). The supra-dimensional realm of heaven is outside the creation, and as such, beyond time. There is no past or future as humanity understands the concepts. There is only the present. One moment continues forever regardless of the activities involved. Thus, since the presence of life and the absence of live are incompatible states within a single moment, a being with life in the heavenly realm will not, nor cannot die. Life is everlasting, for the absence of life requires an incompatible change in status— in the heavenly realm, change is limited to what can coexist. Because lawlessness cannot coexist with obedience, the Father cannot abide sin. He cannot coexist with sin. Therefore, when Jesus was made sin so He could die as the paschal Lamb of God, He was separated from the Father.
The good news that must be proclaimed to all the world as a witness to all nations before the end comes is that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13–14). They will be saved because Death has been defeated. No longer will human beings need to fear Death. Throughout the last three and a half years of the Tribulation, Death will have no dominion over humanity unless a person chooses to return to bondage to sin and death by accepting the mark of the beast. Sort of a poor decision, one would think. Of course, refusing this tattoo will exclude the person from the world’s fallen economic system. A person will have to live by faith for three and a half years— and by the end of these three and a half years, the harvest of the earth will have ripened and will be reaped (Rev 14:15). All who endured with judgment on them will be part of the first resurrection to life. No exceptions. But enduring will not be easy. It will literally mean not trying to save one’s physical life. It will mean truly believing that Death has been defeated. And because the mortal wound dealt to Death will have healed, some saints will be slain: “If anyone is to be taken captive, / to captivity he goes; / if anyone is to be slain with the sword, / with the sword must he be slain. / Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints” (Rev 13:10). The faith of saints will be tested by some saints being slain. It will be hard to believe that Death has truly been defeated, that a person will be saved if all the person does is endure in faith. Yet that is all that has to be done, for the person’s mind can rule his or her body. The person will have the laws of God written on his or her heart and mind. The person will know God. The person will have his or her sins forgiven. All that remains for the person to do is to endure, doing what the person knows is right, while being willing to give up one’s physical life if necessary. However, if a saint dies in faith during this period, the following has already been written about the person: “And I [John] heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’” (Rev 14:13). So physical death during this period when Death has been defeated actually brings blessings and relief from the trial of enduring.
Paul’s acknowledgement of being in bondage to sin and death is a human reality that will change when spiritual Israel is liberated from bondage to sin. This liberation of the Christian Church is the world-reeling event that begins seven years of tribulation— and this liberation has great significance for every Christian. For until the Church’s liberation from bondage to sin, Christ Jesus will have borne in the heavenly realm every sin of born-from-above disciples. But after liberation, obedience to God is the Christian’s covering for sin. This was Adam’s covering. This was Jesus of Nazareth’s covering. And God is not a respecter of persons. This will be firstborn Israel’s covering throughout the Tribulation.
The sons of light will fight against the sons of darkness who will tell Israel that no one can keep the laws of God, that it is futile to even try. And 2300 days before glorification, Israel rebels against God and returns to Egypt. The righteous-appearing sons of darkness will believe that they have won when they have lost everything… how can this be told to them in advance? How can the sons of light tell sincere, devout Christians that their teachers of lawlessness have set them up for resurrection to condemnation? Will fiction work? A Morning After series of novels? Join us who are of Philadelphia. The most important work you will ever do is rescuing your brother from certain death in the lake of fire as you fight to win a kingdom for your elder bother, Christ Jesus, a kingdom that is already His. Christ has given the sons of light as His younger brothers the opportunity of participating in His victory won at Calvary.
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Epilogue
The Literalist Tradition
The Literalist Tradition
The disciple of Christ Jesus who dogmatically states that he or she believes what the Bible literally says, doesn’t. “Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke to and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body’” (Matt 26:26). The disciple who will claim literal belief won’t believe that the bread was the body of Jesus. Rather this disciple will believe that Jesus really broke bread and told His disciples to eat that bread. So this disciple who claims literal belief will use human logic to not hear or believe the words of Jesus, who said the bread was His body— who also told Pharisees, ‘“I am the bread that came down from heaven’” (John 6:41). This disciple will, through logic, reason his or herself out of receiving everlasting life. This person’s faith is in logic, not Christ Jesus, whose words are, ‘“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life”’(John 5:24).
The foolishness of the literalist tradition is so great that Thomas Paine could, without Scripture in front of him, while in prison, spend his time pitting contradiction against contradiction as if he were attending an evening of cock fighting. Of course, the biblical literalist will insist that those contradictions are not really contradictions at all. They are merely translation difficulties, or Jesus’ use of figurative language.
Why did Jesus use figurative language when plain speech might have caused many more scribes and Pharisees to believe in Him? He tells His disciples why (Matt 13:11–13, 35–36), then tells them that He has been speaking to them in figurative language (John 16:25). And what has been recorded in Scripture are these parables and figures of speech that Jesus used to reveal the mysteries of God without Israel understanding what has been revealed.
In the context of the Jews grumbling because Jesus said He was the bread that came down from heaven, Jesus answered them:
Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, “And they all will be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I amthe living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will liveforever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:43–51)
The bread given for the life of the world is the flesh of Jesus. This statement of Jesus seems straightforward, seems to be in plain speech. So why haven’t the literalists understood Jesus’ words about, Take, eat? Jesus told His disciples, ‘“Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, “The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples”’” (Matt 26:18). The time for eating the living bread that came down from heaven is at the Passover, when Jesus commanded His disciples to, Take, eat.
While eating His last Passover meal with His disciples, Jesus rose, laid aside His outer garments, tied a towel around His waist, poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, one of those disciples being Judas Iscariot who was already determined to betray Him (John 13:2–5). Jesus washed the feet of the disciple who He knew would betray Him. And when He finished washing their feet, He said, “‘Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you’” (vv. 12–15).
The vast majority of endtime disciples steeped in the literalist tradition are the spiritual reality that the scribes and Pharisees foreshadowed. They hear the words of Jesus, of Isaiah, of Moses, but they don’t believe those words. They will believe Augustine, or Luther, or John Hagee, but they won’t believe the One who raised Jesus from the dead. They will not believe that by faith, they can keep the commandments of God. Yet, Abraham, the father of the faithful, kept those commandments (Gen 26:5), as will disciples destined for glorification (Rev 12:17 & 14:12). Abraham is called the father of the faithful for by faith, he kept the words of the Lord. Jesus said, ‘“Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’” (Mark 11:22–24). Keeping the laws of God is not more difficult than moving a mountain, especially for disciples who have been practicing keeping these laws while they were yet in bondage to sin and death. By faith, disciples will keep the laws of God when they have no covering for their sins other than obedience, or these disciples will be as Judas Iscariot was. By faith, they will enter the promised land of glorification with hornets driving out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before them (Exod 23:28)— or they will believe the report of the ten spies who lacked faith and said the giants are too large (Num 13:27–33).
Faith does not come from literalism; it doesn’t come from what the eyes see, or the ears hear, or the fingers measure. It comes from belief that actually stands in contradiction to human logic. And Israel could not enter the promised land of Judea because of unbelief (Heb 3:19) that became disobedience; rather, their uncircumcised children entered under Joshua.
Spiritual Israel will not hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent Him. Spiritual Israel
the greater Christian Church — will not enter the spiritual promised land of glorification because of unbelief that becomes disobedience, or rebellion against the Most High. Rather, the other half of humanity will become Israel under the leadership of Jesus when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Messiah (Rev 11:15). Six hundred thousand circumcised Israelites left Egypt the night of the Passover. Forty years later on the plains of Moab, 601,730 uncircumcised children had replaced the rejected nation (Num 26:51). Only Joshua and Caleb were not rejected. And in Joshua and Caleb are all of the animals that entered the Ark with Noah represented. The seven pair of clean animals are the seven named churches, all Sabbath-keeping fellowships descended from the northern kingdom (the house of Joseph), from the early church at Ephesus, from Christ Jesus’ endtime spiritual ministry to the lost houses of Israel. The single pair of every unclean animal specie are individual fellowships that have descended from the southern kingdom (the house of Judah), from the early church at Alexandria, from Christ Jesus’ physical ministry in Judea. And the vast majority of greater Christianity today has descended from Alexandria. They form the endtime rejected nation that, for lack of faith, will not enter the promised land of glorification. They refuse to believe that, by faith, disciples can cover their sins through obedience to the laws of God. Today, they refuse to fight against the law of sin and death that dwells in their flesh. They are spiritual pacifists, who, like Solomon, “give to the queen of Sheba all that she desired, whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon” (1 Kings 10:13). This is the queen of the South that represents the fleshpots of Egypt. This is sin, the third horseman of the Apocalypse, the four-headed leopard to whom was given dominion over the wheat and barley (Rev 6:6), dominion over endtime Babylon (Dan 7:6), and dominion over Solomon (1 Kings 11:1–4). At the second Passover, disciples are liberated from her blandishments. But without having developed the spiritual character necessary to resist the desire of the flesh to save physical life, these spiritual pacifists surrender to this queen of the South.
They will lie in her bed of asps and adders, and they will die in the lake of fire, all the while believing that the laws of God exist to prove that they cannot be kept. Sobeit.
By faith, the glorified saints who, today, fight against sin and death cover their sins during the Tribulation through obedience, which will be no more difficult for them once liberated from bondage to sin than walking into the promised land behind swarms of hornets. It is unbelief that gives the giants strength.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."