February 7, 2013 ©Homer Kizer
Commentary — From the Margins
Seeing is Believing?
Part Three
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Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, "Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here He is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to Him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from." So Jesus proclaimed, as He taught in the temple, "You know me, and you know where I come from? But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and Him you do not know. I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent me." So they were seeking to arrest Him, but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in Him. They said, "When the Christ appears, will He do more signs than this man has done?" (John 7:25–31)
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I hadn’t anticipated writing a longish piece when I started this Commentary, but in discussing the consignment of all humanity to disobedience through giving to unbelieving human persons a debased mind, this Commentary has truly grown long. There are still sections to come.
3.
When Paul wrote, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him” (1 Cor 11:14), Paul assigned “meaning” to the hair length of a man, with male hair length becoming a “readable” sign; for the context in which Paul wrote was that of head and body, with the head representing God, within the bonds of marriage—and with the authority of the head coming through penetration: the man being in his wife as Christ is in the disciple and as God is in Christ (v. 3).
It is a bit unusual for a theological treatise to introduce and remain with the subject of male penetration of his wife. Traditionally, euphemistic expressions were used for sexual intercourse, expressions such as, the husband knew his wife. That seems like a tactful way of discussing human reproduction, but the euphemism conceals the basic relationship that God has with His human sons, this relationship expressed in the parable of penetration and through a hierarchy of penetration …
In order for God the Father to give to potential human sons of God actual life in the heavenly realm, life represented by the bright fire that is the glory of God (Ezek 1:26–28) with this non-oxidizing bright fire consuming whatever has mass, including the body of every human person as well as the earth on which the person stands and the air the person breathes, the Father must give His glory to human persons in a vessel that has also come from Him, the glorified Christ Jesus. Salvation as a euphemistic expression for entering the supra-dimensional heavenly realm is only possible for a human person through the indwelling of Christ Jesus in whom the breath/spirit of God the Father permanently resides.
To digress before I really begin, we should see from Scripture why a human person cannot directly receive the indwelling of heavenly life:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Pet 3:10–13)
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For behold, I [the Lord] create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. (Isa 65:17)
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Then I [John] saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. From His presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. (Rev 20:11)
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Then I [John] saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Rev 21:1)
A physical person will not stand on an earth that no longer exists … in all things, the physical precedes and reveals the spiritual (cf. Rom 1:20; 1 Cor 15:46)—and this pertains equally to the physical creation as it does to the spiritual [non-physical] creation that has new heavens and a new earth replacing the heavens and earth that presently exist. And the problem with global warming alarmists is their inability to comprehend the earth being consumed in fire that comes from the bonds holding quark to quark dissolving into pure energy.
For a person to enter heaven, God the Father must raise the inner self of the person from death (from a state of lifelessness) through giving to the person a second breath of life, His breath, in a vessel able to hold the bright fire of life outside of space-time. Then the Son must also give life to the human person whose inner self [soul] has been raised from death by the Father. The Son does this by giving to the already living inner self a glorified body when judgments are revealed … in the timelessness of heaven, the martyrdom of a saint in the 1st-Century CE and the martyrdom of a saint in the 21st-Century occurs in the same moment; so the living inner self of a martyred 1st-Century saint and a martyred 21st-Century saint will have their judgments revealed in the same movement. No passage of time will have occurred so the one will not precede the other to glory. Both will seem to have simultaneously entered heaven even though inside of space-time, nearly two millennia will separate their deaths.
Contrary to what Catholicism or Islam teaches, a human person is not humanly born with an immortal soul that goes to heaven or hell or somewhere in-between upon the death of the human body. Without the person receiving life in the heavenly realm prior to physical death, the still dead (never-having-been-alive) inner self of the person remains here on earth awaiting resurrection in the great White Throne Judgment when all who have never sampled the goodness of God (i.e., never received the indwelling of Christ) will for a first time be raised from death to receive a judgment appropriate to the things the person did in the flesh. The person who, having done the work of the Law without knowledge of God, is a basically “good” person will have sins excused. Thus this person will be saved, but will not be one of the firstfruits of God.
Two harvests of God form one harvest of humanity. In typology, these two harvests are represented by the early barley harvest of ancient Judea and by the later main crop wheat harvest. In addition, there is another harvest of olives and of grapes; of oil and wine, with the crushing and extraction of oil and with the crushing and fermentation of grapes occurring as part of the harvest of firstfruits. However, the fermentation of the grapes takes longer than the grinding of barley into fine flour. Thus, what’s seen in John’s vision is that the fruit harvest and its processing has concluded before the bulk of the barley harvest is brought in from the fields. And whereas Sin, the third horseman (Rev 6:5), can buy and sell both the barley and the wheat, Sin is not to harm the already processed oil and wine (v. 6), the Elect of God, those disciples who were foreknown and predestined, than called, justified, and glorified through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theou] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christou].
All of the harvest of firstfruits will know Christ and will have walked in this world as Jesus walked before their judgments are revealed. For those human persons to be numbered among the firstfruits, there is no other means for the person to be saved other than through the indwelling of Christ before the Second Passover liberation of Israel (these persons will form the Elect) and through walking without sin after the Second Passover for the remainder of Christendom. But so far, I have only addressed those who profess to be Christians before the Second Passover. For those who presently have no interest in Christ Jesus and who are not firstborns but who live physically into the Affliction, their chance for salvation comes when the holy spirit is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation—poured out when governance of the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18) …
· God will have mercy on all when He takes the kingdom from the Adversary and his angels and gives the kingdom to the Son of Man, Head and Body;
· All of humanity that was born consigned to disobedience as sons of disobedience will, with the baptism of the world into life, become sons of God (Rev 18:4);
· All who endure to the end without taking upon themselves the mark of death shall be saved (Matt 24:13; 10:22);
· And it is the good news of the preceding bullet point that must be proclaimed to all the world as a witness to all nations before the end comes (Matt 24:14).
· For proclaiming the good news of the Endurance of Jesus, those who are of Philadelphia will be kept from the hour of trial that is coming upon all the world.
The endtime Gospel that must be proclaimed before the end can come is that all who endure to the end shall be saved, an exceedingly simple, uncomplicated, unambiguous message … once the spirit is poured out on all flesh, every person will be filled with the divine breath of God. Every person will come under the New Covenant that will have the Law written on hearts and placed in minds so that all know the Lord through having in them the mind and nature of Christ.
Human nature is a received nature and is not determined by biology, which is where I want to begin this Section #3 of a Commentary that has grown long: the person who received the Adversary’s nature through being consigned to disobedience is accountable for those things the person did while alive, which superficially doesn’t seem fair. But what must be taken into account is the substance of the Adversary’s nature: rebellion against authority, with the Adversary exercising all authority in this present world, a subject I have addressed in this Commentary and one to which I will return. Thus, because the Adversary’s nature is to rebel against authority, his nature in a person should cause the person to rebel against him as he, when still an anointed guardian cherub in Eden, the Garden of God (Ezek 28:13–15), rebelled against God. And if a person actually rebels against the Adversary and not just goes along in a sleazy way with the Adversary’s rebellion, the person will begin to keep the commandments of God and will outwardly display love for mother and father, neighbor and brother.
Rebellion against the Adversary will always manifest itself through keeping the commandments.
The Adversary was a murderer from the beginning: his nature is to murder whomever he can. Therefore, rebellion against the Adversary will have the person not being a murderer, not killing others, not going to war to defend home and hearth, not justifying killing another through the concept of a “just war.”
The Adversary was a liar from the beginning; thus, rebellion against the Adversary will have the person telling no lie. Rebellion against the Adversary requires that the person’s walk in this world not be a lie, meaning that a person cannot claim to be a Christian and then make no conscious effort to walk in this world as Jesus walked—and no Christian who worships on Sunday strives to walk as Jesus, an observant Jew, walked in this world. This Christian’s life is a lie!
Note what the Apostle Paul wrote:
For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Roman 2:11–16 emphasis added)
The basically good person who was not called by God the Father while the person lived physically is not eternally condemned to hell because the person did not profess that Jesus was Lord … no person can come to Christ unless the Father draws this person from the world (John 6:44). Thus, it is the Father who determines whether a person can come to Christ, can profess that Christ is Lord. If the Father doesn’t give this opportunity to the person by giving to the person the earnest of His spirit/breath, it isn’t the person’s fault that he or she has not professed that Christ Jesus is Lord. However, if the person is without self-imposed limitations on his or her behavior—limitations that will cause the person to outwardly manifest love for neighbor and brother by denying the person’s self-serving desires and ambitions—then this person will perish without ever coming under the Law when this person is returned to life in the great White Throne Judgment (Rev 2o:11–15).
It is better for the person not drawn from this world by the Father and called by Jesus to not claim a false conversion to Christendom than to openly profess that Jesus is Lord, then not strive to walk in this world as Jesus walked.
In the great White Throne Judgment, the person being judged need not have professed that Jesus was Lord, but needs to have done “naturally” those things that the Law requires, with the work of the Law being manifested love for neighbor and brother; for the great White Throne Judgment is not an opportunity to redo what the person has done, but is the receiving of just judgment for what was done by the person while he or she lived, with the “nature” of the person originating in the Adversary’s broadcast of rebellion, with again this rebellion turning against the rebellion of the Adversary to cause the person to walk contrary to the ways of this world and thus keep the commandments of God.
The great White Throne Judgment occurs over a very short while: the passage from Isaiah (65:20) that Herbert Armstrong repeatedly cited to “prove” that the great White Throne Judgment would be a hundred years long is actually a pre-Millennium passage, not a post-Millennium passage … the great White Throne Judgment is post-Millennium.
Approximately two thousands years will separate the First of the resurrected firstfruits, Christ Jesus, represented by the Wave Sheaf Offering, from the last of the resurrected firstfruits, represented by the two loaves of leavened bread waved on the Feast of Weeks (Lev 23:17, 20). Then another thousand years, the Millennium, pass—a thousand years during which all of humankind will be filled with spirit and will have the mind and nature of Christ Jesus; a thousand years during which there will be no indwelling sin and death in human persons; a thousand years when there will be no harm occurring in all of the Lord’s holy mountain; a thousand years when there will be no buying and selling—and then, with the thousand years separating the completed resurrection of firstfruits from the release of the Adversary from his chains inside the Abyss, the Adversary shall go forth to deceive humanity for three and a half years before he has fire come out from his belly to utterly destroy him, turning him into ashes under the feet of saints. Now, the great White Throne Judgment occurs before the coming of the new heavens and new earth and the city of spiritual Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ—with the coming of the new heavens and new earth, there shall no longer be children born to human parents. There shall be nothing physical remaining. The creation will have been rolled up as a scroll and burned with fire. This glorious death chamber will have served its purpose … the creation came into existence suddenly; it will end just as suddenly. The Millennium will not be a time of figuratively frosting the cake that is the creation, but a time of contrast between humanity under the Adversary’s administration and humanity under the Son of Man when, again, there shall be no harm, virtually no death, but also no transactions. Humanity cannot truly be free in a realm of transactions.
People don’t usually think of themselves as being a crop even though that metaphor is used throughout Scripture, but from the perspective of God, we are either barley, wheat, or tares [darnel]; for Jesus said of Himself, “‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. …’” (John 12:23–24). Jesus compared Himself to a kernel of grain; so the metaphor of disciples being good grain or false grain is used appropriately. Disciples are of either the early barley harvest or the latter main crop wheat harvest, meaning that God’s relationship to us is characterized by that of a farmer to the crop he plants, tends, and harvests when it has ripened.
When a person can be characterized as a crop, the person can be bought and sold—American representational democracy has been co-opted by the popular vote having been “bought” by social welfare programs that make a person comfortable in his or her poverty, with the benefits of these programs being addictive. As a heroin addict initially shoots up to get high, then shoots up just to quit hurting, the beneficiaries of government largesse initially take the handouts to get through a tough period in their lives, then take the handouts just to maintain what they have … they were bought by a lying promise, and they are threatened with the loss of that promise every election if they do not turnout to vote for those who made them addicts.
The culture that produces endtime Christians represents the field in which disciples grow or don’t grow to maturity. The culture that produces a soft porn Super Bowl halftime show enjoyed by millions worldwide is a field of Russian thistles, windblown tumbleweeds impaled on a barbwire fence, their seed scattered throughout the field until it seems as if the land itself is merely weed seed that has not yet sprouted.
In the parable of penetration, seeds sprout and push downward, penetrating the thin soil of civilized culture, rooting themselves in a mindlessly selected location from which they will grow for the remainder of their vegetative lives—and when the thistles are old and dried up but heavily laden with seed, the wind will blow and the thistles will roll, some caught by a gust and tossed over the fence where they tumble across the road and into the near field and across it, and across the next field, scattering democracy as they go, their children and grandchildren sitting patiently in the stadium waiting for the lights to come back on, little realizing that the stadium’s artificial lights come from the prince of this world who appears as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14) — but the lights are dimming, quickly going out, and when they come back on again, the world will not be one we would recognize if we were still alive physically.
In the parable of penetration, there is hierarchal order—and the hierarchy of penetration (that’s represented in male and female biology) will have disciples in whom the glorified Christ dwells being the Body of Christ, and by extension, the Bride of Christ. The inner self [the soul] of a person is the head of the body through the dead soul having been “penetrated” by the breath/spirit of God, thereby bringing a second “life” into the body, penetrating the body, with the soul going from effective non-existence in death to having life through receipt of the breath of God. This second life then attempts to take over the body, attempts to force the body to walk in this world as Jesus walked, but the body resists domination and does the very things that the now-living soul hates, what the Apostle Paul discovered about himself (Rom 7:15, 18). Most wives resist male domination, not in open confrontational ways, but in subtle ways—and I do not need to give examples that might aid this resistance. It is enough to say that there would never have been a first man-cave if there were no resistance.
This hierarchy of penetration would cause, should cause the fleshly body of every human person to be subordinate to the now-living soul, but this is not the case. Just as not every dead inner self served as a faithful conduit through which the Adversary transmitted his broadcast of disobedience via rebellion against God to the body of a living person, not every fleshly body will faithfully do those things that the living inner self desires. Not every wife is obedient to her husband; nor does every husband desire to rule over his wife. But to get anything done in a marriage, the two people have to come together and function as one person. Otherwise, the marriage is doomed to fail. Hence, for a person to get anything done, the now-living inner self and the fleshly body have to come together and cease fighting each other, not compromising with what is right but with the body going along with what the inner self, having the mind of Christ, knows is right, with the inner self as an initial infant son of God not yet able to access the fullness of the mind of Christ.
Whereas the body of a person is represented by the woman in marriage and the inner self by the man, spiritual entities that include now-living souls are without gender or nationality or social status, the meaning of what Paul wrote when he said,
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal 3:27–29)
In this present world, social status comes from being able to buy and sell whereas in Paul’s world, social status came from being either free or bought and sold … regardless of whether the inner self is alive or dead, with again the dead inner self being a conduit through which the Adversary broadcasts unimpeded his nature, his mindset into the person, thereby becoming the head of the person, the inner self is intended to be the head of the body as the husband is intended to be the head of his wife and as Christ is the Head of the disciple and as God is the head of Christ. And the visible image of this hierarchy of penetration is the head of a man in his wife. It is for this reason (plus others) that a man is not to lay with any woman except his wife, and that a man is never to lay with another man; for there is no transmigration of souls, what a man laying with many women would represent. Reincarnation as a doctrine comes from wrongly understanding the parable of penetration.
God has consigned all human persons to disobedience and death so that He can have mercy on all (Rom 11:32). He consigned all to disobedience as sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3) through withholding life from the inner self so that the only broadcast animating the flesh came from the Adversary, who again appears as an angel of light. The inner self of this son of disobedience can be likened to a half-lit stadium: enough light is present to see one’s seat but not enough for the game to be played. And there is a contest being waged, not between the Adversary and Christ as Ellen G. White wrote in The Great Controversy, but between the Adversary and those over whom he rules; for his broadcast of rebellion boomerangs into rebellion against him in some but not all human persons. And where the Adversary’s broadcast of rebellion penetrates a person but meets resistance in the person, the person doesn’t pant after Beyonce but feels disgusted by those images of her that penetrated the person’s mind. The person is in rebellion against the culture that produced the person: he or she has become an anomaly in a field of weeds, a spot in which barley or wheat grows in the dim half-light of the Adversary.
Again, in the hierarchy of penetration males have biological dominance but do not rule their own houses/bodies, what Paul discovered when he could not do the good he intended but did the very things he hated (Rom 7:15).
There is a concept that here needs introduced: when Adam and Eve as one flesh were driven from the Garden of Eden, the Lord gave to them hair coats (Gen 3:21) that have traditionally been understood as skin garments ala aboriginal peoples in northern climes. But the word used for these hair coats [‘ôwr] is the same as used for the skin and fur of beasts; for the hides of goats; for the skins of goats that Rebekah put on the hands and neck of Jacob so that Isaac could be deceived (Gen 27:16). In other words, Esau as a hairy man, a man of the fields, had fur-covered skin that closely matched the skin and fur of goats, with this heavily furred skin pertaining to why Esau was hated [disrespected] by the Lord from birth … before Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, the Lord gave to them hair coats that closely matched the hide and hair of goats. There is no indication in text that these hair coats could be removed as I remove my Carhartt coat when I come indoors. Rather, the implication is that these hair coats were like the alleged fur coats of Sasquatch. But a selective breeding program for silver fox in Siberia—selecting for only one genetic trait, non-aggression—has shown that in eight generations dog-like behavior and appearance becomes predominate. In selecting only for non-aggression (so that the silver foxes could be handled without their caregivers being bitten), these silver foxes that are otherwise the same strain as found wild began to have curly tails and spots, appearing more like small domestic sled dogs than silver foxes. Behaving as pets. Whereas the control group are still aggressive, vicious, caged wild animals.
Human hair occurs naturally, but with body and facial hair having become miniscule—I will argue—about eight generations after Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden (that is, in Noah’s generation). Body hair since then has become a sign of remaining “wildness” in human persons, wildness that hasn’t yet been fully bred out from humankind.
If the Hebrew word <‘ôwr> as used for the hair coats with which the Lord garmented Adam and Eve truly represents the Lord giving to Adam and Eve a goat-hide-like covering of hair, thereby causing them to visually appear as wild men [Sasquatch], then “hair length” is a true sign used by the Lord to signal His acceptance or rejection of human persons apart from post-Flood behavior … if Noah’s offspring carry the genes that produced the hair coat of Esau who was hated before birth, a seemingly unreasonable reaction to Esau’s conception, then the birth of Esau and Jacob needs to be reread and a digression here inserted in the narrative.
In Genesis we find:
These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, "If it is thus, why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,
"Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the older shall serve the younger."
When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. (Gen 25:19–28)
Remember, in the quotation of Paul (“And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise” — Gal 3:29), Christian’s are spiritual Isaac, and will remain as spiritual Isaac until the Second Passover liberation of Israel when birth is given to Jacob and Esau (birth order reversed due to chirality). And if Christians are not today either Jacob or Esau, but their parent Isaac, who loved Esau—who loved his wild son—endtime disciples should expect to find in themselves approval for what God hates.
The preceding needs a moment for digestion to occur: Christians should love the things of God, but honestly, do they? Do Christians love the Sabbath, striving to keep it at all costs? In reality, Christians don’t even love the Bible enough to notice that it contradicts itself, that there is no traditional manger scene to be found in Scripture, that the Book of Acts is a Greek Sophist novel that used Paul’s epistles and Mark’s Gospel as its source texts from which this novelist drew the structure of his plot. And if Christians don’t love the Bible enough to notice that when Jesus is raised from baptism, the voice from heaven spoke to John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel, but spoke to Jesus in Mark’s Gospel, then Christians really aren’t all that concerned about the things of God. Christian pastors preach Christ because it is an easy way to make a respectable living. There are not many Christian pastors with calluses on their hands. Most have the hands of Beyonce.
There are today two nations struggling against each other within the womb of grace, with the elder stronger than the younger but also destined to serve the younger, worshiping as the synagogue of Satan at the feet of the younger. It isn’t physical strength in this world; it isn’t numbers; it isn’t worldly assets that matter. What matters is whether the Christian, the fellowship, the denomination proclaims the Endurance of Jesus to the world as a witness to all nations, and it takes little strength and few assets to proclaim this good news to all the world, thanks to the technology that has brought humanity to the brink of self-destruction.
Returning to hair as a sign: when the Lord drove Adam and Eve from the Garden, both Adam and Eve had hair coats without the Lord apparently killing and dressing any beasts. Sacrifice was not needed; sacrifice would have been needed for Adam and Eve to have remained in the Garden. Thus, it would be wrong to conclude that the Lord killed animals—did harm—in the Garden to obtain from living beasts their hides to make for Adam and Eve skin garments. It is more reasonable to conclude that if the Temptation Account is real history (it need not be to still be true, for it could be prophesy in a previously unrecognized form), Adam and Eve left the Garden looking like wild men [Sasquatch]. But there is not enough text to make definite assertions. [2016--Homer found on Adak after reading Ted Bank's book, Birthplace of the Wind (p. 204), the Aleut legend that the first two people on earth were covered with hair, but the children who came after were not.] What is true, however, is that Jesus in type and in symbolism was the last Adam, and the Church receiving life from this last Adam represents the last Eve. Paul pushes this symbolism and declares that Jesus was the reality foreshadowed by the first Abraham, and that disciples are Isaac. And when these two analogies are placed one over the top of the other, the Second Passover liberation of Israel represents the promised birth in Isaiah 66:7–8; the promised birth in Matthew 24:8, in Mark 13:8; the birth of Esau and Jacob. When the Second Passover occurs, the last Eve shall give birth to a spiritual Abel followed 220 days later by a spiritual Cain, then halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation this last Eve shall give birth to a spiritual Seth who only has to endure to the end to be saved. And it is the good news of Seth’s birth that is the endtime gospel that is, even now, being delivered by Philadelphia.
If longish body hair is a sign of wildness and alienation from God, then an interesting dynamic is at work, with most women and metro-males seeking to remove as much of their miniscule body hair as possible as if they sense greater femininity in being totally hairless on face, legs, back, and chest … whether a man realizes what he does when he shaves, in shaving a man approximates the face of a woman, not of itself a thing to be condemned but definitely a thing to be questioned as to why a man would want to be without “natural” facial hair.
There are times when I could take the easy way out of the figurative box canyon I just entered: I could simply turn around and delete what I have written. That would here make sense. For the thing to be questioned leads into the following conclusion: for a shaven man to have long hair growing from the top of his head, the man has necessarily made two or more conscious decisions to appear in public in a subordinate role even when dressed in male attire. Likewise a woman with closely cropped hair has made a conscious decision not to occupy the culturally subordinate role, but rather, to take upon herself authority and dominance that pertains to a man.
Today, neither men nor women look like Sasquatch, a wild man after the order of Esau … among the great apes, the female of the species does not have appreciably longer hair than the male. Both have approximately the same length of body hair, facial hair, and mane. If anything the hair of the male is longer, especially around shoulders. So for a man to pluck or shave his facial hair while permitting the hair on the top of his head to grow freely, the man signals that he is not only domesticated but that he has rebelled against the role assigned to him by Western culture. He wants to be liberated from the constraints of being male in a culture where being female has become valued, whether through affirmative action programs or the sexuality of the displayed female body.
In the parable of penetration, the one who enters the other dominants the other regardless of biological gender. Obviously, this reality is the subject of much abuse … it is generally understood that rape is less about sexual gratification and release than it is about the manifestation of power by a person otherwise without power, without control of circumstances or even thoughts. For the person who feels powerless, the forcible entry and penetration of another person—whether of a juvenile male or female, or of an adult female—gives to the rapist, the sexual abuser, a temporary feeling of dominance that functions as a mentally addictive drug. But whenever a person is “secure” in the gender role the person assumes in society, the person has no need to impose forced domination through penetration upon any other person. There is no justification for a husband forcing intercourse upon his wife. And there is just condemnation of a pastor who demands that a wife sleeps with her husband. Penetration needs to be voluntary, both permitted and performed.
Someone should have sat down with early Christian theologians and explained to them the implications of the Lord giving to Adam and Eve hair coats when He drove them from the Garden, thereby condemning them to being wild people. The connection between Esau being a man of the fields, a hairy man, a marginally civilized wild man, and Esau being hated from before birth should have been made; for it is not reasonable for God to hate [disrespect] an unborn person. If the connection had been made that Esau was hated because he appeared like Adam and Eve had when driven from the Garden, perhaps the role hair plays in the link between biology and gender identity would have been more easily understood. Perhaps Royalists and Roundheads need not have fought, murdering the other in the English Civil War.
The taking of a person’s life is the ultimate expression of forced domination, with Roundheads taking off the head of Charles I after nearly two years of debating whether they had the authority to do so (Charles didn’t aid his cause, but rather made it impossible for Parliament not to kill him). And the deliberate daily taking of life is becoming a frightening reality seen all across the United States … the Adversary was a murderer from the beginning, and the Adversary didn’t then and doesn’t today need an assault rifle to kill,
The cultural reality holds that long hair is an outward sign of inner submission … again, the preceding is a touchy subject in this politically correct world.
Again, context gives to a sign its meaning—and the context of the greater culture (of Western culture in general) differs from the context of being inside Christendom, with greater Christendom today being a different context than Christendom in the 1st-Century CE. Hair length as a sign takes its meaning from its context—but the author of Hebrews wrote, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8). So if Christ doesn’t change; if Christ remains the same context yesterday [1st-Century] as Christ is today [21st-Century] and if Christians individually and collective form the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), then what Paul wrote in the 1st-Century about hair length being a sign pertains today inside the Christian Church, but not necessarily outside of the Church.
In 21st-Century Christendom should be as it was in the 1st-Century: the circumcision of record is of the heart, not of the flesh. When the circumcision of record is of the flesh, evidence of circumcision is available for examination, but this isn’t the case with circumcision of the heart. While modest apparel conceals the evidence of fleshly circumcision, the existence of the fleshly body prevents examination of the heart, a euphemism for the non-physical inner self that establishes the pattern for the animation of the flesh. Thus, determining whether a heart [inner self, soul] has been figuratively circumcised comes through the acts, actions, deeds of the flesh, thus by indirect examination.
In a theologically important passage written to the holy ones at Corinth—in a passage in which Paul assigned to “nature” the traditions of “culture” for what Paul wrote about male hair length wasn’t true for Native Americans or for Chinese men in foreign lands—Paul asserts that within the Christian Church hair length and hair covering is a visible determiner for circumcision of the heart, that male and female hair length was a sign that can be read by others revealing whether the inner self [psuche] of the disciple has been raised from death through receipt of a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theou] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christou], with circumcision of the heart coming after the heart has been cleansed by a mental journey of faith from spiritual Babylon [this present world] to the spiritual Land across the River, its outward representation being Sabbath observance.
The Sabbath functions as a spiritual Jordan River. To the east of the Jordan is the mental landscape of spiritual Babylon and the plains of Moab as well as two and a half tribes of Israel. To the west of the Jordan is the mental landscape representing the Promised Land of Israel. And it is from throughout the Promised Land that the people of Israel were to come to worship the Lord in Jerusalem three seasons a year. It is from throughout Sabbatarian Christendom that disciples are to come to where God has placed His name three seasons a year, with this location not being a physical site such as Disney World but a location with theological coordinates.
When the circumcision of record is of the heart, a circumcision that cannot be physically seen with eyes, then a reasonable sign of this circumcision is a Christian’s hair length … when two are one as in marriage (Gen 2:24), these two as one entity have only one head that can be uncovered by circumcision, with this one head entering the woman to join husband to wife as a type and shadow of the indwelling of Christ Jesus being one with the disciple as the Head of the disciple (1 Cor 11:3). With the indwelling of Christ, the heart of the disciple has been circumcised, that is uncovered-by or set free from death [disobedience] so that the inner self can live. This inner self is the head of the fleshly body as Christ Jesus is the Head of the inner self; thereby making the inner self [soul] analogous to both the earthly body of the man Jesus—hence, Paul wrote that disciples individually and collectively are the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27)—as well as analogous to the indwelling Jesus in the soul:
· When the breath of God entered the man Jesus (Mark 1:10), “God” figuratively entered Jesus as the Head of Jesus (1 Cor 11:3), thereby placing the man Jesus in the role of Helpmate to God throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry;
· The Son is “one” with God through the indwelling of the Father in the Son in a relationship symbolized by marriage which has the uncovered head of an Israelite man penetrating his wife and the two becoming one flesh.
· When the breath of Christ enters the inner self of a human person in a manner characterized by the euphemistic expression, the indwelling of Christ, “Christ” [spiritual] enters the inner self, the soul [spiritual] of the person in a manner analogous to man [physical] entering his wife [physical], the two becoming one flesh.
· The inner self, soul, of a person is the head of the person in a manner characterized by the husband being the head of his wife (and by extension, his daughters until they marry), not the head of any other woman;
· Thus, the Christian wife has two heads, one spiritual [Christ in her inner self] and a second physical head, her husband.
· A Christian wife needs to display symbolism disclosing that she has two heads (Christ and her husband); whereas the Christian man needs to display symbolism disclosing that he has one head, Christ.
A Christian who has truly been born of spirit has the indwelling of Christ Jesus, meaning that the inner self of this Christian is to Christ as a Christian wife is to her physical head, her husband. The fleshly body of the Christian is to the now-living inner self as the inner self is to the indwelling Christ, with this latter relationship disclosed through hair and hair length. Both men and women grow hair on the tops of the heads, with this hair becoming spiritually analogous to foreskins covering the heads of biological males … as the fleshly body cannot enter heaven (cannot inherit the kingdom — 1 Cor 15:50) and as such has no legitimacy in heaven, the fleshly body bears to the inner self a relationship analogous to the relationship a woman of ancient Israel bore to her husband: a biological woman in ancient Israel was a non-person and had no legitimacy within the nation.
In general, women in Western nations have not yet forgiven God for assigning to women non-person status, but the flesh of both men and women have non-spiritual status. And when the flesh (the things made) serves as a shadow and copy of a thing of God, with the head of the penis representing the head of a man, women shouldn’t feel as angry as they do for intuitively, they know what a man thinks-with.
When circumcision makes naked (uncovers) the head of a man, and when the flesh is no longer of importance, the head of a Christian is not symbolized by the head of the penis, but by the “head” in which thoughts occur, with both men and women now being equal in that both have heads.
Hair is the natural covering of the head that sits atop a person’s shoulders, with the woman’s lack of facial hair separating her from her husband. Thus, the presence or absence of facial fair is not the “sign” corresponding to male circumcision. Short hair on the head of the male corresponds to male circumcision; whereas long hair on the female head corresponds to the woman’s lack of a penis to be circumcised. Thus, a woman’s hair is her glory; is her revealing of her feminine inner self that has no physical biology, that is not inherently either male or female.
Because hair on the human head is as “natural” as male foreskins, the clipping of hair aptly represents the clipping of foreskins. Not clipping the hair equally represents not being circumcised outwardly. But hair length says nothing [signifies nothing] about marital status. Thus, every Christian woman should have long hair, and every Christian man should have short, or clipped hair, but if the Christian woman is married, she has a second head, her husband, and for the sake of angels she should signify that she is under the authority of her husband by wearing on her head a second covering, a fabric covering, and preferably one she has made with her own hands as she chose to be married.
The Christian woman who refuses to cover her hair with a fabric covering of some sort, whether a hat or scarf or cap, signifies to the angels as well as to men and women that she will choose for herself whether or when she will submit to her husband, that she will not submit simply because she is married. Sobeit. Why should Christ Jesus marry this woman who will not submit to her husband? Most likely, He won’t.
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The subject will be continued in Section +#4.
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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."