We Start Over — Again - Commentary From the Margins - May 3, 2016

May 3, 2016 ©Homer Kizer

Commentary — From the Margins

We Start Over — Again

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This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Pet 3:1–7 double emphasis added)

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Indeed, all things continue as they have: politicians promise more than they can deliver until they are in office, then they blame the opposition for preventing them from fulfilling campaign promises … it’s always the other person’s fault. It is never their fault; it is never their ideas that fail; it is never their policies that produce national ruin. For American Democrats, it is those rascally Republicans in Congress that prevent the “good” from getting accomplished that President Obama wants to do as the nation hurries toward fiscal bankruptcy (hopefully, as far as Democrats are concerned, when a Republican is in the White House).

Indeed, it is the fault of the opposition party–and with God, the opposition is presently in power. It is the Adversary that reigns as the prince of this world, not Christ Jesus. It is the Adversary that is responsible for the Holocaust, not God, Father and Son. It is the Adversary that is responsible for Islamic fundamentalists beheading “Christians” that long ago rebelled against God; that long ago jettisoned Moses and chose instead to baptize pagan traditions, giving new life and a sense of reborn piety to ancient traditions for which the Lord sent both the house of Israel and the house of Judah into national captivity.

What’s God, again Father and Son, to do when a second Israel—greater Christendom—demonstrates that it is as unbelieving as the natural descendants of the patriarchs were and still are? Is God to simply ignore the unbelief of “Christians”? Is God to intervene to save a people that profess that He is their Creator and Savior, but that will not put into practice the simplest principle of love for Him, this principle being belief that the Beloved of Him created all things physical and then entered the Beloved’s creation as the Beloved’s unique Son, the man Jesus the Nazarene. The Beloved didn’t become the Son of the Most High God until the Beloved was raised from the watery grave of baptism by John …

Again, Peter wrote to dispersed Christians who “believed” Moses:

They deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished (2 Pet 3:5–6) …

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. (1 Pet3:21–22)

But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Pet 3:7)

By God delivering this present world to the Adversary for the destruction of the fleshly body of all persons through the death of the flesh, not necessarily in water as in the days of Noah, but now in a baptism of fire that kills both the inner and outer self, God can see what is in every person’s heart; for the person who doesn’t believe God exists will not try to “do good” to please God, but will or will not do good because of what is in the person’s heart, thereby disclosing the nature of the person’s inner self even before the Second Passover liberation of the second Israel, this liberation being from indwelling sin and death through being filled with the spirit of God.

When a person doesn’t believe God exists, the person will not falsify the person’s deeds in a vain attempt to curry favor with God: who the person “is” will show in those things that the person does. If the person, a genuine son of God, born of spirit, believes that a Second Passover liberation of a second Israel will occur, this person will do those things indicating that he or she believes that the Second Passover is a future reality, not just fodder for Christian chat-groups. The believer will conduct him or herself in a manner disclosing that the person really believes that the single kingdom of spiritual Babylon will collapse suddenly, dropped by two “blows,” the first being the death of all uncovered firstborns at the beginning of seven years of tribulation, and the second being the sudden death of a third part of remaining humanity approximately 1260 days later (actually, 1230 days later, thirty days—if time is not cut short for the sake of the Elect—before dominion over the single kingdom of the world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man).

The born-of-spirit son of God who truly believes that spiritual Babylon will fall will act like the person believes, in that he or she will have taken whatever measures that are within the person’s means to become self-sufficient, able to not only feed him or herself, but also hungry neighbors, as many as come to hear and believe what the son of God has to say about what has happened and about what will happen. And this is the opposite of the “survivalist mentality” that screams, I’ve got mine, and I have the means to protect what I have. The person can protect nothing: this person’s life will be required of the person because he or she didn’t love God, brother, and neighbor. For if the person truly loved God, the person would have believed God about the fall of Babylon and would have prepared for the fall of Babylon and its subsequent consequences. The person, without ever consciously asking the question, would have by the person’s actions asked of him or herself, How can I serve my neighbors when the present social order collapses?

The Christian Church has a physical face but no body, no substance. And this physical face is that of the Elect who are each a fractal of Christ Jesus … the spiritual Body of Christ died at the end of the 1^st-Century (100–102 CE), and will not “live again” until after the Second Passover liberation of a second Israel.

The Adversary is today the “god” that greater Christendom worships while believing that it worships the Father and the Son …

Yes, the above it correct: presently, the Adversary—Satan, the Devil, that old serpent that has deceived all of the world (Rev 12:9)—remains the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2), the prince of this world, even though Christ Jesus qualified to replace him as prince of the power of the air nearly two millennia ago.

It now appears it will be exactly two millennia ago when the Second Advent occurs; for the prophets of old, about whom Peter said endtime disciples should remember their predictions, did a little more than “predict” with words. They predicted through actions, deeds—and we as endtime disciples are to comprehend the symbolism of their actions as they occasionally acted out in type events that were certain to happen.

When I came to the tip of Michigan’s Thumb, I became acquainted with the work of Stephen E. Jones (dob January 29, 1950), and what I perceived as spiritual silliness as he sought to act out by himself or with a few believers prophecies in a manner analogous to how Ezekiel lay restrained on his side. While Jones’ intentions were probably honorable, he had no understanding of biblical prophecy. His ignorance was so great that his 1992 “eye-opening study of Acts 3:21"—

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago (Acts3:19–21 emphasis added)

—was an eye-opening-study of a Second Sophist Greek novel, not an inspired study of Christ Jesus, the true Word [Logos] of God. Thus, those things he did and has done since 1992 have been done with him being an agent of the Adversary, a different sort of agent than ministers employed within traditional Christian orthodoxy, but nevertheless as an agent used to discredit any enactment of future reenactment of prophecies of God, Father and Son.

In 2003, I left “Little Egypt,” how the southwest portion of Illinois identifies itself—and I wrote a Commentary about “being called out from Egypt” that caused my former associates offense; for they remained in this figurative “Egypt,” the representation of sin. But I did not consider that I was somehow fulfilling biblical prophecy by my relocation from Vienna, Illinois, to Bedford, Pennsylvania. After all, the author of Matthew’s Gospel wrote that Jesus, as a small child leaving Egypt was the spiritual fulfillment of Hosea’s prophecy about the Lord calling His son out from Egypt:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,

and out of Egypt I called my son.

The more they were called, the more they went away;

they kept sacrificing to the Baals

and burning offerings to idols. (Hos 11:1–2)

Indented lines are spiritual portions of couplets.

As I grew in grace and knowledge, I realized there was a fundamental problem with Matthew’s Gospel: it wasn’t about the physical man Jesus the Nazarene. It was about the indwelling spiritual Christ Jesus, whose spirit [pneuma Christou] enters into (penetrates) our human spirit [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] to cause the person to be born of spirit and thereby a son of God possessing the mind of Christ. For there is no historical record of Herod ordering the death of male infants in the decade when the human child would have been born. The Messiah will not be the biological son of David, but a root-shoot growing from the stump of Jesse (Isa 11:1–5), with this reality being the means through which Matthew’s Jesus silences the Pharisees when He asks them about Psalm 110;1 (Matt 22:41–46). Plus, there are more generations between Abraham and Joseph than three sets of fourteen generations, enough more generations that the author of Matthew’s Gospel didn’t make a “mistake” in claiming three sets of fourteen generations but was sending a coded message forward through time and cultures, a message to be read at the end of the age by disciples who have the mind of Christ as he had the mind of Christ. Therefore, the “Jesus” about whom Matthew wrote,

And he [Joseph] rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son." (Matt 2:14–15),

is not and cannot be the physical man Jesus, but can only be the spiritual man.

And as a “type” of God, Father and Son, calling a human person out from this world—a person foreknown by the Father and predestined to be glorified as fruit borne out of season—the first two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel best pertain to the human person (this human person) born as an infant son of God. Hence, every human son of Adam who becomes a son of God through the indwelling of Christ Jesus is figuratively “called out of Egypt,” that is called out from sin/unbelief.

I was called out from Egypt and given a “royal” Israelite lineage through the indwelling of Christ Jesus, not through any good thing I did. So the first two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel pertain to me as these first two chapters pertain to every other Christian genuinely born of spirit. However, there was a literalness given to being called out from Egypt when my wife and I left Southern Illinois to take positions in the reconstructed Old Bedford Village as reenactors engaged in period correct activities while wearing period correct costume … I preached one sermon, and a retired minister on the Village’s board of directors said there was a real danger that I might convert someone, and that would never do. So while my wife continued as the village dressmaker, I carved wood and did not preach again from the elevated pulpit in the old church.

I left Little Egypt for the pulpit of historical Christendom, but I didn’t preach an orthodox message: I preached about prophecy, and about Ezekiel chapters 33 & 34, especially,

Say this to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and whoever is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence. And I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and her proud might shall come to an end, and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that none will pass through. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed. As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, “Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.” And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them. (Ezk 33:27–33)

They will know that a prophet has been among them—

How will they know there was a prophet among them? He is no longer among them, but his words come to pass nevertheless.

Allegedly, the age of prophets is over; yet Matthew’s Jesus said to His disciples in the physical portion of Matthew’s gospel:

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives Him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. (Matt 10:39–42 double emphasis added)

Matthew’s Jesus didn’t think the age of prophets was over, or that prophets wouldn’t go out from Him in the future. It is historical Christian orthodoxy that believes the age of prophets has passed. Arian Christendom, and especially neo-Arian Christian sects and denominations hold open or try to keep fulfilled the office of “Prophet,” for these sects and denominations realize that a sealed and kept secret prophecy cannot be read or understood with generation of a hypertext that takes typological exegesis beyond intertextuality and into the realm of the production of “new text” that is actually old text, the message of the little scroll being delivered again to Israel.

This Commentary will not be truly completed until after I have relocated to a remote Aleutian island, Adak (now a virtual ghost town), where modern swords will be beaten into plowshares; where ammunition bunkers will become potato sheds. Therefore, this Commentary will be delivered in sections, hopefully with one more posted on-line before I head north on the second Passover in reenacting Isaiah’s famous prophecy. And yes, I will be leaving the Lower 48 on the second Passover, a date chosen for departure in January, without any forethought that the date was the second Passover. Awareness of the significance of the date only came after my pickup went by barge north in March.

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Homer Kizer Ministries