The Chronology of the Horsemen Part Two: Eunuchs for Christ (1 of 2) - Commentary From the Margins - September 1, 2014

September 17, 2014 ©Homer Kizer

Commentary — From the Margins

The Chronology of the Horsemen

Part Two: Eunuchs for Christ (1 of 2)

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Now I [John] watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, "Come!" And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer. When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword. When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!" When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" And I looked, and behold, 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 6:1–8 emphasis and double emphasis added)

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Paul understood the movement from physical to spiritual that is best expressed in the circumcision no longer being of the flesh but of the heart, a euphemistic expression for no longer being stubborn (“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” — Deut 10:16); no longer being hostile to God, and filled with unbelief of God. But circumcision of heart requires being set free from enslavement to disobedience originating in unbelief of the sort that kept the nation of Israel that left Egypt from entering the Promised Land (Ps 95:10–11; Heb 3:19); being circumcised of heart comes from the Israelite believing the Lord as Abraham believed the Lord and had his belief counted to him as righteousness before he was outwardly circumcised. Being circumcised of heart will cause the person to leave wherever he or she resides ideologically and to mentally journey to the Promised Land where the person will dwell as an outwardly uncircumcised Israelite. For the Israelite circumcised of heart is neither male nor female (Gal 3:28), but has become a eunuch serving the King of kings.

And Pharisees came up to Him and tested Him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" He [Jesus] answered, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?" He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for [porneia — a marriage that should not have occurred], and marries another, commits adultery." The disciples said to Him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." But He said to them, "Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it." (Matt 19:3–12 emphasis and double emphasis added)

According to Matthew’s Jesus, not everyone is able to negate the physical desires of the flesh, becoming eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens [always plural in Matthew’s Gospel]; not through literal castration but through focusing thoughts on the kingdom and on things spiritual rather than on things physical.

The context for Matthew’s Jesus saying there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom is Pharisees testing Him on the subject of divorce, the separation of husband from wife, with Moses permitting divorce because of the hardness of Israel’s hearts, a root from which stubbornness grows and bears its fruit of refusal to repent, the core of which is unbelief. If an Israelite had genuine love for God—the sort of love that God requires of firstfruits--the Israelite would understand that he [or she] needs to subjugate his [or her] wants and desires to the person with whom the Israelite shares a house, with the house forming a representation of the fleshly body and with the female representing the soul and the male representing the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou]. If the female with whom the male shares a house is a sister rather than a wife, both the male and the female will be functional eunuchs, not engaging in physical intercourse but nonetheless subjugating themselves to the other. Thus, if a male Christian lives with his sister, also a Christian, both will affectively be eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom, expressing brotherly love to one another; for without the sort of brotherly love that would have a Christian willing to die for his or her brother, the Christian misses the mark. The Christian sins in a way that Christ would find difficult to excuse, meaning that if the Christian is numbered among the Elect, Christ will disciple the Christian in ways the Christian doesn’t want to experience.

Christian love for brother is more than providing food and shelter for the brother: it consists of opening the Christian’s self to his brother. A man provides food and shelter to the livestock for which he cares; yet chickens and calves or even cats are not brothers of Christians. They are beasts. So how much more is expected of a Christian in relationship to another Christian—enough more that divorce should never occur between truly converted Christians. Likewise, in the house in which two Christian brothers dwell, regardless of whether these brothers are male and female or two males or two females, love for brother should be great enough that problems resolve themselves without fights or separation, meaning that the Christian brothers must subjugate their wills to the other and no longer be stubborn or have a hardened heart. Only spiritual infants will have difficulty subjugating their will to another; for what does it mean to be great within the assembly of Christ? Does it not mean service to others, setting the one who would be great’s will aside for the sake of his brother or brothers?

Jesus called them [the ten who were indignant at James and John] to Him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matt 20:25–28)

Between two Christians, the one who is greater will be the one who serves the other. Between a man and his wife, both Christians, the one who serves the other is greatest, regardless of gender. Between brother and sister, both Christians and eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom, the one who serves the other is greatest, again regardless of gender. Between a disciple and Christ Jesus, the one who serves the other is greatest—and Christ died for the disciple while the disciple remained a sinner (Rom 5:8), thereby serving the disciple in a way that the disciple can only approximate by dying for his brother, fellow Christian, meaning completely subjugating the willful self to the brother.

Who can love his brother with a love great enough that the Christian doesn’t insist on having his way in his own house? Not the spiritual infant. Not the Nicolaitan. Not the sexist male, nor the militant feminist, each of whom are selfish and stubborn, manifesting the absence of circumcision of the heart. It is the mature Christian that is truly able to serve brother and neighbor as Christ Jesus served His disciples, dying for the sins of natural Israel and bearing the future sins of spiritual Israel.

Before proceeding farther from what Matthew’s Jesus said when tested by Pharisees: does God join together every marriage? No, not at all. God doesn’t enter into marriages of Nonbelievers, but permits Nonbelievers to remain far from Him. Likewise, God doesn’t bind together marriages of the dead, those individuals not yet born of spirit and thus far from Him. It is only in marriages of Believers where God is involved, regardless of whether the marriage is between one Believer and a spiritually dead person or between two Believers, with Paul writing,

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. (1 Cor 7:6–15 emphasis added)

The justification for Paul saying that if an unbelieving spouse [a spiritually dead person] leaves a marriage in which the spouse’s partner has been raised to life after the human marriage occurred, thus becoming a son of God, the believing partner is not bound to the Unbeliever comes from the living not being bound to the dead: physical death ends a marriage. Therefore, the unbelieving spouse choosing to remain spiritually dead [i.e., far from God] is analogous to physical death, which is just cause to end a marriage and permit the believing spouse to remarry, but only remarry a spiritually living person.

It is, however, in Paul saying that he wished all were as he was, a voluntary eunuch for Christ, where spiritual understanding resides … I was in Alaska and had flown into Anchorage for services when Herbert Armstrong introduced the subject of him marrying again, saying that like Paul, he was an apostle, and he didn’t agree with Paul that it was better for those Christians who were single to remain single, eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom, and he asked what sort of wife could accompany him as he flew around the world, seeking audiences with heads of state, a doddering old woman? And in his videotaped message, he pretended to hobble across the stage. I knew, we knew then that he intended to remarry a younger woman, someone even younger than his daughters. He did—and his marriage ended within a short while, but cost the Church roughly a million and a half dollars.

It was, however, Armstrong claiming equality with the Apostle Paul that bothered me at the time … in spiritual understanding, Armstrong never approached Paul. In analogy, Armstrong trekked into the Promised Land that represented Sabbath observance, and he journeyed all the way to Jerusalem (represented by keeping the high Sabbaths), where he turned his back on God and built for himself a spiritual house. He never found the foundation for the temple of God that Paul laid, this foundation represented by typological exegesis: the visible, physical things of this world revealing and preceding the invisible spiritual things of God (cf. Rom 1:20; 1 Cor 15:46). … Armstrong’s spiritual calling was to kill a work begun by Anabaptist pietists in the 17^th-Century, and he did exactly that. He killed what remained of an already dying attempt to return spiritual life to the dead Body of Christ. His work was tested after his death (16 January 1986), and it did not stand for it was not built on the foundation that Paul laid.

The amount of hubris necessary for Armstrong to proclaim equality with Paul permeated his entire ministry, in which racism and sexism were building blocks; for the ability to receive Matthew’s Jesus saying, there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, wasn’t given to Armstrong.

The person who focuses on the surface of things—on what eyes can see and what ears can hear—is of this world and is not born of spirit as a son of God. Armstrong routinely focused his attention on the surface of things. And while this person might well be included in the resurrection of firstfruits, this person will be numbered among the least in the kingdom because the person unintentionally relaxed the Commandments that would have disciples loving one enough even to the point of being willing to die for one another …

The Christian husband or wife who cannot get along with the other, refusing to subjugate his or her will to the other, thereby revealing the hardness of the person’s heart in the person’s stubbornness, at best relaxes the Commandments and will be least in the kingdom if even entering the kingdom. This, now, will also apply to Christian ministers who exercise assumed headship over a congregation; for these ministers do not represent Christ Jesus. If they speak the words of Christ, where are the miracles that must necessarily accompany words too large to be conveyed by human language? If they speak their own words, why do they exercise dominion over a congregation, this dominion coming through the Adversary? Is it that they like having the chief seat in the assembly?

Are Christian ministers serving the assembly, or served by the assembly? Do Christian husbands serve wives as Christ Jesus served His disciples? Wives certainly serve husbands … what happens when wives get tired of serving husbands who do not seem to appreciate what they do? Do Christian wives have a right to become indignant? No, they don’t. And husbands do not have a right to become indignant because of what their wives do or don’t do. No Christian has this right. Unbelievers retain this right, because unbelievers are not circumcised of heart. They remain stubborn, with hardened hearts, far from God regardless of what their lips profess.

The Christian who places importance on surfaces—gender, skin color, evidence of prosperity—has a mind of flesh, regardless of how spiritual the person pretends to be. This Christian is a spiritual bastard, claiming God as his or her Father but remaining a son of the Adversary; remaining a son of disobedience.

Matthew’s Jesus told His disciples, Not everyone can receive this saying [about being a spiritual eunuch], but only those to whom it is given. Not everyone can abstain from the biological need for sexual release; for marriage in the flesh is a physical thing, the union of physical flesh with physical flesh for physical procreation and satisfaction, with each spouse a potential son of God or an actual son of God … there are no daughters of God. Again, there are sons who shall be great in the Kingdom, and there are sons who will be least in the Kingdom. But upon receiving glorification [indwelling eternal life], human sons of God collectively will inherit the kingdom, with angelic sons of God serving human sons of God. In analogy, if there were female gender among sons of God—there isn’t so a person shouldn’t attempt to insert what cannot exist—all sons of God, human as well as angelic, would be female for even Christ Jesus as a life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45) is an Eve spirit, bringing to life additional sons of God through the indwelling of His spirit [pneuma Christou] in the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou], with the penetration of spirit-in-spirit being analogous to Adam entering Eve and with Jesus giving spiritual birth to sons of God being analogous to Eve bearing Cain, Abel, and Seth. So in the glorified Christ is the spirit of God the Father [pneuma Theou] thus making God the Head of Christ, and in every disciple is the spirit of Christ thus making Christ the Head of every disciple and the Head of the collective Church: “But I [Paul] want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3). And among the fleshly bodies of disciples, husbands enter into their wives, thus making the husband the head of his wife, not of someone else’s wife.

If Jesus is the Head of the Church, the Head of the disciple, how much control of the Church, of the disciple does Jesus actively exercise? Does Jesus use a very soft hand in exercising His headship over the Church? He does, doesn’t He? And how should husbands exercise their headship over their wives? With a very soft hand. The husband should never have to figuratively lay down the law to his wife as if his wife were a child, nor should the wife give her husband cause for exercising his headship over her. Marriage between two sons of God—converted Christians—should be peaceful, with differences addressed in civil discourse, with love for the other causing each to subjugate the will of the Christian to the spouse.

It is children that fight with other children, their childish stubbornness disclosing that their hearts are not spiritually circumcised.

What Matthew’s Jesus declared that except for porneia—marriages that should not have occurred as in marriage between brother and sister or in marriage based upon fraud—the person who divorces and marries another commits adultery is based upon the model of the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] bodily entering into [eis, from Mark 1:10] the man Jesus the Nazarene in the form of a dove and thereby becoming the Head of Christ Jesus, who when glorified breathes on ten of His disciples and says, Receive spirit holy (John 20:22), thereby causing His spirit/breath/pneuma to enter into His disciples, causing the spirit of God in Jesus to be in the spirit of Christ that the glorified Jesus delivered to these ten disciples by breathing on them.

Convoluted? Not really. A husband enters his wife and leaves a deposit in his wife, this deposit possibly leading to offspring of the husband. God the Father entered Christ Jesus in the bodily form of the dove, leaving His spirit [pneuma Theou, what actually entered into Jesus] in Christ Jesus, with His spirit giving heavenly life to the spirit of the human man Jesus the Nazarene and with the now living indwelling spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] becoming the Firstborn Son of God. The fleshly body of the man Jesus wasn’t the Firstborn Son of God; for the fleshly body of Jesus came from Mary’s womb, came from an ovum inside of Mary that was given life by the Logos, who was God [Theos] and who was with the God [ton Theon] in primacy [arche] when This One [’o Theos] entered His creation as His unique Son (John 1:1–3; 3:16).

Strict monotheism comes from focus on the physical creation which came from the Creator, the Beloved of the God, rather than on the God, whose spirit entered into the man Jesus the Nazarene in the bodily form of a dove. Neither Israel nor the world knew the God, whom Jesus came to reveal to His disciples, also firstborn sons of the God. Hence, the resurrected Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, “‘Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”’” (John 20:17).

Judaism doesn’t worship God, the Father. Islam doesn’t worship the Father. Arian Christendom doesn’t worship the Father, and Trinitarian Christian doesn’t fully understand the difference between the Father, His breath/spirit, and Christ Jesus, whose breath/spirit is also holy.

The naming word <Christian> was long ago compromised by the spiritual death of the Body of Christ. Thus, today, Christians have the same divorce rate as their unbelieving neighbors; have the same crime rate, the same life expectancy, the same prosperity. Christians appear in this world the same as their unbelieving neighbors, which is to Christendom’s shame. But really, Christians are unbelievers almost without exception. If they weren’t, Christian marriages would stay together.

Because the spirit of God entered into the man Jesus and remained in Him when raised from baptism, if spiritual gender were to be assigned to Jesus, He would have been to God as Eve was to Adam, with God and Christ being one deity as Adam and Eve were one flesh. But in analogy, the Logos (from John 1:1) was to God as Eve was to Adam. And Jesus as the unique Son of the Logos (John 3:16) didn’t become the wife of God when the spirit of God entered into Him, but the Son of God, the Firstborn Son of many sons of God, all of whom would be brought to life by the spirit of Christ entering into them, thus making them analogous to Isaac if Christ Jesus is foreshadowed by the patriarch Abraham, with this being the basis for Paul’s tour-de-force allegory found in Galatians chapter 4.

But analogies and allegories break down at a certain point … the patriarch Isaac brings to life two sons, Esau, hated before birth, and Jacob, deceitful from birth. If what Paul wrote to the Galatians is true, that they were Isaac; that 1^st-Century disciples were spiritual Isaac, then are 21^st-Century disciples Isaac? No, they are not. Collectively, they will be in the Affliction [the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years] either spiritual Esau or spiritual Jacob, the sons of a spiritual Rebekah via Isaac. But as Abraham sent his servant back to his own land [Ur of the Chaldeans] to get from his people a bride for Isaac, Christ Jesus will send His servant back to His own land and people to bring out from spiritual Babylon a remnant of Israel—His servant will be the two witnesses, two that are one, that function as one as Moses and Aaron were two brothers that functioned as one spokesman for the Lord.

As Eve, after being driven from the Garden, gave birth to two sons, Cain and Abel, the glorified Christ Jesus, after the death of the Body of Christ at the end of the 1^st-Century CE, will give birth to two spiritual sons at the beginning of the seven endtime years of tribulation, with this analogy now placing Christ Jesus in the position of Isaac, the promised seed [offspring] of the patriarch Abraham … the death of the Body of Christ from want of the holy spirit occurred when the Father choose not to draw any more persons from this world and deliver them to Christ Jesus: no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws the person from this world (John 6:44, 65). Drawing persons and delivering them to Christ wasn’t working: too many were being siphoned off, either back into Judaism or back into Greek pantheism. Paul’s ongoing struggle with the Circumcision Faction discloses how difficult it was to get former Sadducees and Pharisees to grasp spiritual concepts, and where greater Christendom is today discloses the extent to which Greek paganism entered into Christianity, beginning mid 1^st-Century as C.S Mosna established in his 1969 thesis for Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, referenced by Samuele Bacchiocchi in From Sabbath to Sunday.

Paul addressed this conflicting analogous relationship posed by the glorified Jesus, the Beloved of God before He received the spirit of God [pneuma Theou], when he wrote,

There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. 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. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:40–49 emphasis added)

Jesus is both the last Adam and the last Eve; He represents both spiritual Abraham as well as, 1900 years later, spiritual Isaac in the form of His indwelling in the Elect, with the Elect to function as Christ Jesus, not as the Body of Christ. For the Elect are unable of themselves to bring anyone to Christ, or to give birth to additional sons of God. The Elect are spiritual eunuchs, not by their choice (for none of the Elect chose themselves, but all were chosen by God the Father foreknowing and predestining the person) but by the choice of God the Father. Thus, the analogy that follows what Matthew’s Jesus said about porneia needs to be here cited:

Then children were brought to Him that He might lay His hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." And He laid His hands on them and went away. (Matt 19:13–15)

Again, analogies shift and like symbols, breakdown when pushed too far; for one thing isn’t another thing. What is physical isn’t spiritual. And language itself is physical so language itself can only approximate what is spiritual, the reason why spiritual matters are presented in multiple analogies or metaphors [figurative speech], with Jesus telling His disciples,

I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (John 16:25–27)

Children are, effectively, sexual eunuchs, not that they will remain eunuchs. They will, usually before parents are ready, become sexual creatures. But in their infancy and adolescence, they do not reproduce other children. They do not [should not] marry or be given in marriage. They have enough to do in learning how to be responsible adults; for a child doesn’t need to be taught to be a child (for the child will not long remain a child) but needs to be taught how to function in an adult world where sexuality is used to sell hamburgers and automobiles.

Sons of God are spiritually born as infants, able only to ingest the milk of the Word of God:

But I [Paul], brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? (1 Cor 3:1–3)

And,

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Heb 5:11–14)

The juxtaposition of physical children and being spiritual eunuchs in what Matthew’s Jesus tells Pharisees seeking to test Him with His disciples overhearing what’s said and responding just before He enters Jerusalem where He will be penned as the selected Passover Lamb of God is neither accidental nor coincidental; for the author of Matthew’s Gospel was not constrained by historical accuracy (in other words, the author of Matthew’s Gospel used historical events and the form of a biography to deliver the fullness of Christ in a manner not appreciated by greater Christendom). Sons of God are spiritual eunuchs because of their spiritual immaturity, and not every son of God is able to comprehend the movement from physical to spiritual, from hand to heart, reflected in “hearing” the inscribed words of Jesus forming approximations of hearing the groaning of the spirit, with this groaning originating from receipt of the Parakletos, the spirit of truth.

The Parakletos, itself, serves as a metaphor for the indwelling of the spirit of God in the spirit of Christ in the spirit of the person that is, in turn, in the soul [psuche] of the person. The correspondence between the spirit of God entering into the spirit of Christ (thereby becoming the Head of Christ) and the spirit of Christ entering into the spirit of the person (thereby becoming the Head of the son of God) is continued in the humanly born person, who is physically born with a dead spirit that is raised from death through the indwelling of the spirit of Christ, thereby bringing to life the spirit that is in the soul of the person, with the soul being analogous to the man Jesus and the spirit of the person being analogous to Jesus’ spirit both prior-to and following receipt of the spirit of God in the bodily form of a dove.

Language usage makes what is really simple complicated and convoluted; for there is really only one physical model for spiritual birth, that of Adam and Eve, followed by Eve giving birth to Cain and Abel (Seth replaces Abel as the third part of humanity [from Zech 13:9] in the Endurance replaces believing Christians slain by their brothers in the Affliction). Christians in the 1^st-Century can be divided into types of spiritual Cain and Abel, with the reality of spiritual Cain and Abel coming on-scene in the 21^st-Century. Christians in both the 1^st and 21^st-Centuries can be divided into spiritual Esau and Jacob, thereby inserting a complication in the Cain/Abel model that permits some Christians in the Affliction to live as Jacob lived by fleeing from his brother. This complication additionally permits some rebelling Christians to live as Esau lived to prosper and to repent of his desire to slay his brother, with Caleb, who was of Esau but who had about him a different spirit, entering the Promised Land.

When language usage prevents the Christian from understanding the mysteries of God, then it is language usage that produces the prophesied famine of the Word of God, famine coming from the physical mind’s inability to sustain metaphorical thought, or to grasp the complexity of multiple metaphors for the same spiritual reality … human language and in particular, inscribed language came into existence to describe the things of this world; the things encountered daily, seasonally, annually, from weather and crops to human relationships, life and death; from how to make bricks to how to smelt, forge, and temper metals. Language use occurs among animal species, with cats having, I believe, twenty-five vocalizations that have meaning to other cats and with whale vocalizations [whale songs] carrying meaning from equator to each pole. So language usage isn’t unique to humanity, but in no other species has language use approached the sophistication that it has among human persons who record the past as well as the present and then make projections about the future.

When language usage is intended to convey physical knowledge, words function as mimetic, metaphoric, or metonymic representatives of/for physical things, not spiritual things that lack substance and defined surfaces by their very nature of being spiritual. Therefore, regardless of whether a word serves as a mimetic representative of a physical thing [a “table” being a table] or as a metaphoric representative [“she is a fox”] or as a metonymic representative [“the White House said…”], all word usage is unable to directly name or describe spiritual matters or things. So in order to describe an invisible spiritual concept, a metaphor has to be used in a second-level metaphor, thereby causing metaphors to be laid atop metaphors—

Declaring one “thing” to be another thing when it isn’t, then using this declaration to establish an unprovable reality tends to cause the Christian laity to throw hands in the air and accept literal readings of Scripture even when the Christian intuitively knows that these literal readings are contradictory; that Scripture contradicts Scripture. For most Christians, it is easier to compartmentalize contradictions, believing each contradiction to be true, than it is to untangle metaphors that circle back upon themselves to bite their tails.

Permit me to illustrate how difficult it is to sustain a metaphor, that of the Christian disciple being a spiritual eunuch through being an infant son of God; for the human person that self-identifies him or herself as a Christian cannot be a literal son of God, nor can a human male whose testicles remain intact be a eunuch:

King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold … [then] sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the herald proclaimed aloud, "You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace." Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Therefore at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, "O king, live forever! You, O king, have made a decree, that every man who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." (Dan 3:1–12)

The common people were not commanded to stand before the gold image Nebuchadnezzar had made: they were expected to worship it through the worship of their overseers, the satraps, etc., who were assembled before it by command of the king. So of all Israel then in Babylon, it was only those Jews who held official positions that stood before the gold image. And all of these Jews would have been eunuchs, made so while they were still youths:

Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. (Dan 1:3–4)

Yes, the prophet Daniel, a counselor to the king, would have been a eunuch, as would have been his friends. As such Daniel and his friends would have been unable to enter the temple at Jerusalem if the temple still stood: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of [YHWH]” (Deut 23:1). But because the Chaldeans had razed Solomon’s temple, the way to God was open to all. No high priest stood between a person and God. No high priest stood between Daniel and the Lord; so Daniel and his friends had the same access to God as disciples today have—

Every person worldwide presently has access to God because the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27) that is the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16) is spiritually dead, equivalent to Solomon’s temple having been razed by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. For textual confirmation that the way to God was not yet open for as long as the temple stood, see Hebrews 9:8–9 … the existence of the temple with its high priest and Holy of Holies into which the high priest went but once a year disclosed that the way to God was not open a quarter century after Calvary. As long as the temple[s] stood, the way to God was closed by the existence of the temple[s], with the temple of importance being the living Body of Christ; hence, the destruction of Herod’s temple followed by the spiritual death of the Body of Christ opened the way to God so that what both Paul’s gospel and Matthew’s Gospel proclaimed become true:

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. (Rom 2:12–16 emphasis added)

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on his glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Then He will say to those on His left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” Then He will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matt 25:31–46)

In Paul’s gospel as he expresses it to the holy ones at Rome, there is no barrier between the person and God, no temple, no priesthood, no Christian clergy … opponents of Philipp Spener (1635–1705 CE) derided his theological works by referring to the concepts expressed as Pietism, but Spener himself maintained throughout his ministry that he was not a Pietist for he did not advocate the quiet, legalistic, and semi-separatist practices of Pietism that naturally evolved from his six principles: Bible study in private meetings; a universal priesthood of believers; the practice of beliefs; embracing heterodox Christians and unbelievers; theological training giving prominence to the devotional life; a different style of preaching, one that implants Christianity in the inner man—

Paul had Pietist practices and tendencies; for how can a Christian profess that Jesus is Lord, then not strive to walk in this world as Jesus walked? And how can the Bible be studied in a Christian mega-church? How can a Christian not have love for neighbor and brother even though both have heterodox beliefs?

According to Paul, the person who sins with or without the Law will perish for it is doers of the Law that are justified, not the person who preaches Christ with great enthusiasm but privately lives as a Gentile. According to Paul, the unbeliever that manifests the works of the Law—having love for neighbor and brother—shall be saved even though the person’s thoughts accuse the person of missing the mark; accuse the person of being a sinner.

In Matthew’s Gospel, those who will be saved manifest love for neighbor and brother through feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and giving shelter to the homeless, thereby fulfilling the Law that would also have them loving God by obeying Him. But if God doesn’t choose to reveal Himself to the person, the person will nevertheless be saved through loving neighbor and brother, but saved in the great White Throne Judgment rather than in the resurrection of firstfruits. And in there being two resurrections—the first when Christ Jesus returns as the Messiah, the second a thousand years later when this present earth and heaven are replaced by a new, non-physical heaven and earth—is a major Christian doctrine that has been concealed from greater Christendom through the famine of the Word.

As there were two grain harvests in ancient Judea, a harvest of firstfruits [barley] and a maincrop wheat harvest, there will be two resurrections of human persons, one before the Thousand Years of the Millennium, one after these Thousand Years. But —and through the inclusion of a Sophist novel in the New Testament, specifically, Acts 4:10–12, where Peter declares that there is salvation in no other name but that of Christ Jesus—Christians and especially Sabbatarian Christians have not appreciated the openness of salvation coming to all who live a life that actively manifests love for others equal to or greater than love for self, the Golden Rule in application.

According to Matthew’s Jesus, a good person need not proclaim that Jesus is Lord to be saved; need not have any knowledge of Christ Jesus, but rather, needs to have demonstrated love for neighbor and brother. And this is the reality of what Paul declares his gospel is in Romans 2:14–16 although he seems to contradict himself in Romans 10:6–10,

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Rom 10:4–10)

Paul’s citation is from the Moab Covenant (Deut chaps 29–32; specially 30:11–14), made with the children of Israel then present on the plains of Moab and with the children of Israel not then present.

Compare what Peter says in this passage in Acts with Paul’s gospel and with what Jesus declared in Matthew’s Gospel. Either Peter as represented by the author of Acts doesn’t understand salvation, doesn’t understand what Jesus taught, or both Paul and the author of Matthew’s Gospel don’t understand salvation. The passages are not reconcilable as written. And since the Book of Acts is a Second Sophist novel, to base a theology on Acts 4:12 is to believe a lie and a liar, the Adversary.

Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel tells His disciples, “‘But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come’” (doubled emphasis added) … does enduring to the end have anything to do with salvation coming only via the name [authority] of Christ Jesus? It does not, but it does although not in the way taught within greater Christendom; for context gives meaning to any sign, including word or language usage—and the context for Matthew’s Jesus declaring that all who endure to the end shall be saved is the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years, the Endurance of Jesus. At this time, dominion over the single kingdom of this world will have been taken from the Adversary and his angels and given to the Son of Man, Head and Body, thereby making the glorified Christ the reigning prince of the power of the air. All persons alive will have been baptized in spirit, thereby filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God. All will have the Law written on hearts and placed in minds so that all know the Lord. Therefore, all a person has to do to be saved is endure to the end without taking upon the person the mark of death, the tattoo [stigma] of Christ’s [chi] cross [xi].

In the Endurance of Jesus—the last 1260 days before the glorified Jesus returns as the Messiah—the third part of humanity not physically or spiritually slain in the Affliction [the previous 1260 days] will be spiritually as Seth was physically. This third part (from Zech 13:9) has only to endure to the end to be saved; for by being baptized in spirit and coming to know the Lord through having the Torah written on hearts and placed within the person, all will know Christ Jesus as Lord and all will know the Father as the One who raised Jesus from death. What Paul wrote will be true for every person not marked for death by having taken upon the person the mark of the beast, the cross shaped demonic king who was dealt a moral wound with the resurrection of the two witnesses and whose body was given over to be burned (Dan 7:11–12) when dominion over the single kingdom of this world was taken from the Adversary and his angels on doubled day 1260.

What Paul declared is prophetically true, but doesn’t pertain to one resurrection but to two: the resurrection of firstfruits and the great White Throne Judgment about which nothing was really known prior to John’s vision [the Book of Revelation]. Paul couldn’t write or speak about what he saw when he visited the third heaven: “And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (2 Cor 12:3–4).

If Paul saw the present state of the greater Christian Church or if he saw what would happen to Christians in the Affliction, he could not tell his 1^st-Century converts what he saw; for why would these converts continue in the faith if the Body of Christ would shortly die and two millennia would pass before Christ Jesus returned? A famine of the Word would necessarily result …

If the Body of Christ died so that the way to God was opened to all for a season, then what Paul wrote to the holy ones at Rome about Judaism also pertains to greater Christendom:

I ask, then, has God rejected His people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life." But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened … I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! (Rom 11:1–12 emphasis and doubled emphasis added)

The Elect are foreknown by God the Father and predestined to be glorified while they continue to dwell in fleshly houses. Whereas Paul writes about the elect being a remnant of Israel chosen by grace, separating his elect from Gentiles grafted onto the Root of Righteousness, the endtime Elect is a remnant of Christianity chosen by the Father to be born of spirit in a spiritual birth analogous to Jesus’ spiritual birth whereas the rest of Christianity has had their hearts hardened through being consigned to disobedience because of their unbelief … what Paul wrote about Israel in the 1^st-Century is true for spiritual Israel in the 21^st-Century, with the Elect chosen by faith, by belief of God, by hearing the words of Jesus and believing the One who sent Him into this world (John 5:24), with this belief of God producing obedience leading to righteousness (Rom 6:16).

God has not rejected greater Christendom, but has chosen not to give many His spirit in the spirit of Christ, which represents indwelling eternal life. For the same reason Israel in the 1^st-Century was left spiritually blind, greater Christendom is spiritually blind and suffers from a famine of the Word … the trespasses of greater Christendom has opened the door to all of humanity, notably to Islam, to come to God. But so far Islam has chosen to ignore the invitation extended to this ideology, preferring instead to make war with errant Christendom and rabbinical Judaism, thereby making no one jealous of Islam’s zeal for God.

To cut the head off of anyone discloses the person’s or the ideology’s lack of spiritual understanding.

The problem facing greater Christendom when it comes to understanding the mysteries of God is its acceptance of the Bible as the infallible Word of God, thereby causing Christendom to be double-minded, unstable in all of its ways.

When Nebuchadnezzar, the human king of Babylon who formed the shadow and copy of the Adversary as the king of spiritual Babylon (Isa 14:4)—with ancient Babylon forming the shadow and copy of the present era in which humanity is ruled by the Adversary, the prince of the power of the air—required his officials to worship his gold image, the friends of Daniel (also eunuchs and as such unable to enter the temple if it had still stood) did not submit to the king, and in one of the least appreciated symbolic stories in Scripture, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown into the furnace, heated seven times more than it was usually heated. Apparently the furnace was used to cast the gold for the image, thus making the fire in the furnace hot enough to also melt bronze for casting. And if the furnace was hot enough to cast either gold or bronze, the fire in the furnace was nearly three thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were joined in the fire by an angel, and in the company of the angel they passed through the fire without even the smell of scorch on their clothing.

Most every child has been, in Sabbath school, taught about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s faithfulness that had these three placing worship of God before their own safety. Adult Christians are taught the same telling of the story, presented at the same or a similar level of spiritual awareness. Doing so presumes that adult Christians are unable to understand spiritual matters and are spiritual children—

Again, the casting furnace could not physically be heated seven times hotter than heated to cast either gold or bronze. Doing so would require the furnace to be heated to nearly twenty thousand degrees Fahrenheit: the Chaldeans had nothing that would hold that high of a temperature. So the “seven times more” (Dan 3:19) is a quantity expression that transforms the furnace into the lake of fire; is a figurative expression that transforms the story into a symbol, or allegory, with the furnace representing the lake of fire [non-oxidizing fire] that separates the dimensions [that separates unfurled energy forming the four known forces from primal energy]. Thus, the story should be read as an allegory. Its veracity is, therefore, of no particular importance, which isn’t to say that it isn’t true but is to say that its truth or falsity is of no importance to the message conveyed by the story. The narrative would be as important if it were disclosed in a vision as it would be if contained in a Chaldean chronicle, thereby establishing a difference between this story and, say, the Greek Book of Esther with its four major variations (the Book of Esther is probably not true—almost certainly not true—but nevertheless read for its allegorical significance).

In the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, captive Israelite men that have lost their “maleness” (so as to pose less threat to whomever sits on their captor’s throne) are forced to choose between worshiping the invisible Lord or worshiping a visible, physical idol. The reality of these three being eunuchs—no longer male and not female—isn’t addressed when the story is taught as a Sabbath school lesson … Paul wrote to erring saints in Galatia:

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 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 3:25–29)

A male made a eunuch by other men is neither male nor female: his beard doesn’t grow. He is unable to enter a woman. His thoughts are not on physical reproduction. He has been placed in a permanent state of pre-puberty adolescence even as he acquires the knowledge and understanding of an adult human person. He has lost his sexuality and is therefore as an angel would be. He is a perpetual servant of a master, usually an alpha male and usually the one who had him castrated.

A pre-puberty child is either male or female, with different thoughts between the male child and the female child: little boys cannot be made into little girls by dressing them in pink and vice versa [girls in male garb and given male toys] although there are seemingly notable exceptions, previously in the French Court and now with metro-males, heterosexual gays that have their “maleness” in tact but who live and groom themselves as if they were females … these heterosexual gays do not have any particular sexual interest in other males, but nevertheless have adopted the homosexual culture of urban America as their own, thus posing no ideological threat to females either in the home or in the workplace. And because they pose no threat to females, they are better accepted by feminists than are so-called Neanderthals, males who would seem to believe that the woman’s place in society is in the home.

But the pre-puberty child is physically asexual even though a young boy makes engine “sounds” when playing with a toy truck whereas the young girl would prefer to serve “pretend” tea to playmates. Difference exists, but difference without physical sexuality. The problem of metrolization enters when the young boy is hesitant to visit grandpa’s barn because he might get dirty, or because the barn smells. And yes, the metrolization of American boys is a real problem for without boys acquiring traditional post-puberty maleness, the nation—no nation—can long endure.

The prophet Isaiah wrote the following about earthly Jerusalem, the shadow and copy of heavenly Jerusalem:

For behold, the Lord [YHWH] of hosts is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah support and supply, all support of bread, and all support of water; … I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them. … Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for what his hands have dealt out shall be done to him. My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths. (Isa 3:1, 4, 10–12 emphasis added)

Infants are their oppressors and women rule over them—infants are, again, either male or female, but infant males have undeveloped sexuality and as such are not yet fully male, nor are they female, but are as eunuchs are. And when a male doesn’t possess the traditional attributes of post-puberty maleness, women culturally adopt what these males lack and takeover …

Again, before God, all born of spirit disciples are sons of God and are—before God—neither male nor female for it isn’t the fleshly outer self that is the son of God, but the living soul, resurrected from death in a resurrection like that of Christ Jesus. So the social position of women within Christianity should reflect this equality with men; whereas outside the Church, most cultures will have women subordinate to men, thus making women ruling in Jerusalem a cultural aberration.

A male infant or child (a boy) as a prince would be akin to making a eunuch a prince.

But what’s to be made of Isaiah having infants shall rule over them versus having women rule over them? One is future, one seems to be present tense. And do spiritual infants rule, today, in Sabbatarian Churches of God? Does the greater Christian Church, today, rule over Christ Jesus? Yes, to both questions. Pastors in the Sabbatarian Churches of God are spiritual infants if they are even born of spirit, with most denying that they are born of spirit. And the Church [the Woman] rules over Christ here on earth, with the Christian ministry having misled Christians, taking greater Christendom so far off-course that there are no spiritual GPS coordinates for where Christendom is mired in mud … recovery of greater Christendom will require another Passover exodus, analogous to Israel’s exodus from Egypt in the days of Moses, only this time the exodus will be from indwelling sin and death.

Again, since earthly Jerusalem forms the type of heavenly Jerusalem, the question must be asked: do women rule over the Church of God? They do, don’t they? The values of greater Christendom are historically female values, the care and nurture of the hungry, of the homeless, of the naked, of the infirm, which would be correct since the glorified Christ Jesus is a life-giving [an Eve] spirit. So where has the reality of the type gone wrong?

Are militant Islamists reacting against the feminization of Islam? The metro Muslim moderate. Is ISIS an apocalyptic entity that has come onto the world’s stage to hinder further metrolization of Islam?

The person who would argue that God wouldn’t condone beheading anyone hasn’t read Scripture: what was Joshua told to do with the inhabitants of Jericho? What was King Saul told to do with the inhabitants of Amalek?

And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction. The word of [YHWH] came to Samuel: "I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments." And Samuel was angry, and he cried to [YHWH] all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, "Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal." And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord." And Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?" Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction." Then Samuel said to Saul, "Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night." And he said to him, "Speak." And Samuel said, "Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, 'Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?" And Saul said to Samuel, "I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal." And Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king." Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord." And Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. And Samuel said to him, "The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for He is not a man, that He should have regret." Then he said, "I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God." So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before [YHWH]. Then Samuel said, "Bring here to me Agag the king of the Amalekites." And Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." And Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before [YHWH] in Gilgal. (1 Sam 15:7–33 emphasis added)

Modern Americans and Western Europeans would be appalled by what Samuel did as a judge of Israel … we don’t hack captives to death. Even the worst of the Nazis were not brutalized when sentenced to death. And since the conclusion of WWII and the Nuremburg trials, Western sentiments have further softened as ongoing debate occurs about whether death sentences are not intrinsically cruel and unusual punishment.

Involuntarily, American males have undergone metrolization to such an extent that American children are no longer physically disciplined: they are spoken-to, presumably shamed into good behavior. Whereas the razor strap that hung beside my grandfather’s kitchen backdoor—not the one he used for his razor—has been replaced by many stern rebukes, the net effect of metrolization has produced softened grandsons that cannot imagine their great great-grandfather actually using a razor strap and raising welts on his sons, or their great grandfather using his belt on his sons to raise welts, or their grandfather using a switch on their mother.

The whipping Aunt Polly administered to Tom Sawyer that Mark Twin chose not to detail for words could inadequately describe the thrashings most every boy experienced in America’s 19^th-Century—the reader’s imagination could produce more repentance than could Mark Twain’s words—has become a 21^st-Century timeout, disclosing how much women rule in this present age, which is not inherently a bad thing considering that the essence of Christianity embodies traditionally feminine values. But Americans should not be surprised by reactions against the metrolization of Islam, with these reactions being employed by ISIS as a recruiting tool; for the male backlash again metrolization will have men not vainly standing before mirrors to shave their faces every morning, nor have men shaving body hair. The backlash again metrolization will have men carrying weapons, and using these weapons, and being willing to die physically for a cause. The backlash against metrolization will cause a modern day “Samuel” to hack a modern day “Agag” into pieces, with President Obama serving as a stand-in for Agag … Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a wannabe modern day Samuel. And apparently al-Baghdadi has already stated that he is coming to America.

There is, within the United States, a developing reaction against the metrolization of boys, with what happens in the Adrian Petersen case forming a benchmark for how pervasive metrolization has become, with this statement neither supporting nor condemning Petersen, who remains legally innocent before a trial takes place.

The metrolization of boys have made figurative eunuchs of these boys, who will, for all of their lives, faithfully serve the prince of this world as corporate officers and salesmen and community organizers; as televangelists, ministers, pastors, deacons; as actors and politicians. They will prosper in this world, and will acquire many things. But they will not escape from the prince of this world; for they are not willing to do what is required to escape: believe the Lord and obey Him, even to doing what is culturally uncomfortable.

How difficult would it have been for ancient King Saul to slay Agag as well as all of the livestock of Amalek? What was it that Samuel told Saul? To obey is better than sacrifice. What does it mean in the 21^st-Century to obey the Lord? Does it not mean to have love for neighbor and brother as well as for one’s enemies? Does it not mean to have love to for even al-Baghdadi? And the question emerges, how can any Christian manifest love for al-Baghdadi, who has so far made himself—from a Western perspective—about as unlovable as a person can make of him or herself?

If the person baptized into Christ—that is, the person who daily puts on the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness—is neither male nor female, this person as a son of God can only be a spiritual eunuch, made so by the person’s spiritual immaturity … metrolization prevents biological males from developing maleness, and therefore keeps adult men in perpetual adolescence, typified by boys too young to grow beards. Spiritual immaturity keeps sons of God from developing the spiritual attributes of God that would be physically typified by beard-growth.

The son of God who is a spiritual eunuch has not and is too young to acquire the traditional attributes of spiritual maleness, the attributes of God the Father. This son of God cannot be the flesh and blood outer self of the person, but must necessarily be the inner man who has been raised from death in a resurrection like that of Christ Jesus, this inner man being a eunuch that serves God as a servant serves his or her master. And it is for this reason that Paul wrote,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phil 2:5–7 emphasis added)

The likeness of human persons is the likeness of servants, or so Paul wrote. And if what Paul wrote is true, then the Elect are doubly servants; for both the inner and outer selves of the Elect live as Jesus lived during His earthly ministry. And if doubly servants, the Elect are inwardly spiritual eunuchs because of their spiritual immaturity and outwardly have made themselves into eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom, a looping back to what Matthew’s Jesus declared to those able to receive His words (Matt 19:12).

As Daniel and his friends involuntarily served Nebuchadnezzar, the human king of Babylon, the Elect involuntarily serve the Adversary, the spiritual king of spiritual Babylon, as court eunuchs. They do so by being good citizens, not rebelling against the Adversary; not going to war with the Adversary over things that do not matter while not worshiping the Adversary or his idols.

For the vast majority of Israel, choosing to keep the Commandments when in a far land [or even in Jerusalem itself] was of little importance: collectively, Israel as slaves of the king of Babylon was without faith and undertook no journey of faith when in this far land. Israel did not voluntarily return to the Lord with heart and mind; therefore, deported Israel did not enter into the Moab Covenant when Moses remained its administrator (Deut chaps 29–32).

Before the spirit was given, except for the king, individual Israelites did not determine the destiny of the collective nation. Rather, the collective determined the destiny of individuals. And the collective in Babylon were slaves of Nebuchadnezzar, not court eunuchs.

Symbolically, Daniel and his friends were each a eunuch and as such unable to enter the temple if the temple had still stood … again, if the temple had still stood, they could not have come before God, but because the temple had been razed—the temple with Holy of holies that the high priest could only enter on Yom Kipporim—the barrier that prevented a male whose testicles had been crushed or removed from coming before God had itself been removed. All who had faith could come to God, but faith required resisting worshiping the king of Babylon’s idol.

Again, spiritually, a eunuch in the era before the spirit was given could represent the inner self of the person, the soul [psuche] of the person; for by removing what made a man a man, the eunuch was unable to be the head of a woman and became subservient to a physical head, usually the king that had ordered his castration. And in this manner spiritually, every person [male or female] born consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) is unable to beget [father] spiritual children and is therefore a spiritual eunuch, analogous to Daniel and his friends; for the fleshly body of a human person [male or female] will not enter heaven (1 Cor 15:50) and is of little spiritual importance. It is the living inner self—made alive through the indwelling of Christ Jesus, the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] in the spirit of the man [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] in the soul of the person—that will receive a glorious new body when judgments are revealed. Therefore the unsexed male forms a reasonable symbol for the living inner self of a son of God that is by definition, neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, free nor slave (Gal 3:28).

The preceding, however, introduces complexities outside of Scripture: Christ Jesus as the Beloved of the Father would have been spiritually unsexed throughout His earthly ministry even though He was the Firstborn Son of God. He didn’t bring to spiritual life His disciples, whom the Father had given Him, until after He was glorified and breathed His breath onto them, thereby directly transferring to them the holy spirit (John 20:22), a second breath of life. And in becoming a life-giving spirit, even as the last Adam He confuses gender identity, being spiritually both Adam and Eve in His person.

Again, the metro male lives as a heterosexual gay man, his maleness having become a victim of the Adversary’s anticipation of the Second Passover liberation of all Christendom. But out of consideration for how long this section has become, hurther discussion will be reserved for the following section.

Discussion continues in Part 2 of 2.

Homer Kizer Ministries