December 16, 2013 ©Homer Kizer
Commentary — From the Margins
An Infallible Text
[Part Seven]
8.
A Christian ministry can work with another Christian ministry—and should, when both work for Christ Jesus—but Christian ministries can only work with ministries with which they share a common ideology. Put differently, a Christian ministry can only work with another ministry when both have the mind of Christ and are differing members of the same Body.
But what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? First, it would seem having the mind of Christ Jesus would cause a person and by extension a ministry to think and act as Jesus did during His earthly ministry. And Jesus did not attempt to make disciples beyond those given to Him to keep by the Father:
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given Him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given Him. … I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. … While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17:1–2, 6–9, 12)
Jesus wasn’t interested in collecting many followers, in gathering a horde of disciples. That wasn’t why the Logos [’o Logos] entered His creation as His unique Son … to whom all judgment had been given (John 5:22) didn’t enter His creation to judge the world (John 12:47), but to save it (John 3:17), but not save it through making many disciples; through making disciples of all people. Rather, the creation of the world remained uncompleted: missing was the “bridge” connecting the physical with the spiritual, the bridge over which mortal human beings can cross to being immortal sons of God, a bridge guarded by the Adversary.
As I have written many times, physical life is sustained by the dark fire of cellular oxidation of simple carbohydrates whereas heavenly life is sustained by the bright fire that is the glory of God (from Ezek 1:26–28), a non-oxidizing form of fire akin to that which separates the dimensions. The fire Moses saw when he observed the burning bush (Ex 3:2–3), and the reality that Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace foreshadowed, the furnace into which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were cast (Dan 3:13–26).
Prior to when the Creator of all things physical entered His creation as His unique Son (cf. John 1:3; 3:16), there was no way for a fleshly person to walk through the fire separating the supra-dimensional heavenly realm from the four unfurled dimensions of the creation. Note what the prophet Isaiah recorded in doubled thought-couplets,
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; [physical/physical]
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; [physical/spiritual]
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, [spiritual/physical]
and the flame shall not consume you. (Isa 43:2) [spiritual/spiritual]
The mirror [chiral] image of first the world being baptized in water and unto death in the days of Noah, then human persons being baptized in water and unto death to be proselytes in Israel (first physical or outwardly circumcised Israel, then spiritual or circumcised-of-heart Israel) is first spiritual Israelites being individually baptized (submerged or engulfed in fire), then the entire world being consumed in fire, with a new heaven and new earth [a non-physical heaven and earth] coming from heaven to replace this first earth (Rev 21:1).
Note what else the prophet Isaiah wrote in Hebrew style thought-couplets:
For behold, [YHWH] will come in fire,
and His chariots like the whirlwind,
to render His anger in fury,
and His rebuke with flames of fire.
For by fire will [YHWH] enter into judgment,
and by His sword, with all flesh;
and those slain by [YHWH] shall be many. (Isa 66:15–16)
The “fire” of judgment separates the physical dimensions in which sons of disobedience have “life” through the dark fire of cellular oxidation from the supra-dimensional heavenly realm in which nothing physical can exist, not even the thoughts of mortal men. When the Adversary, the present king of Babylon, is cast from heaven (Rev 12:7–9, 13), he as the spiritual reality of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, will be given the mind of a man as Nebuchadnezzar was given the mind and nature of a beast for seven years (Dan chap 4). And because the Adversary, that old dragon Satan the devil, is given the mind of a man, he will be unable to cross back through the fire that separates dimensions. He will be “stuck” inside the creation, and as such, he will know that his time is short. He will have a thousand years plus a short while (another three and a half years) before the coming of the new heaven and new earth, with the earth’s present heavens being consumed by heavenly fire as oxidizing fire consumes an old scroll. This fire will also consume the Adversary as fire coming from his belly (Ezek 28:18).
The ministry Christ Jesus did while here on earth was that of “preparing” the first disciples to receive indwelling heavenly life, the glory of God in a vessel that also came from heaven: in His words as recorded in John’s Gospel, He guarded, educated, and nurtured those human persons that the Father had given Him, the only human persons who would receive indwelling eternal life when the glorified Jesus “breathed” on ten of His first disciples and said, Receive the breath holy [pneuma ’agion] (John 20:22) …
The Christian Church didn’t start with a great number of disciples, but with only the ten needed to form another synagogue in Israel. Jesus’ didn’t need many disciples: He only needed enough to establish and hold a bridgehead, thereby keeping alive the way to salvation for the harvest[s] of humanity that would come at the end of the age—and this bridgehead, as a bridge too far, didn’t have to be held throughout the next two millennia, but only long enough that it could be reconstructed on its foundation at the end of the age.
The preceding isn’t difficult to understand, only difficult to accept … Jesus came to save the world that today, doesn’t want saved or to have much to do with Jesus. But that is as prophesied—and that is okay; for it is far easier to get a non-Christian to believe God than to get a Christian to believe. It remains far easier to get a Catholic Christian to keep the Sabbath than it was to get Sabbatarian Christians to take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14th day for the first month following the spring equinox in 2013. What’s seen is that the closer a person gets to walking as Jesus walked in this world, the harder it is to get the person to take another step closer to Christ Jesus, with Scripture itself blocking the person’s way to God.
Under the New Covenant, the Law of God [the Torah] will be written on hearts and placed in minds so that all, small and great, know the Lord (cf. Jer 31:31–34; Heb 8:8–12) … if the Torah has been written on circumcised hearts, a euphemistic expression for the inner self, what purpose does the written Torah serve? Does not the written Torah function as a schoolmaster until the Law has been placed inside the person? The Apostle Paul wrote,
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring [seed]. It does not say, "And to offsprings [seeds]," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 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. (Gal 3:15–26 emphasis and double emphasis added)
When Paul wrote, For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law, it would seem that Paul contradicted himself:
What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." (Rom 9:30–33 emphasis and double emphasis added)
Paul tell us what Law would have led to righteousness:
For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them [this is a positive statement here and in Leviticus 18:5). 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 10:5–10 double emphasis added)
What Paul identifies as the righteousness based on faith is the Moab covenant: “These are the words of the covenant that [YHWH] commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb” (Deut 29:1). … The Moab covenant is a law or commandment/covenant (Deut 30:11) that didn’t come 430 years after Israel entered Egypt (see Ex 12:41), but forty years after Israel left Egypt—and this Law was, by Moses’ declaration, not too hard, too difficult for Israel to keep (also Deut 30:11). It was not far from Israel, but near, in the mouths of Israel and in the hearts of the children of Israel (vv. 11, 14). So the Law referenced by Paul in his epistle to the holy ones in Galatia is not the same Law that Paul references in the epistle he dictates to the holy ones in Rome (that is, in Rom 9:31 & 10:6).
The problem with translation—and the failings of redaction and especially layers of redaction—is the inherent weakness of all utterance and its shadow, written inscription, since the tower of Babel incident, where linguistic signifiers [the words spoken] were separated from their linguistic signifieds [the bricks].
There is a concept encapsulated in a word I seldom use, <resignification>, that ultimately expresses where I am headed in this apology … to every word, meaning must be assigned by the auditor [reader or hearer]. What a linguistic signifier actually signifies is dependent upon the context in which the signifier is received, and dependent upon the educational background of the auditor. If I were to use the signifier <vorlage or its plural, vorlagen> a certain number of readers would know without going on-line what I referenced, or what signified I intended for the signifier, but most would not. Thus, when I use an unfamiliar word/signifier, I usually place its intended meaning near to it in the text (e.g., the Greek versions of Esther and the canonical Hebrew version have differing vorlagen, with the vorlage for the Masoretic Text being a least a literary generation removed from the differing Semitic texts—the vorlage for the “L” version probably being a “royal novella” written in Eastern Aramaic—that served as the vorlagen for the two versions of Esther translated in the Septuagint). Thus, I try not to display an erudite exterior in my prose. After all, because of a speech impediment, I cannot pronounce a great many of the written words I use. These words produce meaning in my mind, but not in my ear where they are simply noise.
Resignification occurs when a never before used meaning [linguistic signified] is attached to a word or phrase, such as <Second Passover> being used for signifying the liberation of Christianity from indwelling sin and death through Christ Jesus filling self-identified Christians with His divine breath (i.e., baptizing them in spirit — Matt 3:11; also Joel 2:28), a one-time occurrence that is preceded by the sudden death of all uncovered firstborns, biological and legal, on earth and in the Abyss.
Resignification of many signifiers involuntarily occurs to every person truly born of spirit; for resignification occurs through possessing the mind of Christ, the reason Jesus could only speak to His disciples in figures of speech (John 16:25) for they did not during His earthly ministry have the mind of Christ, which comes with spiritual birth and develops with spiritual maturity … a human infant is born with the “mind of man” even though the infant doesn’t think the thoughts of a “man.” So it is with sons of God, spiritually born with the mind of Christ, but not yet able to use that which they possess to do the work of the Son of Man. Thus, the infant son of God thinks as a spiritual infant, not as a mature son of God. And the Adversary does his best to prevent sons of God from developing spiritually through doing what he is permitted to hinder or prevent spiritual maturation.
No genuine Christian ministry can truly work with another Christian ministry when one is filled with spiritual infants and the other with spiritual adolescents …
Jesus’ earthly ministry was about guarding and nurturing those individuals the Father foreknew and predestined to be glorified as firstborn sons of God …
How many Christian ministries focus on numbers, on how many sinners they save, rather than on giving to the Elect the Father’s words, guarding each of the Elect so that none will be lost except for those that are sons of destruction, temporarily gathered with the sheep to fulfill prophecy about many falling away and betraying one another (e.g., Matt 24:9–12)?
Now, back to the question: what does it mean to truly have the mind of Christ, to think and act as Jesus did? Would it not mean to walk in this world as Jesus walked?
The Apostle Paul wrote,
· “I urge you, then, be imitators of me” (1 Cor 4:16);
· “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1);
· “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1);
· “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (Phil 3:17);
· “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thess 1:6);
· “For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea” (1 Thess 2:14);
· “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:7–8);
It is that last point where real problems arise between Christian ministries; for no one can imitate Paul or imitate the churches of God in mid 1st-Centuries Judea or imitate Christ Jesus and fail to keep the Commandments, especially the Sabbath command. This is correct: no one can imitate Christ Jesus—walk in this world as He walked (1 John 2:6)—and willfully neglect the Commandments; for the indwelling of Christ in the form of His spirit [pneuma Christou] will give to the disciple the mind of Christ and the desire to do those things that are pleasing to God. The indwelling of Christ Jesus includes the garment of Christ’s righteousness that cloaks His disciples’ inner selves, and will cause the disciple to strive with the disciple’s might to keep the Commandments, not as legal obligations but as the reasonable expectation of all who are of God. And this means, striving to keep the Commandments from spiritual infancy. Hence, John wrote,
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:1–10 emphasis added)
Are John’s words now without standing in the Churches of God—have they been resignified—or do they mean what they have always meant: if the person is truly born of God through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theou] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christou] that raises the person’s inner self/soul [psuche] from the dead, then this person cannot keep on transgressing the Law but absolutely must begin striving to keep the Law albeit without the perfection the person desires. The person simply cannot long transgress the sign that signifies the person is in a sanctified state with God, Father and Son (see Ex 31:13). The person cannot do what he or she has always done: the person has been involuntarily changed, and the person’s new mindset will not willingly return to the person’s former ways.
(For the person who will someday look for seams in my writings, for transitional clustering, there are several in the preceding paragraphs; for the mind of Christ within every son of God changes with maturation and doesn’t long remain static at any stage of maturing. I change, but change not. Whereas I once read Matthew’s Gospel as true history, I have since come to know—revelation through realization—that Matthew’s Gospel is a sermon that spans the entirety of the Christian era. Thus, when Matthew’s Jesus tells His disciples, “‘Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’” (Matt 16:6), and His disciples realize that He speaks of the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees, His disciples do not realize that He speaks to them in twice removed figures of speech: where are the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees to be found if not in the vorlage used for the Masoretic Text?)
The unchanging nature of Christ Jesus is what Christians within greater Christianity do not seem to understand: being truly born of spirit through receiving a second breath of life—the breath of God in the breath of Christ—causes the person to think differently than before, not a little different but substantially different, with the person still being able to remember how he or she formerly thought. Thus, one will occasionally hear a person truly born of spirit say some variation of, I can remember when I quit killing people in my dreams. A thought such as killing another person is no longer possible, not even in a dreamscape. The person involuntarily becomes a pacifist and sometimes even a vegan (a person who chooses not to contribute to the harm of any living creature) … for the record, the holy ones are free to eat meats Jesus would have eaten, and Jesus would not have eaten a pork chop, nor would He have been served a pork chop when dining with Pharisees.
Did Jesus declare all meats clean as the parenthetical statement in Mark 7:19 states? Or is the material inside the parentheses a later gloss as it seems to be:
“Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when He had entered the house and left the people, His disciples asked Him about the parable. And He said to them, "Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And He said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:14–23)
Every person is, again, humanly born as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), consigned to disobedience by God so that He can have mercy on all (Rom 11:32); thus, in the heart of sons of disobedience are the thoughts and mindset of the Adversary, who disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14) but who has been a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). It is from the Adversary that dreams come in which a person kills another person; it is from the Adversary that evil thoughts come, with these thoughts effecting every action of the person as he or she embraces or rebels against these thoughts. And it is these evil thoughts that defile a person, not what the person puts into the stomach. Thus, when a person’s thoughts, desires, would have the person rebelling against God, making a practice of not-being-holy as God is holy (see Lev chap 11, especially vv. 44–45), the person’s thoughts defile the person. So the desire to eat a pork chop—the thought—defiles the Christian, regardless of whether a pork chop is ever eaten. Jesus said nothing about making pork clean meat. Rather, what Jesus did was move importance away from the flesh and to the inner self when it comes to what defiles a person. Therefore, the person who loads up his or her salad with bacon bits, which are not made from pork, defiles him or herself through desiring to eat a common meat. Same pertains to imitation crab, made from pollock, a “clean” fish … again, it isn’t what goes into the mouth that defiles, but thoughts and desires that are of the Adversary.
Having the mind of Christ will push out the mind of the Adversary, and the Christian truly born of spirit will simply think differently than he or she did before when he or she was a son of disobedience. But how many “Christians” have actually experienced the above sort of transformation? A few, a very few. And almost none of these few were actively involved in a Christian ministry before being mentally changed.
Christians within greater Christendom, almost without exception, will not mend their lawless ways and turn to God, Father and Son, and begin walking as an outwardly uncircumcised Judean, keeping the Commandments by faith, by belief of God. Rather, Christians seem to take pride in eating ham at Easter, and erecting nativity scenes at Christmas. They don’t understand their own actions, and their resistance to learning is legendary. But God, understanding the problem, has set in place obstacles that have produced declining attendance (especially by young adolescents) in Christian church services and a general malaise within established denominations. As horrible as it sounds, it is actually a good thing that Christianity is sharply declining in Western nations; for if the Second Passover were to occur today, almost every Christian will rebel against God 220 days later.
So what kind of joint ministry can be done by a Christian fellowship seeking to make more disciples by better serving the needs of the people and by a Christian ministry that insists disciples walk in this world as Jesus walked, even if only a handful attend Sabbath services? How can any Christian ministry serve the needs of sons of disobedience who remain consigned to disobedience, their prince being the Adversary? What can be said, God loves you so much that He sent His Son to die for your sins so you can continue sinning, which is a gross distortion of the truth? What is it that John’s Jesus said in His prayer,
I am praying for them [His disciples]. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. … I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. (John 17:9–11, 14–18)
Jesus wasn’t praying for the world, but for those persons the Father gave to Him—and He sent them forth into the world as the Father had sent Him forth, meaning that they were to go to those persons foreknown by the Father and predestined to be called, justified, and glorified as fruit borne out of season, not simply the firstfruits of the harvest of God. The Elect are, at the time of the Second Passover, symbolized by the oil and the wine [both processed fruits of the Promised Land] that Sin is not to harm (Rev 6:6), and cannot spiritually harm for the inner selves of the Elect have already been glorified through receipt of a second breath of life, the breath of God in the breath of Christ.
What does this say about ministries within the greater Christian Church? How is the Christian whose inner self has been glorified to work with the “Christian” who remains a son of disobedience? How compatible was Jesus’ ministry with that of Sadducees, who with the sword made proselytes in Edom? Or how compatible is “Jesus” with the ministry of the Latin Church that made Christian converts with the sword?
In John’s Gospel, Jesus said,
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, “And they will all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. (John 6:44–47)
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life—what is actually said? Turn the clause around: to believe Christ Jesus requires that the person doing the believing have indwelling eternal, this life coming through the Father foreknowing and glorifying the inner self of the person whom He draws from this world. It is to this person that Christ Jesus will give an imperishable outer body when judgments already made are revealed.
Can the person whom the Father has drawn from this world have fellowship with the person who remains undrawn and a son of disobedience? Or does one bad apple spoil an entire barrel of apples, not that apples are still shipped in barrels? How is a disciple genuinely born of spirit and having the mind of Christ to interact with sons of disobedience? Did not Jesus condemn Sadducees and Pharisees? Yes and no:
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” (Matt 23:1–13)
Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ—how many Christian pastors and theologians call themselves instructors, teachers, servants of God called to teach others the mysteries of God? How many Christians desire to be a teacher or to shepherd a flock? Perhaps the better question is, how many actually know enough to even teach themselves to shut up and listen to Christ Jesus—
Again, the indwelling of Christ Jesus gives to the person the mind of Christ; for Christ Jesus has become the Head of the person in a manner analogous to the husband being the head of his wife and analogous the inner self being the “head” of the outer self. Thus, the presence of Christ in the form of His breath, His life, in the previously lifeless inner self or soul of the human person is as the non-physical soul is to the physical flesh. Without the presence of this non-physical soul, the flesh lies dead, which now gives to the linguistic signifier <death> a complication: the inner self, alive or dead, animates the flesh. But when the inner self is without life, it is as “dumb” computer software; as word-processor software of the 1980s. This dumb software can only do that for which it was programmed. It has no ability to heal itself, or to rewrite its code. Thus, the human person born as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), born consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32), will remain a son of disobedience throughout the person’s life—regardless of whether the person self-identifies him or herself as a Christian—unless this person receives a second breath of life, again the breath of God in the breath of Christ, that raises the inner self from death and thereby permits the inner self to heal, to overcome inner [mental] damage, to overcome its “natural” [from the Adversary] rebellion against God, rebellion that originates from the Adversary being the prince of the power of the air and still-reigning prince of this world.
The linguistic icon <death> must undergo resignification so that death is understood as the absence of breath rather than absence of life at a differing level … yes, a dead human person lacks physical breath, but if the inner self of the person received “life” from receipt of the breath of God in the breath of Christ, then the inner self is not dead even though the physical body is, the situation seen when the fifth seal is opened:
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (Rev 6:9–11)
Receipt of the breath of God in the breath of Christ, with Christ Jesus being the last Adam, gives life to the person’s inner self, life that casts as its shadow the physical life received from the first Adam. To visualize the non-physical inner self, visualize a fleshly body with indwelling life bestowed to the person from his or her mother versus a fleshly body that has lost its breath of life and is dead, understanding of course that the spiritual forms the non-symmetrical mirror image of the physical … whereas in the physical, death follows life, in the spiritual, death precedes life in a manner analogous to a person’s right hand in the person’s mirror image being the image’s left hand.
The reversing of historical images occurs in the Passover/Second Passover. Whereas the tenth and final plague that broke the back of Pharaoh was the death of uncovered firstborns of man and beast throughout Egypt at the midnight hour of the night when Israel sacrificed and roasted whole their Passover lambs, one to a household—this is the physical, left hand enantiomer of the spiritual right hand enantiomer—the plagues that pertain to the Second Passover happen in reverse order, with the sacrifice of the single Lamb of God having already occurred at Calvary and with Israel roasting in fire [through the glorified Christ bearing sins] this sacrificial Lamb until the midnight hour of the one long spiritual night that began at Calvary finally arrives. This midnight hour comes when humanity can get no farther from God as Light, and this is not long in the future. Then death angels will again pass over all the land, slaying uncovered firstborn sons of God on earth and in the Abyss, as well as uncovered firstborns of humanity, approximately 2.7 billion people in a day, a number that boggles minds and seems fantastical.
At the Second Passover liberation of Israel, all self-identified Christians will be filled-with and empowered by spirit whereas the remainder of humanity will have to wait to be filled with spirit [baptized in spirit, the divine breath of God] until the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man, Head and Body, halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation. A Christian’s son or daughter who has left the faith and struck out on his or her own as an unrepentant son of disobedience will, if still physically alive on the doubled day 1260, be baptized in spirit and have his or her human nature involuntarily changed as the present prince of the power of the air is cast to earth and the dominion he has held is given to the Son of Man. The son or daughter will now have to rebel against the Adversary who comes claiming to be the Messiah—and most of surviving humanity will rebel against that old dragon, Satan the devil.
Assuming the Second Passover occurs in the near future (a realistic assumption based on how far humanity is from God), more of today’s non-Christians will choose to believe God and cover themselves with the garment of obedience in the Endurance of Jesus (the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years) than Christians, who ought to be first, will garment themselves with obedience in the Affliction (the first 1260 days) … the last shall be first, and mostly, the first will not enter the kingdom but will be cast as rebels into the lake of fire.
Which Christian ministry wants to join with me in proclaiming the Second Passover liberation of Israel, the nation to be circumcised of heart? Which Christian ministry wants to join with me in declaring that most of greater Christendom will rebel against God in the Affliction, again the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years? Which ministry will join me in declaring that most of today’s Christians will be cast into the lake of fire when Christ Jesus returns as the Messiah because of their resistance to learning?
I’m waiting, waiting, waiting.
Does no one want to join with me in declaring in advance the event that will begin the seven endtime years of tribulation? Or in declaring that the Apostasy Paul mentions (2 Thess 2:3) will happen on a specific day, day 220 of the Affliction?
Apparently not … which isn’t true, for some few have joined with me and now support the work I do, not because I sought to be a teacher but because I got drafted, yes drafted, into rereading prophecy in January 2002. And after beginning to reread biblical prophecy, I realized just how far both greater Christendom as well as Sabbatarian Christendom was from God. But I wasn’t called to make disciples, simply to reread prophecy. I am perfectly content to permit God, Father and Son, to make disciples of those who are predestined to be of the Elect.
Sabbatarian Christian ministries simply have no fellowship with 8th-day ministries; for what fellowship can exist between righteousness and unrighteousness. What will be seen is that Sabbatarians and 8th-day Christians can’t even share hotdogs at a family barbeque, such is the degree of deception the Adversary has embedded within greater Christendom. And even among Sabbatarian ministries, none can find a Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death in Scripture—it’s there, but finding it might well require possessing the mind of Christ—so they get about their business of poaching Sabbatarian disciples from other Sabbatarian ministries, giving to every disciple who changes from one ministry to another a free divorce as if marital separation were a carrot dangling from a stick. It doesn’t take much to keep donkeys headed in a particular direction.
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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."