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The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is the temple. Clickable hymns on this page require RealPlayer to be installed on your computer. The download is free. Possible songs include the following hymns: Weekly
For the Sabbath of June 7, 2008
The person conducting the Sabbath service should
open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer
acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ
Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them. The person conducting the services
should read or assign to be read Jeremiah chapter 52, followed by Ezekiel
chapter 10. Commentary: What does it mean by “the glory of the Lord [YHWH] went out from the threshold of the
house, and stood over the cherubim” (Ezek 10:18)? How does the glory of the Lord differ from YHWH? How does this glory stand, as if it were a person who has just crossed a
threshold, over the cherubim? And how is this glory different from the glory
that shone from Moses’ face (Ex 34:29; 2 Cor 3:7) after he, Moses,
entered into the presence of the God? Before questions about the glory of the Lord can be
addressed, certain “givens” must be grasped: the temple in physical
Jerusalem was a shadow and type of the heavenly temple of God in heavenly
Jerusalem—but John the Revelator saw in vision no temple in the heavenly
city when it came down to new earth (Rev 21:22), for the temple of the heavenly
city is the “Lord God the Almighty—6bD4@H Ò 2,ÎH Ò B"<J@6DVJTD,” the naming expression that is seen in
Revelation 4:8. Therefore, the Lord God
the Almighty dwells in heavenly ·
The Lord God the Almighty corresponds
spiritually to the physical temple built of cut (offsite) stone and timber that
Solomon dedicated with the sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep (2 Chron
7:5). ·
Until the Lord
divided ·
The idolatrous
kings of ·
Because of ·
Jeremiah’s
seventy years prophecy—“This whole land shall become a ruin and a
waste, and these nations shall serve the king of ·
But the
remnant that returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of God by the decree of
King Cyrus did not return as free peoples, but returned as slaves to the king
of Persia, subject to the will of the kings of Babylon/Persia (Ezra 5:13;
6:1-5). They were not again a free people until the Maccabean War, when
physical sons of light defeated the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes IV, the
representation of the endtime king of the North. ·
When the
second temple built by Zerubbabel was dedicated after a remnant of Israel
returned to Jerusalem—Jerusalem was without a temple for 70 years (from
586 to 516 BCE)—the glory of the
Lord did not then return to earthly Jerusalem, for this second temple was
without the Ark of the Covenant or the Urim and Thummim [האורים והתומים — here written
from left to right]. ·
Because the glory of the Lord was not in the second
temple when dedicated, as Israel physically remained in subjection to the kings
of Babylon/Persia served the spiritual king of Babylon, Israel continued to
serve foreign kings throughout the period covered by the concealing shadow of
the long vision the prophet Daniel received (Dan chaps 10-12). ·
The glory of the Lord did not return to the
second temple until Jesus entered the ·
The second
temple went from being a physical structure without the glory of the Lord to being the Church in which the spirit [i.e.,
breath] of the Father and the Son now dwells. ·
When moving
from physical to spiritual, all disciples form the second temple, with the new
creatures, born of spirit [B<,Ø:" 2,ÎØ], being analogous to the Levitical priesthood in
the physical temple. ·
Therefore, the
new creatures, born of spirit, with both the spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9) and the
spirit of the one who raised Christ from the dead (v. 11) jointing dwelling within tents of flesh, form a type of the Lord God the Almighty in a way that will
be labeled as blasphemous by those who called Jesus a blasphemer for calling
God His Father (John 5:18; 10:31-39). ·
What Jesus
cites from the law is Ps 82:6, which reads, “I said, ‘You are gods,
/ sons of the Most High, all of you; / nevertheless, like men you shall die, /
and fall like any prince.’” Paul identifies disciples as sons of
the Most High (Gal 4:6-7 et al) and
by extension as gods even though disciples remain mortal and subject to death. ·
It is not
blasphemy for a son to identify himself as a son of God, but it is blasphemy
for a servant to call himself a son of God. There is a persistent problem that has
theologically hamstrung Christendom from the beginning, and that problem is the
apparent singularity of the Tetragrammation YHWH,
singularity that caused conciliar Christendom to label Ante-Nicene theologians
as heretics. If God is one is a
describing expression that expresses numerical singleness rather than unity,
then the plurality expressed by the Gospel writers forces “God”
into a form of dispensationalism by which “God” has made Himself
known through separate relationships and distinct manifestations as expressed
in Sabellianism, a thoroughly and properly denounced model of trinitarianism.
God is not today the Son and yesterday the Father and tomorrow the Holy Spirit
as if He were a shape-shifting shaman, the concept central to Sabellianism.
Rather, God is the “house” of the Father, the temple or sanctuary
that dwells in heavenly The irony underlying conciliar Christendom is that
this belief paradigm has made all of the Gospel writers, especially John (as
well as Paul in his epistles), heretics that taught a separateness between the
Father and the Son that would see glorified human beings one with the
Father in the same way that the Son is one with the Father, a
separateness that denies personhood to the metaphorical “breath” of
the Father or to the metaphorical “breath” of the Son (metaphorical
in the sense that neither the Father nor the Son “breathe” air), a
separateness that precludes validity to the Cappadocian “three
hypostases” model of the Godhead. From Irenaeus in the 2nd-Century
to Augustine in the 5th-Century, emphasis was placed on the Most
High’s “oneness” (as in numerical singularity), with triune
separateness manifested through God making Himself known to humanity in
different ways at different times, and not as two or three separate personages
but as a single personage having separate attributes. But the underlying
problem encountered by those who professed triune separateness remained: whose
Son was Jesus when Mary “was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit
[B<,b:"J@H •(\@L]” (Matt 1:18)? Was Jesus the Son of the Holy
Spirit, or the Son of the Father? Or neither—was Jesus the only Son of
the Logos? That is the testimony of
John. If the Father and the Holy Spirit were not one
personage, and one personage that was separate from the personage that was the
Son, linguistic difficulties could not be resolved, with these difficulties
supporting the claims make by Bishop Arius that Jesus was not born fully
divine, but born of Mary as a man like any other man. But the Arian position
raises as many problems as it seeks to resolve, for if Jesus were merely a man,
how should disciples read what Jesus said to Philip? “‘Whoever has
seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words
that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells
in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in
me, or else believe on account of the works themselves’” (John
14:9-11). Pause here: the Lord
God the Almighty will be the temple in heavenly What Philip saw with his eyes was the flesh and
blood body of the man Jesus, not the glorified spiritual “house” in
which the Father dwells as a disciple today dwells in a tent of flesh. The
fleshy “house” in which Jesus dwelt—the fleshy house that
Philip saw—was not the glorified house of the Father although it was the glory of the Lord, so of necessity
the linguistic objects Jesus had assigned to His words, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father, are not the objects which
Philip expected or objects Philip would have “usually” assigned to
these words. But Jesus was not then claiming to be the Father, for elsewhere
Jesus said, “‘My Father is working until now, and I am
working’” (John 5:18), indicating both a separateness and a
sameness between Himself and the Father that would have His Father working
until that very moment, and Jesus also working, with the Father who resided in
Jesus working through the works of Jesus. Thus, if a person did not believe the
audible words uttered by Jesus, the person should believe the works done by
Jesus for these works were the earthly manifestations of the words of the
Father, words that could not be fully expressed through vibrations of air
molecules but words expressed by the renewing breath (Ps 104:30) of God through
healing miracles. Judaism rejects Christianity because of
Jesus’ claim that His Father [B"JXD" Ç*4@<] was the Most High God [2,Î<], a claim that would make Him equal to God even though
He was a man born of Mary … it is here where the words [linguistic icons] of this world,
used to describe the things of this world, are pushed far enough beyond their
limitations that those human beings not yet born of spirit are as blind and
deaf men (and women), for meaning is assigned by all readers or hearers to all
words and human intellect will not, of itself, produce spiritual understanding.
Without being born of spirit, a person cannot intelligibly speak about
spiritual things or understand spiritual concepts for the carnal or natural
mind is hostile to God, according to Paul (Rom 8:7), who had considerable
experience in trying but failing to explain spiritual things to willing
listeners, willing but still carnal listeners. Therefore, what it means for
born of spirit [B<,Ø:"] disciples to be the temple of God, analogous to
the temple Solomon built, becomes central to understanding the
“oneness” of God. Paul writes, “According
to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a
foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he
builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid,
which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:10-11). The writer of Hebrews says, For Jesus has been
counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder
of a house has more honor that the house itself. (For every house is built by
someone, but the builder of all things is [2,`H].) Now Moses was faithful in all [the house of Him] as a servant, to
testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over
[the house of Him] as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our
confidence and our boasting in our hope. (Heb 3:3-6) Disciples are the house [@É6`H] of Theos
[2,`H], with this house
of Theos being the temple of God whose foundation Paul laid, if disciples
hold fast their confidence in Christ Jesus, the cause of and source for their
boasting in their hope. Moses was a servant in this house of Theos, but disciples are not servants in
this house, nor do disciples dwell in this house. Disciples are this house of Theos as disciples are the Paul also writes, “Do you not know that you
are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone
destroys God’s temple, God [2,`H] will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy,
and you are that temple” (1 Cor 3:16-17). Elsewhere Paul writes, What agreement has the “I will make my dwelling among them and walk
among them, and
I will be their God [2,ÎH], and
they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and
be separate from them, says the Lord [6bD4@H], and touch no unclean thing; then
I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and
you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty [6bD4@H B"<J@6DVJTD].” (2 Cor 6:16-18) The Lord [YHWH]
spoke to Moses on Before the Lord will dwell among disciples, a
condition exists: disciples are to walk as Jesus walked, and Jesus kept the
commandments thus the Father dwelt with the man Jesus of Nazareth so much so
that to see Jesus was to see the Father. The Lord
Almighty is Theos—God. And
about this Theos the Apostle John
wrote, In the beginning was the Word [8`(@H], and the Word [8`(@H] was with God [2,`<], and the Word [8`(@H] was God [2,ÎH]. He was in the beginning with God [2,`<]. … He was in the world, and the world was
made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, but his
own people did not receive him. … And the Word [8`(@H] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen
his glory, glory as [of an only one—:@<@(,<@ØH] from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John
1:1-2, 10-11, 14) The Father is Theon
[2,`<], who because of case ending, has to be a separate
entity from the Logos [8`(@H] who was Theos
[2,ÎH]. And it is this Theos that will dwell with and walk among John holds that the Logos coexisted with Theon
in the beginning: Theos was not a
separate dispensation of Theon, but
was one with Theon as Eve was one
with Adam. This statement is not a form of Sabellianism, which would have Theos being a sequential manifestation
of Theon. Although Eve’s flesh
had come from Adam’s flesh, Eve’s flesh was not Adam’s flesh,
for the chromosomes would have differed. Thus, Elohim [singular in usage] “modified” Adam’s
flesh to make from Adam the woman that would be his helpmate. Likewise, the Logos was not Theon although both dwelt in the same house as Eve dwelt with Adam,
with the name of this house in Greek being “2,—” [2, + the case ending] with disciples to also dwell in
this house as younger sons (Rom 8:29) when they are one with Jesus and with the
Father (John 17:21-23). But to dwell in the house of God, disciples are to
imitate Paul as He imitated Christ (1 Cor 11:1; Phil 3:17). It does disciples
no good for them to imitate the prince of this world, or his ministers (2 Cor
11:14-15), or the disciple’s lawless neighbors or former friends. Only by
walking as Jesus walked will a disciple cross the threshold and enter into the
house of God as a younger son of God. When the glory
of the Lord left the temple in earthly Jerusalem not to return until the
man Jesus walked into the temple after His ministry began, it wasn’t the
Lord [YHWH] who spoke to Zechariah
when this son of Levi was serving as priest before God, according to the custom
of the priesthood, but the angel Gabriel—for as the Lord [YHWH] told Moses following the idolatry
of Aaron, the Lord would no longer go before Israel but would send an angel before
Israel (Ex 33:2-3), meaning that Israel could not enter into the presence of
God, or into God’s rest (what it means to enter into the presence of
God), once the Lord sent Israel into captivity and into spiritual death through
separation from Him. Moses pleaded with the Lord to relent, saying, “‘If
your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here’” (v. 15), and the Lord did relent:
“‘This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have
found favor in my sight, and I know you by name’” (v. 17). Then Moses asked to see the
glory of the Lord (v. 18), and was
told he could only see the back of the Lord (v. 23). All of the goodness of God, the name of The Lord [YHWH], His mercy—none of these are the glory of the Lord (Ex 33:19-23). Yet Christendom identifies these
things, especially His goodness and His mercy, as His glory. The prophet Ezekiel records, The word of the Lord [YHWH] came to me: “Son of man, take a stick and write on it,
‘For Judah, and the people of Jesus did not come in the 1st-Century CE
as the Messiah, but as shadow of the anointed one who will come at the end of
this era … Jesus came to initiate the
Sabbath that includes all of Unleavened Bread as part of one spiritual
Sabbath that has Israel living without sin, beginning with drawn disciples
being covered by grace, the righteousness of Christ Jesus. It is this Sabbath that John references in his
gospel (19:31 — the high day was the great
day of the Sabbath, with the naming phrase “the Sabbath”
representing all of Unleavened Bread and all of the period from the 10th
of Abib through the 22nd), and it is this Sabbath that Paul
identifies as “the end of the ages” (1 Cor 10:11) which began while
he lived— ·
It is
convenient to refer to the seven endtime years of tribulation as the end of this age, but restricting the end of this age to the Tribulation
is technically inaccurate. ·
The end of
this age incorporates the entire period when Israel will live without
sin—and presently, those who have been born of spirit and who have made a
journey of faith of sufficient length to cleanse the heart so that it can be
circumcised live without sin in that they are covered by grace, the garment of
Christ’s righteousness. ·
Therefore, the
end of this age began when Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples and said,
“‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22); thus, Paul
accurately writes, “Now these things [what happened to Israel in the
wilderness] happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our
instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (again, 1 Cor 10:11). ·
The nearly two
millennia between when Paul writes and when disciples again use typology as
instruction constitutes the hours between sunset and midnight of the dark
portion of the great day of the Sabbath that is generically known as the
Tribulation. ·
The midnight
hour of the great day of the Sabbath will see the liberation of ·
The second
Passover liberation of ·
Thus,
implementation of the second Passover liberation of Israel will begin seven
actual years (2520 days, with day 1260 being a doubled day) of tribulation,
years during which Israel will no longer be under grace but will be empowered
by (or filled with) the Holy Spirit and hence set free from sin and death. In its Christology debates that stretched from the
Ante-Nicene fathers to Post-Nicene bishops, the early Church did not succumb to
superior biblical exegesis as the Apologists promoted an economic version of a
triune deity that none could explain as if confusion magically led to greater
theological precision. Rather, they felt necessity to conform the
“Christian deity” to the numerical singleness of Judaism’s
monotheism dictated to these lawless disciples that not only must Jesus and the
Father be one in unity but that they must also be one in number. Although many
theologians will argue that the Apostolic Fathers delivered to their successors
a clearly defined apologetic, this is simply not true: what the Apostolic
Fathers delivered was the mystery of lawlessness that was already at work while
Paul still lived (2 Thess 2:7). The Pastor writes that all in The above must never be forgotten: there is no one
after John to whom disciples can turn for instruction in the mystery of God.
Irenaeus is the 2nd-Century theologian who dominated Christian
orthodoxy before Origen—and his theological framework was that of the
Apologists … at the Nicene conference (ca 325 CE), the vast majority of
the bishops theologically followed Origen, who followed Irenaeus; and for this
vast majority of bishops (if such a phrase can be applied to 300, all that
attended the Council at Nicea, of 1,800 then-ordained Christian bishops), it
was absolutely essential that the Father and the Son be numerically one, the
only way these bishops could interpret homoousios
[of one substance] and still have any deity remotely resembling the deity
Judaism worshiped. And from their very limited understanding of spiritual
matters—limited because of their lawlessness—the only obvious way
for the Father to differ from the Son was dispensationally, in that God manifests
Himself in different forms at different times and to different peoples. But these
lawless bishops were afraid of Sabellianism, the logical extension of dispensationalism
and of their Greek metaphysical paradigms; for the original intent of New
Testament writers was that the Son differed from the Father even though one was
in the other and the Father was seen through the Son. Thus, these bishops faced
a conundrum that was most easily resolved through Arianism, where the vast
majority of these bishops refused to go. Hence, the stage was set, by God, for
the theological exile of the Church from heavenly Jerusalem, an exile like that
of physically circumcised Israel from physical Jerusalem in the days of
Nebuchadnezzar, an exile that followed by the Church being “put
away” (i.e., separated from God) as Oholah and Oholibah [Samaria and
Jerusalem, the capital cities of the house of Israel and the house of Judah]
were women put away for adultery before being delivered into captivity. For
when these lawless bishops turned to Emperor Constantine to resolve the issue
of singleness, the Church, as a put away
adulterer, was delivered into the hand of the prince of the world for the
destruction of the flesh as Paul commanded the saints at Corinth to do with the
man who was with his father’s wife (1 Cor 5:5). At Nicea, those theologians who should have been
witnesses to the faith received from Christ Jesus became interpreters of it,
instead. They, like the first Eve, believed the lie of the old dragon, Satan
the devil, and they, as the woman, took to themselves authority to speak for
the future Husband, Christ Jesus, when they were deceived. It is for this
reason that the Pastor commands that the Woman be silent and learn from their
Husband. The faith of the first disciples was a form of
Christianity later labeled heretical by Christendom after two centuries of
councils moved Christian dogma away from Moses and towards Plato in the Eastern
Churches and Aristotle in the Western Churches. Therefore, it is to John that
disciples must look for understanding. This subject will be continued in next
Sabbath’s reading. * The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal. * * * * * "Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©
2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by
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