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 Christology.

Clickable hymns on this page require RealPlayer to be installed on your computer. The download is free.

Possible songs include the following hymns:
Lord I Will Praise Thee!
How Lovely Are Thy Dwellings
Behold, The Day Will Come
God Is My Rock, My Salvation
The King of Love My Shepherd Is

Weekly Readings

For the Sabbath of June 14, 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.

In last Sabbath’s reading, entry discussion was begun concerning the temple of God—and of this temple being the Lord God the Almighty that dwells in heavenly Jerusalem as the temple Solomon built dwelt in earthly Jerusalem. And as certain givens were addressed at the beginning of last Sabbath’s reading, similar givens here need addressed:

· A “house—@Æ6\"” is both the structure in which an individual dwells as well as the lineage of the individual.

· Therefore, a fabric or skin tent in which a physically circumcised Israelite dwelt in the wilderness is analogous to the clothed tent of flesh in which the disciple—who is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek—presently dwells, for the flesh is not yet the disciple.

· But in the complexity of Scripture, the house in which a physically circumcised Israelite dwelt in Egypt prior to the death angel passing through the land slaying all firstborns not covered by the blood of a paschal lamb is also represented by the fleshly body of a disciple.

· Liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death—Paul did not understand why disciples were not so liberated when born of spirit (Rom 7:15-25)—at a second Passover is the reality foreshadowed by the liberation of physically circumcised Israel from physical bondage to a physical king at the first Passover.

· Thus, disciples, as the temple of God, are mentally journeying through the wilderness of Sin/Zin, but physically remain in Egypt (i.e., in bondage to sin and death); hence, the liberation and recovery of Israel that will cause the Exodus from Egypt to be forgotten (Jer 16:14-15; 23:7-8) is both an ongoing and a further event.

· As an on-going event, life has been given to disciples through the Father raising them from the dead [i.e., from a spiritually lifeless state — John 5:21]; so disciples are truly born of spirit, with the “disciple” being this spiritual life that has come from the Father as a son of God that dwells in a tent of flesh.

· Disciples are not yet the tents of flesh that sit in pews on Sabbath, but disciples will become these tents of flesh at the second Passover, when these tents of flesh are liberated from indwelling sin and death, the event that begins the seven years of tribulation and the event that precedes the Son giving life to whom He will (also John 5:21) by causing the mortal flesh to put on immortality.

· Today, the inner new creature is a son of God, and is of the “house—@Æ6\"<” of God, but the tent of flesh is of the house of the first Adam, consigned to disobedience for a season.

· As a future event, life will be given to disciples who are not then merely the new creature or self dwelling in a tent of flesh but the liberated and empowered “person” that is both spirit and flesh as Jesus was spirit [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø].

· Then the house of Adam shall pass, in the twinkling of an eye, into being the house of the Lord God the Almighty for those whom the Son judges worthy.

Both the Father and the Son must give life to disciples, with the Father giving life when the Holy Spirit [B<,Ø:" –(4@<—breath holy] is received, or sent to dwell in a tent of flesh as a new life that has come from heaven and not from the first Adam. But the spiritual does not precede the physical (1 Cor 15:46): life must first have come to lumps of clay from Theos, with this life received when Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into the nostrils of the first Adam. Only after life has come to clay vessels from Theos can life come to the same lump of clay when the Father sends His divine breath into the person, thereby giving to the person a second life, a second breath, and not a breath that enters through the nostrils but metaphorical breath that enters directly into the mind as if a passageway were in the back of the head as whales breathe through blowholes on top of their heads, or behind their heads.

One breath comes from Yah, the deity the seventy saw on Mount Sinai (Ex 24:9-11)—this is the breath the first Adam received when Elohim [singular] breathed into the man of mud’s nostrils. And a second breath, a metaphorical breath for this “breath—B<,Ø:"” is not from this world, comes from the Father who raised Jesus from the dead—this is the breath the last Adam received when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove.

Both Yah and the Father are one in the conjoined tetragrammon YHWH, where each have life inherent through possessing spiritual “breath” as revealed through the aspiration represented by the letter “H.” Thus, when the man Jesus asks, “‘And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed’” (John 17:5), the glory of the Lord God the Almighty is possessing inherent spiritual life, or life in the timeless heavenly realm where there is no decay, no death, no darkness.

The glory of God is life inherent, life in the timeless heavenly realm, life that will never end—and Moses receive a type of this life when he came down from Sinai with his face shining so brightly that he had to put on a veil; for all who come to Jesus must come believing the words that Moses wrote (John 5:47). No one can come to the Father except through Jesus, and no one can hear Jesus’ words if the person will not believe the words Moses wrote. Therefore, to enter into either the Father’s or the Son’s presence the person must believe Moses who, as a servant, was faithful to testify to the things that Christ Jesus, as the Son, would later speak (Heb 3:5). … The shining of Moses’ face continues to this day as it continued to Paul’s day now nearly two millennia ago: as the Israelites of the 1^st-Century could not look upon Moses’ face so that they could not see “the outcome of what was being brought to an end” (2 Cor 3:13)—what was being brought to an end was the darkness of death—natural Israel still cannot look upon (or accept) what is being brought to an end, and Christendom refuses to even look at Moses. Nevertheless, Moses achieved a type and copy of immortality through the shining of his face and through the necessity of believing his writings if a person will come to the Father and the Son.

Both Yah, the creator of all things physical (John 1:3), and the Father must give life through breath to disciples, but Yah is no more for He entered His creation as His only Son (John 3:16) to be born as the man Jesus (John 1:14). Thus, the transformation from lifeless clay to glory is a three step process that includes a fourth step for those who will be sacrificed as the Body of the Lamb.

1. Physical life must be given to a lump of clay, the base elements of this creation, with this life given once to the first Adam (Gen 2:7).

2. Spiritual life must be given to physically living lumps of clay, with this life first given to fulfill all righteousness when the Holy Spirit descended as a dove to light and remain on the last Adam (Matt 3:15-17).

3. Spiritual liberation from indwelling sin and death will be given to spiritually and physically living lumps of clay when disciples are empowered by or filled with the Holy Spirit after the example seen in Acts 2:2.

4. Once liberated from indwelling sin and death, those disciples who return to sin will be delivered into the hand of the man of perdition for the destruction of the flesh.

5. Once liberated, those disciples who do not return to sin will be glorified [or given life everlasting] when judgments are revealed upon Christ Jesus’ return as the Messiah.

6. But once liberated, only a remnant of today’s Church will physically live into the second half of the Tribulation; for disciples must not only keep the commandments of God, but they must hold the testimony of Jesus (Rev 12:17) which is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10) before they can serve as witnesses for the third part of humankind (Zech 13:9), that portion of humankind to be born of spirit when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28).

7. The confusion of doctrines and dogmas that presently exists within Sabbatarian Christendom will end when all but a remnant of today’s Church perishes either physically or spiritually in the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years of tribulation.

A person born into the house of Israel is of the house of Israel—a self-evident statement—but Paul said that not all who descended from Israel belong to Israel (Rom 9:6). Thus, not all who are sons of God are of the household of God. Not all who have been born of spirit are the temple. Rather, as both Esau and Jacob were born of promise to Isaac, Esau was hated from before birth and Jacob, though deceitful, was loved. And it is only after birth that the reason for Esau to be hated and Jacob to be loved becomes apparent; for Esau did not value his inheritance. It was for him something to be lightly treated; i.e., to be traded for a bowl of pottage. And despite Jacob’s deceitfulness, he strove with God, not quitting until he prevailed, not overpowering God but hanging on until he was blessed … the blessing Jacob received was confronting God face to face and living to tell about it.

Nothing any genuine disciple can say in this age will threaten so-called Christian orthodoxy, which isn’t of God but of the prince of this world, the Adversary. Jesus’ ministry among the Sadducees and Pharisees of Judea serves as a copy and type of genuine disciples’ endtime ministry to Christendom—and as the Jewish leaders in the 1^st-Century delivered Jesus up to the Romans to be killed, Christendom will deliver genuine endtime disciples to civil authorities in the 21^st-Century to be killed, believing all the while that they are doing God a favor. And as the chief complaint Sadducees and Pharisees had against Jesus was that He made Himself the equal to the Father by identifying God as His Father, the foremost complaint Christendom will have against genuine endtime disciples is that they dare identify themselves as genuine sons of God, of the house of God, and entitled to take upon themselves the name of the house just as a natural descendant of Israel takes upon him or herself the name of “Israel.”

But again, not all who have been born as genuine sons of God are of God, for among those who have been born of spirit is a spiritual Esau, disciples who seek their own righteousness, having their own hair covering, their own form and definition of grace. These disciples use the description of their chief transgression of the law as an indictment against genuine disciples: they accuse genuine disciples of seeking their own righteousness when these genuine disciples strive to walk uprightly as bipeds rather than shambling along as lawless beasts. This accusation is false! Disciples seek the righteousness of Christ Jesus when they strive to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). Disciples seek their own righteousness when they transform the mantle of Christ’s obedience into a dogma of unmerited pardon of willful sin—the disciple who, once freed from disobedience, returns to sin as its willing servant is not under grace but under the law, for the power of the law is its death penalty. When sin had no claim to this person life, this person returned to sin and to being under sentence of death, only death this time will be the second death. It is only when a disciple seeks to imitate Paul as he imitated Christ that the person is under grace. Simply put, the person who does not strive to walk as Jesus, an Observant Jew, walked is not under grace.

God did not evolve in the catacombs under Rome. Christianity was not an evolving religion in the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Centuries. Yes, the philosophical Trojan horse Greeks were constructing to win the empire they could not win with swords and spears was being built, the Trojan horse that comes to endtime disciples bearing the name of Christ Jesus, the Trojan horse that the Western world hopes to ride into heaven. But the Christianity of Christ Jesus has not evolved. So-called Jewish Christians of the 1^st-Century were Christians, for Christianity was and will always properly be a sect of Judaism, a sect that does not focus on the flesh but on the inner new creature born of spirit that is a son of God, not a son of the first Adam as is the tent of flesh in which this son of God presently dwells. And with this said, it is time to turn to Scripture:

The person conducting the services should read or assign to be read 1 John chapter 1.

Commentary: Christian orthodoxy comes to endtime disciples through historical exegesis, but the mystery of lawlessness also comes by this same means.

Modern scholarship is about challenging traditions and traditional understandings, with the loss of belief that results from these challenges masked by an advocacy of form that elevates the noble intentions of humankind to godliness. Christianity is no longer about enthusiasm, but about dignity and surface appearances and the values of Western civilization. It is about hanging onto the past without hanging on so tightly as to hinder the evolution of personal values and individual rights in an age that is spinning faster than the amount of observable mass would have gravity spin planets around stars, and stars within galaxies. In an age when cosmos are flying apart at accelerating speeds, heaven has become the destination of the good, the bad, and the ugly—if the preachers of Christendom are to be believed.

Christology questions did not first surface in the 2^nd, 3^rd, or 4^th Centuries, but in the 1^st-Century. Whereas it was enough for Peter and even for Paul to refer to both the Father and the Son as God [2,`H—Theos], with the creation having concealed the Son (cf. Eccl 3:11; Rev 22:13) from Israel throughout the nation’s history leaving this holy nation believing that the creator-of-all-that-is was the Father whom Jesus came to reveal, it was not enough for polytheistic Greek converts to believe that both the Father and Son were God but only one God, not two, not many, not one in unity but one numerically, without these Greeks demanding a logical explanation. The subject must be addressed. And the Apostle John did address the subject in the 1^st-Century to apparently refute false teachings by not a Greek but a circumcised Egyptian, Kerinthus.

But modern scholarship attributes much less life to John than does Justin Martyr, who, in his Dialogue with Tryphon, refers to John, one of the Apostles, as a witness who lived with them at Ephesus. Irenaeus declared that John wrote his Gospel at Ephesus, and that he lived until the reign of Emperor Trajan. Eusebius places John’s banishment to Patmos in the reign of Domitian (81-96 CE). Apparently after Emperor Domitian’s death, John returned to Ephesus and died about 100 CE, being, obviously, of great age—and it is this obvious great age that has caused modern scholarship to steal approximately three decades of life from John and place his death closer to the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 CE. There is an unwillingness to believe that John lived into Trajan’s reign, or that he wrote the book of Revelation.

Of course, the 2^nd Century writers who mentioned John could be mistaken. These 2^nd-Century writers certainly were mistaken about what the Gospel of Christ demanded of them. Could they not also be mistaken about when John died? Could the poet Homer be mistaken about the existence of the city of Troy, or could biblical scribes be mistaken about the existence of King Cyrus? Certainly they could be, but they weren’t. Nor is Justin Martyr, who left the gospel he should have proclaimed and instead proclaimed a false message, mistaken.

Whereas Christology was not a major concern when the Synoptic Gospels were written, it had becomes a concern when John wrote his Gospel … reportedly [from Irenaeus], John refused to remain under the same roof with Kerinthus, an action that adds flesh to Paul commanding the saints at Corinth not to eat with a marked brother. Therefore, to resolve Christological questions, the most reliable writings endtime disciples have are of John and in particular the first and third chapters of his Gospel.

Kerinthus is first mentioned by name by Irenaeus in about 170 CE, approximately eighty years after John wrote his Gospel—and because none of his writings have survived, his doctrines come to endtime disciples from his detractors. Apparently he taught an odd mix of Gnosticism, Judaism, and Ebionitism, admitting one Supreme Being but teaching that the world was created by a distinct and far inferior power. He did not identify this creating power as the God of the Old Testament, the “2,`H—Theos” of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt 22:32), but apparently as angels; i.e., creating angels that also delivered the Law to Moses. Apparently he made a distinction between the man “Jesus” and the deity “Christ,” who allegedly entered Jesus immediately following baptism then returned to the Most High at Calvary. Apparently he believed in a millennial reign here on earth prior to the resurrection.

From what comes to endtime disciples about Kerinthus through the writings of Irenaeus, who himself had little spiritual understanding, is that a greater precision in the teaching of the gospel of Christ is needed than has previously been exhibited within Christendom … if John would not remain under the same roof as Keninthus, and as the doctrines Kerinthus taught were closer to what Jesus taught than is what Billy Graham and his ministry presently teaches—this is apparently the case—then what the writer of Hebrews says must be revisited: “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” (Heb 2:1-3).

In his Gospel, John wanted to specifically address the divinity of the Logos who was Theos and who entered His creation as His only Son (John 3:16), the man Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:14); for this same Theos was the light of day one (2 Cor 4:6), the light of this world (John 1:4-5; 12:35-36), and the light of 1 John 1:5—

· “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, ÓJ4 Ò 2,ÎH NäH ¦FJ4<—that God light is” (1 John 1:5).

· “In the beginning was the [8`(@H—Logos], and the [8`(@H—Logos] was with [2,`<—Theon], and the [8`(@H—Logos] was [2,ÎH—Theos] (John 1:1).

· Greek linguistic gender precludes 2,`< from being the same entity as 2,ÎH even though they are both one God, conjoined in the Tetragrammaton YHWH, which deconstructs to the radicals “YH” and “WH,” with the “H” representing aspirated breath as in a metaphorical “breath” that can be likened to human breath or moving air that carries sound waves and sustains life through delivering oxygen to the cells forming a living being.

· Therefore, Theos plus His breath is Yah, the deity Moses and the seventy saw atop Mount Sinai.

· But no one at any time has seen the Father, the entity represented by the radical “WH.” Abraham did not wash the feet of the Father, nor did Jacob wrestle with the Father, nor did the Father create all that has been made.

· The relationship between Theos and Theon prior to Theos entering His creation as His only Son can be likened to that of marriage, where a woman is joined with a man to become one with the man.

· The man Jesus, the only Son of Theos, did not to become the Son of Theon until the breath of Theon in the form of a dove descended upon the man Jesus, lit and remained on him, thereby giving to the man Jesus a second life, an additional life, a life that did not come directly or indirectly from Theos.

· It was Theos who breathed into the nostrils of the first Adam (Gen 2:7); thus, the life Mary possessed came from Theos through the first Adam—and the life Jesus possessed came from Theos entering His creation as His only Son. So both the mother and the father of the man Jesus, prior to His baptism, was of Theos, not Theon, the Most High who was one with Theos as a man is one with his wife prior to Theos entering His creation.

· Only after Jesus fulfilled all righteousness did the breath of the Father descended upon Jesus as a dove, imparting to Him a second life, thereby making Him the firstborn Son of the Most High.

It doesn’t matter that a spiritually young Peter did not use case gender with the precision John does some six decades later, or that the distinction Paul makes between Theos and the One who raised Jesus from the dead, though accurate, cannot be easily translated into English—Christology was not the issue either was addressing, or even had reason to suspect that they would have to address. Paul warred with the Circumcision Faction, Peter with false prophets and teachers. Neither Peter nor Paul had to make the case that Jesus was not a differing manifestation of the Father, or that no third deity of the same substance existed. Rather, both were concerned about conveying to Dispersed Jews and Hellenist Greeks that Jesus was the anointed one for whom Israel had long awaited.

· John specifically calls Jesus the Son of Theos: “[0F@Ø J@Ø LÊ@Ø "ÛJ@Ø—Jesus the son of him [who is light]” (1 John 1:7). This is confirmation of what John writes in his gospel (John 3:16), and what Luke writes in his gospel (Luke 1:32).

Of course no one has to believe that Jesus was the only Son of Theos as well as being the firstborn Son of Theon. But then, no one has to believe that both the Father and Jesus must give life to the disciple who will enter heaven. Blasphemy against the Father and the Son will be forgiven, but not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the divine breath of the Father that will empower or liberate disciples from indwelling sin and death at the second Passover. But if the Apostle John would not remain under the same roof with Kerinthus, a one-godder (someone who commits blasphemy against Christ by denying that as Theos He was the creator of all this has been made), how are endtime disciples to relate to the many, many one-godders who would have made the pronunciation of a name a salvational issue?

The above is a real question that must be addressed; for within Sabbatarian Christendom is a significant number of one-godders who have their own spurious translation of Scripture and a body of beliefs that places importance on physical things. They are deceitful workmen (and women) that have ensnared not just spiritual infants but older disciples who should know better than they apparently do. They are to be avoided—but oh, how they can dance.

Disciples must pay much closer attention to what Jesus said; to what Paul wrote; to what Moses wrote; to what John wrote; to what Peter wrote; to what Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote; to what the Prophets wrote; to what David wrote. Frankly, disciples have been sloppy readers of text, trusting others to read what they should have read for themselves. They are without excuse. But it is their “teachers” whose salvation is at stake, especially the salvation of the one-godders who spiritually gut and filet infant sons of God … blasphemy will be forgiven them, but not the wholesale murder of spiritual infants.

The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.

* * * * *

[ Home ] [ Sabbath Readings ]