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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 testing the spirits. Printable/viewable for Greek characters PDF
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For the Sabbath of July 19, 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 1 John chapter 4. Commentary: John writes that disciples are to love one another,
“for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows
God” (v. 9) … is what
John writes true, or has John used “love” differently from how the
concept is today commonly perceived? Paul wrote, “For those who live according to
the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live
according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. …
For the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to
God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Rom 8:5, 7). For Paul, the person who does not submit to
God’s law has his or her mind set on the flesh and cannot please God,
does not love God, but remains subject to death—and John writes the same
message: “And by this we know that we have come to know him [Jesus], if
we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not
keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps
his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected” (1 John 2:3-5). So
the person who knows God will keep His commandments. The person who has been
born of spirit is not hostile to God and will keep the law. Thus, those
individuals who remain hostile to [opposed to] keeping the law (i.e., keeping
the commandments) are not born of spirit but still have their minds set on the
things of the flesh. These individuals cannot please God and do not even know
God, a brash statement considering that such individuals fill the pews of
nearly every Christian church on Sunday mornings. And these individuals, often
outwardly displaying great love for other “Christians,” have used
Romans chapter 14 as their justification for continuing to live as they have
always lived. If God so loved us that He sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins, “we ought to love one another” (1 John
4:11), for no one has ever seen God (v.
12) and how can we love what we have never seen when we cannot love those we do
see? So as John writes, “And this commandment we have from him [Jesus]:
whoever loves God must also love his brother” (v. 21). A disciple is his or her brother’s keeper
… does a disciple love his or her brother by watching him sally forth in
sin without saying anything to him? James writes, “My brothers, if anyone
among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that
whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his [the one who
wanders] soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (Jas
5:19-20). But what if this sinner does not want to be into
“the truth”? How much effort should be expended to bring the sinner
back? Is there a qualifier to loving one’s brother that has been
overlooked, especially considering the status of Christendom has changed
greatly in the past nineteen hundred years? The question must again be asked, but refined to a
point: does a Sabbatarian disciple love his Christian brothers by watching them
flagrantly transgress the commandments without saying anything to them? Or has
the wolf growled at these Sabbatarians so many times that they fear to say
anything, sitting instead on their hands with their mouths clamped tightly
shut, pretending that if they leave those who worship on the 8th day
alone, they will be left alone? Well, when the great falling away occurs, they
won’t be left alone. They will be hunted as if they were beasts,
slaughtered as so much livestock, and those doing the slaying will sincerely
believe they do God a favor. So there is no reason to remain quiet, even when
knowing that these Christian brothers are probably far less Christian than they pretend to be. John wrote that we are to test the spirits,
“for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (4:1)
… these many false prophets went out teaching that they were genuine Christians and John and those with him
were false— To determine genuine from false Christians and Christian
teachers, the spirits must be tested. And for John, the test was whether the
spirit confessed that Jesus had come in the flesh. But this was a 1st-Century
test for which cheating spirits secured an answer sheet: the spirit animating Christendom
orthodoxy goes to great lengths to stress that Jesus was fully man [i.e., He
came in the flesh] and fully God [i.e., He came as God], thereby confessing
that Jesus Christ came in the flesh and effectively negating John’s test
of who is and isn’t of the antichrist[1]. But if Jesus were fully God from birth, what
happened when the Holy Spirit [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] descended upon Him as a dove? … Keep this
question in mind, for in its answer is the gospel that Paul taught. Today, who denies that Jesus came in the flesh? Certainly
Christian orthodoxy doesn’t seem to, nor do satellite theologies seem to.
But when Jesus came to John the Baptist at the beginning of His ministry and
told John that He needed to be baptized by John (Matt 3:13), John objected and
said that he needed to be baptized by Jesus. Jesus countered with,
“‘Let it [Jesus being baptized] be so now, for thus it is fitting
for us to fulfill all righteousness’” (v. 15). So by Jesus’ testimony, His baptism by John was
necessary to fulfill all righteousness—and Paul wrote, “Do you not
know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order
that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we
too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:3-4). Unless in baptism
there is a comparison of apples to oranges, the baptism of disciples into
Christ’s death would have Jesus’ baptism also be into His death
when He took upon Himself the sins of If disciples are baptized into Jesus’ death
so that these disciples can walk in newness of life, what actually happens for the
fleshly bodies of disciples do not die as Jesus died at If disciples are “buried with him by baptism
into death,” the beginning and end of Jesus’ earthly ministry are
compressed into the baptism of the disciple—with baptism always
representing death, not birth by water—hence, Jesus’ baptism and
receipt of the divine breath of the Father [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] becomes the pattern for, or type of the
“old self” or “old man” being crucified with Jesus and
a “new self” or “new man” resurrected to life “in
a resurrection like his” (Rom 6:5-6), with the flesh actually putting on
glory at the end of Jesus’ seven year ministry. The flesh and blood body of Jesus is now analogous
to a person’s old self or old nature [that which imparts personhood] that is crucified with Jesus
“in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing” (Rom 6:6).
Walking “in newness of life” doesn’t pertain to the future,
when disciples receive glorified bodies, but pertains to the period immediately
following baptism; so a person is resurrected from the dead without the
physical body either dying or becoming immortal when “the Father raises
the dead and gives them life” (John 5:21) “as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father (Rom 6:4). The theological
juxtaposition is thus: ·
Jesus’
physical body is a type or representation of the “human nature”
received from God that enlivens every human being, the nature which King
Nebuchadnezzar had taken from him for the seven years when he received from God
the nature of an ox (Dan chap 4). ·
Baptism is
unto the death of this human nature that has been consigned to disobedience
(Rom 11:32) because of the transgression of the first Adam. ·
Because
Jesus’ father was not the first Adam, but the Logos/Theos, Jesus was born “free,” and not in
bondage to disobedience; thus, He was born free to keep the commandments of
God. But this is not the case with any person whose father, however generations
removed, is the first Adam. ·
Because a
person’s human nature is baptized into Jesus’ death, and buried in
a death like Jesus’, “the personhood” of the individual is
raised from death by the Father (John 5:21) as the Father raised Jesus from the
dead—raised so that this new personhood can walk in newness of life, not
enslaved to sin. ·
A person is
raised from the dead [resurrected] and from a death like Jesus’ when the
person receives a second birth, a second life (John 3:5-8) through receipt of
the divine breath of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] as Jesus received a second life when He was
raised from baptism and the breath of God descended upon Him as a dove. A shadow or type of a spiritual thing is the mirror
image of the spiritual thing in one less dimension than the spiritual thing
… Paul argues that this physical realm reveals the things of God (Rom
1:20), but it does this by forming the left hand image of the right hand of
God. When Jesus was glorified He sat down at the right hand of the Father (Heb
10:12 et al). Disciples, when born of
spirit, should form the left hand image of Christ Jesus, walking as Jesus
walked (1 John 2:6), imitating Paul as he imitated Jesus (1 Cor 11:1; Phil
3:17)—“image” used because it is not the flesh of the
disciple that dies at baptism or is crucified with Jesus or is raised from the
dead “by the glory of the Father” (Rom 6:4). It is the inner human
nature that activates the flesh that is raised from the dead by the glory of
the Father. Jesus’ flesh and blood body existed in one less dimension
than does this inner human nature, received initially from God as a life force
that causes a human being to be a human being and a cat to be a cat, in
addition to causing the lungs to breathe and the heart to pump. It exists at a
more primordial level than “instinct,” or “reasoning,”
both manifestations of this inner self. The inner creature or old nature is, again, the
nature that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from him in an instant. It comes from God
and returns to God, and it is not an immortal soul although ancient Greek
philosophers taught that it was. Rather, it is the nature of the great predators
that will be changed when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh (Isa
11:6-9). It is the nature that will be taken from the lion-appearing first king
of Daniel chapter 7 when this spirit being has its wings plucked off and is
lifted up and made to stand as a man and is given the mind of a man. Some
cutting edge research has been presented at Loma Linda University showing
certain chemicals produce in this “nature” a desire to know God or
to seek God; so this nature does not exist separate from the flesh, but is
united with the flesh by the creation process and would seem to have entered
the first Adam when Elohim [singular
in usage] breathed into the nostrils of the man of mud. As a person’s shadow lies to the side of a
person that is farthest away from the light, and as the shadow of a
three-dimensional person exists in two dimensions only, the shadow and copy of
a heavenly thing occurs in this earthly realm, which will make Jesus’ first
three and a half years of ministry the shadow and copy of His endtime ministry
when He, as the glorified Son, will again deliver the Father’s words. The
interruption in this ministry occurs from the death of His body, His physical
body at Within the single verse of John 5:21 is all of
Christendom’s history, beginning with the Father raising disciples from
the dead as Jesus was raised from the dead (Rom 6:4) to the Son giving life to
whom He will by causing the perishable flesh of disciples to put on
imperishability as His flesh put on immortality when He ascended to the Father. If the flesh and blood body of the man Jesus is the
shadow of the inner creature or nature that enlivens the flesh—the inner
self that is baptized into His death and raised up by the Father through the
Father giving life to disciples by receipt of His divine breath (again, John
5:21)—then the man Jesus had to have come in the flesh, and had to have come
without spiritual life until after baptized when the divine breath of the
Father descended upon Him as a dove. He could not form the shadow otherwise. John’s baptism was unto repentance, or the death
of lawlessness and resurrection into a newness of life that would have the
person living without sin, but living as a mortal human being with no eternal
life dwelling within the person. John’s objection to baptizing Jesus
stemmed from Jesus being without sin; Jesus had no need to repent. He had no
need to walk in a newness of life,
for He already walked without sin. Again, His father was not the first Adam,
but the Logos [Ò 8`(@H]; so Jesus was not born consigned [or concluded]
to sin as a bondservant of the Adversary. To borrow the terminology of
Christian orthodoxy, Jesus was born without original
sin. Hence, as a flesh and blood human being, Jesus was born free to keep
the laws of God and was without condemnation; He was born free to keep the
commandments even though He was tempted in all things as other men [and women]
were. And He had kept the commandments as John knew that He had. Rejection or failure to comprehend the Hebraic
teaching that human beings must inherit eternal life (cf. Luke 10:25; 18:18) and do not have inherent indwelling eternal
life in the form of an immortal soul hindered or outright prevented Greek
theologians from understanding what occurred when the breath of the Father [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] descended upon Jesus as a dove (Matt 3:16)
… if Jesus were born of Mary as the only Son of the Logos who was Theos
(John 1:1, 14; 3:16) and was with the
Theon [JÎ< 2,`<] in the beginning, the claim of the Apostle John,
then Jesus had no life of any sort that came from the Theon [JÎ< 2,`< or the Father] prior to receiving the divine
breath of the Father when it descended upon Him as a dove—and only after
receiving life from the divine breath of the Father does the Father call Jesus
His beloved Son (Matt 3:17). In order for Jesus to be fully God prior to the
divine breath of the Father descending upon Him, the Logos/Theos could not have come as His son, but as Himself
… the argument that has Jesus being fully man and fully God makes Jesus
into a mutant that is neither man nor God, but a hybrid creature of another
biological phylum, a Janus with two
faces, one composed of “spirit” and one composed of flesh, a
gatekeeper that looks into both heaven and hell, and not a man like other men,
with a human nature like other men’s, differing only in that it was not
consigned to disobedience from birth but was free to choose whether or not to
obey God— The Apostle John’s testimony is that the Logos [Ò 8`(@H] was God [2,ÎH], and that this Logos became flesh and dwelt among men: “5"Â Ò 8`(@H FD> ¦(X<,J@ 6"Â ¦F6Z<TF,< ¦< º:Ã<” (1:14). “This one—@ÞJ@H,” this Logos,
was in the beginning with the Theon [JÎ< 2,`<] … structurally, John separates the Logos [Ò 8`(@H], a masculine singular noun in nominative case,
from the Theon [JÎ< 2,`<], a masculine singular noun in accusative case
(based on the article), an imbedded separation inherent in the plural Hebrew
icon used for “God” [Elohim].
John further states that the Logos
became flesh, became God in the form of flesh—and if we stopped here, the
One whom the Logos was with [that is JÎ< 2,`<] has neither a Son, nor has entered the creation
Himself. The separateness that John establishes between the Logos/Theos [Ò 8`(@H/2,ÎH] and the
Theon [JÎ< 2,`<] in the first two sentences of his gospel
absolutely prevents the Logos [Ò 8`(@H] from entering His creation as the son of the Theon [JÎ< 2,`<], which is what makes the Trinity an unexplainable
mystery for the inherent plurality of Elohim
is not present in a Greek masculine singular noun. How could a Greek speaker convey both the
“oneness” of God and the plurality of the Hebrew icons used for God
without establishing a pantheon like that which Greeks had outwardly worshipped
for a millennium and without doing serious damage to monotheism? Jesus came to
reveal the Father to His disciples (John 17:25-26), with the Father not
previous known in this world, and by extension, not known by What John writes when he says that “every
spirit [B<,Ø:"] that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is from God [¦6 J@Ø 2,@Ø]” isn’t an affirmation that angels
coming from the God confess that
Jesus came in the flesh whereas angels coming from the antichrist do not so confess.
Rather, every “breath” that confesses would seem to mean “every
spoken word by a disciple who has been born of spirit” — note: in
his gospel, Matthew does not use an article for either B<,Ø:" or for 2,@Ø in 3:16, whereas both definite articles are
present in 1 John 4:2. Matthew’s reason for omitting the articles, added
by later scribes and so noted by brackets, apparently stems from the breath of
God descending as a dove not being a definite or one time occurrence—in
Greek, the definite article is omitted when a noun is not used in a definite
sense—but being the pattern or type of fulfilling all righteousness,
meaning that every disciple will receive the breath of God in a similar manner. Grammatically, if the two Greek nouns (B<,Ø:" and 2,@Ø) were “definite,” the definite article
would need to be present as it is in, “JÎ B<,Ø:" J@Ø 2,@Ø” (1 John 4:2) so Matthew uses “B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø” as two non-definite nouns, which now
circles back to Jesus being a man like any other man and He received the breath
of God as any other man would receive the breath of God. And if Jesus were a
man like any other man, He was not fully God from birth. And as a type that
fulfills all righteousness, he would have come in the flesh only. The world listens to those who are from the world,
who are of the antichrist, but only those who are of God [i.e., born of spirit
as Jesus received the breath of God] listen to genuine disciples such as John.
And listening or not listening to John determines who knows “the Spirit
of truth and the spirit of error—JÎ B<,Ø:" JH •802,\"H 6"Â JÎ B<,Ø:" JH B8V<0H” (1 John 4:6). Although translators make a
distinction between one “JÎ B<,Ø:"” and the other “JÎ B<,Ø:"” by stylistically identifying “the
spirit of truth” as the Holy Spirit, John does not distinguish one breath
from the other breath except as to what is uttered by the particular
“breath—B<,Ø:",” with the one uttering truth and the other
error; so for John, from one pool of disciples comes some disciples who hear
the words of the John, Peter, Paul, and from this same pool comes a
great many more disciples who are from this world and heard by this world and
have gone out from those who are genuine for they were never of those who are
genuine (1 John 2:19). The difficulties caused by transcribing an
inherently and structurally plural noun in Hebrew [Elohim] as a masculine singular noun in Greek created a separation
of “Christians” by which endtime disciples can determine who is of
Christ and who is of the antichrist, the spirit of this world, with those on
all sides identifying those on another side as false … is this not an apt
description of today’s Christian Church? The inherent plurality of Elohim is manifested when comparing familiar quotations of Jesus: For God [Ò 2,ÎH] so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God
did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17) For as the Father raises the dead and gives them
life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. The Father judges no one, but
has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they
honor the Father. (John 5:21-23) Who judges the world? Paul writes, “God
judges those outside [the Church]” (1 Cor 5:13), and Peter writes,
“For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of
God’” (1 Pet 4:17). So there is judgment, and it would seem that
the Father has given this responsibility to the Son, who said not to be
surprised when those who have done good are resurrected to life and those who
have done evil are resurrected to condemnation or judgment (John 5:28-29). If the Theos [Ò 2,ÎH] did not send His only Son into the world to
condemn it, then who did send Jesus into the world to judge it? The answer is,
the Father sent Jesus into the world to judge it … but Jesus told
Pharisees, “‘Do not think that I will accuse you to the
Father’” (John 5:45), and there is no reason for Jesus to bring
accusations against the Pharisees. The Father had already given all judgment to
Jesus, and Moses stood as the accuser of the Pharisees and of every other
Israelite, physically or spiritually circumcised. The Father, by deferring all judgment to the Son,
neither condemns the world nor saves the world. It was the Logos/Theos who sent His only Son, the man Jesus of Nazareth,
into the world that the world might be saved through Him. The Apostle John adds, “No one has ever seen
God—2,Î< @Û*,ÂH BfB@J, J,2X"J"4” (1 John 4:12); yet when Philip said to
Jesus, “‘Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for
us,’” Jesus said, “‘Have I been with you so long, and
you still do not know me, 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’” (John 14:8-10). Once the breath of the Father descended upon Jesus
as a dove, the Father was in Jesus as an indwelling breath of life in a manner
analogous to a person’s human nature being in the person. The mechanics
of how Jesus was in the Father are more difficult to explain, but
comprehendible through realizing the life Jesus had came from the Father so the
Father “encompassed” Jesus, thereby causing Jesus to be within the
Father … once the breath of the Father had descended upon Jesus, Jesus’
human nature, coming from the Logos
being His first father, was replaced or overwritten by the nature of the Father
so that Jesus’ words were the Father’s words (John 14:10-11). In a like manner, when a person is born of
spirit—that is, receives life through the indwelling of the breath of the
Father—the person’s human nature should be overwritten by the
Father; thus, the person should walk in a newness of life, having love for one
another. Note: “should” … too often what is seen within
Christendom is disciples actively practicing sinning, and John writes,
“Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin
is lawlessness. … Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the
devil” (1 John 3:4, 8). And out of love for one’s brothers, Sabbatarian
disciples are really under obligation to try and return lawless disciples back
to the truth, a task made more difficult by instructions not to cast pearls
before swine—are 8th-day Christians swine? If they are not,
then the obligation remains to lead, if possible, lawless disciples into the
truth. John’s testimony is that the Logos [Ò 8`(@H] entered His creation as His only begotten Son (cf. John 1:1-3. 14; 3:16), that
“this one” [Ò 8`(@H] was, in the beginning, with the God [JÎ< 2,`<], and was Himself, God [2,ÎH]. To Trinitarians, the structural separation
incorporated within “with—BDÎH” does not produce two entities, but two
manifestations of a single triune deity. To Unitarians, the Logos is no more of an entity than is a word spoken by a person;
thus, Unitarians hold that as God spoke all that is into existed, He also spoke
the man Jesus into existence within the womb of Mary, thereby explaining how it
came to be that Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, the divine breath of
God and the vehicle by which God spoke the creation into existence. Whereas Trinitarians teaching that Jesus came as
fully man and as fully God do a dance of deceit to covertly get around what
John wrote about testing spirits (no one wants to be so easily identified as false),
Unitarians definitively teach that Jesus not only came as a man [an Adoni] but that he remained a man
until He ascended to the Father to be glorified. But here is where Unitarians
step into a logical fault unless Paul’s epistles are ignored: if Jesus is
a man descended from the first Adam, then He was born consigned to disobedience
(Rom 11:32) and as such He could not live without sin. He would have been
obligated, as the servant of disobedience, to sin. Therefore, if Jesus’
Father was not of the house of God and was not the creator of all that has been
made—if Jesus’ Father were not Theos—then
Jesus could not have lived without sin but would have needed a covering for sin
such as an animal sacrifice until the “anointed one” came. The teachings of both Trinitarian and of Arian
Christians are false—when the spirits are tested, what is found is the
presently dead Body of Christ [dead through separation from Christ] that has
many, many disciples looking at the physical things of this world (i.e., those
things that pertain to the flesh) as if they were spiritual things, not
realizing that what they are seeing are shadows and mirror images of living
realities in the supra-dimensional heavenly realm. And unfortunately, as all
but a handful left the Apostle Paul because they could not understand his
gospel, and as all but the women and John left Jesus because they didn’t
want identified with him, all but a few will not today use the periscope of
typology to peer into the heavenly realm but will stay wallowing in the mud
from which the things of the flesh come. * 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
permission. All rights reserved." [ Home ] [ Sabbath Readings ] [1] Paul’s test of preaching the gospel free of charge, not even burdening the ones being taught when in need, with those who ask for tithes and donations being false apostles and deceitful workmen is a far more effective test and a much more difficult test to fake. |