Friday, December 31, 2021

COATS OF MANY COLORS

  The subject today is a continuation from yesterday about the holy garments of Aaron and his son for the chief priest and priests. The introductory verse is repeated for continuity: “And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty” (Exod 28:2).

  Yesterday, I dealt with the Garment of Adam, the grace that Noah found, Israel’s coat of many colors, and then the priestly garments.

  God set apart Aaron and his sons for the holy priesthood. He consecrated them and made them holy and worthy of their duties, which was ultimately the same as Adam’s — to dress and keep the Garden of God (Gen 2:15). Yes, it was a Garden of Living Souls and Adam was the first to be planted and Eve was his biological “germline” as it is called in botany. Therefore, the Garden was more than trees, bushes, and vines but a “Garden of Living Souls.”

  “Dress and keep” (abad and samar in the Hebrew) means to literally to serve and guard it for its good and preservation. Thus, Adam was the First High Priest, and he was to minister to those who would multiply in the Garden. He was second only to Yahweh just as Joseph was second only to Pharaoh.

  God put a priestly vestiture on Adam and his helper Eve. The garments of the High Priest and Priestess were coats of skin (or literally robes of the naked). That implied robes to hide their nakedness.

  The priestly garments were robes and breeches of fine linen. The greatest contrast in the garments of the Garden and of the Tabernacle was that God made the coats for Adam and Eve, but the Hebrews made their own coats. In other words, God protected Adam with nearly impenetrable wool and flesh but for the priests, they again made for themselves woven fabrics but tightly woven rather than the loose garment of fig leaves.

  Whereas the first garments of Adam and Eve covered little and with no efficacy, the priestly garments covered their nakedness and were tightly woven for security and beauty. God would no longer cover them with “death” but the works of their own hands. Their security was like Adam’s, by the sweat of their faces.

  So, the Covenants provided garments of different types, but they were all by grace in that God desired that none should perish (John 3:16). The role of the Levitical Priests of Aaron was to serve and preserve the Israelites. They were the wandering Church that was seeking Paradise that was still guarded by giant cherubim (the Anakim).

  They would need protective clothing but more so the consecration to get past the “guards.” When God consecrated them, He did more than design a covering for their flesh but put his Spirit upon them — “for their glory” (splendor) as it is written.

  From Psalms, the Hebrews were to glorify God (Psalm 22:3) but in this case God glorified them, perhaps for them to glorify Him in return.

  “Glorify” in the Greek is more descriptive — doxazo — adorn with luster and clothe with splendor; to render something excellent. (Strong’s Dict.). In other words, glorification is to render something “very good’ (Gen 1:31) just as Adam was in the beginning. But Adam was not only very good but literally excellent before he sinned. He was in the Presence of God and in the Image of God. Essentially, that is the “glorification” that will only be accomplished at the resurrection.

  God reimagined Aaron and His sons to be as much like Adam in his innocence as could be. Since that was before sin, the garments would not be of “death” but vegetation just as in the beginning before anything ever died. Thus, flesh represents death and linen life!

  God had made for them “coats of many colors,” meaning fabrics. The first “fabric” was Adam’s own flesh that was excellent. After sin, it was the coat of lamb’s skins whose fabric was “death of the innocent,” the fabric of Joseph’s coat of many colors was somewhat ambiguous because the Hebrew word can be translated different ways. However, it was likely a long-sleeved gown and a richly ornamented robe according to linguists (Wikipedia).

  The priestly garments were likewise coats of many colors and were likely of fine linen. Perhaps God was dressing Aaron and his sons just as he would dress Israel and his sons. Since the coat was from Jacob for Joseph, and the inheritance was for all the sons of Israel; that the priestly garments were an antitype of that.

  With all that said, God dressed Aaron and his sons to serve and preserve (dress and keep) the Israelites. When he glorified them, God put onto them His Holy Spirit. It was an invisible coat of a different “fabric” — made from the imperishable Flesh and Spirit of God. Perhaps the Israelites had a little “Jesus” put onto them, but in the long years, the fabric wore so thin it was worn out. By the time of Jesus, the priests still dressed in splendor but there was no invisible “fabric” to glorify them!

  God provided the linen and such for the priestly garments and He did the same for the Garment of Jesus. The Garment of Jesus was a Comforter that covered the entire flesh from head to toe. No longer would the head remain bare! The mind was protected as well. It was the place of the cranium for many reasons, and perhaps one of them, was finally Adam’s skull would be covered as well as his body. (See my book, The Skull of Adam, for more on that.)

  The “Comforter” would cover Christians all over to preserve them until they are saved in the end. The “fabric” of the Comforter was the Spirit of Jesus. He gave up His Holy Ghost to serve and preserve Christians until His second coming.

  The Comforter was placed on Jesus at His baptism: “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:22). The Comforter looked just like the body of Jesus — face and all. The Comforter covered the entire Flesh of the Son of Man and made Him the Son of God.

When Jesus died, he gave up the Ghost. Indubitably the repentant thief and the centurion saw the Spirit in bodily shape of God leave Him with the same motion like that of a dove.

  The Holy Ghost is as much God as is His Flesh. The omnipresent Holy Ghost surely covered the centurion and the thief. The Holy Ghost served the centurion faith and preserved the thief until the resurrection. The Comforter did the duties of Adam and Aaron — the duties of the High Priests that they failed to do!

  With Jesus gone in body, He left His Presence on Earth to serve and preserve His creatures until the Day of the Lord when they will be glorified in a new “fabric” — imperishable flesh covered with the Garment of God!

51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. (1 Cor 15:51-53)

 The final “coat” is incorruptible flesh. That is glorification just like Adam was created. He was made immortal, but sin spoiled that. The “rapture” (snatching up by Jesus to the Presence of the Father) is glorification. The rapture restores the flesh that will eternally cover the entire person.

  Until then, God has provided a coat of another “fabric” to make the “coat of many fabrics” that he did for Joseph and the priests.

   Tomorrow the commentary will be on a coat of another fabric.

(picture credit: The Teaching Ministry of Jay Mack; "Joseph'ss Coat of Many Colors") 



Thursday, December 30, 2021

ON CLERICAL GARB

  God first provided the Law to Moses, then the construction of the utensils, then the Tabernacle itself. Then God designed the garments of the Aaronic priesthood for the Levites (This passage is lengthy but well worth considering):

2 And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty. 3 And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office…

 35 And it shall be upon Aaron to minister: and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, and when he cometh out, that he die not…

 40 And for Aaron's sons thou shalt make coats, …41 And thou shalt put them upon Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him; and shalt anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. 42 And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs they shall reach: 43 And they shall be upon Aaron, and upon his sons, when they come in unto the tabernacle of the congregation, or when they come near unto the altar to minister in the holy place; that they bear not iniquity, and die: it shall be a statute for ever unto him and his seed after him. (Exod 28)

  In the beginning man (Adam) had been innocent, and with one sin, Adam broke all the commandments; not just the first, the ten, but all of them because if God is defamed, His entire Will is defamed.

  God provided the Law so that sinners would know their sins. The apostle Paul explained the Law: “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin” (Rom 7:7; ESV). Thus, the Law is not to mete out punishment but to recognize sin.

  Even with the Law, the Hebrews failed to recognize sin, and those whose doctrine is antinomianism believe it is okay to ignore the Law. Antinomian is that sinners are released from sin by grace. As such, that branch of Christianity believes sin is not accounted to the sinner who has grace on them.

  As such, failure to recognize the Law for Christians would be much like driving an automobile without rules while everyone else is following the rules and regulations. They may be in danger, endanger others, but when the “cop” comes, the explanation is: I am sorry I killed these people, but I was driving with grace.

  The point is that when others see Christians disregarding the Laws of God, it endangers them and everyone else. Even if sin is not accounted to them as sin, sin still has consequences. If a Christian truly loves his brother, then he will not sin in order to influence his brother positively.

  The Law was given to Moses because it was the Will of God. The Hebrews were not excused from the Law because the Law was especially for them; not for punishment, but for prescriptions for extended well being so that the Abrahamic Covenant could be fulfilled — that the seed of Abraham would multiply.

  It should be obvious that the all the Covenants from Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, and now to Moses have the same theme — obedience and prosperity or disobedience and destruction.

  Just as Adam was told to multiply after he was given grace, so was Noah, Abraham, and Moses. The Law was more for multiplication and longevity in all the Covenants more so than punishment, and when Jesus came to fulfill the Law, that completed all the Covenants and all the Laws… not that the Law was dead to Christians, but that Jesus made the Law life itself. It was the Way for Christians, not under the penalty of the Law, to demonstrate to God that they love him. Simply put by Jesus, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

  So, that covers the Law. What about the garments of Aaron and his sons?

  Aaron and his sons had sinned. So had those of the other tribes, but the Aaronites were set apart to be holy. They were to be priests (Hebrew kohen) on the order of Melchizedek and basically messengers and servants of God. They were to be much like the angels who represented God and served Him. They were to be like the coming Messiah whose example was Melchizedek.

  There was a “Priestly Covenant” established right then: Aaron and his descendants were set apart to multiply living souls, just like Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses. That priestly covenant was delineated even more; it would be Phineas, the grandson of Aaron (Exod 25:7-15). Aaron and Moses descended from Levi, and they were set apart as chief priests. In other words, Moses was a priest but because he had murdered, he was not eligible for the blessing.

  Although Aaron had sinned greatly just as Adam, he and his sons were set apart in that new covenant.

  Today’s verses focus on the Aaronites who continued the Levitical priesthood. By the time of Jesus, they too had been so corrupted that their chief priests murdered Jesus. When Jesus was crucified that replaced the chief priests, the priestly covenant and all the Covenants that came before and afterward, to wit: the Davidic Covenant. Jesus would no longer be on the order of Aaron but Melchizedek himself (Heb 7:11).

  Like Adam and Eve long before, Yahweh made garments to cover their flesh, indubitably made from the skins of innocent lambs. When Noah found grace (Gen 6:8), the Book of Jasher relates that he put on the coat of skin made for Adam. Noah had been set apart as priest on the order of Adam and Seth who was said to have inherited that coat.

  By the time of Abraham, it is written that Ham stole the coat and Nimrod ended up with it, and perhaps Esau later. The Garment of Adam had become the birthright for all of God’s anointed and scripture is much about the firstborn son and later born sons fighting over the birthright.

  Perhaps the “coat of many colors” of Jacob was about who got the birthright. He made it for Joseph (Gen 37:3) but in the end, the “coat” was divided among the twelve tribes of Israel (Jacob) and the sons of Joseph got his share. By that time, Esau had the Garment of Adam, and that is the last time it is mentioned. Jacob made the new coats.

  Jewish literature describes the coat of many colors as a full-length gown made of decorative material like royalty would wear. It covered all the flesh from the neck down. It seems apparent that God described a similar coat of many colors and fabrics to cover the priests. It seems logical that the priestly garments were a replacement for the coat of many colors and the Garment of Adam that was stolen by pagans of other religions. Those fancy robes were royal priestly garments that would first consecrate Aaron.

  The first consecration was the Sabbath (Gen 2:3). It was set apart for God to rest, and so that He could rest, so would Adam and his kind.

  Then God set apart the firstborn to be His of man and beast (Exod 13:2). Well, another reason to pick Aaron as chiefest of the two chief priests (him and Moses) was because Aaron was the firstborn. Aaron was consecrated holy because he like Jesus were the “firstborn” of God. However, the Man, Jesus, chose to be like Melchisedek because Aaron and the Levitical priests failed Him.

  The apparel of the priests was so that when they ministered to God they would not die. They were to clean up their flesh before ministering to God, but that would not be enough. They required garments to keep them safe in the Presence of God just as Adam and Eve were given to wear for their safety both in the presence of God and Lucifer.

  The garments have always been to protect the flesh of those who were willing to wear the coats, but for them to be effective, God would have to provide them. Wearing stolen garments was ineffectual as Esau soon found out!

  In other words, the garments do not make the priests; God sets them apart. Nowadays just too many wear the garment, but God is nowhere to be found. The garments worn by the priests are no more significant than a wolf wearing sheep’s clothing!

  Tomorrow, the significance of those garments will be considered.

(picture credit:  The Catholic Register; "Vestments and Symbols of the Office of the Cardinal:)



Wednesday, December 29, 2021

ARROGANCY THE PROBLEM: GOOD WILL THE SOLUTION

   The end comes just as those on earth all have much the same attitude. The stars will no longer shine, nor the heavenly bodies give their light. God revealed that age to Isaiah:

“And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible” (Isa 13:11)

  The focus in this commentary is the end cause of the apocalypse: evil, wickedness, iniquity, arrogancy, pride, and haughtiness.

  Firstly, examine iniquity. It is simply the guiltiness of depravity. Everyone is born in iniquity just as David (Psalm 51). Everyone is depraved even as they are delivered to Lucifer from the womb. The only thing other than the blood of Jesus that can save them is total innocence just as with Eve.  The newborn baby, just like Eve, has no knowledge of evil, so children are safe until they soon acquire that carnal knowledge.

  Born in iniquity is the propensity to do evil: Speaking of themselves the Israelites said, “There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart” (Jer 18:12). That is depravity, and with no hope; that is total depravity. However, there is hope, and that is in the Savior. God provided grace to all mankind; and hope is available to all (John 3:16).

  It is necessary to understand that everyone will die a physical death and that only Christians will never die a spiritual death. What stands in the Way of eternal life? Not Lucifer, not any person, and not the world. You stand in the Way. You are the obstacle that must be overcome. Jesus has already overcome Satan and the World, now you must overcome you!

  Just as you push your way through the birth canal, you must push your way through the gravity of evil. You push, but while you push, God pulls. The two in unison is rebirth. God has already created the safe environment; your job is to desire to be therein! It is not ergon work, but katergazomai, or an accomplishment without work.

  Note from both verses (Isa 13:11 & Jer 18:12) iniquity is not the things that anyone does, but the nature to desire to do those things. The “spirit” in the Christian is the fortitude that God imbues to quench that desire for natural things. Paul pegged it, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mat 26:41).

  That is the dualism that is even in the Christian. The enemy is not the Devil per se but one’s own flesh! The Devil only offers temptation. He knows just how weak the flesh is because the flesh of any person has the desires of the Devil in them.  Just what is that? Pomp.

  Pompousness is best described by the “nature” of Lucifer, the Devil himself:

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isa 14:13-14)

  Pomposity in the Hebrew is ga’on which means self-exaltation; called pride in the arrogant person. A sinner need not exalt Lucifer, but only him or herself to accomplish (Greek; katergamazai) his goals with him doing no work.

  Luciferism is ergonomically attained. They are his goals, and the sinner accomplishes them for him, not by works, but by thoughts. That is why the faculty of the human will is so imperative; it is not what you do that condemns or saves, but what you are willing to do. Katerngamai is the mental “work” of willingness. Lucifer only transmits his will through his thoughts and naïve humans do them most often, given the choices not to do or to do them.

  Sinning in the heart is sinning without ergon working: “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man” (Mat 15:19-20). The hands, eyes, mouth, and other things are only tools to do the work; the “heart” is the willingness to do those evil works. The “heart” in scripture is not anatomical but mental. It is an invisible faculty that is inherited from the Wicked One so depraved that only God can fix it.

  The inherent nature of human beings is depravity and the cause of that is pride or self-exaltation. Indeed, even Christians worry more about self-esteem than esteeming Christ!

  The nature of man, since original sin, is to diminish others to exalt themselves. The accomplishment is therefore to divide human beings into lesser and higher strata, the easiest of which is race. The original sin created a lesser class of human beings. The first stratum is angels. Lucifer became the “sophisticate” and Adam and Eve the servants.

  Jesus, as the Word, made coats of death and put onto the two so that death would always be with them; albeit the garments of Adam and Eve would keep them safe from immediately dying until Jesus would come to save them. However, they were still bondservants of Lucifer who continually misguided them with temptations (Adam and Eve and Their Conflicts With Satan).

  Adam and Eve were the first of mankind to become enslaved and since then all are born in bondage. Thus, a second time (the first was division of the angels into 1/3 and 2/3), mankind had already diminished to mere slaves.

  Then Cain and Abel were born, and the third division of beings occurred. The biological fittest of the two survived, but the one most spiritually fit lived on in another Paradise. Abel did not die! His blood still cries out from the grave (Gen 4:10)! Cain was cursed but Abel was rewarded with eternal life.

  Then Seth was born and by the time of Noah, the world was divided again. As I wrote in my book, The Omega Variant, existence is about spiritual division from the time of Adam until the time of the Second Coming of Jesus. The Bible is essentially two books in one: the Book of Division and the Book of Healing.

  Throughout the Bible, one person or groups of people became arrogant and thought that they deserved more than the others.

  That remains the basis of both crony capitalism and socialism. Pure capitalism is an existence without slavery. It is each attaining what is deserve. Crony capitalism, with slavery as its prime example, is the most arrogant obtaining what they do not deserve. It is using other human beings as mere capital to grow prosperous (usury). The best example of that today are hedge fund pimps and their “whores” in government, the media, and even the church!

  One woman referred to Obama and the invitees to his birthday party this year as “sophisticated.” The implication was that they were immune from the transmission of COVID because they were
“better” than Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” that were deplorable only because they would not vote for her!

  In this New Age, the “sophisticated” have divided the world into various “oppressed” groups. They have accomplished the oppression and have convinced the naïve that others are the oppressors. (Lucifer remains cunning to this day!) Who was the original “oppressor”? Lucifer. But who did mankind follow to this day? Mostly their Oppressor!

  Jesus came to redeem mankind from bondage to Lucifer and themselves. They are their own oppressors doing the will of their father the Devil. Jesus came for real equity to free the oppressed, even those who fail to realize just how oppressed they are: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free… If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:32-36).

  The problem to this day is that the flesh is weak. People adore themselves so much that they diminish others. Even Christians purvey the notion that their ideas and ideologies are better than others. That is why there are denominations of Christians, and each wrongly think that only they are right (righteous).

  Included in those denominations are the most dogmatic “denomination” of all — those who proudly claim that THEY are the only and true Bride of Christ! They have divided the invisible universal Church whose “one baptism” is the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

  Throughout scripture, Lucifer has divided people in mostly two ways: (1) miscegenation to dilute the special blood of His chosen and peculiar people, and (2) pride; the arrogant dominate the lesser.

  Intermarriage has diluted the blood of the Hebrews until it is virtually non-Jewish. Intermarriage has failed to work, and that I do not mean in a derogatory sense, so in this New Age, the “Sophisticates” — the arrogant — have devised a way to diminish and mutate the blood without semen!

  The messenger-RNA diminishes the Virtue of Jesus. Rather than Him as the true Messenger, the Sophisticates are. Next comes the gate-RNA that has the capability to mutate the blood but also the thoughts of mankind: “China has done human testing to create biologically enhanced super soldiers, says top U.S. official” (Dilanian 2021). If they can create super soldiers, they can create compliant men!

  Bill Gates and his sophisticated crony capitalists paid to create the “monster” — gate-RNA. It perhaps is the New Age “cherubim” that guards the Way to the Tree of Life, and the Chinese super soldiers are the seed of Cain who couples with us “Sons of God.”

  I am implying that vaccinations, using synthetic RNAs, are the very tool to divide when further division is hardly possible. Already so many of those who have been jabbed with RNA acid, feel superior to those who have not! The very nature of many of them have changed. Many Christians who have been vaxxed now feel morally superior to those who have not.

  Look at the thinking behind the vaccines: Many trust science and the government over scripture and the Word of God, while those who have not been vaxxed may have spiritual reasons to remain pure in blood.

  The unvaxxed must remain humble themselves. Neither are we better persons for strict obedience to what we perceive as truth, and we are to continue to love others without regard to their thoughts and actions.

  It does hurt though, not that friends treat other friends as lepers, but that they are so easily led astray. I have written a book to warn them and will give it for free just to get them to see that the “science” is not the science, but the truth is in the Word of God. They have heard the science, but have they studied the truth and the fallacy objectively. If they have studied the science, have they studied the Word?

  One person admitted that he had studied the science but had not studied the Word because the latter took too much time. The Word must supersede science because science is merely the study of things that can be seen or measured. Even with that, truth is hard to measure because of the nature of man to be inclined toward evil. In other words, mankind is easily beguiled.

  One man has no guile in him. That is Jesus. Guile (Greek; dolos) is craftiness. The Word is without guile but indeed scientists are crafty. In whom do you trust? I trust the One who Wills that my blood remains pure! That you disagree is none of my business, and that I want to remain as pure as I can is not your business.

  Your choice is yours alone. Jesus loves you either way. My choice is mine alone, and Jesus loves me even if I am wrong because my motives are from His Word. He has no desire for us to be divided because of misinformation on either side — the same deception that Lucifer used to stake his claim on the blood line of Eve.

  If you despise people based on their vaccination status, then you have been had by the evil ones. Think on that; you have ill will toward even Christian friends when agape love is goodwill toward all men and God! 

(picture credit: AudioBoom)

Consider This / Consider This: Vaccination mission accomplished?