JESUS AS FATHER AND SON

There is so much neglected in catechism. Catechisms are for Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Churches, as well as Anglicans whose doctrine is not reformed, so I do not include them as Protestant churches.

‘Catechisms’ are oral teachings of church doctrine. Ideally, all church doctrines should be the same, but because of misunderstanding, church doctrines differ from the one doctrine of Christ as is written:

There is one Body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephes 4:4-6)

 The “one Body” is the Body of Christ, and the “one Spirit’ the Holy Ghost of the Body of Christ Jesus. As such, the “one hope” belongs to those who are called by the Spirit of God. Those with that hope are the true Church, and all those “ones” are the doctrine of the universal and invisible Church.

There is one faith, but the various doctrines of the different churches extol different faiths. As Paul wrote, faith is on the Body and Spirit of the Lord and no other. That one Lord is the One God who is the Father of all who is above, through, and in you all.

Who is the “all” in that context? Is it everyone?

It is for those who are called. However, “many are called, but few are chosen” (Mat 22:14). The criterion for selection is that “you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called” (Ephes 4:1). Those who walk the true walk are the saints (Ephes 4:12). They walk the doctrine of Christ and do not march to the drum of other doctrines. Hence, catechism is important.

Among the most deficient in understanding of teachings is that the Lord God is the ‘Father’ of all. Some take it to mean that God is the Father of very unsaintly people. Just because someone calls another ‘Father’ does not make a father.

God is our Father by adoption, “You have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom 8:15). Adoption is “the nature and condition of the true disciples in Christ, who by receiving the Spirit of God into their souls become sons of God” (Strong 2006).

The reception of that Spirit of God; that ‘one Spirit’ is adoption. Christians are not ‘sons of God’ in a biological sense but spiritually. True Christians would have the supra-nature of God — beyond the natural. The chosen are ‘peculiar people’ (1 Pet 2:9), walking in the same Spirit of God. But that is not the case; denominations war with each other, sometimes in arrogance.

God is the Father of all those with one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. The one baptism is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit because that defines adoption. Without the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there is no rebirth.

Nicodemus wondered about rebirth. He failed to understand how someone could be born of the Spirit. Jesus answered that with, “Marvel not; you must be born again” (John 3:7). No, He did not say those exact words; He said, that you must be “gennao anothen” — gendered anew (from above; ibid).

Gennao root is gen and means that a person must be generated by God above in this case, or made a new kind, or family. As a ‘son of God’ that is not a biological relationship, but that a person has become of the family of God.

For instance, all three Caesar’s were the father Vespasian, the son Titus, and another son, Domitian; both having the authority of the father in his absence. Those three were of the gen of Flavius, and after Josephus joined them, he became part of the Flavian family by adoption and was named ‘Flavius Josephus.’ He assumed the  role of the son of an early member of the family, or house, of Flavia. He was by adoption the ‘son of Flavia’ although it was neither genetic nor immediate.

The cognomen of Josephus became his first name because he took it upon himself. It was not a birth name.

The biological sons of Vespasian had his genes and his nature. They, like their father, were ‘sons of Flavia,’ and ancient ancestor.

As for Josephus, he was not born a Flavian but was ‘reborn’ in a sense when he became Latinized as an important person in Rome. He got his new vocation as well, going from a Jewish general to a Jewish historian. His nationality did not change, but only his vocation, or walk.

The same applies to Christians. We become ‘sons of God’ regardless of nationality or heritage because our vocations are reassigned; no longer are we to walk our way, doing whatever we desire to do, but take on the supra-nature of God just as Jesus had.

Jesus was often called ‘son of David,’ albeit He was not the biological son of King David. He was also called ‘Son of God’ although He was more than biological. He was the exact Image of God. His genetics were the very genetics of the Father because He was God in the Flesh.

“Image’ in the Hebrew is ‘Selem,’ and means a Shadow or Phantom. Jesus was not the ‘Son of God’ in a biological sense, but the Phantom, or Ghost of God, manifested in the flesh of the Man. Jesus was fully God and fully Man since He had the flesh, or genes, of Mary covering the very Invisible Image of God.

We have been taught correctly, but still misunderstand; Jesus is not the ‘Son of God’ in a human manner, but the Spirit of God that God covered with flesh just as He covered Adam with a coat of skin (Gen 3:21). When you see Jesus, God is within that flesh. When John baptized Jesus, the Man was in the water, but He was gendered by God above, to wit: “The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a Voice came from heaven, which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).

Jesus was made the ‘Son of God’ at His baptism when the Holy Ghost — the Invisible Image of God — came upon Him in bodily shape. God took on the shape of a Man and covered Jesus just as He had Adam long before, making Jesus the ‘Last Adam’ (1 Cor 15:45).

Jesus was fully man when Mary gave birth to Him, but became fully God when John baptized Him, as John was unworthy to do that; God Himself baptized Jesus with the Holy Ghost — His own Spirit.

Jesus was often tested by those in the know. Now examine the following exegesis: 

(The Pharisees) Saying, “What think you of Christ? Whose Son is He? They say unto Him, ‘The son of David.’

He saith unto them, “How then does David in spirit call him ‘Lord,’ saying, ‘The Lord said unto my Lord, sit you on my right hand, till I make thine enemies your footstool? If David then call Him Lord, how is He His son?’”

And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more questions. (Mat 22:42-46)

 The Pharisees wondered how God could be Lord of David, how could the Lord be David’s son?

I hope I have answered that! God the Father was the gens of David (in Spirit) and since Jesus was the very gens of both God and David, Jesus was both the ‘Son of God’ and the ‘son of David.’

David was the son of God by ‘adoption’ — a man after God’s own heart — and Jesus was the ‘son of David’ through the genetics of Mary. Jesus was both the ‘son of Man’ by Mary’s genetics and the ‘Son of God’ because God was in Him. He had the very Gens, or Image of God.

Now consider the ignorance of the Pharisees. They were never taught genetics. They failed to understand that the very Identity of the Lord God was in both Adam One and Adam Two. They were both generated glorious but Adam’s genetics were mutated with sin.

God came back in the Person of Jesus to correct the genetics of Adam and his kind: “(Jesus)Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Rom 3:25).

Note that I italicized “sins that are past.” Those sins are the iniquity, or depravity, that still exists in all of Adam’s kind because of original sin. Jesus shed His blood to correct Mary’s kind from the “mother of all living,” Eve’s kind (Gen 3:20). It should humble a lost person that he or she is not fully humane!

It is the blood of Jesus and His Spirit — the ‘Living Water’ — that corrects genetic sins, making Christians, ‘saints,’ or ‘sons of God’ and fellow heirs (Ephes 3:6) by adoption, along with Jesus, as God comes unto as well!

Jesus somehow sensed when Virtue left Himself, as He said on several occasions. It must be that Jesus sensed Virtue coming onto Him when He was baptized by the Holy Spirit. As such, Christians should sense God if He is in them through His plans and purposes for them.

I write because I sense God. I don’t feel Him, but God does put Thoughts into my mind that are not my thoughts. The study of the Word of God is Him sharing His Thoughts to reform our brutish nature; it tames the Beast that has been in mankind since original sin!

If you have read this commentary and understood it; then you have been taught doctrine. It is not my doctrine and neither the doctrine of my church denomination. My desire is to understand God thoroughly, and my hope is that I understand it correctly. I am not the final authority, thank you God, so test all things with scripture. I have satisfied myself that I understand the One Faith of which Paul wrote, and the One Lord and One Baptism as well.

(picture credit; VectorStock)

 

 

 

 

 

IN DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL

I have been oft attacked by those who reject my inadequate attempts to have people question their wrong doctrines; at least as I understand them. I may not express myself the best, being a mere person, but I must reveal the truth to a lost world, and social media is a great place to meet the lost, sort of face-to-face.

Everybody, even beauty pageant contestants, above all, want peace on Earth, and for the record, Jesus came to provide peace of earth and goodwill toward men. However, it is not to be for the moment, Jesus said: 

I am come to send fire on the Earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. (Luke 12:49-52)

 To clarify this passage, consider how Matthew wrote it: 

Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother-in-law. (Mat 10:32-35)

 It seems that Jesus did come to bring peace on Earth but as Matthew pointed out, so many will argue about Jesus and some will even deny Him, of course all the while thinking they all are worshipping Him.

Ever since Jesus said that, even Christians argue about the Substance and Power of Jesus, and what it takes to become a Christian. Just following Jesus does not a Christian make to paraphrase a common phrase. He must be followed in truth!

Disagreement about Jesus and His Purpose is the ‘kindling’ of which Luke wrote and dissension the ‘fire.’ Jesus said that he did not come to bring peace but a sword.

Jesus was speaking, I believe, of the great tribulation that John saw after the second seal was opened:

There went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the Earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. (Rev 6:4)

 Things are not inclined to get better until the millennial reign of Jesus. There will always be disagreement on Earth, and everyone will always debate about their Christ! Yes, most all Christians have created a ‘Christ’ to their own liking. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. (Mat 19:6), but many do just that.

Everyone should be seeking the real Christ. However, about everyone has created their own version of ‘Jesus;’ how they would do things if they were Christs.

To be simple; Jesus is God manifested to mankind, not another God that is visible. As the Messiah, or Christ, Jesus is the only one anointed to save mankind, “These (things) are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his Name” (John 20:31). Not through anything else but by believing in the Power of His Name.

It is so simple; the Name, ‘Jesus,’ provides life. When God breathed life unto Adam it was pre-incarnate Jesus who did that. John testified to that (John 1:1-14).

God just Is. We all try to explain the supernature of God, but it is always insufficient because He is beyond comprehension.

Jesus came so that mankind could comprehend the Divine Nature of God. The Name, ‘Jesus,’ is theophoric, meaning ‘Ya(weh) Saves.’ It is no other thing than the Name of God that saves. The saving Power of God is no other thing than Virtue, or in the Greek His ‘Dynamis.’ It is the dynamics of God that saves and no other thing.

When Jesus healed, made whole, and so forth, He could feel Virtue leaving Himself; Jesus said about healing, “Somebody has touched Me: for I perceive that Virtue is gone out of Me” (Luke 8:46). Jesus emanated goodness, or goodwill, to people to make them whole. That goodness, called ‘Virtue,’ was not a material substance of any sort but the Spirit of God. Any other substance, other than the Holy Spirit that is said to heal, is not of God.

At times people were anointed with olive oil. The disciples of Jesus, “Went out, and preached that men should repent, and they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:5). The divine spark is repentance. It ‘kindles’ sinners to receive the Holy Spirit as if it is fire (Acts 2). They anointed the sick with oil to heal them. Those who were sick were not just the infirm, but those coming short of the glory of God because of sin.

Was it the oil that emanated virtue, or was it God? The point there is that the oil was merely the ‘transducer,’ or medium of exchange, but the healing remained from God. It is always God that saves either in the form of Jesus or His Invisible Form, the Holy Ghost (Luke 3:22).

The first person to experience Paradise via Jesus was the repentant thief on the cross beside Him. He is called that because he repented. What was it that he did to be saved in Paradise? Nailed to the cross, he was incapable of doing anything but look toward Jesus and think. He quickly worked out his salvation by thinking, just as scripture says to do, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). He looked at Jesus and Jesus did the work by the propitiation of His own blood (Rom 3:25). The blood of the man was not sufficient; it had to be the blood of Jesus. Jesus shed His Divine Blood and saved that man to Paradise that very day.

Unlike the eunuch who finally understood, “As they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water; what does hinder me to be baptized?” (Acts 8:36).

What hindered him before? He was seeking water. He felt that water was necessary to be saved, but it was only to prepare him for the internal washing. Again, the water was only the ‘transducer’ just like the olive oil before. It had no power to emanate Virtue from God.

Water is indeed a handy transducer. Some still carry olive oil as an anointing agent, but for the thief on the cross beside Jesus, his only agent was the blood of Jesus. He may have been anointed directly by the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrificed Man beside Him. However, the only thing the sinner did was to recognize Jesus as God as Jesus gave up the Spirit that healed Him. He was healed by the water and the blood of God, “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness because the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6).

When Jesus gave up the Ghost and lost His Virtue, he died. Virtue emanated from the body of Jesus via His Spirit and healed the man. It was the Spirit emanated from Jesus that saved the thief. It was not induced by any medium, oil nor water, but the ‘Living Water’ directly from Jesus — the Holy Spirit — flowed to the sinner to make him whole.

At the same time, Jesus was pierced. Imagine the affusion as the blood gushed from the belly of Jesus at His last breath and endowed the dying man with life in the same manner as God breathed life unto Adam in the beginning!

What would hinder the man from being saved? Water would not! Jesus would provide both the blood and the water, and the sinner was baptized by the Holy Ghost right then. Nothing, not even river water, hindered the baptism of the repentant sinner!

By adding another ingredient to what Jesus provides makes that substance a ‘god’ or at a minimum a ‘fluid’ that contains the Spirit of God. As we know, the things of the world cannot contain God. Water is of the world, and nothing in the world has the saving power of the Holy Ghost which is the Invisible Substance of Jesus that remains with us.

This is the truth as I understand it. Note that not anywhere in this commentary did I relegate power to any person or substance but from God Himself. It is He that transmits Virtue, whether from His Body or Spirit, and no earthly conductance is required; to God goes all the Power and anything else trivializes Him! God does not need your water; just as at the crucifixion, he provided that Himself and baptized the repentant sinner with the Holy Ghost; the one baptism in the “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephes 4:5).

It is that truth that I confess and that offends many who believe that baptism with immersion in water is what saves. It is “Ya Saves,” not Poseidon or any other god of water.

I will argue to the day I die that although I was baptized in water, that it was still Jesus that saves. Why so? Because Jesus baptized me in Spirit and in truth long before I ever thought about water immersion.

Now for those who despise me for promoting the truth on social media; that is the best place to preach to publicans and sinners in this age because they do not go to Church, and in the manner of Jesus: 

And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, “How is it that he eats and drinks with publicans and sinners?” When Jesus heard it, He said unto them, “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Mark 2:15:17)

 You may fly or sail to Africa, Asia, or South America; but social media reaches more people than you can ever go to! Social media is the place to correct those whose doctrine is in error, and to be honest, Jesus knew that most people would hang on to their idea of Him; you know, the god that they made Jesus out to be.

When the truth is preached, Jesus knew there would be dissension, and there is! What is astounding is that concrete Christians would even want to shield the truth from the world just because it is social media. When the truth is revealed; it will hurt, but it should not hurt those who believe that Jesus is the Way!

How dare them judge me for merely expressing the truth! They may fly the world over to do the same, but dare not step on the toes of good people who have created their own god and espouse it often on social media. I have a right to defend Jesus! I firmly believe that it is Jesus who saves and not some activity on our own part.

I could be wrong, but scripture supports my notion. It is okay to judge what I write with the scales of God but to attack me personally for the Great Commission is harsh judgment, “Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). I have been condemned more than once because I have the audacity to write the truth. Jesus understood that!

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RESURRECTION

The Pharisees were a sect consisting of the seemingly most religious of the nation who favored Mosaic Law above and were beyond priestly authority. They were the ‘bureaucrats’ of that day and on one specific day, they sent to Jesus their disciples along with the Herodians. They were out to trick him about whom tribute should be paid, Caesar or God.

After their trickery was foiled by Jesus, along came the Sadducees, trying to make a fool of Jesus about the Resurrection; with all the marriage and remarriage going on because of deaths, whose wife would belong to whom after the Resurrection? That seemed to be a plausible question because people even ask that to this day!

“Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘You do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Mat 22:29).

The Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection. Their query was stated to get Jesus to say something irrational; perhaps, I have no idea, or that the woman would belong to all of them, contrary to scripture.

Jesus stopped them short, saying “You do err!” That would have been attack on them because they were the Jewish elite of that day; they were the Jewish version of the Roman patriarchs and were so Hellenized that they knew the answers to most of the philosophic questions. They were being very Platonian, essentially asking What is truth?

For them, the ‘truth’ was that there was no Resurrection because there was no Paradise.

Jesus endeavored to humble them further. “In the Resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Mat 22:30). Jesus didn’t say, “Perhaps there is no marriage in heaven,” but said it with authority. He had been to heaven and there was no marriage there. The root word in the Greek, translated marriage is gam — to bind; or for the woman to be put into bondage. This is the origin of the ‘marriage bond’ of modern times.

There will be no bondage in heaven because the blood, or genetics, of Jesus makes men free, and ostensibly women as well. Jesus had said to His disciples that followed Him and not the crowd, “If you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

Jesus continued with Truth-telling about God to the Sadducees, quoting Old Testament scripture; “I Am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mat 22:32). They were astonished and went on their way, excepting the Pharisees who quickly thought up another test about the Commandments.

Since both parties were political opponents and of different economies; Greek verses Jewish, the Sadducees seem to accept the evidence provided by Jesus, but the Pharisees were more stubborn. They believed in the Resurrection already, so they would not have been astonished, but they devised a test about the Commandments. However, for now, focus on “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

Jesus was recalling for the Sadducees ancient scripture: Exodus 3:6 and 15 — “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob… (they) sent me unto you: this is My Name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”

The word ‘generations’ implies so much: growth, existence, and life, or literally, from the Hebrew ‘dor,’ those living throughout the ages. His Name was a memorial to be remembered by the living throughout all the ages.

What was the Name of God under Mosaic Law? I AM (Exod 3:14). Jesus pointed out to the Sadducees that God that very moment was the same God as with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that He was still the God of the living. That astonished them, and it should astonish us as well.

The realm of God is not on Earth but in heaven (John 18:36). Jesus verified that there was another realm with living beings therein. Heaven consists of Paradise and Hades (Luke 16). Both places will be populated — Paradise by the faithful or Hell by the unfaithful. Everyone will be resurrected! That should astonish everyone!

Even if you do not believe in the Resurrection, it is real; the Resurrection is the process of leaving this world to enter another. The ‘living’ are those destined for Paradise, and the dead are those destined for Hell. As it turned out, John explained it better in his revelation: 

The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:13-15)

 The Sadducees did err! There is a resurrection for everybody. The Christians, even from their graves, will arise to be with Jesus in Paradise; that is astonishing, is it not? What is even more astonishing is that the sea and Hell will deliver up the dead. The soul is immortal; it will always exist throughout all the generations in time. How badly they erred; even they would be resurrected!

Now for a peek into life and death: the saved soul lives forever and the LORD GOD is their God. However, the lost souls die forever. The second death never ends; being cast into the Lake of Fire which never burns out nor consumes the souls of the dead. That should astonish even the followers of Satan and the world!

(Picture credit: NeverThirsty)

CALLED, ANSWERED, AND FINISHED

This day, focus on one saying of the king, in the parable of the Son’s wedding. The King would be God the Father, and the Son Jesus. It is about the wedding of Jesus, the ‘Bridegroom,’ to the ‘Bride,’ the Church. The king said about the wedding, simply, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mat 22:14).

There are many passages in the Bible that refer to the calling of God to the sinner, but my personal favorite was His call to Adam after sin, “Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen 3:9).

Note that Adam had just sinned, and God was still nearby! That was by grace that He was nearby and called the sinful Adam. Adam explained to God that he was afraid and hid himself. The reason that He was afraid was because of the sudden realization that he was naked, although he had always been naked. Because they put on aprons of fig leaves to hide their nakedness, which they had apparently misused, the man’s sin was exposed. He had had carnal knowledge, it seems. Their ‘nakedness’ was their craftiness showing — their subtilty that was like the Serpents. They seemed to always have had the nature of the Beast, but sin revealed the nature in them.

Just as man would call a dog or other pet, after sin, God called Adam, “Where are you?” Where are you hiding? What are you hiding? Adam and his kind — the two of them — were hiding their new nature. It had gone from glorious to coming short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

God called the two of them because they were both of Him and were Adam’s kind. Referring to the key verse, “many are called.” In fact, they all were called, albeit there were only two of them.

Both the man and the woman adama answered the calling of God, Adam confessed to eating of the forbidden tree and likewise the woman confessed (Gen 3:12-13).

God called and they answered truthfully; they confessed that they were sinners. It seems that they both had an excuse, and the woman admitted that she had been deceived and Adam that the woman had passed on that deception to him. After all, she ate and did not seem to die, so Adam ate as well. Neither understood death! Death is coming short of the glory of God and with sin, the two had become inglorious, or decadent.

Because they hid from God, they were ashamed that they had not heeded the advice of God. They felt something inside that they had never experienced before — shame.

We all have sinned. If you are not ashamed, repentance will not be forthcoming. Repentance is necessary for the remission of sins.

Speaking of drinking wine to remember Him by, Jesus said, “This is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Mat 26:28). It is not the water that was soterial but the blood of Jesus that is for the remission of sins — for deliverance. The coming short is the sinner made whole again as if he or she had never come short.

God had called both Adam’s and both had confessed their sins. God had grace upon them; they suffered the consequences of sin, but He covered them with grace, indubitably to withstand the wiles of the Devil, “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them” (Gen 3:21). They would thenceforth wear death, perhaps to remind them that they were nothing but sinners safe by grace. That did not mean that the world would not endeavor to defeat them, but that they had God with them. They would wear grace as if it was a coat of the whole armor of God.

Albeit they were readied by God for the world, the two were still cast out of Paradise into a type of Hell. No, the world is not Hell but is a simile for it. Chapter three of Genesis describes tribulations that they and their seed would encounter before a return to Paradise of which death would be the door, or portal, to either Paradise of Hades.

The eating of the forbidden tree was supposed to be the marriage supper for Adam and the woman as they became one under God. An uninvited guest, just as in so many risqué movies, entered the bridal chamber and defiled the bride as Adam watched, “Adam knew (saw) Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, ‘I have gotten a man from the Lord’” (Gen 4:1).

She had not begotten another Adam but an ‘Is (Hebrew; pronounced eesh). As it turned out, the wedding with God to which they were called was disrupted by an alien guest that was unwelcome in the bridal chamber.

Now jump ahead many years. The seed of Cain multiplied, and it was revealed that they were not sons of God but daughters of men (Gen 6:2). Men is ‘adam’ in that reference, but they took for them wives (‘issa). ‘Issa, just like ‘Is, were other existences. Just as Eve made for Adam another existence, the wives became other creatures as well.

However, God called them all to the ‘wedding’ so to speak — the Ark. It was to be a huge wedding, even a Carnevale. All were invited and the door remained open for quite some time before the Ark sailed, then God closed the door.

Of all the sinners out there, most were so depraved that they mocked Noah even as he built the Ark for them. Even the animals had sense enough to get in out of the rain, but the depravity was so great that the multitude would continue in sin despite the wedding being rained out.

Only eight people of the thousands, perhaps millions called, would go to the ‘wedding’ destined to end in a new worldly Paradise where there would be no sin.

As it turned out, soon, as the Book of Jasher reveals, Noah took off the Garment of Adam and Ham stole it. Then Noah introduced sin into the new world as Adam had before. He had revealed his nakedness and sin was in himself all the time and would soon be exposed.

The point herein is that God calls everyone, for we are all sinners and most are self-righteous. Adam and Eve had tried that, and it failed; they had tried to cover their shame themselves with aprons of fig leaves (Gen 3:7).

Only eight people were chosen by God because none of the rest answered, let alone called upon the Name of the Lord who was nearby by the open door. Of the chosen eight, Ham was dismissed, and his seed cursed.

Because you are called and go to the wedding would be a great start, but the trip must be finished; it must be endured to the end.

Noah and his family thought some mountain in Ararat was the destination, but they were only part way there. The destination was a return to Paradise in heaven while remaining alive in the manner of Enoch and Elijah both of whom were taken to Paradise in heaven without experiencing death.

So many think that because they come to the wedding, even in appropriate wedding attire, the voyage is finished. They seem to never understand that ‘born again’ is not some instantaneous rebirth but a journey in this world until death do you part.

 

 

 

AGAINST THE BODY POLITIC

Jesus, speaking in parables to the chief priests and elders did so, so that they could judge themselves. As it turned out the message was that publicans and harlots would go to the Kingdom of God before them (Mat 21:31).

Publicans were tax ‘farmers’ who worked for the government to collect taxable revenues for the Roman and Judean governments. Think of them as the IRS coming at you with guns. The people despised them because they cheated as well as collected!

Harlots were those engaged in pornography; both graphic pictures and their own bodies were for sale. Jesus was defining the worst of the worst as those two professions, but the chief priests and the elders were worse than them! The religious men were worse than the irreligious.

The chief priests who dictated to the religious and the elders were bureaucrats who administered the laws of the chief priests. In other words, the chief priest and his ‘court’ were the ‘church’ and the ‘churchmen’ of that era.

During colonial times in the Americas, there were state religions, depending on the state. The most prominent were the Church of England (Anglican/Episcopalian) and the Congregational in New England.

Even the Regular Baptist Church was thought of as ‘churchmen’ that made up the church and ran it. A ‘churchman’ is one more dedicated to the church than to God.

The chief priests and elders were the primitive ‘churchmen’ of Jesus’s time. Their assemblies were much like ours with the Temple and synagogues. The government was what is called Episcopalian in the Americas. In Episcopalian polity there is often a patriarch or archbishop over a house of bishops that administer the church. To be truthful, the early Church government was the model for the Episcopalian polity but like any good government it went astray, even punishing those who would separate from their form of government.

Hence, ‘churchmen’ were those who stood fast with the body of polity even when it deviated from scripture.

Christianity is not a body of those with a common government and governors, but a body of believers in Christ. Therefore, churchmen are dedicated to the church and Christians dedicated to Christ. Since early Christianity, the Church Polity has gone estray, beginning with the Roman Catholics, the Congregational, the Reformers, and now even the Methodists, Baptists, and Restorationists.

In fact, the entire Church body has gone astray with each body focusing on their own doctrine, church polity, and denominational beliefs. Some have even tried to restore the ancient system of worship and by doing so have founded a new church whose foundation is not Christ but water.

As it stands now, most church organizations consist of one central figure with deacons or elders that are allegiant to them, or for Catholics, a Pope, Cardinals, and Bishops.

The Invisible or truly catholic (universal) Church is the ‘Confessing Church’ as Diedrich Bonhoeffer called it in Nazi Germany.

The body polity went along with the extreme Nazi government and caused it to be divided into two very different churches: (1) The true Confessing Church and (2) the Nazi led German Church of  ‘Positive Christianity.’ The Lutheran and Catholic Churches would be reunited in a sense under the Nazi Symbol rather than the Sacred Cross of Jesus. (The swastika is considered by many as the broken cross as is the 1960s peace symbol which consists of an Algis rune within a circle.)

The German version of Positive Christianity was the absence of Judaism and the Jewish Christ. Jesus was made into a very Aryan god and made Positive Christianity the religion of the Aryans wherein Jesus did not die for all but a select few. (That was very ‘Jewish’ of them when compared to the gospels.)

The German Church was no more Christian than any heretical organization professing positivity or not. It was an exclusive organization that alienated real Christians — those who would not conform to government standards — those who confessed Christ and disregarded the tenets of Nazism.

What distinguishes a true church body? Whether they are the of the Body of Christ or not. The Positive Christianity German Church were with the body of Hitler; he was in essence their ‘chief priest’ and they would do his mandates. His ‘elders’ would rule the German Church.

In a less conspicuous way, the pandemic of 2020 revealed whose church the American church body belonged. They trusted the government that has since proved they cannot be trusted. ‘In God We Trust’ was replaced with ‘In Fauci We Trust’ and perhaps he dictated in the manner of Caiaphas what the people should do. By now, most churches since the pandemic have eliminated Sunday evening services in deference to the now reconditioned congregation.

By now, the Lord’s Day has become a family and/or entertainment day.

The new government of the American body of churches, and perhaps the world, is more sublime. Wokeness and the government dictates how church people should believe and behave. They must all believe that God created three genders that can do as they please, and many church bodies have now adhered to the Awoke Commandments, most recently the Roman Catholic Church that finally adhered to the decadent protestant organizations.

In this age, the reformed church is in a bad of state as the Catholics, if not worse!

The end of time decadent church for you proud protestants is not only the Roman Catholics but many of your denominations, even those who reject denominationalism.

Not one of you will remain faithful as the seven churches of Asia reveal. You will all be to blame! The True Church is not a body of believers, but all those of all denominations who stay true to the Doctrine of Jesus — that He alone is God in the flesh and it is His Will that you must do!

Our will is our bias away from scripture, and so many have the same bias that they organize and become a church.

How many are organized strictly on the tenets of Jesus? That invisible organization is not one church denomination but believers around the world who believe and practice that Jesus is the Way to eternal life and that obscure doctrines are merely hurdles to be overcome.

Jesus wrapped up His sermon with this observation: “When the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that He spoke of them” (Mat 21:45).

He was speaking to everyone who are churchmen but not Christians. There is a vast difference between going to church and walking the Way of Jesus.

The chief priests and the elders represented the Judean hierarchy but sought to undermine Christ for doing so would diminish them. The truly religious would have diminished themselves and magnified Jesus.

Now it seems that so many churches of most congregations tend to magnify their leader, their church and building, their doctrine, or their church government, and some even their elders.

In many churches, some even scramble to preach when the only one that calls them is themselves. Mony can buy anything in all times. Follow the money and see who has the power!

 

 

 

BEARING NO FRUIT

 Throughout the Bible trees are used as metaphors for certain people; the most obvious is Jesus as the ‘Tree of Life’ or more precisely, the ‘godhead’ as that ‘Tree.’ [1]

Without going into detail with supporting verses, the root of the Tree is the Father aspect, the ‘Vine’ or tree truck itself represents Jesus, for it can be seen, and the leaves the dynamics (Virtue) of God that represents the Holy Spirit. The flow of water from the ground possibly represents the Light of God emanating from the Father through the Son and the Holy Ghost. The leaves of that Tree are for the healing of the people (Rev 22:2).

The blind man as Jesus approached him saw Jesus just as, “trees; as men walking” (Mark 8:24). Throughout the Bible many trees were as men walking. Hence, trees are metaphors for mankind.

There was another tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden. It was known by its fruit. Its fruit was not apples at all but figs. That should be obvious because Adam made “aprons of fig leaves” from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 3:7). Supporting that is the fig the size of a watermelon that Adam and Eve would refuse to eat after they sinned:

Then Adam took the fig, and laid it on the golden rods.              Eve also took her fig, and put it upon the incense. And the weight of each fig was that of a water-melon; for the fruit of the garden was much larger than the fruit of this land. But Adam and Eve remained standing and fasting the whole of that night, until the morning dawned. sinned (1 Adam and Eve: XLL:1-3)

The fig was the fruit of the tree that would cause their death. How could that be? 

They felt great trouble from the food they had eaten, and to which they were not used, they went about in the cave saying to each other: "What has happened to us through eating, that this pain should have come upon us? Woe be to us, we shall die! Better for us to have died than to have eaten; and to have kept our bodies pure, than to have defiled them with food."

Then Adam said to Eve, "This pain did not come to us in the garden, neither did we eat such bad food there. Thinkest thou, O Eve, that God will plague us through the food that is in us, or that our inwards will come out; or that God means to kill us with this pain before He has fulfilled His promise to us?"

Then Adam besought the Lord and said, "O Lord, let us not perish through the food we have eaten. O Lord, smite us not; but deal with us according to Thy great mercy, and forsake us not until the day of the promise Thou hast made us."

Then God looked upon them, and at once fitted them for eating food; as unto this day; so that they should not perish. (1 Adam & Eve LXI:2-6)

 Just as God had said, eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree would cause them to die. As it turned out, when God had grace on them, they could and did eat figs for sustenance. God, with His solution protected Adam and Eve by providing them with digestive tracts.

Digestion is a process of decay over time. Perhaps sin was when decadence introduced death into the world. Something had to die for them to eat, and that something was figs. With digestion, those vibrant fruits would just wither away within their bodies.

Before sin, the man and his woman were glorious. There was no decadence (guile) in them. Time would have no effect on them. That they could eat herbs is a misrepresentation by translators (Gen 1:11). Literally, they could eat glossy things, which was perhaps manna from heaven that appeared to be hoar frost on the ground that would not decay (Exod 16:14).

The food in the Garden was manna from heaven, it seems, but they ate indigestible fruit — figs. Time began for them as the two began to wither; Eve about 900 years or so and Adam 930 years.

Now consider the saying of Jesus about the fig tree: 

And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, “Let no fruit grow on you henceforward forever.”

And presently the fig tree withered away.

And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How soon is the fig tree withered away!” (Mat 21:19:20)

 Just like Adam and his wife, the tree bore no fruit because it was like them — of the wrong tree. The ‘olive’ tree, perhaps the Tree of Life, would have born twelve manner of fruits (Rev 22:2) for the healing of the nations: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity (Gal 5:22-23; LV)

The fig tree did not have that fruit. So, what did Jesus do? He soon withered the fig tree because it bore no fruit. It was useless. It failed to even bear the bad fruit (Gal 5:19-21). Jesus would have expected it to bear some fruit even if it was bad. However, it bore no fruit at all!

It seems that Jesus was using the fig tree to represent two ideas: (1) That bearing no fruit is not any better than bearing bad fruits, and (2) that bearing no fruit would cause the tree to perish as much as bad fruit would end the same way.

For the Christian that should mean much. Looking at the fruit of the Spirit above, the Christian that has no charity, no joy, no peace, no patience and so forth, even though they were not evil, would still perish!

To prove His point, Jesus made the fig tree wither right then. Whereas Adam withered in 930 years, his punishment went unnoticed. Possibly, for them to understand that time is insignificant, He withered the fig tree right then so that they could understand what happened with Adam with the first sin, who bore no fruit!

From where does that notion come? “Adam called his wife's name ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all living. (Gen 3:20). It was Eve’s fruit that had the seed in it to create new beings. Eve was another kind that Adam had to name, and as such, Adam’s kind is not correct; we are Eve’s kind. She is the mother of all; that is known because it was not written that Adam was the father of all! That we are humane beings is wrong. We are brutish in nature because, like Cain, we are of the Wicked One.

The fruit of Cain were those listed in Galatians 5:19-21. They were a wicked fruit, and most people bear that fruit.

How about people who are lackadaisical and are neither good nor evil? God expects everyone to show their fruit. No fruit is not good fruit, so Christians that bear no fruit will perish alongside those who bear wicked fruit. Jesus revealed that when He withered the fig tree as the proxy for non-productive Christians to make His point.

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[1] See Herrin Daily Thoughts: The Mystery and Low Hanging Fruit (kentuckyherrin.blogspot.com)

CHRISTIANS TEARING DOWN THE CHURCH

The Temple was God’s House that God never even wanted! It was a house for kings and priests to show just how progressive and righteous they were!

King David desired to build a House for God since he had a grand one for himself (1 Chron 17:1). Although Nathan the prophet agreed with David, God sent word by Nathan unto David, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Thou shalt not build me an house to dwell in’” (1 Chron 17:4).

Why did God not want a House of His own?

“For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another” (1 Chron 17:5). God always was with the people, and a House would make Him further from the people.

Before, He had appeared on the Ark of the Covenant, behind a curtain, and only the clean and holy chief priest could see His throne and hear His Voice, but in a sense all the people had walked with God who appeared as a cloud by day and a fire at night (Exod 13:21).

God’s ‘House’ had been a mobile Temple, and a building would only constrain Him. Symbolically, the Exodus was Him going to the ‘Paradise’ to deliver His people from Egypt, symbolic of Hell and Pharaoh Ahmose I, the devil. [1]

As such, tabernacle worship would represent the godhead — the fire and cloud the Spirit of God, the Existence on the Mercy Seat the Paternal aspect of God, and the tents of skin the flesh of God.

Furthermore, Tabernacle worship was very much like the arrangement of the Trees with their natural canopies circled around the Tree of Life in their midst as the Tabernacle of God. So, from the beginning, God was with His people and without a building.

God never wanted a House, but David did. Because of the grievous sins of David, although a man after God’s own heart, Solomon would be selected to build the House for God. It may be that God never wanted His Temple associated with David, nor the ‘Son of David,’ Jesus; that would have made the Davidic Temple too prominent, so the immediate son of David was selected to oversee the building of his House for God.

The Temples were for the builders. It was Solomon’s Temple and Herod’s Temple which had been started in the days after the diaspora and authorized by Persian King Cyrus. Thus, the Second Temple was Cyrus’s House for God, technically, and it was not finished in the days of Herod.

Again, technically, Josephus relates that Herod’s Temple was built on the foundation of the Second Temple and if that is true, the third Temple has already been built and destroyed! Apparently, Herod ruined the Second Temple and built a new one from scratch where the two preceding temples had stood.

Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel mentioned another temple but did not call it a third one (Jer 31:31-34 & Ezek 36:26–27). The ‘Temples’ in both of those two sources are much the same, the latter being, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and bring it about that you walk in My statute and are careful and follow My ordinances.”

Therefore, the so called “Third Temple” was built by Herod, and the last Temple built by God Himself by His ‘Handyman’ Jesus.

The material for the Last Temple are Christians themselves. The Last Temple is the invisible Church wherein God lives in His people.

I submit that the Temple of which Jeremiah and Ezekiel wrote was not a House at all but an invisible structure: 

Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief Cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto an holy temple in the Lord. (Ephes 2:19-21)

 It was never a House for Himself that God wanted all along, but a holy ‘Household” for His people, built not on the ruins if those Temples, but upon the ‘Cornerstone’ Jesus — “The Stone that the builders rejected” (Mat 21:42).

The so-called Third Temple has already been built and it was built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jeremiah and Ezekiel saw the plans for the Temple of God, and it was not a building at all, but a spiritual construction wherein the ‘blocks’ are ‘lively stones,” to wit: 

You also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Pet 2:5)

 The Third Temple (the Fourth in my estimation) has already been built after Herod’s Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Jews themselves (Titus tried to save it, according to Josephus). The Romans needed buildings for their gods; Christians would not!

The Jews accused Jesus of heresy, saying, “Forty and six years was this Temple in building, and will you rear it up in three days?” (John 2:20), and that He did when He arose from the tomb after three days, laying the foundation of the Church and the House of God. Many times, beginning with the Jews, then the Romans, and then devious men like Stalin and Hitler, they tried to tear down the Invisible House of God but to no avail.

They did remove buildings, doctrines, and people, but after 2000 years the Church remain standing and will remain so for perpetuity!

Those buildings that you see, many with Sunday partying in progress; those are not the Temples of God. Jesus identified them beforehand when He recalled Scripture, “It is written, ‘My House shall be called the “House of Prayer;’ but you have made it a den of thieves. (Mat 21:13).

Not to be mean, but look at the Temples that have been built. The worst of the worst are Islamic because it was not built on the Cornerstone, Jesus.

The Roman Catholic Church was built on the bones of Peter (beneath St. Peter’s Basilica) and their ‘cornerstone’ is Peter, not the ‘Stone,’ but the ‘Pebbles,’ of Peter.

The same goes for Protestant Churches. They meant well, but soon they began to burn the separatists. Each Christian burned at the stake by either Catholics or Protestants were removing one lively stone at a time until the churches became unstable.

Then came the restorationists who literally removed all the stones at one time and built a church with one wall, so to speak. Only they are the true Christians and all those who died for Christ before deserved their fates. As such, their church has become their god and water its foundation.

The original Church was described in total by the seven churches of Asia, and just as Jesus predicted, even those who met wherever had among them thieves.

As such, all churches have imperfect components because the people have become the ‘cornerstone.’ It is not what God Wills for His people, but what they desire for themselves.

The modern-day Churches of Christ has rebuilt the Roman Catholic Church very well and on the cornerstone of Alexander Campbell. Now, they are very ‘catholic’ all the while damning them all!

By now, most of the Church are dens of thieves, and money the object of their affection. I believe the last thing in the world that churches need is more money. Money is most often to build things even for God, but we often forget it is not a House that God wants but a Divine Household.

I see many huge so called 'Houses of God' but within few people. I see others with great temples but not based on prayer. What have the people done with God's Church? The last thing that we need is not more money or new buildings, but more prayer.  Just like the Jews who were always the root cause of destructions of their Temples, it seems to be Christians that destroy the Church. 

 

 

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[1] Ancient sacred literature points more toward Ahmose and the ‘brother’ of Mose (Egyptian) or Moses in the English. Ahmose-Ankh, next in line to be Pharoah by the law of primogeniture, was a prince but never made it to Pharoah. He was superseded by his younger brother, Amenhotep I, indicating that something happened to Ahmose-Ankh. I suggest that the latter prince was the one who died in the first Passover, further validating the Pharaoh of the exodus was Ahmose I. Therefore, Moses does not mean ‘water’ but according to Wikipedia, “The Egyptian root msy ('child of') or mose has been considered as a possible etymology, arguably an abbreviation of a theophoric name with the god's name omitted. As such Mose was just the son of with no known father or mother and Ahmose was the son of Ahotep I, his mother, a matronymic whereas Mose is theophoric for possible ‘son of God.’

ON DEATH

It is at this time on the seventh day of February in the year of our Lord 2024 that my precious niece left this world. This is not about her, but for the hope of Christians.

“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27). We all have an appointment with the angel of death. Judgment comes after this.

How can this be for it is written, “Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev 20:14). “The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works” (Rev 20:13).

Judgment comes after death and the second death is judged guilty. In the beginning there was no death, but sin brought on, not just one to die, but “surely die” (Gen 2:17). Adam and Eve if they trespassed where they should not go would have an appointment with death. Not just “surely die” but literally mut, mut, mut in the Hebrew, or to die, die, die.

Adam physically died after 930 years. He spiritually died immediately, and at the propitiation of the blood of Jesus, he was quickened, or made alive. Adam may have been one of the saints that arose and resurrected along with Jesus (Mat 27:53). Adam will be judged when all sinners are judged. If he is judged righteous, then he will not die the second death.

However, Adam was created glorious and alive. We are born spiritually dead but have a choice in how we die. We are either quickened by rebirth – “born again” (John 3:7) or not. We must die to be born again.

Where am I headed with this? If born again, your soul should never die, but your flesh must die to receive new, incorruptible flesh. Thus death, for the Christian, is indeed gain just as Paul wrote, but there was a contingency, to die in Christ (Phil 1:21). In Christ is the person engendered by Him — ‘born again.’ That is the critical survival event... the time that you realize that you cannot save yourselves but Jesus, as God, can and will, given your trust in Him.

You can only die once because the immortal soul never dies. The ‘second death’ is not just dying but forever dying whereas once born again, unless aborted by apostasy (Heb 6:6), your soul never dies but is eternally secure once it is freed from the body.

So, what kills humans? Our flesh does that. Something happened to Adam and his mate in the Garden of Eden. They put on flesh and were ashamed. Before they had been glorious but afterward inglorious. Their flesh was just like animal flesh.

When they were in the Garden Paradise, they were dead to the world. It could be that one of the three die, die, dies; was them being cast out into the world. They would have been essentially already dead if they had not the Garment of God covering them by grace.

We all are born cast out already. The world is not heaven, neither Hell nor Paradise. It is as much an invisible prison with us in bondage until the truth makes us free (John 8:32). Hence, the death is the release of the soul and the rapture the release of the body, both from a virtual prison of sorts.

Yes, the Earth is a prison. Look at its economy: one of false hope… to make you wise and hope for something better than what you had (v. 6); shame (v.8); fear (v. 10); deception (v. 13); hatred and conflict with each other (v. 15); desire of wrong things, lust, and control for power (v. 16); poverty and a struggle to survive (v. 17); thorns and thistles (v. 18); hard work and death (v. 19); a domineering demeanor and adultery… the meaning of the name ‘Eve’ (v. 20); feelings of superiority and invulnerability (v. 22); all from Genesis chapter three.

Perhaps superiority and invulnerability are the worst of the worst; that we are gods and shall live forever is the source of mythology.

Since the beginning of time, and I think that beginning was with the first sin, mankind would wither in the world. It took Adam and his mate 900 plus years to wither and die.

Right now, because of the economy of the world, you are withering away until your death. However, we think these bodies will live forever and most think that they are masters of their own domain. They think as if they will never die, and while we are thinking that way, we are walking the road to death. It is not a distant trip because the ‘door,’ or portal, to heaven is death itself. It will deliver us to heaven, but to where in heaven? is the question.

The soul is immortal. It cannot die, remembering that there is but one death. The soul of a sinner is as if they are dying, but with a never ending death in torments. Consider the rich man and Lazarus, once they died and passed through the portal to heaven, they were separated. The righteous man went to Paradise in heaven and the unrighteous man went to Hell in heaven, the two places separated by a great gulf (Luke 16).

Yes, we all are going to heaven, as the song goes. The problem is whereto in heaven shall we go? Death is the portal to Paradise, and the portal to Hell as well. The second death is the judgment; which way we shall go.

Hell is just that. It is much more than separation from God but torments. The economy on Earth that Adam endured was just a taste of torments. They only died once and then they were alive by the grace of God. Torments is continually dying but never succumbing to death.

The guilty will have a sort of incorruptible flesh as well; however, it will continually be corrupted but never burned. That continual process of never dying but tormented as if you are dying, will never cease.

With that said, the first death is easy even for the sinner. It lasts only a few moments as they squeeze through the portal to heaven. It is the second death that is so agonizing for it never ends!

God is merciful; we are appointed only to die once. That is what He wills for us. Unfortunately, few even think they just might die twice with the second death never ending.

With that said, the first death should be no more feared than a gravity drop device at an amusement park. It is the second death that we should dread, because it is in a dark time tunnel that never ends the agony. Just as with the death-defying ride, it is those who love you that fear for you more so than yourselves.

Funerals are for the release of fear, or anyhow, it should be. The funeral is more for us who are alive to grieve. The immortal soul remains alive and as the young girl in the Bible revealed, the soul is just a moment away from the body once released from the world. There is an impenetrable wall where the dead cannot see the grieving, or it would not be ‘Paradise.’  And we cannot see there because it would increase the grieving process.

Heaven is for the dead. However, the soul never dies, so remember the dead person as a beautiful image full of vitality with flesh like the glorious risen Jesus (John 7:39).

Hope is more than ‘hope so’ but that eternal life is there for all who desire to have it. If there is a second death, there must be a second life? 

 

 

 

COMING TO THE WEDDING

Christianity is like a wedding with the Church as the Bride and Jesus as the Bridegroom. Although that is written in many places one of the best said was by Isaiah the prophet: 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks Himself with ornaments, and as a Bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isa 61:10)

 That metaphor is repeated several times in the New Testament as well; no wonder marriage is a sacrament because it represents the Christian and Jesus.

Jesus spoke in parables. That is using one non-related but similar event to make a point. In this case it was a king whose son was about to have a wedding. Rather than analyze every word consider this passage: 

When the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: and he saith unto him, “Friend, how come you are in here not having a wedding garment?” And he was speechless. (Mat 22:11-12)

 All had been invited but few came. This one man came but failed to wear wedding apparel. Because of that, he was bound hand and foot and cast out into a place of weeping and gnashing of the teeth. As it turns out Jesus said, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mat 22:14).

Chosen — the Calvinistic doctrine of ‘election’ — is explained in this parable. The man could have worn a wedding garment. At the door, if he did not have one, he should have asked the king for a proper suit for the occasion.

We think of wedding garments as the formal attire — the best of the best. People dress up for weddings, but in the case of one peculiar Jewish wedding, the people dress down — Yom Kippur — ‘the day of covering’ from Leviticus 23 wherein the people are to ‘afflict their souls.’ It is the day of the year of the covering of the mercy seat.

Kippur comes from the same noun meaning ‘pitch’ like when Noah covered the Ark with pitch to keep it afloat unto salvation.

So, don’t think of the wedding garment as we would today, or even a royal wedding. The King has a different type of wedding than ordinary kings.

John the Baptist came to the ‘wedding’ so to speak, the wedding being the revealing of Jesus as God. John wore appropriate apparel for that occasion — a suit made of camel’s hair and girded about with leather (Mat 3:4). John came dressed for a wedding; it was not in fancy apparel but the basics.

Camel hair coats are for warmth and comfort. John was born with the Holy Spirit and his coat was his outer Comforter that symbolized the Holy Spirit covering him.

If this parable reveals the wedding of Jesus to the body of Christians, which it does, then the appropriate wedding garment would be the ‘Comforter’ — the Holy Ghost (John 14:16).

The man that came to the wedding. maybe dressed formally, or maybe even plainly, still did not have the proper attire for the wedding of Jesus. In that the Church is made up of the good and bad, as the seven churches of Asia reveal, they are still the ‘Church.’

However, consider the Church much like a threshing stone wherein all can come but few are chosen. There are criteria for who are threshed aside and who is kept. The man of the wedding was welcome there because he was allowed in, but before he was allowed to be part of the wedding party, the king checked him out; Was he properly dressed for the occasion?

Of course, he could have come ‘naked’ in the sense of Adam and Eve who should have come to the proper party beneath the Tree of Life.

Perhaps Adam and Eve were not even naked like we think of nakedness, but like angels. (More on that shortly.) The nakedness of which they were ashamed was their flesh which after sin was of a different substance and like the inglorious flesh that humans wear today.

In that instance, after Eve and her frolic with the angel, Lucifer, God covered both Adam and Eve with coats of skin (Gen 3:21) for them to be ‘married’ to Him after they had abandoned Him for the Luciferin ‘Serpent.’

God covered their newly acquired flesh with coats of skin, perhaps the wooly hide from a lamb. On the other hand, perhaps the ‘coats of skin’ was the ‘whole armor of God’ for them to be able to “stand against the wiles of the Devil” (Ephes 6:11).

Not knowing for sure about the fabric of those coats, God put onto Adam and Eve appropriate garments for their wedding.

‘Marriage’ after sin was merely coupling, as Genesis 4 reveals. They did not go to their wedding with God, becoming one flesh with Him, but put on wedding apparel that God provided — the Garment of Adam, as it was called. But more appropriately, the ‘Garment of God’ for both the man and woman of Adam’s kind.

Eve had gone to her ‘marriage’ with the Wicked One naked and Adam watched naked (Gen 4:1). Neither were dressed gloriously. We think of glory as splendorous, but it is in plain apparel.

Yes, I am implying that she gained carnal knowledge from the forbidden tree. Carnal knowledge is the knowledge of the flesh. Because they were ashamed of their pudenda (Gen 3), it is implied that their appendages were discovered to have multiple uses. The Books of Adam and Eve reveals that they had no digestive systems when in Glory but acquired them after sin. Perhaps they acquired genitalia as well to multiply Satan’s way.

Now read an afterthought later in the day when Jesus was asked about marriage in heaven after the general resurrection. “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Mat 22:30).

Adam and the woman were made both in the Image of God and elohim — the angels who were made in the Image of God. Unlike the angels, God took living souls and surrounded them with a material image of the elements. Angels were invisible substances and men as much ‘angels’ with ‘coats’ made of some glorious material manufactured by God to become His Glorious Likeness. Imagine that Adam and Eve were like Jesus after He died and was resurrected. His Spirit, or Ghost, was the same, but His flesh was made glorious (John 7:39).

I submit that the glorified Jesus — the ‘last Adam’ (1 Cor 15:45) was of the same substance as the first Adam.

Jesus revealed to the inquisitive crowd that after the resurrection, there would be no marriages. ‘Marriage’ is two becoming one. Their will be no coupling in the realm of heaven. That implies that there should have been no coupling in the paradisical Garden in heaven. Adam and Eve were cast out into the world where coupling was the normative and their coats of skin would be removed only to couple. Eve had no ‘armor of God’ to couple with the Wicked One with one meaning of her name is ‘Adulteress.’

Adam and the woman were ashamed of their flesh after sin. Before sin, they had not been ashamed. They were in the Image of the resurrected Jesus before encountering the Devil, but afterward were brutish like the beasts. They had acquired animal skins with sin and lost their once dominant genes (Gen 1:26). The Wicked One had become the dominant one rather than Adam.

Now back to the parable. The man was thrown out because his clothes were not appropriate for a wedding with Jesus — the Son of the King. He had been called but had not found grace.

Noah found grace (Gen 6:8). The Book of Jasher reveals that the grace that Noah found was the Garment of Adam. Noah was elected from all those around him to find grace, not because he was a good shipbuilder, but because he ‘wore’ God in a sense. He was called and then followed. While covered with the Garment that God had provided, Noah avoided the fiery darts of the wicked ones and went to the ‘wedding.’

The Ark of Noah was God’s ship and since Noah was married with God, wearing His apparel — at one with Him — the Ark was nothing more than a ‘wedding cruise’ after which the ancient invisible Church was laid on new ground (a new Adam).

So, Noah came to the wedding dressed appropriately. Whatever clothing that he wore, beneath it was the Garment of God. Noah wore that coat for over 120 years, then Ham stole it and made him naked. Then Noah sinned. Soon Noah was like Adam as well; he found grace in the new world even without that Coat. However, Ham stole the Garment, and his son was cursed.

Ham came to the wedding without proper wedding attire, and his son was cast out into the world without proper attire, because he stole grace.

Today stealing the glory of the other is called ‘stolen valor.’ Ham kept the valor for some time, and it was passed on to his son Canaan, then through several others to Nimrod who used the Garment of Adam wrongly, to prove there was no God in heaven.

The point that Jesus was making in the parable is that many are invited to the wedding, few come, but those who come fraudulently, are due Hell.

I believe that today most Christians are frauds. They, and sometimes me, take off the Comforter for a few minutes to do as we please. If we wear the Comforter to the wedding of us to Jesus on the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, we will be well received at the wedding of the King’s Son to the Invisible Heavenly Church.

Even after professing to be the bride of Christ, many come to the ‘wedding’ without the Garment of God. How would we know? “If you love Me; keep My commandments,” said Jesus (John 14:15). Before the wedding it is essential to dress appropriately, wearing the whole armor of God to even pass the angels guarding the Way to the wedding (Gen 3:24).