August 16, 2014 ©Homer Kizer

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Common Greetings —

The War to End

Western Civilization

 

3.

If God, through constructing a great nation from Ishmael—a nation based upon an ideology—could preserve descendants of Abraham to Abraham’s glory, would He? Would such a thing be within the mindset of God? This nation would not be through the Promised Seed, but would be of Abraham. And if such a thing were something that the Lord, the God of Abraham, would do, why would he do so, again considering that descent from Abraham isn’t through Abraham but through Sarah, who functions as the “body” of Abraham … the relationship between husband and wife illuminates the relationship between the soul [psuche] of a person and the fleshly body of the person, with the soul being in the fleshly body as a husband is in his wife when a marriage is consummated. Thus, legal descent from Abraham is through the woman, Sarah; descent is matrilineal. And with God, the right of primogeniture isn’t straight forward even when sons come from the man’s wife as was the case with Rebekah favoring Jacob when the right of primogeniture would have had Esau being Isaac’s heir.

 In three consecutive generations from which the human cultivar God has chosen to propagate comes, three models for the right of primogeniture are seen: in the first, Abraham, inheritance goes not to Abraham’s firstborn son, Ishmael, but to Sarah’s firstborn son, Isaac. This is straightforward matrilineal descent.

In the second, Isaac, inheritance and birthright didn’t go to Esau, Isaac and Rebekah’s firstborn son, even though Isaac’s desire was that Esau inherit. Instead, inheritance went to the son that Rebekah favored, Jacob, who through deceit initiated by his mother deceived his father. So this amounts to matrilineal descent via favor; via the woman choosing the heir.

In the third case, legal inheritance skipped many sons and went to Jacob’s grandsons through Joseph, with the younger grandson being placed over the older grandson. In this case, inheritance didn’t consist of anything physical, but consisted of ownership of the name, Israel, the one who prevails with God.

In each case, descent was through the mother, with the mother being of Abraham’s kin that hadn’t made the journey from the land representing Death to the land that would be the Promised Land, the land representing Life … Sarah was the half-sister of Abraham; hence, she was of Abraham’s kin. Rebekah, wife of Isaac, was the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother Nahor through his wife Milcah; hence she was near kin to Abraham and his son Isaac. And Rebekah’s son Jacob was commanded to take a wife from among the daughters of Laban, his mother’s brother: he took two of Laban’s daughters as wives.

All of this is symbolic; for Eve was of Adam and born-of-spirit Christians [the Bride of Christ] are of Christ Jesus … Life doesn’t fall far from the Tree of Life. Therefore, in the model of the woman being of the man, Sarah shared a parent with Abraham, and the wives of Isaac and Jacob [Rebekah, Leah and Rachel] were near kin; for descent through Abraham—the “tree” the Lord chose based on Abram’s faith; based on his belief of his God—is closely held and doesn’t extend to those coming from Egypt, the land representing Sin, until the Passover liberation of Israel.

With God, a thing is established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. A vision from God is established by being twice given; e.g., Joseph’s visions, Pharaoh’s visions; the shared vision of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, the three visions of Daniel that pertained to Israel in the latter days [Daniel chapters 7 & 8 & 10–12]; the visions of Zechariah and John concerning the two witnesses, of Daniel and John concerning giving the kingdom to the Son of Man, of Abram and John concerning the Passover liberation of Israel—the smoking fire pot and flaming torch passing between the severed three-year-old heifer, the severed three-year-old female goat, the severed ram three-years-old.

There is no evidence to support the claim made in Matthew’s Gospel that Joseph and Mary took the child Jesus to Egypt. There is evidence, however, to support a claim that Herod did not order male infants of less than two years of age to be slain in Bethlehem. So the story found in the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is fictional but true; for this story pertains to a Passover liberation of Abraham’s seed that didn’t occur in the 1st-Century CE, just as the glorified Jesus didn’t receive all authority in heaven and on earth in the 1st-Century CE (see Matt 28:18) but will receive all authority when dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation (cf. Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18). This entrance and exodus of Jesus as a small child into and out from Egypt pertains to the indwelling Christ Jesus of every disciple truly born of spirit in this present era and on into the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years.

Abram’s vision when his belief of God was counted to him as righteousness has been largely ignored by Christians, why? Because it wasn’t understood?

In three generations, the younger son [grandson] was elevated above his older brother, with this twisting of the right of primogeniture having spiritual implications … with God, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Thus, Ishmael as a nation—as Abraham’s firstborn son—will be last to receive salvation in the resurrection of firstfruits that occurs when Christ comes as the all-powerful Messiah after seven years of tribulation; seven years after the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And waiting to be filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God until dominion over the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man in the fourth year of the seven endtime years will greatly benefit the nation formed from Ishmael; for by waiting to be filled with spirit until the Adversary is cast into space-time and to the earth, all of the nation of Ishmael will suddenly possess the mind of Christ without receiving a corrupted Christ originating in the outreach ministries of greater Christendom. All of Islam will suddenly come to know God, which isn’t the case today. And few from this nation will be spiritually lost, whereas most of greater Christendom will be lost. Most of Judaism will be lost.

The nation that the Lord promised to make from the descendants of Ishmael were sealed in unbelief by the visions of Muhammad. But if a person practices justice and pursues righteousness through justice as Muhammad would have had his believers do, then the person will live when resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment. The person who pursues righteousness through just weights and balances will be as Job was. But the blood that is presently on the hands of the descendants of Ishmael will first have to be washed away by many tears and much suffering before the One who was the God of Abraham intervenes on their behalf in the Endurance of Jesus, the last 1260 days before the Second Advent.

If Noah, Daniel, and Job represent those who would be saved by God (see Ezek 14:12–23), the question must be asked: what do these three have in common? Fear of God, yes. Fear leading to righteousness, yes. Were they perfect in all of their ways? That is unknown. But what they all share is that none of them could have entered the temple. Daniel for two reasons: Solomon’s temple was razed by the Chaldeans, and Daniel would have been a eunuch. No temple existed in the days of Noah or in the land of Job. Therefore, these three share not being able to enter into a physical temple, which means that the way to God was not blocked by the temple or its high priest. And yes, even the Christian Church as the temple of the Lord (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16) while it lived spiritually blocked non-Christians from coming to God.

[T]he priests go regularly into the [temple’s]1 first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. (Heb 9:6–10 emphasis added)

The temple and its high priest prevented anyone from coming to the God of Abraham except through the temple and its sacrifices: the way to God was barred by the veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies—the first section of the temple from its second section, with the veil establishing this separation being foreshadowed by the veil Moses put over his face so that Israel would not be frightened by the glory that shown from his face (Ex 34:30).

Now, the hard question: is it in the Lord’s interest for there to be no temple nor any priesthood? Is it in the Lord’s interest to prevent humanity from coming to Him?

The Apostle Paul indirectly addressed the preceding question when he wrote,

[T]he wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Rom 1:18–25)

God tried a no-barriers approach, and it didn’t work: humanity came to know God, then turned from Him—an invisible creating sky-deity—and began to worship what human persons could see and touch, the created rather than the Creator. So is it in God’s best interest to again offer to humanity unrestricted access to Him?

Does the temple benefit the Lord?

Would the Lord have benefited if Noah, Daniel, and Job could not have come to Him because of the temple’s existence? And was not Nebuchadnezzar a servant of the Lord (Jer 25:9), a servant who sacked Jerusalem and razed the temple, thereby permitting those who would be righteous to come to the Lord without making physical sacrifice? He was. So in the ways of God not being the ways of man, the temple is actually a hindrance that the Lord tolerated because of His respect for Moses; for David—and because the temple foreshadowed construction of the Body of Christ, the Christian Church.

Before proceeding further: if Daniel could not have entered the temple because he was mutilated in compliance with the practices of the Chaldeans (in order for Daniel to serve in Nebuchadnezzar’s administration), then it would seem logical that spiritually, for as long as the temple of God [the Christian Church as a living entity] remained, no person could come to God except through Christ Jesus, Israel’s High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. This would mean that for Muhammad to come to God, he would have had to become a Christian for as long as the spiritual temple stood. It was, however, obvious after Arian Christians thrice sacked Rome in the 5th and 6th Centuries that the Christian Church no longer stood, but was very dead and had been for a long time.

Rome was sacked by the Arian Christian Alaric with his Visigoth army in 410 CE; Rome was again sacked by Arian Vandals under Geiseric in 455 CE, then again sacked by Arian Ostrogoths under Totila in 546 CE, with the third sacking exposing the lack of “Christian behavior” by both Trinitarian and Arian Christians. The Faith that began with Jesus no longer cast a shadow of itself. Thus, the way was open for everyone to come to God through demonstrated love for God, neighbor and brother, which Muhammad expressed in his child-like revelations.

Because the offspring of Abraham—albeit Isaac or Christ Jesus—through whom legal descent would come could not themselves produce offspring that, when left alone, pursued righteousness, the way to God was open to everyone by the end of the 1st-Century when the Body of Christ died from want of spiritual breath. Initially, those who came to the Jesus Movement were pagan Greeks, who brought to Christianity what pagan philosophers believed was the best of Greek thought and values, thereby pulling the Jesus Movement far from Christ Jesus … these pagan Greeks had help that came from Zealots eager to push Christians out of Jerusalem and far from orthodoxy. And there in the wilderness where only the memory of Azazel goats grazed on saltbush, Christians were given the option of converting to a new orthodoxy, or perishing in ignominy (those who perished are to endtime disciples unnamed and faceless).

However, the descendants of Ishmael simply could not take advantage of what was available to them until they quit fighting among themselves, which they temporarily did for the century when Islam set the world on fire.

Though serious in consequences but over petty issues, the descendants of Ishmael fight today among themselves as Sunnis murder Shi’a, and Shi’a return atrocities, eye for eye, car bomb for car bomb. This means (so there is no doubt about what is being declared) that even today, the collective descendants of Ishmael cannot come to God even though the way is open for them to come. They cannot come because they have been sealed in unbelief. They have been ideologically sealed by, whom? God? If the angel Gabriel truly appeared to Muhammad, then they have been sealed in unbelief by God. But this does not mean they have been sealed in unrighteousness, or that they are lost spiritually. This means, simply, that they cannot come to God as firstfruits until the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and his angels and delivered to the Son of Man, Head and Body.

Individual descendants of Ishmael have pursued and will continue to pursue righteousness and will thus be judged worthy of salvation when judgments are made from the great White Throne after the Thousand Years. For it isn’t profession with the mouth that Jesus is Lord that saves. Any liar can profess that Jesus is Lord. The tongue is deceitful. Rather it was belief of God that was counted to Abraham as righteousness. It is belief of God that will be counted to endtime Christians as righteousness. It will be belief of God that will be counted to Jew and Muslim, Hindi and Buddhist as righteousness during the Endurance of Jesus, again the last 1260 days before Christ returns as the all-powerful Messiah. Until then, those who do not profess that Jesus is Lord are not lost; whereas those who do profess but do not walk in this world as Jesus walked are lost, with the person determining his or her own judgment by whether the person does what he or she knows is right.

Paul wrote in his treatise to the holy ones at Rome:

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down) or 'Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Rom 10:4–10)

Paul’s righteousness based on faith is the Moab Covenant, the covenant made with Israel that is in addition to the covenant made at Horeb/Sinai (Deut 29:1). And this Moab covenant is based on faith; based upon Israel returning to the Lord when Israel has been taken captive and is in a far land (Deut 30:1–3) and has no reason for worshiping the Lord other than doing so is the right thing to do.

A Christian today is as the children of Israel were on the plains of Moab: there is no compelling reason to keep the Commandments other than doing so is the right thing to do …

If possession of the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou]; if the indwelling of Christ in the form of His spirit having penetrated the spirit of the person is the definition of what it means to be a Christian—

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Rom 8:5–14 emphasis, double and triple emphasis added)

—then a major problem exists within greater Christendom; for two cannot walk together unless they agree. No person can walk as a Gentile and walk with Christ Jesus. Only the person who walks in this world as Jesus the Nazarene walked in this world can walk with Christ.

If Christ is in you—what do Paul’s words seem to say? That Christ will dwell within the person who is a son of God. Indeed, that is what they say. But the fleshly body of Jesus the Nazarene cannot dwell within the disciple’s fleshly body. Nothing that has mass can dwell within the flesh of a disciple without the disciple’s immune system attacking and attempting to destroy the intruder. Even a fetus within its mother’s womb must disarm the mother’s immune system if it is to live. So what Paul addresses isn’t of the flesh; isn’t physical. The indwelling of Christ in a disciple is of a non-physical Christ in the non-physical component of a human person—

Alas, the Emperor has no clothes! Yes he does: his fleshly body is the house in which the emperor dwells and obedience is the garment that clothes him, with the emperor not being the fleshly body but the non-physical inner self—the spirit of the man in the soul of the man, with “man” used in its species application. The indwelling of Christ comes through the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou] penetrating the spirit of the man [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] as a husband, the head of his wife, penetrates his wife in the act of procreation. It is for this reason that Paul wrote, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3).

Where the preceding becomes important in the war between Israel and Islam is that when the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] in the bodily form of a dove descended upon and entered into [eis] the man Jesus (Mark 1:10), the spirit of God penetrated the spirit of Christ, thereby making God the Head of Christ in the same way that Christ is the Head of every disciple; is the Head of the Church, with the model for this penetration being that of a man having his way with his wife. Thus, for the person truly born of spirit, this birth coming via the indwelling of Christ (of the spirit of Christ in which is the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ being the vessel that has come from heaven that is able to hold the bright fire that is the glory of God), there is no need for God to send knowledge to the person via visions, but can communicate directly with the person through the spirit of truth, the indwelling Parakletos.

Prior to the giving of the spirit, visions were the most common way for the Lord to communicate with a human person. After the giving of the spirit, what the Father wants the person to know comes via the spirit of truth and the groaning of this spirit. Visions are limited to knowledge coming from Christ Jesus rather than from God the Father, with this seen at the beginning of John’s vision:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. (Rev 1:1–2 emphasis added)

As a prophet, Muhammad did not have the spirit of God. The angel Gabriel could not have delivered to Muhammad the spirit [pneuma] of God. So Muhammad was a throwback prophet of the sort that brought knowledge of God to ancient Israel. He would have been utterly without spiritual understanding, which is as it should be since the inheritance of Abraham is in the aspiration added to his name, thus transforming <Abram> into <Abraham>. This inheritance in seen in Sari’s name also being changed to <Sarah>. And this inheritance represents receipt of the spirit of God and accompanying indwelling heavenly life based on belief of God.

Muhammad does for the descendants of Ishmael what the prophets recorded in Scripture did for the natural descendants of Israel, with the relationship between Muhammad’s revelations and say, the revelations of the prophet Moses (who indeed was a prophet — see Deut chap 18) being that of adolescent slave versus infant son. Neither know much about the things of the Head. But the slave thinks he knows more than he does even when he is respectful of the infant son, with whom he plays in a mocking way.

Salvation came to 1st-Century Christians through belief of God that produced obedience that led to righteousness that in turn led to everlasting life for the soul of the disciple. But a problem quickly developed in this model for salvation: self-professed converts were liars that failed to continue in the faith when tested by grievous trials, analogous to Abraham being tested when the Lord commanded him to sacrifice Isaac (Gen chap 23). Therefore, after Paul wrote his treatise to the holy ones at Rome, thereby laying out a model for determining conversion, the model was corrupted by agents of the Adversary who knew to profess with their mouths that Jesus was Lord but who secretly held in their hearts the teachings of Plato, a Greek that was to them far wiser than any Hebrew.

Salvation ceased to come through profession with the mouth that Jesus is Lord shortly after Paul wrote his treatise to the Romans. Salvation won’t come to Muhammad’s followers through their many prayers or half-fasts, but by doing what is right and good. Salvation is not today offered to anyone not numbered among the foreknown and predestined Elect, but all people everywhere are determining their own fates by whether they do what they know is right.

Except for those descendants of Ishmael that remain physically alive when Satan is cast into space-time, Ishmael doesn’t come to the Lord as firstfruits. The great nation that comes from Ishmael will come to God as righteous persons in the great White Throne Judgment if they die before the kingdom is given to the Son of Man, meaning that God has reserved a significant portion of humanity in sealed unbelief until the single kingdom of this world is taken from the Adversary and his angels and given to the Son of Man on the doubled day 1260 of the seven-year-long Affliction and Endurance in Jesus. Only then will the descendants of Ishmael be liberated from their unbelief. Until then, their infighting will continue as well as will their wars with the descendants of Isaac and of Christ Jesus.


4.

Although the Promise that Abram believed and had his belief counted to him as righteousness is read by Paul as being for a single offspring, Paul had to ignore more of what the Lord told Abraham than what he accepted: “And behold, the word of [YHWH] came to him: ‘This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.’ And He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then He said to him, "So shall your offspring be’” (Gen 15:4–5) … one seed, one offspring that would be as unnumbered as the stars of heaven, with one being many, thereby negating the numerical singleness of the numeral …

Throughout Scripture, two are one, thus negating numerical singleness for the integer <one>, something that neither Judaism nor Islam can comprehend. Adam and Eve were two people who were one flesh, with the body of Adam filling what was missing from the body of Eve. They were two who were one in a similar manner to how Christ is one with His disciples, and one with the Father:

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20–23 emphasis added)

The one seed that came from Abraham—Isaac was not born until after aspiration was added to Abraham and Sarah’s names—formed many physical peoples but only one spiritual people, those who are born of spirit through the indwelling of Christ Jesus. Ishmael isn’t included in this numbering, but Ishmael hasn’t been forgotten; for Abraham’s biological descendants through Isaac could not refrain from idolatry for even forty days, let alone forty years in thirty-five hundred years, with forty years being how long Abraham’s spiritual descendants lasted before they too succumbed to idolatrous worship. When the God of Abraham, the God of living ones then as well as today (not the God of dead ones), told Moses atop Mount Sinai,

Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. (Ex 32:33–34)

God didn’t forgive Israel, but rather, ended the Covenant that was to be everlasting (that is, extending continuously from one shedding of blood to its concluding shedding of blood) and made a Second Covenant with Moses and with Israel that was not ratified by the shedding of blood but by Moses entering into the presence of God, with the glory of God shining from Moses’ face for the remainder of his physical life, glory concealed from Israel by a veil analogous to the veil that in the temple separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place.

The First Sinai Covenant was established and ratified when,

Moses came and told the people all the words of [YHWH] and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, "All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do." And Moses wrote down all the words of [YHWH]. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to [YHWH]. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words." (Ex 24:3–8)

The Covenant was, indeed, ratified by the shedding of blood, just as the covenant made with Abram/Abraham was ratified by shedding blood:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old [YHWH] appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly." Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God." And God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." (Gen 17:1–14 emphasis added)

Grammatically, the covenant is not outward circumcision even though that is how the passage seems to read: outward circumcision is the ratifying sign of the covenant which had aspiration [the /ah/radical] added to both Abram and Sari’s names, with a few drops of blood being shed when a male infant is circumcised on the eighth day. The covenant would have Abraham walking uprightly before God Almighty, and through walking uprightly, Abraham would become the father of many nations, these nations based upon aspiration being added to Abram’s name … it is here where what the Apostle Paul writes becomes difficult:

To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. (Gal 3:15–20 emphasis added)

But in Hebrews, we find,

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you." And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. (Heb 9:13–24 emphasis and double emphasis added)

The question now is what Paul wrote to the Galatians true: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified? The United States of America had covenantal treaty obligations with the former Soviet Union during WWII—what happened to this covenant after Germany and Japan surrendered? And the Soviet Union had a made a treaty with Nazi Germany prior to the United States entering WWII? A treaty is a covenant. And did not Nazi Germany break its covenant with the Soviet Union and attack Russia as soon as Germany had a common front with Russia? Did not the United States make many treaties/covenants with Native tribes? Which treaty did the United States keep? And did not the United States make a covenant with Ukraine when Ukraine, part of the former Soviet Union, surrendered its nuclear arsenal? We did. We made a covenant with Ukraine to protect Ukraine. But will we honor that covenant? Not likely. So man-made covenants are not worth the paper on which they are written, something Muhammad learned when dealing with polytheists then in control of the Mosque at Mecca. Why then does Paul say that no one annuls a covenant once it has been ratified? Sitting Bull would not agree with Paul, nor would displaced Cherokees under Andrew Jackson’s administration. The reality is, man-made covenants are made to be broken, not kept. And spiritual covenants, when broken, are annulled by the party that breaks the covenant, which won’t be God.

In his epistle to the holy ones in Galatia, Paul created a classical Aristotelean argument against circumcising the flesh, but Paul—corrected in his understanding—was without scriptural support and had to stretch what he could sift from Scripture to support what he had received via revelation … revelation cannot be refuted by either logic or previous writings: either revelation occurred or didn’t occur. If revelation from God occurred, it should be believed by the ones receiving the revelation.

But in addressing the Law, Paul’s contention is that it was added because of Israel’s idolatry, but this is only partially true. Moses wasn’t guilty of idolatry. He was atop Mount Sinai when the people prevailed upon Aaron to cast the gold calf. And Moses had already received the Royal Law inscribed by the finger of the Lord on two tablets of stone before the people broke free in an orgy. The First Sinai Covenant was given, accepted, and ratified by the blood of beasts before the people broke free. It was annulled by the shedding of Israelite blood:

Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, "Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, "Thus says [YHWH] God of Israel, 'Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.'" And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. (Ex 32:25–28)

A covenant extends from cutting to cutting, from the shedding of blood to the shedding of blood, with the marriage covenant extending from the breaking of the hymen [the shedding of blood] to death, the next shedding of blood … at Sinai, the Lord “married” Israel, but this marriage was troubled from its beginning; for the marriage was physical, not spiritual. Israel was a physically minded people. Judaism is a physically oriented ideology based on sacrifice. Added animal sacrifices while the temple stood. The sacrifice involved in outward prayer and fasting, in the memorization of Scripture, these sacrifices continued in Islam, also a physically oriented ideology that continues outward circumcision.

But the revelation Paul received involved the inner self: the spirit of the man that resides in the soul. The revelation Paul received disclosed to Paul that nothing physical really mattered, that is was the inner self of the person that with God mattered—and the inner self was neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek [of Ishmael or of Isaac], free or slave, with the spirit of the man [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] being in the soul [psuche] of the man, these two being one spirit in a manner analogous to a man and his wife being one flesh. Thus, when the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] in the bodily form of a dove entered the man Jesus (again, Mark 1:10), the spirit of God entered into the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou], with these two being one deity, but this was beyond the comprehension of the holy ones in Galatia so Paul, in his Aristotelean argument, didn’t try to explain the subtleties of spiritual birth to saints who had been corrupted by the Circumcision Faction … the problem Paul faced would have been analogous to what any of the endtime Elect would encounter in trying to explain to a Muslim that the revelations of Muhammad are for them what the added sacrifices were for Israel, with the Prayer being analogous to tassels on garment corners so that Israel would not forget the Commandments.

Spiritual revelation will come to Ishmael but not until dominion is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man. Until then, those with physical revelation will fight against those with physical revelation—and will when opportunity permits, murder those who have already received spiritual revelation. The reality is that they will have few if any encounters with the Elect prior to the Second Passover liberation of Israel … if they were to encounter the Elect, there would be conflict in which the Elect would ideologically prevail although not necessarily prevailing physically.

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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

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