March 2, 2012— updated 15.9.2016
An Essay of Definition in Seven Parts
Addendum to PART FIVE
The Language of Redemption
Out of the North Country
____________
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (Heb 9:22)
____________
4a.
The rhetoric of redemption requires that questions are asked; for with the asking of questions, answers will come … my brother Ben recently wrote that he trusted God to protect the integrity of Scripture. My question: is Scripture—the Bible—the word of God? Not according to John’s Gospel. In Greek, “the word” is a masculine noun that takes a definite article; however, this doesn’t mean that the noun refers to a male person. Hence, “the word” is [in Latin characters] ’o logos in nominative case. The English phrase, “the word of God,” would be written in Koine [common] Greek as ’o logos Theou.
In John’s Gospel we find, ’En ’arche en ’o Logos kai ’o Logos en pros ton Theon kai Theos en ’o Logos, with Trinitarian translators having bent Greek grammar usage considerably to get what appears as the lead sentence of this Gospel in modern English Bibles. First, there is no article for <’arche> so this is not a definite noun, but a modifying icon. English translators have added the definite article “the” for even in English, “the beginning” requires the definite article—and the author of John’s Gospel wasn’t using ’arche in reference to “beginning,” but in reference to being “first” as Caesar was Rome’s first citizen. So the better translation of ’arche would be “primacy”; hence, In primacy was the Logos and [kai] the Logos was with (or of — pros) the God and God was the Logos. … In the third clause, Theos lacks having a definite article, meaning that this linguistic icon must share the article of ’o Logos, and they do as disclosed by the common nominative case ending. Therefore, ’o Logos of the God was Himself God, and the deity that created all things physical (John 1:3). It was this deity that entered His creation as His unique Son (John 3:16), the man Jesus the Nazarene (John 1:14). It was this deity that “did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6–7).
My brother truly does trust God to protect the integrity of Scripture; however, he as part of greater Christendom has never asked, is the Bible the word of God? He has always assumed that it is. And why would he assume the Bible is the word of God? Because everyone he respects as a teacher says it is.
But if every Bible he owns has a screwed up translation of John 1:1, has God really protected the integrity of Scripture; for the Word of God is Christ Jesus, not a book. Not any book or books. And it is the indwelling of Christ Jesus that gives spiritual [eternal] life to the Elect, the chosen ones. It is the parakletos that serves as the intellectual conduit through which the Father communicates with His sons. And if my brother were to simply ask the question, is the Bible he reads and studies truly the Word of God, he as an intelligent person would realize that it isn’t, a realization that might well harm his faith—so he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t really want to know. He had an emotional experience when he was in Rome and went to see where the Roman Church says the Apostle Paul was chained until martyred. Thus, his faith is based on a pathos argument, not on logos or ethos reasoning. And all pathos arguments are weak albeit usually effective … an emotional experience in Rome is a very weak basis for belief of God, not a basis that will hold up to the reality that will follow the Second Passover liberation of a second Israel from indwelling Sin & Death.
The rhetoric of redemption will erase (through asking questions) the worst examples of pathos reasoning from the minds of the Elect. But when asking questions, answers cannot be forced from God. For the Elect, answers will come usually through realization, but they come when God, Father and Son, decide to give them to the younger son.
A question that can be asked is, why did the Lord not allow Balaam to curse Israel? He could have simply ignored Balaam; He could have turned Balaam’s curse back onto the people of Moab; He could have done several things; but He only allowed Balaam to speak His words …
The angel of the Lord confronted Balaam on his way to Balak, king of Moab (Num chap 22); for he was on his way to curse the firstborn son of God (Ex 4:22), the nation of Israel. And the angel of the Lord [usually used as a euphemism for the Logos] said to Balaam, “‘I have come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let her live. … Go with the men, but speak only the word that I tell you’” (Num 22:32–33). And why was Balaam only to speak the words of the Lord that were given to him, words that blessed Israel? The Lord already knew what He would tell Ezekiel centuries later:
And I said to their children in the wilderness, Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor keep their rules, nor defile yourselves with their idols. I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules, and keep my Sabbaths holy that they may be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. But the children rebelled against me. They did not walk in my statutes and were not careful to obey my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live; they profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness. But I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out. (Ezk 20:18–22)
If the children of Israel were a blemished lamb, not fit to be penned in the Promised Land on the 10th day of the first month, then sacrificed as the Passover Lamb of God on the 14th day at even, why make the textual point of saying that the children of Israel crossed the Jordan on the 10th day (Josh 4:19), the day when Passover lambs were to be selected and penned? Surely the Promised Land could be considered a “pen”; for there would have been no escaping from the Promised Land once the Lord closed the “door” to this sheepcote.
In reality, the chosen and selected Passover Lamb of God was from “Israel,” but the Israel represented by the Woman of Revelation 12:1, this Woman clothed with Light. The child she delivers is the Lamb of God, the “male child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” but who was “caught up to God and to His throne” (v. 5) before He rules all nations. This Lamb of God was sacrificed on the First Unleavened (from Matt 26:17 in Greek); was sacrificed on the 14th day of the first month … the children of Israel that crossed the Jordan behind Joshua [in Gr: ’Iesou — Jesus] were eventually released from their pen and driven from the Promised Land and into Assyrian or Babylonian captivity. Hence, a second nation of Israel had to be “born of God” and sacrificed, Head and Body.
My brother Ben, like many Christians within the greater Church, accepts as evidence of Jesus’ resurrection the fact that so many of the first disciples were willing to die for the faith they professed. Apparently, all but John had their lives prematurely shortened by the hands of other men—and this is powerful testimony from beyond the grave. For it would be extremely unlikely that even one person would die for a lie, let alone all but one who was needed to live to a certain year to fulfill an aspect of the plan of God.
Returning to the blemished “lamb” that Balaam was hired to curse, but prevented from doing so: most of what actually occurred during Israel’s forty years in the wilderness isn’t in the written record left by Moses and Joshua. What has been included seems to be the shadow and copy of a spiritual reality. So a question emerges: if the children of Israel were a blemished lamb why not permit Balaam to curse them? Perhaps they would have repented of their idolatry. … In the typology of the New Testament, the men of Israel and the children of these men serve as the shadow and copies of the three parts of the “little ones” (from Zech 13:8–9), the men of Israel as two parts [Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb as one part; those who wanted to return to Egypt as the other part], and the children as the third part.
The men of Israel numbered in the census of the second year—every Israelite male twenty years old or older—serves as the type and copy of greater Christendom after the Second Passover, with the Passover in Egypt [again, the geographical of Sin] serving as the type and shadow of the Second Passover, a liberation from indwelling Sin and Death of a second nation of Israel, not necessarily a second liberation of the same “Israel” that rebelled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
Christians within the greater Church tend to read endtime prophecies about “Israel” and think only in terms of the modern nation state of Israel as being “Israel.” This is naïve on their part, if not outright dumb. The Woman in Revelation 12 is “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet” … the moon reflects the light of the sun, and serves as a light in the darkness of night. It functions as a giant mirror. And if a prophecy pundit had any theological sense, the pundit would identify the moon as the people of Israel who are not sons of Light; who are not born of spirit; but who cannot be seen except as the light of the sun is reflected from the moon.
Perhaps this is as good of a time as any to discuss why the sacred calendar is set by the light of the first-seen new-moon-crescent rather than by the dark of the new moon … if Christ Jesus is the life and light of men (John 1:4), where is Christ seen in the dark of the moon? Would not “darkness” have at least temporarily overcome the life and light of men?
The plan of God the Father began with the coming of the first sliver of Light in this world, the ministry of Jesus the Nazarene after He was born of spirit through the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] descending upon and entering into Him when John the Baptist raised Him from the waters of the Jordan. This plan is represented by both a lunar month and by the solar year, with the lunar month—the first and seventh month—forming the magnified shadow of the First Unleavened and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, followed by these days’ mirror image, Succoth and the Last Great Day. Eight days in the first month, eight days in the seventh month, with Succoth following the reality Yom Kipporim] that symbolizes Unleavened Bread …
In all things of God in this world, the physical or natural precedes and reveals the spiritual; thus Unleavened Bread has its natural fulfillment [the First Unleavened followed by the seven days of not eating leavened bread] preceding its spiritual fulfillment [the Christian era followed by seven years of tribulation when Israel will live without sin]. But Unleavened Bread will also serve as the natural fulfillment of Succoth [the Millennium, when Israel will live without sin] followed by the Last Great Day [the great White Throne Judgment]. And to orientate [anchor] Succoth in the Plan of God, Yom Kipporim on which all of Israel is to afflict their souls (selves) by fasting symbolizes Unleavened Bread when Israel will eat the “bread of affliction,” unleavened bread.
About the physical portion of the Plan as represented by the lunar month [the first month], Moses said only,
Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. … In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteen day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. … When you come into the land that I [the Lord] give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. (Lev 23:3, 5–7, 10–11)
Note: there is no observance of the first day of the first month; for in the Plan’s reality as represented by the first month [the natural or physical portion], the Adversary still has dominion over the kingdom of this world. However, even with the Adversary having dominion over the kingdom, the harvest of firstfruits begins with the Wave Sheaf Offering and continues for fifty days—beyond the first month and into the third month.
About the spiritual portion of the Plan as represented by the lunar month [the seventh month], the prophet Ezekiel reveals,
Thus says the Lord God: in the first month, on the first day of the month, you shall take a bull from the herd without blemish, and purify the sanctuary. The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it on the doorposts of the temple, the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and the posts of the gate of the inner court. You shall do the same on the seventh day of the month for anyone who has sinned through error of ignorance; so you shall make atonement for the temple.
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall celebrate the Feast of the Passover, and for seven days unleavened shall be eaten. … In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month and for the seven days of the feast, he [the prince] shall make the same provision for sin offerings, burnt offerings, and grain offerings, and for oil. (Ezek 45:18–21, 25)
In the spiritual portion of the Plan, Christ Jesus has received dominion over the single kingdom of this world. The Adversary is bound [chained] in the Abyss. The firstfruits have been glorified [harvested]. And the physical portion of the Plan has been fulfilled. Therefore, the Holy Day calendar has been overhauled to reflect where in the Plan humanity is during the Millennium.
In the annual solar harvest year, there were two grain harvests of ancient Judean hillsides, an early barley harvest [the harvest of firstfruits] and a later main crop wheat harvest that should be gathered into barns by Succoth. Traditionally, in the Sabbatarian Churches of God, Succoth has represented the Millennium, and Feast of Trumpets [first day of the seventh month] has represented the coming of the Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords. When the kingdom is actually delivered to the Son of Man, the trumpeting of the new year will be moved to the first day of the first month (Ezek 45:18), and Rosh Shoshana will no longer be observed. Likewise, Yom Kipporim [should be plural: day of coverings, two coverings represented by the two goats] will be superseded by making atonement for anyone who inadvertently sins on the seventh day of the first month …
Although the Sabbatarian Churches of God haven’t realized it, Yom Kipporim on which Israel is to afflict souls by fasting—Israel is to afflict souls in the first month by eating the bread of affliction, unleavened bread—has always served to represent Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the fall calendar, thereby placing the coming of Christ in its contextual relationship to Succoth.
Although Judaism has regarded the annual High Sabbath calendar as a singularity, in actually, the annual High Day calendar has within itself a physical—spring—and a spiritual—fall—presentation of the Plan of God, with the spring High Day calendar representing in type the entirety of the Plan of God as seen on the solar harvest calendar, and with the autumn [fall] High Day calendar also representing in type the entirety of the Plan of God. Therefore, in moving from physical to spiritual, Yom Kipporim should disappear; for Jesus’ disciples will not fast when the Bridegroom is with them.
The Plan of God symbolized by the annual solar calendar, and symbolized by the monthly lunar calendar: it is easy to confuse even the “chosen” of God, especially when God’s harvest plan for humanity hasn’t been understood because the integrity of Scripture was compromised before the “books” were even gathered together into a Book … why would the Adversary wait to corrupt the writings until they were assembled together in codices? The time to insert corruption was during Paul’s ministry—and we find Paul writing, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only He who now restrains it will do so until He is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath [pneuma] of his mouth” (2 Thess 2:7–8).
The mystery of lawlessness was already at work in the middle of the 1st-Century. The Oral Gospel had been corrupted before it was ever written down. The Plan of God was misrepresented to converts before God ceased drawing people from this world and delivering them to Christ Jesus to call … forty years after Calvary, the Plan was suspended. The Body of Christ died physically seventy years after Calvary. And God, again, Father and Son, would wait until the time of the end to resume construction of New Jerusalem, thereby permitting endtime disciples to stand on the foundation Paul laid (1 Cor 3:10–11) without having to first clear debris from this foundation, the debris of generations of burned up Christian ministries.
The generational debris of Christian ministries is strewn across the plains of Moab where the larger debris mounds await receiving super-fund cleanup moneys; for even the soil upon which these mounds sit is toxic.
When entering the spiritual portion of the Plan of God, either solar or lunar, all of the firstfruits will have been harvested so the only remaining harvest of humanity will come from the Millennium and from the great White Throne Judgment (two harvests that junction as one harvest as the barley harvest and the wheat harvest function as the single grain harvest of the Promised Land). This will now have the harvest coming out of the Millennium serving as firstfruits to the main harvest coming from the great White Throne Judgment. For in both of these spiritual harvests, human spirits [to pneuma tou ’anthropou — from 1 Cor 2:11] in souls [psuchas] will be judged, not souls in fleshly bodies as was done with the firstfruits.
Only the Elect (the chosen ones) escape being judged—and they escape because of the indwelling of Christ while they lived physically. For Jesus was not judged. He was without sin, without unbelief; therefore, there was no basis for judging Him. He was not under the Law, not under condemnation. He was not humanly born as a son of the first Adam, hence a son of disobedience. And those disciples whom the Father delivers to Him to call, justify, and glorify will appear in the seven endtime churches; will appear as horns on the Head of the slain Lamb (Rev 5:6).
The symbolism in play requires a source of “light” to work, sunlight or moonlight (which is again, reflected sunlight). The dark of the moon is without light; without Christ Jesus. The dark of the moon appears as a dark spot in the sky where even the light of stars cannot be seen. It can be discerned although it is usually calculated for it can last for as long as three nights—then, which night is the “new moon” as determined by the dark of the moon. Calculation solves the problem, but not the problem of darkness. For in John’s Gospel, we find, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). … The moment the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] entered into [eis] Jesus, He was born of God, and “Light” had come into the world, albeit as a sliver of moon is enough to bring light to the night sky.
The new moon needs to be thirteen or so hours old to be seen; for it has to move out from behind the earth a little before it can reflect the light of the sun.
Jesus had to step out from behind the Adversary and be baptized by John before He could be seen by the Adversary … apparently the Adversary never recognized Jesus as the unique Son of Yah; never realized who He was. And if Jesus would have been humanly born with indwelling spiritual life (fully man, fully God), the Adversary would have certainly seen Him and would have gone after Him in ways that Herod wouldn’t have imagined, thereby forcing God to keep angels positioned around Him as bodyguards. Then He wouldn’t have been a man like other men.
As a camera crew at a riot seems to spur the rioters to greater hooliganism, a squadron of angels sent to protect the infant Jesus would have caused other angels—who would have been able to see the squadron—to overreact. Spiritual warfare would have occurred, with rebelling angels having nothing to lose [they are already under condemnation] if they killed the King’s firstborn Son. And even angels can die inside space-time; for the physical creation, formed in the Abyss, will serve as a glorious death chamber in which the Adversary and his angels are to be exterminated.
In the symbolism of the Plan of God, the Promised Land of Canaan served as the shadow and copy of the Millennium. The Wilderness of Sin serves as the geographical shadow of the tribulation, with forty years in the wilderness forming the time shadow of the Affliction and Endurance, the seven endtime years of tribulation.
But the spiritual darkness that presently engulfs humanity only seems to grow “darker” as even greater Christendom hurries—as a fearful citizen trying to escape pursuing shadows—to cross four-lanes of traffic … maybe God won’t see these Christians, who know that God would have something to say about how these Christians live their lives if He were to ever catch-up to them. Yes, He would have plenty to say—and I have looped back to Balaam: why didn’t the Lord permit Balaam to curse Israel? He would give to the children of Israel statutes by which Israel could not live; He would defile Israel with their own sacrifices. And we return to Ezekiel:
Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the Lord. … Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers and go whoring after their detestable things? When you present your gifts and offer up your children to fire, you defile yourselves with your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired by you, O house of Israel? As I live … I will not be inquired of by you. (Ezek 20:25–26, 30–31)
Again, why wouldn’t the Lord permit Balaam to curse Israel? Would Balaam have cursed Israel without showing Israel mercy? As it was, the people of Israel borrowed the idolatrous practices of the nations they were to annihilate; for apparently Israel only perceived the Lord as a “sky God,” like Pharaoh. Apparently Israel believed that each locality had a deity that also needed to be worshiped. And as the shadow and type of Christians dwelling in spiritual Egypt [Sin], the people of Israel didn’t want to make a mistake and commit blasphemy against any deity. My brother would rather believe that God has protected the integrity of Scripture than him chance committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit [pneuma ’agion]. After all, the Greek novelist in Acts 13:2 has the Holy Spirit speak words: “‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them.’” Really? Especially when this Second Sophist novelist has his “Paul” misidentify the deity that created all things physical in chapter 17 (vv. 22–34). How is Scripture not corrupted by the inclusion of a Greek novel presented as the history of the early Church? For whose Son is the Christ? He’s not David’s son if the prophet Isaiah is to be believed. For as the first Adam was created outside the Garden of Eden and then placed in the Garden (Gen 2:7–8, 15), the last Adam was born of God outside of the priesthood and outside of the royal line, the meaning of the being a root-shoot growing from the stump of Jesse (Isa 11:1). If the Messiah were of David, He would not grow as a shoot from the stump of Jesse, but would grow as a branch of David, a branch of Jesse.
This “addendum” has gotten far enough away from the original essay that I need to quit it and put it up as it is—and return to the original essay in a second addendum. And the answer to why Balaam was not allowed to curse the idolatrous children of Israel has to do with the Lord disciplining His own, and not permitting the Adversary to do His work for Him during Endurance in Jesus, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years of tribulation.
*
[To be continued in Addendum 5.2]
*
"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."