Seven Lean Years:
The End of Transactional Economies
Chapter Three B
Who Do You Trust?
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For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." (Rom 1:11–17 emphasis added)
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3.
A long time ago, the Adversary was given dominion over physically living creatures, with the purpose for God giving dominion to the Adversary being the necessity of killing the idea undergirding the Adversary’s rebellion: the Adversary’s advocacy of self-governance and transactional economies … to kill the premise that self-governance was viable, let alone preferable to top-down governance, the Adversary required “space” and subjects. Not just any subjects, but ones that were able to assist the Adversary in his defense of commerce—
Of course, once a death chamber was constructed in which the Adversary and his rebelling angels could be executed, the potential for that death chamber where one moment decayed into the next moment presented possibilities not present in the timelessness of the heavenly realm: as angels would have been created in one heavenly moment but given life in a second or lower heavenly moment [in a differing “location”]—because in timelessness, the presence of life cannot coexist with the absence of life—human sons of God are “created” in one decaying moment but given heavenly life in a following but not necessarily lower moment; for inside of space-time where the visible creation has mass thereby creating gravitational force, one moment decays into the following moment without any change of location … prior to receipt of life, angels had no life hence angels as living sons of God can never enter the everlasting moment of their formation. They can never enter the “location” in which God dwells, but God can enter the location in which He gave them life in a manner foreshadowed by Elohim [singular in usage] breathing the breath of life into the nostrils of the man of mud (Gen 2:7).
How do endtime Christians know that the Genesis chapter 2 creation account [beginning with verse 4] is what it purports to be, a creation account of Adam? Why isn’t the account read as prophecy? … Of course it is a creation account for it reads like a creation account. That’s how we know it is the account of the creation of the first man. We read it and just know.
Do we? Do you trust ancient Israel to have faithfully kept the oracles of God?
Adam could not enter the “moment” of his formation from the base elements of the earth, but only the following moment when Elohim breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. Adam had no life in the moment prior to when he received life … Christ Jesus had no indwelling heavenly life prior to when the breath/spirit of the Father [pneuma Theou] in the bodily form of a dove entered into [eis, from Mark 1:10] Him. It is always wrong; it is contrary to Scripture to say that Jesus the Nazarene was fully God when He walked as a man—Paul says He gave up equality with God when He entered His creation as a man: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:5–7).
Humanity will be created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26–27) at a specific moment in time—
On the sixth day of the poetic “P” creation account, God [singular, not the plural deity YHWH Elohim] will create man [humankind] in His image and after His likeness, but this sixth day is of a spiritual creation week that has Christ Jesus being the light of day one (2 Cor 4:6), and the greater and lesser lights of the fourth day being the resurrection of the firstfruits of humanity: “Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of [the] heavens, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of [the] heavens” (Matt 5:19) … the ones who shall be great shall be the great light that rules the day, the light (i.e., rules with God in heaven), but the ones who shall be least shall be the lessor light that rules the night, the darkness (i.e., rules with Christ over the creation).
And still, after the fourth day, humankind is not yet created in the image and likeness of God. The fifth day—the Millennium—still has to occur, with the fish and fowl in spiritual type created on this fifth day. The sixth day will see the coming of New Jerusalem and the dedication of this spiritual city and temple, with all that happens on this sixth occurs occurring outside of space-time:
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. From His presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:11–15 emphasis added)
After the great White Throne Judgment which occurs outside of the creation, there will no longer be any human persons. All who will be transformed into spirit beings after the image and likeness of God will have been so transformed. Thus, humankind isn’t today created in the image and likeness of God, but then will be or will perish in the lake of fire.
It is commonly taught within greater Christendom that humanity is created in the image and likeness of God, but there is a serious problem with this teaching: it is contrary to Scripture …
John wrote, “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2 emphasis added).
How does the glorified Jesus appear?
I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around His chest. The hairs of His head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Rev 1:12–16)
If His younger siblings shall be like the glorified Jesus, then the above description will also be the description of “man created in the image and likeness of God.”
The prophet Ezekiel also saw the glorified Beloved of God:
Above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of His waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of His waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around Him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. (Ezek 1:26–28)
So the Beloved of God “appeared” somewhat like a man, but is not the image and likeness of humanity. That’s the key. For humans are created in the image and likeness of servants. The following has previously been cited:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phil 2:5–7 emphasis added)
In this spiritual creation week (the “P” creation account), humanity presently resides in the dark portion of the third day. The light portion of the third day begins halfway through the seven endtime years when,
Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when He fights on a day of battle. On that day His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. (Zech 14:3–4)
And,
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" (Rev 12:7–12, also Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18)
Muslim Imams and Christian pastors lie to the ones they teach when they assert that human persons are born with immortal souls; for the creation narrative of Adam has this man of mud formed in one moment but given life in a following moment as a nephesh, a living or breathing creature, not as a son of God …
The Protestant Reformation was about every person being able to read Scripture for him or herself and thereby understand what Scripture says, but this isn’t true. Even the premise that Christians have a reliable copy of the original autographs isn’t true.
In the days of King Josiah, restoration began on the dilapidated temple that King Solomon had built—and during this restoration, the lost Book of the Covenant was found:
Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord." And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, "Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord." Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the king's servant, saying, "Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us." (2 Kings 22:8–13)
How long the Book of the Law [Book of the Covenant] had been lost cannot be known with certainty, but the Book had been lost for long enough that books of the kings records,
And the king commanded all the people, "Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant." For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:21–23 emphasis added)
The suggestion of Scripture is that the Book of the Law had been neglected for a long period, and had been lost shortly after the temple was assembled on site. And if this were the case, the outer wraps of the scroll should have been damaged by the ravages of time, insects, weathering. And the outer wraps of the scroll forming the Book of the Law would have contained the Genesis material … if there were damage to the scroll, this damage would have been in those portions that seem to have been copied from 9th-Century northern kingdom Hebrew. And a case from the books of the kings can be made for Josiah having gone to the temple at Bethel to look for an undamaged copy of the outer wraps of the scroll of the Book of the Law.
Then the king [Josiah] sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him. And the king went up to the house of the Lord, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant. And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens. And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah. And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beersheba. And he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one's left at the gate of the city. However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech. And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts. And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. And the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, he pulled down and broke in pieces and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. And the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And he broke in pieces the pillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with the bones of men. Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and burned, reducing it to dust. He also burned the Asherah. And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things. Then he said, "What is that monument that I see?" And the men of the city told him, "It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel." And he said, "Let him be; let no man move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lord to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel. And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:1–20 emphasis added)
When Josiah was king over the House of Judah and Jerusalem, Samaria was not the territory of the House of Judah, but Assyrian territory:
In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria. (2 Kings 15:29)
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Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (2 Kings 17:5–6)
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The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, until the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had spoken by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day. And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, "The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore He has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land." Then the king of Assyria commanded, "Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land." So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. They also feared the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. (2 Kings 17:22–34 emphasis added)
Josiah risked war with the king of Assyria when he invaded the territory of the former House of Israel and destroyed the idols of the people whom the king of Assyria had relocated to Samaria. The gravity of the situation—the military tension between Josiah and the king of Assyria—has been underappreciated within greater Christendom; for Josiah could have easily ignored the idolatry of the pagan peoples whom the king of Assyria had installed in Samaria. But something was important enough to Josiah that he risked war with Assyria. Something caused Josiah not to fear Assyria, and this had to be the covenant he made with the Lord after finding the Book of the Covenant—
If an intact copy of the Book of the Law could be found anywhere it would have been in Bethel, and in the temple Jeroboam had built to keep the people of the House of .Israel from journeying to Jerusalem on the High Sabbaths of God.
Endtime Christians can know with near certainty that the outer wraps of the scroll containing the Book of the Covenant were damage through the transmission of the Hagar story. Compare Genesis chapter 16 with chapter 21:
But Abram said to Sarai, "Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please." Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She said, "I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai." The angel of the Lord said to her, "Return to your mistress and submit to her." The angel of the Lord also said to her, "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." And the angel of the Lord said to her, "Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen." So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me." Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. (Gen 16:6–16 emphasis added)
And,
Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him [Ishmael would have been 14]. And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me." And she said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age." And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." [Ishmael would have been 16 to 19 years old.] And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, "Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring." So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, "Let me not look on the death of the child." And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation." Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. (Gen 21:5–20 emphasis added)
From when Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away to the end of the narrative unit, Ishmael reverts from being a teenager to being an infant … obviously, there is narrative reconstruction undertaken in a ham-handed manner, but in a manner suggestive of merging two texts that do not necessary agree in detail but contain the essential motif of the same story: Hagar is promised that Ishmael should become the father of a great nation because he is Abraham’s seed.
The descendants of Isaac wouldn’t be all that concerned about the Hagar narrative, but the descendants of Ishmael would be. Hence, more than three and a half millennia later, the physical descendants of Ishmael are almost entirety followers of Mohammad, and well aware that the descendants of Isaac have been unfaithful in their transmission of the Hagar narrative. And these descendants of Ishmael intend to avenge the wrong done to Ishmael by murdering the descendants of Isaac.
Descendants of Isaac through Jacob haven’t been merely unfaithful in keeping the words of Moses—“Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?” (Rom 3:1–3 emphasis added)—but had been unfaithful in keeping the oracles of God, with the prime example being the conversion of the linguistic determinative <YHWH> into an always unpronounced naming noun; transforming the plurality of deity into singleness and the idol of monotheism.
However, it is the Hagar narrative that the Apostle Paul uses for his tour-de-force allegory of the natural descendant of Jacob being of Hagar:
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted
allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband." Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman." So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. (Gal 4:21–31 emphasis added)
Thus, by Paul attaching spiritual significance to the Hagar narrative, figuratively flipping the narrative upside down in such a manner that the natural descendants of Ishmael can become the spiritual descendants of Abraham [Christ] through Isaac [1st-Century circumcised of heart Israel], endtime Christians have before them a prime example of Judaism’s unfaithfulness in keeping [preserving versus applying] the oracles of God.
Paul attaches importance to the Genesis 21 Hagar account, using Ishmael sporting with—poking fun at—Isaac as an example of Judaism’s persecution of Christians … the Genesis account poorly supports the concept of Ismael persecuting his fourteen year younger sibling. Didn’t happen. A sixteen year; a nineteen year old doesn’t persecute a two year old or a five year old child. Rather, the teenager might well tease the toddler, or might play a little rough with the toddler, but not persecute in a manner analogous to how Judaism persecuted the sect of the Nazarenes. So how Paul as a former Pharisee read the Genesis account better supports the attitude 1st-Century CE Pharisees had towards the natural descendants of Ishmael than does the text itself.
Regardless, the allegory Paul makes is appropriate: Genesis narrative accounts—seemingly historical accounts—are not to be read literally, but are to be read allegorically or metaphorically; for Jesus only spoke to His disciples in figures of speech (John 16:25). The Logos, the Beloved of God, will also only have spoken to Israel metaphorically, with this “speech” not limited to visions or to words uttered to Moses or uttered through the prophets, but including the Promised Land representing the Sabbath, the Millennium, and heaven itself.
Hagar didn’t carry her 16 year old, 19 year old son in her arms, then set him down under a bush when she ran out of water so she would not have to watch him die. The story found in Genesis chapter 21 has been cobbled together from an account of Hagar’s actions at an earlier time, a time closer to the Genesis chapter 16 account. And the merging of an otherwise invisible Hagar story with the story of Abraham sending Hagar away when Isaac was breeched has been poorly done. The workmanship is that of a literary amateur.
So, again, why does greater Christendom perceive the story of the creation of Adam to be historically accurate? Why do Christians suspend disbelief and swallow prophecy as history? Why, because the story of Adam is presented as a creation account of man? Most likely. But what’s odd is how many Christians believe a literal reading of Genesis 1:26–27, followed by a literal reading of Genesis 2:8 … these two alleged creation narratives oppose each other.
The Christian or Muslim who contends that when Elohim breathed life into the nostrils of the man of mud Adam received an immortal soul are unskilled in the use of language. Consider what is said about a Nazarite vow: “All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall not go near a dead body [nephesh mooth]” (Num 6:6).
If Adam became a nephesh when Elohim breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of this man of mud, 930 years later Adam became a nephesh mooth when the breath of life departed from him. Adam had no immortal soul for Adam never ate from the Tree of Life even though he could have.
Again, we know that the story of Adam is a “creation” account because this story “reads” like a creation account … when did this account begin to read like a creation account? Before or after the “P” creation account was composed? Perhaps the story of Adam was a narrative peculiar to Bethel? Endtime Christians cannot know for sure, but endtime Christians can know that serpents have diminutive shoulder and pelvic girdles suggesting that at one time, serpents walked upright.
The creation of angels necessitates the angelic son of God receive life in a following and necessarily lower moment from the formation of the angelic spiritual body. The chiral image of angelic creation is the creation of Christ Jesus as the First of the firstborn sons of God, with the “body” of this firstborn son of God formed into a physically living but spiritually dead human person prior to Jesus being raised from death through receipt of a second breath of life, the breath of God the Father [pneuma Theou]. And in this same manner, all of the Elect—those who are foreknown and predestined to be glorified by the Father, then called, justified, and glorified by Christ Jesus through His calling (John 15:16), crucifixion while the person was yet a sinner (Rom 5:8), and glorification through the indwelling of Christ [the spirit of Christ, pneuma Christou] thereby giving to the person the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). This person has been born again, born from above, born of spirit … although the fleshly body of the person remains mortal as Jesus’ fleshly body remained mortal after Jesus was born anew through the indwelling of the breath of God [pneuma Theou], thereby being resurrected from death—a dead spirit [pneuma] in the soul [psuche] of Jesus—in a similar manner to how the Elect are born of spirit while they live physically, the person not so born again [i.e., born of spirit] cannot comprehend what spiritual birth represents.
Every experiment needs a “control” sampling; every demonstration needs a control group, a group similar to the element representing the whole of the demonstration, but an element that differs from the “whole,” thereby establishing a baseline from which deviance can be measured. In the present demonstration underway, the Elect are the “control” sample; for the Elect will be drawn from this world by God the Father (John 6:44), predestined to be glorified (Rom 8:29–30) as fruit borne out of season, then delivered to Christ Jesus for the imprinting of the mind of Christ upon the minds of the Elect, thereby creating a control that has “Christ” being a fractal of Jesus of Nazareth, each person numbered among the Elect walking in this world as Christ Jesus walked, becoming a personification of both Christ Jesus and God the Father—not through the righteousness of the Elect but through the cloaking of the person counted among the Elect with the garment of Christ (Gal 3:27) and His righteousness.
In the Star Trek television series, Klingons received “cloaking” technology from the Romulans, and were therefore able to make their Bird-of-Prey vessels invisible in the electromagnetic spectrum through selectively bending light or other forms of energy … the garment of grace [i.e., Christ’s righteous] causes human sons of God to appear to the Father and to angels as Christ Jesus Himself by blotting out the unbelief of disciples, the cause of deliberate transgressions of the Law. The garment of grace cloaks the disciple through the projection of “Christ” wherever the disciple stands. Thus, when any heavenly entity except for Christ Jesus looks at His younger siblings, all that’s seen is “Christ,” again a fractal composed of repeating images of Christ Jesus through each person numbered among the Elect choosing to walk in this world as Jesus walked.
When every disciple walks in this world as Jesus walked, the “Christ fractal” becomes the control that establishes the baseline by which Christians, once filled with spirit following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, are judged while they live physically …
The Elect do not come under judgment.
Because the Elect hear the word of Jesus and believe the One who sent His Beloved into this world, the Elect pass from death to life without coming under judgment (John 5:24), thereby escaping judgment through being born of spirit while the now-living inner selves of the Elect continue to dwell in fleshly bodies … it is only those who willfully refuse to understand spiritual birth that cannot grasp the reality of Jesus’ inner self being resurrected from death when the spirit/breath of the Father [pneuma Theou] entered into Him when He was raised from the waters of the Jordan by John. What more can be said: the willfully ignorant remain ignorant. Leave them be. They are spiritually dead; they are not born of spirit. Just ask them—
Humanity presently lives in a demonstration of the Adversary’s purposed superiority of self-governance and transactional economies; for once he was defeated in heaven—in the process of which, injuring heaven itself enough that a recreation of heaven became necessary—God, out of mercy and love for the two thirds of the angels that didn’t join themselves to the Adversary and not for the Adversary’s sake, established a demonstration to show that self-governance will never work. Whereas the Adversary believes that self-governance is not only viable, but to be preferred to top-down governance by a supreme being, self-governance cannot solve the problem of internal rebellion stemming from equality of persons.
The concept behind ruled by a king, divine or human, is the inequality of personages: by divine right, a king is superior to his subjects [a queen to her subjects]. But in a democracy, or in a constitutional republic, there is equality of personhood, which will have the Adversary being the equal of the Most High God, but also will have every rebelling angel being the equal of the Adversary. This is Arthur’s Roundtable magnified several billion times—and Camelot failed because of too much equality in Arthur’s bed.
The Adversary’s advocacy of self-governance was and continues to be misplaced; for again, the inherent problem with self-governance is the equality of each human person. Nothing can get done when each person is the equal of the other. There is no sanctity of personhood …
Will you trust your high school classmate with your salvation? Inevitably, you are trusting someone’s high school classmate for you are not trusting God—and you would never acknowledge worshiping the Adversary regardless of whether you are or aren’t.
Consider for a moment, in Congress some Democratic legislators “like” their Republican colleagues—and vice versa … which Democratic legislator, though, “trusts” his or her Republican colleague with the keys to the Social Security lockbox, even though that lockbox is empty and the program is guaranteed to go broke in the foreseeable future? None trusts Republicans.
Will President Obama trust the U.S. Supreme Court to do his “right thing” on trespass immigration, or on his signature healthcare legislation? Or will he seek to go around the Court as he went around Congress, thereby establishing dictatorial rule of the sort analogous to that of England’s Charles I in the late 1630s and early 1640s, when Parliament wouldn’t do the king’s bidding … Parliament went to war with the king: the English Civil War. And the king finally lost his head—
The United States of America has already had its Civil War. Is America ready for another one, this next civil war being far bloodier than the last one?
Civil wars are a fixed facet of self-governance, an unavoidable facet that can only be delayed; for central to the Adversary’s administration of this present world is his broadcast of rebellion against the Most High God; of rebellion against long established authority; of rebellion against whomever is in authority. And the person who rebels against authority by either openly or passively resisting the authority manifests the mindset of the Adversary, regardless of how justified this rebellion is.
The Sabbatarian Christian who “chooses” to obey God and keep the Commandments rebels against the Adversary, the still reigning prince of this world … in this person, Christ Jesus has turned the Adversary’s broadcast of rebellion back upon the Adversary, thereby causing the person to rebel against the Adversary. However, without the Adversary’s ongoing broadcast of rebellion, no son of disobedience would ever leave disobedience and turn toward God, thus sparking the rebellion against the Adversary of a third part of Christendom in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of seven endtime years of tribulation.
During the Affliction, the waning 1260 days when the Adversary retains dominion over the kingdom of this world, there will be conflicting rebellions originating in God filling all of greater Christendom with His spirit, thereby causing the Law to be written on the heart and placed in the mind of every Christian. A portion of greater Christendom will rebel against the Adversary and will not commit blasphemy against the spirit, but the vast majority of Christendom will rebel against God and return to practicing disobedience, thereby condemning themselves to the lake of fire.
As much as Americans would like to believe otherwise, humanity cannot govern itself, regardless of what schema is employed. And again, the apocalyptic essence of the Christian message is that humanity cannot govern itself but awaits the Second Advent and governance by Christ Jesus …
Christ wouldn’t have returned in the 1st-Century for the Adversary had not yet implemented all possibly self-governance schemas. And this he has to do to establish the validity of the demonstration in which humanity presently participates.
For most of two millennia, the Adversary has been fighting a delaying action, holding in reserve at least one self-governing schema which would then leave him an out if God moved to end his reign as the prince of this world—an “out” structured around the whine, If you would have permitted me to try whatever it would have worked. No it wouldn’t have, but God intent upon silencing even the Adversary’s whimpers by allowing him to try whatever he or his minions could dream into existence, has not intervened in the course of human affairs except to draw an occasional person from this world to establish a control that reflects overall humanity.
If you were to trust God, Father and Son, with your salvation, you would make a concerted effort to walk in this world as Christ Jesus walked … collectively, Christians refused to walk in this world as Jesus walked. So any argument Christians make with their mouths about trusting God is undercut by Christians living as Gentiles.
It’s easy to say you trust Christ with your salvation, but it is not as easy to walk as Jesus walked; to march to a different drummer beating a cadence differing from the cadence of sons of disobedience (see Rom 11:32; Eph 2:2–3), the cadence to which neighbors, friends, and relatives march. But again the question, do you trust your salvation to your neighbor; to your mother or father; to your son or daughter; to your local pastor, probably your local “expert” on all things spiritual? What basis do you have for trusting your local pastor, the fact that he or she is a “good” person; or perhaps the fact that he or she has a degree from a particular theological institution?
Do you trust your salvation of unfaithful Jews who did not preserve Holy Writ, but redacted ancient texts in a vain attempt to make these ancient texts into a harmonious narrative?
The Bible is not the Word of God; Christ Jesus is (John 1:1–3), meaning that the indwelling Christ is.
In the theological debates of the 16th-Century, Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, debated his students over the question of adult baptism [Believers’ Baptism], with Zwingli understanding that since the Christian Church had practiced infant baptism for a millennium, if infant baptism wasn’t valid, the entirety of the Christian Church was spiritually dead, and he couldn’t go there—neither could the city fathers of Zurich. Adult baptism or Believers’ Baptism was deemed a heresy. And Anabaptists [believers of the necessity for adult baptism] were hunted as wild animals by both the Roman Church and the Reformed Church … my ancestors were hunted, hounded in both England and Bavaria, with my ancestors pausing for a couple of generations in Holland before coming to America in the 17th-Century [1620 & 1683, maternal and paternal ancestors respectively].
Infants baptized by the Old Church prior to the Council of Trent [Concilium Tridentium, 1545–1563, held at Trento and Bologna, Italy] were baptized into a differing theology than infants baptized by the Old Church in the 17th-Century, when the reforms of the Council became the embodiment of the Counter Reformation, but also the repudiation of the excesses of 15th and early 16th Century Latin Church … the Old Church emerged from the Council of Trent as a much more serious theological institution than it was going into the Council. Still, no amount of reshuffling the same doctrines could return the Old Church to the muted purity of the original apostles.
So who do you trust?
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