Seven Lean Years:
The End of Transactional Economies
Chapter Four B
An Instruction Manual?
Printable File
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom 12:13–21)
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2.
In the edited example given, that of Ezekiel 36:1–15, excess inclusion of the Tetragrammaton YHWH hinders the narrative flow: once the inner narrator [the one doing the speaking, The Lord] is identified by the exterior narrator [the one relating the declaration of the interior narrator, the prophet Ezekiel], the reader of the text doesn’t need to be reminded—as if being nagged—of who is speaking until ambiguity enters the narrative. And if the narrative is reasonably well crafted, only intentional ambiguity should ever enter the narrative … there are reasons for authorial ambiguity and reasons for first narrator ambiguity to be introduced into a text, but these reasons usually relate to multiple referents being addressed.
As a writer and as a previous fiction writer—a person will have to judge for him or herself whether I continue to write fiction—I have discussed with other writers the subject of writing as a craft. The redundancy of my present prose (redundancy employed for pedagogical reasons) is the antithesis of good craftsmanship; for the goal of most writers is to get the reader to take ownership of the text, with the deliberate use of ambiguity being a tool employed by writers … in resolving intentional ambiguity, the reader is compelled to “add” to the text, and in adding to the text, the reader effectively “writes” a portion of the text so that the text now becomes the partial production of the reader. The reader “owns” the text.
Excessive inclusion of the linguistic determinative <YHWH> would be employed to eliminate ambiguity, thereby preventing the reader from “adding” to the text and in effect pushing the reader out of the text … a principle reason for why programs having Christians read through the Bible in a year exist—the Bible can easily be read in two weeks, and reread in the following two weeks—lies in the difficulty of staying attentive to the text when the text wants to push the reader away. Frankly, reading the Old Testament in an English translation puts a person’s mind to sleep after a couple of chapters, such is the text’s resistance to the reader. But when the Bible is believed to be the infallible word of God, there is great hesitancy in paraphrasing the infallible Word. Even during the Deportation and the time of the Great Assembly, there was hesitancy to edit received texts; hence the transformation and inclusion of divine determinatives as naming nouns.
If one generation edits “Holy Writ,” the next generation undoes the edits, thereby returning Scripture to its earliest redacted form through dilution of meaning arising as the unavoidable byproduct of excessive words … do you, as a reader, need to be told after every sentence who spoke words you just read? Isn’t being told who speaks at the beginning of an utterance enough; for the recorded utterances are not what was actually said [most of the time, there was no scribe present to record the utterance] but are the production of later writers who employed transcribed speech to more efficiently relay a narration. Ask yourself, who was with David to transcribe his words—the words he allegedly utters—in the following scene:
Now the Philistines had gathered all their forces at Aphek. And the Israelites were encamped by the spring that is in Jezreel. As the lords of the Philistines were passing on by hundreds and by thousands, and David and his men were passing on in the rear with Achish, the commanders of the Philistines said, "What are these Hebrews doing here?" And Achish said to the commanders of the Philistines, "Is this not David, the servant of Saul, king of Israel, who has been with me now for days and years, and since he deserted to me I have found no fault in him to this day." But the commanders of the Philistines were angry with him. And the commanders of the Philistines said to him, "Send the man back, that he may return to the place to which you have assigned him. He shall not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become an adversary to us. For how could this fellow reconcile himself to his lord? Would it not be with the heads of the men here? Is not this David, of whom they sing to one another in dances, 'Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands'?" Then Achish called David and said to him, "As [YHWH] lives, you have been honest, and to me it seems right that you should march out and in with me in the campaign. For I have found nothing wrong in you from the day of your coming to me to this day. Nevertheless, the lords do not approve of you. So go back now; and go peaceably, that you may not displease the lords of the Philistines." And David said to Achish, "But what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day I entered your service until now, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?" And Achish answered David and said, "I know that you are as blameless in my sight as an angel of God. Nevertheless, the commanders of the Philistines have said, 'He shall not go up with us to the battle.' Now then rise early in the morning with the servants of your lord who came with you, and start early in the morning, and depart as soon as you have light." So David set out with his men early in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines. But the Philistines went up to Jezreel. (1 Sam 29:1–11 highlighting added)
Whom from among the Philistines would have reported to Hebrew scribes what the Philistine lords said to each other—and why would Achish, a Philistine, utter the always unpronounced Tetragrammaton YHWH? He wouldn’t have. The scene will have been based on a historical phenomenon—a real event—but the inscription of the narrative is fictional. The dialogue is condensed and is a paragraph of what might have been said. The dialogue exists to more effectively tell of when David and his men would have fought against Israel, but didn’t—and to tell why David did not lift his sword against his brothers.
What kind of a king of Israel would David have been if David had slain his brothers, assembled with King Saul and arrayed against the Philistines? David would not have been the heroic king portrayed in the annals of Israel; thus, an explanatory narrative must be crafted after-the-fact to explain why David had not fought with the Philistines who had given him shelter when Saul sought his life … we have the narrative, one rooted in antiquity, but also one written no earlier than post Saul’s death. And if a person cannot exactly reproduce what the person said the previous day, there isn’t any way that days, weeks, years later what David said to Achish and what Achish said to David can be anything more than generally factual. Plus, Achish would never have uttered the linguistic determinative <YHWH>; would have never used the Tetragrammaton as a naming noun.
There are examples in which deliberate ambiguity is employed in Holy Writ:
As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it to pieces. As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end. (Dan 7:23–26 highlighting and doubled emphasis added)
The referent for the pronoun <they> can be either “the saints” or can be “times and the law” … in this case, both referents will be delivered into the hand of the little horn, the Adversary himself, for a time, times, and half a time, with the referent for the described time, times, and half a time being the period immediately preceding when the court sits in judgement, takes dominion from the little horn, and delivers this dominion of the Son of Man.
Why wouldn’t Daniel more tightly identify the referent for the plural pronoun?
Daniel’s visions weren’t to be understood until the generic time of the end; thus, he didn’t need to eliminate meanings for the plural pronoun both reveals and conceals—this “concealing” is important—what will be delivered into the hand of the little horn, a king of a different sort than the demonic kings portrayed as beasts.
Meaning can be concealed in ambiguity … again, in a reader resolving ambiguous texts, the reader takes ownership of the text. If the reader is unable to resolve an ambiguous passage, the reader reads over the passage, taking little or no meaning from the text. And if a prophecy is to be sealed and kept secret until the time of the end, two and a half millennia in the future, then a great many people needed to read over the ambiguous passage and take little or no meaning from it.
The referential expression <a time, times, and half a time> pertains to a unit of space-time as seen from the perspective of the Most High God, with the earthly passage of time being referenced by the linguistic icon <time> representing possibly (1) a year, (2) a decade, (3) a century, or (4) a millennium. Thus, if a millennium is assigned as the referent to a time, times, and half a time, Israel’s exodus from Egypt under Moses occurred “a time, times, and half a time” ago (occurred approximately 1450 BCE); for the precision of the expression will not necessarily—with millennia as its referent—be to a day or to a year. However, when the referent for <time> is a year, as in a time, times, and half a time representing 1260 days [a unit of space-time as seen from the perspective of human persons] or 42 months [the same unit seen from the perspective of angels], the precision of the referring expression increases to a day and to a 30-day month.
Unfortunately, readers are habitually sloppy, reading “into” a narrative what the reader believes the narrative says, not necessarily what the narrative actually says. Now, understand how this sloppiness can work to the author’s advantage: reader sloppiness, more than any other reason, is why that careful authors will introduce ambiguity into fictional narratives; for readers will “customize” ambiguous narratives through mentally resolving ambiguities present via adding their experiences to the narrative, thereby causing readers to take ownership of the narrative through having “created” in their minds the resolution of ambiguities—what I previously wrote.
I find that I encourage readers to take ownership of my narratives by resolving ambiguities via citing Scripture, but not including all possible scriptural citations that support either an assertion or a declaration. Thus, by the reader being able to add a scriptural reference or several scriptural references I didn’t cite, the reader in his or her mind “adds” to my words, thereby taking ownership of the expanded narrative. And this reader “ownership” of my words is unavoidable—and not a bad thing.
The inverse of the above occurs when I use language that is not inclusive—just jargon specific to a trade or craft; jargon not understood by a general audience. For the use of jargon will push the uninterested or marginally interested reader away, but will cause the seriously interested reader to “educate” him or herself so that this serious reader can enter into my “reading community.”
Too “many” inclusions of a speaker’s identification in a narrative is off-putting, pushing the reader out of a text, not drawing the reader into a text. This is what Earnest Hemingway realized—and put into practice in his novels, especially, Farewell to Arms (published 1929). When two people are present, the speaker doesn’t have to be identified by he said, she said. When Ezekiel as a Son of Adam receives a revelation from the God of Abraham, there are not many speakers. There is one speaker and the narrator, Ezekiel. So when Ezekiel is told,
Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house. As for you, son of man, prepare for yourself an exile's baggage, and go into exile by day in their sight. You shall go like an exile from your place to another place in their sight. Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house. You shall bring out your baggage by day in their sight, as baggage for exile, and you shall go out yourself at evening in their sight, as those do who must go into exile. In their sight dig through the wall, and bring your baggage out through it. In their sight you shall lift the baggage upon your shoulder and carry it out at dusk. You shall cover your face that you may not see the land, for I have made you a sign for the house of Israel. (Ezek 12:2–6)
who do you suppose is speaking to him? Not the Adversary. Not another Israelite. Not a Chaldean. There is really only one possible speaker, the God of Abraham. So no identification of the speaker is needed beyond what is necessary to minimize ambiguity: The word of the LORD came to me (Ezek 12:1), with the linguistic determinative <YHWH> purposefully employed to eliminate ambiguity.
Again, many inclusions of the linguistic determinative <YHWH> in inscribed accounts that purport to be the history of the patriarch Abraham’s offspring through Isaac pushes careful readers away from the God of Abraham rather than draws these readers to the Beloved; for the redundancy of the identifying referent <YHWH> doesn’t permit readers to mentally resolve possible ambiguities or to add personal experiences [knowledge] to what is read. Hence, Holy Writ retains its mental separation from careful readers, with this separation being employed by priests and pastors to prevent the laity from coming to God when finally, after centuries, the laity could read Holy Writ for themselves … the people of God are not destroyed by an absence of knowledge but by a dilution of what can be known about the God of Abraham; destroyed by too many words.
In order for priests and pastors to maintain their seemingly exclusive relationship with the God of Abraham, Holy Writ has to retain its aloofness …
Because Holy Writ hasn’t been truly accessible—being separated from common humanity by ambiguities, metaphors, allegorical language, a surplus of words, and inclusion of redacted and fictionalized discourse—priests and pastors have resorted to ritualistic mysticism to answer questions about subjects like heaven or hell, the Adversary, rebelling angels, the nature of God and of the universe. But when even priests and pastors are “pushed” from Scripture, with basic understanding of theological subjects denied them thereby preventing them from being able to answer questions such as when was the Holy Spirit given, Scripture becomes an inadequate text. A basis is laid for Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism as well as for Christian mysticism through the incorporation of the Chaldean mysteries into mainstream Christian and Jewish thought. And suddenly, human persons have indwelling immortal souls [psuchas] whereas before, the soul that [who] sins shall die (Ezek 18:4, 20).
When no person can come to Christ Jesus unless God the Father draws the person from this world (John 6:44), and when no person can come to the Father except through Christ Jesus (John 14:6), Christianity isn’t for everyone, nor are Christian texts open to understanding by everyone. Holy Writ includes words and texts that prevent Scripture from being understood by the person not foreknown and predestined by God the Father. Not until the Second Passover liberation of Israel—when the Law is written on the heart and placed in the mind of every “Christian” so that all know the Lord, thereby being taught by God—will Holy Writ become a spiritually accessible collection of narratives to those who are not called to be the Elect.
Within greater Judaism, Kabbalah mysticism isn’t traditionally taught to a person until the person has completed study of the Torah and Talmud, or until the person is forty years old … the mature student of the Torah needs to continue the student’s study of things Jewish, even if the subject studied is nonsensical—it’s still Jewish nonsense. And after all, the Talmud hints at a school of mystical thought taught only to the most advanced students, a school not committed to writing, with several references in ancient works to ma'aseh bereishit (the work of creation) and ma'aseh merkavah (the work of the chariot).
Why would a Christian be surprised to learn that Jewish nonsense exists? There is plenty of Christian nonsense that passes itself off as being of the Apostles, including the nonsense that the spirit was given on the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, a teaching that would preclude any Christian from being in the allegorical harvest of firstfruits.
I retained in my citation of Ezekiel 36:1–15 inclusion of the linguistic determinative <YHWH> as a naming noun, with this use giving to the determinative rightful “visibility” but also serving to tempt the ignorant and unstable to pronounce [utter] the always unpronounced determinative … why would I tempt the ignorant to disclose their ignorance? Is there any love in exposing the ignorance of the ignorant? Actually, there is. For what is it that’s heard throughout the Sacred Names Heresy? The ignorant mumbling their nonsensical logic: As you have a name, God has a name, and His name isn’t “G-d.”
Christian nonsense takes many forms, with the Sacred Names Heresy being only one of these many forms … what are the three wise men, Magi, doing in Christian nativity scenes? When did the wise men—if they did—visit the Christ child? Not on the night of His birth for Matthew’s Gospel records,
After listening to the king, they [the Magi] went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matt 2:9–11)
Why is there any pre-baptism material in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels: there shouldn’t be any for Jesus was without sin, therefore He cast no shadow in this world until He took upon Himself the sins of Israel, not at Calvary but when He was baptized into death like that of every other human person … understand basic Christian dogma: Jesus’ father wasn’t the first Adam, wasn’t a human person consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), but was the Beloved, the deity who held primacy with God the Father and the deity who created all things physical. Because Jesus was without sin, without indwelling disobedience, He did not block the light that is God. In symbolic expression, He was historically invisible. However, when He took the sins of Israel upon Himself, He immediately blocked the light that is God and He would have figuratively cast a shadow in the form of a historical record of Himself—the narratives of His earthly ministry.
Mark’s Gospel is correct to begin with the baptism of Jesus. John’s Gospel is correct to begin with the spiritual history of Jesus; i.e., an account of the Logos entering His creation as the man Jesus. Luke’s Gospel is false! There should not be an account of Jesus being born in a manger, or of shepherds attending His birth. Matthew’s Gospel is more complex; for the “Jesus” of Matthew’s Gospel isn’t the earthly man; nor is Matthew’s Gospel a biography of the man that lived although that is what it seems to be, but Matthew’s Gospel is an account of the indwelling Jesus that enters in the form of His spirit [pneuma Christou] into the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou]. Therefore, because the person was humanly born as a son of disobedience, the person has a history prior to being born of spirit through the indwelling of Christ, with the indwelling glorified Christ now bearing the sins of the person so that the person is cloaked by the righteousness of Christ Jesus and seemingly without sin, thus casting no shadow of him or herself in this world.
But perhaps this was too difficult for spiritual Gentiles to grasp. Perhaps it is enough to simply speak of the Sacred Names Heresy: when ignorant Christians say that God has a name, do these ignorant Christians speak of the Beloved or of the Father? Do they speak of the God [Theos] of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt 22:32) when they claim that God has a name? Do they speak of the God of living ones? Or do they speak of the God of dead ones, the God that twice raised the dead Jesus from death, raising first Jesus’ inner self to life when His breath [pneuma Theou] descended in the bodily form of a dove upon and entered into the man Jesus when John raised Jesus from the waters of the Jordan (Mark 1:10)?
Paul writes through the hand of Tertius (Rom 16:22),
Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Rom 6:1–11 emphasis and doubled emphasis added)
And,
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I [Paul] am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Rom 7:14–23 emphasis added)
According to Paul, the person baptized into Christ is baptized into His death, thereby dying a death like Christ’s … Christians have traditionally assumed this death like Christ’s was His death at Calvary when only His physical body died—Peter writes, concerning the three days and three nights that Jesus body was in the Garden Tomb,
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. (1 Pet 3:18–20 double emphasis added)
What Peter wrote is seemingly straightforward, but it isn’t.
When the Logos, the Beloved of God the Father, entered His [the Logos’] creation as His unique Son, the man Jesus the Nazarene, Jesus was without sin and was not consigned to sin as a son of disobedience. Death had no claim to the life of Christ Jesus; had no power over Jesus’ fleshly body, thereby placing Jesus in a unique state, an earthly man who would not die physically until He either sinned Himself or took on the sins of others. And Jesus lived until He was about thirty without sinning or taking on the sins of others. Therefore, when Jesus came to John the Baptist to fulfill all righteousness, death had no claim to Jesus’ body and no power over Jesus … although not immortal, Jesus would not die physically. He would not be put to death in the flesh—and in this He was different from other men, but He was not a spirit being. He wasn’t fully God. He simply was without sin because He wasn’t born consigned to sin nor had He sinned.
But all of this changed with baptism—
Peter goes on to write,
Baptism, which corresponds to this [Jesus being dead in the flesh but alive in spirit], now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him. (1 Pet 3:21–22)
At Calvary, the fleshly body of Jesus died, but He was alive in spirit—and in spirit He went to where rebelling angels were imprisoned, because in spirit as He then was, He could not ascend to God the Father until He was accepted as Israel’s Wave Sheaf Offering following the Father returning to Him the glory He had before the world was created (John 17:5). Thus, where rebelling spirits were imprisoned, in spirit Jesus preached to these imprisoned spirits.
Baptism of the disciple corresponds to when Jesus took death upon Himself when He was baptized, with baptism being a public appeal for a good conscience.
A baptized person is not dead in the flesh when baptized just as Jesus wasn’t physically dead in the flesh during His earthly ministry, a tight wire walk that depends upon Jesus being made alive in the spirit through the indwelling of the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] in His spirit [pneuma Christou]; for in the small unit of time between when John submersed Jesus in the Jordan [baptized Jesus] and when John raised Jesus from the Jordan and the spirit of God descended and entered into Jesus in the bodily form of a dove, Jesus went from physically having no indwelling sin and therefore not subject to death to taking upon Himself the sins of Israel and thereby becoming physically enslaved by death but still without spiritual life to then, with the spirit of God entering into Him, having indwelling eternal life and His inner self no longer dead nor subject to death.
For a moment, Jesus was condemned to death and without indwelling spiritual life: He was like every son of disobedience when humanly born, condemned to death and without heavenly or eternal life. He received indwelling spiritual life after baptism, with the length of time between baptism—again, an appeal for a good conscience—and receipt of indwelling eternal life being of a short duration. However, this is not always the case for His disciples.
The concept of being dead in the flesh but alive in spirit is absolutely correct, but doesn’t line up well with what Paul writes by the hand of Tertius unless we humans are dead in the spirit but alive in the flesh prior to when “our old self was crucified with Jesus in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we will no longer be enslaved to sin”; for in his fleshly body, Paul himself remained enslaved to sin, doing those things that he hated and not doing those things he knew were right and good. For in his flesh, even following baptism, Paul had not been “set free from sin.” Thus, “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father” so that “we too”—along with Paul—“might walk in newness of life,” we will now have this walk in newness of life being the walk of the inner self, or said otherwise, being alive in spirit as Jesus had been made alive in the spirit when He preached to imprisoned spirits.
Every human person is dead in the spirit before being raised from death through receipt of the spirit of God in the spirit of Christ; so what Paul writes about not being enslaved by sin when dying a death like that of Christ Jesus will have this “death” of Jesus not being at Calvary but being when the Beloved entered His creation as His unique Son, an additional wrinkle to the preceding … Calvary becomes a type of the death the Beloved died when He, being “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 2:6–7).
Again, when the Beloved entered His creation as the man Jesus, the Beloved did so by giving up eternal life—spiritual or heavenly life—and taking to Himself physical life without being humanly born as a son of disobedience; hence death had no claim against His physical life.
The problem Islam has with Christ Jesus being the unique Son of the God of Abraham; the problem Judaism has with the man Jesus being Son of God is that neither ideology will accept the premise that “God” can die; that the God of Abraham, the Creator of all things physical, can die spiritually by entering into His creation as the Son of Himself.
Outside of space-time, neither the Father nor the Beloved nor any angel can die; for again, in timelessness, the presence of life cannot coexist with the absence of life. An entity is either alive or without life forever for the moment doesn’t decay and become the next moment. In order for God to have created angels, He had to create a second moment (analogous to a second heaven) in which angels could receive an animating breath of life whereas they did not previously have life in the moment in which the Father and the Beloved had life. The Adversary could not ascend the Mountain of God; for he had no life atop this figurative mountain. He could not set his “throne on high.” He could not “sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north.” He could not make himself “like the Most High” (Isa 14:13–14). All he could do was reveal the iniquity that was in his heart by trying to enter where he could not go.
The physical creation, for all of its glory and beauty, is a dark (as in spiritually lifeless) death chamber in which rebelling angels that have life in the present moment can lose the life they have by the present moment becoming the following moment … the Beloved of God lost His life when He entered His creation as His unique Son, the Son of Himself and not the Son of the Most High God. He would not become the Son of the Most High until the breath of God [pneuma Theou] descended upon Him and entered into Him in the bodily form of a dove. He was then raised from death in a resurrection like that of every disciple foreknown and predestined by God the Father. So what Paul wrote is true, but not as simple as greater Christianity has maintained for two millennia; for what Paul wrote is true, but true by realizing that Paul’s fleshly body remained enslaved by sin and death even after he was baptized. Paul, after baptism, was alive in spirit as Christ Jesus was made alive in spirit when, post Calvary, He preached to imprisoned spirits.
Again, God the Father raised Jesus a second time from death by returning to Jesus the glory He, Jesus, had before the world was created (John 17:5) … is this the God whom Sacred Name Heretics claim has a name, the God that Israel never knew?
Use of the linguistic determinative <YHWH> as a naming noun is, frankly, a dilution of Scripture; is adding to the words of the Lord in a manner analogous to Adam adding to the words of the Lord that he received directly from the Lord.
So when ignorant but sincere Christians trapped in the Sacred Names Heresy claim that God has a name, they are not speaking of Christ Jesus who as Ό ΛΟΓΟΣ created all things physical, including the Adam narrative, then entered His creation as His unique Son, not to condemn the world but to give those who believe His word that He left with His disciples eternal life. Nor do these ignorant Christians speak of God the Father that had no interaction with ancient Israel and about whom ancient Israel knew nothing—ancient Israel did not even know of His existence—until Christ Jesus came to reveal His existence to only His disciples, not to Greeks or Latins or Jews not foreknown by the Father and predestined to be glorified while they still lived physically. And yes, Christians not foreknown by the Father and therefore not predestined to be glorified, not called by Christ Jesus, nor justified by Christ dying for the person while the person remained a sinner, nor glorified by the indwelling of Christ—these Christians do not know God the Father and Christ Jesus. They haven’t passed from death to life without coming under judgment. They have no indwelling eternal life; they have not been made alive in the spirit. It is these Christians that are the ignorant; that are destroyed by their lack of knowledge.
The Theos of Abraham while Abraham lived physically entered this Theos’ creation so that predestined sons of God the Father might live spiritually … do these sons of God have spiritual names? They do, but no one knows their names. As the glorified Jesus, when He returns as the King of kings and Lord of lords, will have a name no one knows (Rev 19:12), glorified sons of God have a name only Christ Jesus presently knows.
It is the ignorant that want to call God by an earthly name that can be uttered by human vocal cords. Likewise, it is the ignorant that deny spiritual birth of the sort Jesus experienced when He was raised from the watery grave and the breath of God entered into [eis] Him. It is the ignorant that deny the reality of the Elect, those disciples that pass from death to life without coming under judgment. It is the ignorant that insist every person will be judged by God, who judges no one … did God the Father judge Christ Jesus? Will God the Father judge the spirit of Christ that dwells in the spirit of every son of God? No, He will not; for the Elect are to the main crop harvest of humanity as Christ Jesus, the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering, was to the harvest of firstfruits.
It is the ignorant that do not recognize the Elect as the first of the allegorical wheat harvest, again being to this main crop grain harvest as Christ Jesus was to the allegorical barley harvest, the harvest of firstfruits that will have judgments revealed at the Second Advent … just as Jesus did not come under judgment but passed from death to life when He was twice born (i.e., born of spirit) through receipt of a second breath of life, the breath of God in the bodily form of a dove, the first of the allegorical wheat harvest are twice born—not many Christians are—when they receive the indwelling of the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou], thereby causing their inner selves to be glorified while these inner selves continue to dwell in fleshly bodies that bleed when cut and that can die physically.
As Jesus was made alive in spirit and in spirit preached to imprisoned spirits when His earthly body was dead following Calvary, the Elect have been made alive in spirit so that the inner selves of these saints can come and go as the wind [pneuma] comes and goes (John 3:8) where it will.
The theological teaching that human persons are born with immortal souls is of the Adversary: immortal souls are the gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord …
All theologies that have human persons born with immortal souls—this includes most of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—are of the Adversary; for again, indwelling eternal life in the form of the spirit of Christ entering into and penetrating the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou — from 1 Cor 2:11] comes as a gift of God through God the Father drawing the person from the collective pool of humanity (John 6:44) and delivering the person to Christ Jesus to call (John 15:16). Hence, Paul wrote, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:23), with this free gift coming to the Elect while these believers are still physical human persons.
Also of the Adversary is the theological teaching that the spirit of God was given on the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, when symbolically the last of the firstfruits have been harvested and the grain from this early harvest has been winnowed, beaten into fine flour, and baked with leavening into two loaves that are waved before God as the first handful of ripe barley [the Wave Sheaf Offering] was waved fifty days earlier when Jesus “breathed” on ten of His first disciples and said, Receive spirit holy (John 20:22). Thus the teaching that the spirit was given on the Feast of Weeks instead of on the day of the Wave Sheaf Offering effectively prevents any Christian from being included in the harvest of firstfruits, the allegorical barley harvest—and this the Adversary would like.
Is the preceding “plain” enough that all Christians can understand that if the spirit wasn’t given until the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, there will be no Christians included in the harvest of firstfruits, again the allegorical barley harvest? If the spirit isn’t given on the day when the Wave Sheaf Offering is made, there can be no figurative gathering in of the barley harvest. But the spirit was given on this day through the glorified Jesus breathing His breath, His spirit, on ten of His first disciples, thereby beginning the harvest of firstfruits with these ten representing the first “grain” harvested, and with the third part of humanity (from Zech 13:9) representing the last of the “barley” harvested. Then comes the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, representing the resurrection and acceptance by God of the firstfruits on the Second Advent.
If disciples hang around spiritual Jerusalem until the Feast of Weeks, these disciples will still be hanging around spiritual Jerusalem when the firstfruits “marry” the Bridegroom who delayed His coming. They will be as the five virgins were who took no oil for their lamps and had to buy oil from vendors when those who buy or sell have marked themselves for death: they will not be glorified earlier than in the great White Throne Judgment, meaning that they will live throughout the millennium as physical human persons who know that they missed out. Only after the Thousand Years will their judgments be revealed even though they are without sin (are theological virgins) going into the Thousand Years.
Therefore, both Luke’s Gospel with its differing Jesus and the Book of Acts that is a Second Sophist novel harm disciples through diluting what can be known about God through mixing in a large portion of fiction …
The ignorant are usually sincerely ignorant, and as such are “good” people by this world’s standards. Therefore, permit the ignorant to untangle the mess they have made of their worship of the Beloved and of the Father. Meanwhile, use of the linguistic determinative <YHWH> needs to be rethought; for what is it that’s written in the Gospel of John:
In [primacy — arche] was the Logos, and the Logos was with the God, and God was the Logos. He was in [primacy] with the God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1–3)
The One who held joint primacy with the God when the physical creation was made was the God of Abraham when Abraham lived. This One, not the Other, entered His creation as His unique Son, the man Jesus the Nazarene. This One, not the Other, appeared in Old Testament Scripture as <Yah>; as <El>. This One was an <Eloah>, a deity plus His breath of life [His glory]. As such this One forms the direct translation of <Allah>, again the deity that entered His creation to die physically as the man Jesus. This One, with the Other constitute the conjoined deity represented by the linguistic determinative YHWH and by the plural linguistic icon Elohim, with YHWH deconstructing to [YH + WH], with /H/representing aspiration or breath. Thus, because Hebrew scribes in the Deportation recognized that the determinative YHWH hadn’t previously been uttered and wasn’t to be uttered, these scribes and priests began to sing the word <Adonai> whenever the determinative YHWH was encountered in Holy Writ, with “Adonai” believed to represent appropriate vowel pointing for the always unpronounced determinative.
When Adonai is superimposed upon the Tetragrammaton YHWH, we get [YaH d~n WaiH], or <Yah> plus <another such> plus <Waih>, all read with eyes but never uttered aloud. So what is the name of the Father, when linguistic determinatives are always unpronounced? When radicals in linguistic determinatives function as determinatives? Is it appropriate to utter half of an unpronounced linguistic determinative, but not the other half? Hebrew scribes determined that it wasn’t; hence the icon <Adonai> is sung in lieu of uttering the Tetragrammaton YHWH, but this determination didn’t exist when David was king of Israel; for David understood that Yah was the physically knowable portion of the unknowable Tetragrammaton.
The ignorant are destroyed by their lack of knowledge; by not understanding that the God of Abraham was the God of living ones whereas Abraham because he was spiritually dead had no knowledge of the God of dead ones—the dead know nothing (Eccl 9:5)—and only knew the God of living ones.
King David, however, because he invited death to come upon him in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, came to know that there was a God of dead ones; hence in David’s latter Psalms, we find,
Praise [Yah]!
Praise [YHWH], O my soul! (Ps 146:1)
In the thought-couplet, <Yah> is in the position of the natural or physical, and <YHWH> is in the position of the spiritual or heavenly.
In his later years, King David understood that Yah represented the God of the living and that YHWH represented the God of living ones and the God of dead ones; for he knew both deities, with the prophet Nathan telling David,
The Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, "There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him." Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." Nathan said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the … God of Israel, 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised [my] word to do what is evil in [my] sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. … Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.'" David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die." (2 Sam 12:1–14 emphasis added)
David came to know the God of dead ones because he became as a dead one who lived in the matter of Uriah the Hittite … unlike the kings of Israel that committed far greater abominations than David committed, David was without excuse; for he knew that the Lord had given him all he had, even the spirit of the Lord.
The prophet Hosea spoke for the Lord,
Hear the word of [YHWH], O children of Israel, for [YHWH] has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away. Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest. You shall stumble by day; the prophet also shall stumble with you by night; and I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity. And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken [YHWH] to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding. (Hos 4:1–11 emphasis added)
Now, the God of Abraham did not refer to Himself by using the determinative <YHWH> as found in the following cite: they have forsaken [YHWH] to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine.
The context of the prophecy would have had the God of Abraham saying through Hosea, “They have forsaken me to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine,” but in making such an utterance to Hosea or through Hosea, ambiguity might arise as to whom was forsaken, Hosea or the Lord. For this reason, an unpronounced linguistic determinative would likely have been attached to <me>, thereby resolving any potential ambiguity before that ambiguity prevented understanding … apparently a scribe at a date later than when Hosea received this word of knowledge took the linguistic determinative YHWH that would have been attached to “me” and used this determinative as a naming noun through inserting the Tetragrammaton into the discourse to produce an unnatural and forced utterance.
In essence, the scribe who tampered with Hosea’s words did what Adam did when he added to the Lord’s words, telling Eve that she wasn’t even to touch the Tree of Knowledge when the Lord had said nothing about touching the Tree. And the people of the God of Abraham were destroyed for lack of knowledge, not from the absence of knowledge but via the introduction of human discourse into the discourse of the Lord that then caused a dilution of the word of knowledge given to Moses and to the prophets.
Traditionally, Christians have read the people of God being destroyed for lack of knowledge as meaning an absence of knowledge, not a watered down excess of knowledge. But as the Book of Acts is a Second Sophist novel that has been accepted as a faithful historical account of the early Church thereby preventing endtime Christians from understanding how the mid-1st-Century sect of the Nazarenes went from being a sect of Judaism to being a Gentile heresy in fifty years, all of Holy Writ has diluted with false teachings that require the permanent suspension of disbelief and willingness to accept as true theological swill.
A Christian numbered among the Elect has the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16) … it has become time for the Christian to act like he or she is really a fractal of Christ Jesus.
This chapter will be continued in section #3.