This chapter takes a more detailed look at the Old Testament rituals and how the followers of Jesus, who after his death gave rise to the New Testament church saw them as types or anti-types of the New Covenant, distinguished from the Old by the availability of the Divine Love resulting in heart and soul transformation.48 This was the gospel that Jesus brought – the availability of the Divine Love, resulting in the new birth, which would open to its recipients the Kingdom of God – the Celestial Kingdom of which Jesus is the Lord and Master.49
It also needs to be remembered that Jesus was born into Judaism, and the early church was entirely Jewish and initially regarded as another sect of Judaism rather than as a new religion. That development came considerably later.
Jesus was crucified and died about the same time that the lambs were being killed for the traditional Passover meal. However, contrary to what is commonly taught, Jesus was not a “Passover Lamb” sacrificed for our sins, whereby we are made righteous. Rather, as the blood of the slain lambs during the original Passover in Egypt protected the Israelite firstborn from death, Jesus’ teachings about the Divine Love and his life exemplifying the Love, when followed, redeem his disciples from the penalty of sin, which is forfeiture of divine life and immortality, or what the Bible refers to as “second death.”50
While the New Testament refers to Jesus as a sacrificed Lamb over 30 times (mostly in the book of Revelation), this should not be regarded in the traditional sense that we are saved by Jesus’ sacrifice and death, but rather that God, through His son Jesus, re-introduced the Divine Love as a result of which those who accept this gift and pray for receiving it are saved, acquiring divine nature and becoming born anew.51
The Passover day was followed by seven Days of Unleavened Bread – time during which nothing with yeast or other leavening agents was allowed to be eaten. In the New Testament, leaven is a symbol for sin, malice and wickedness, as well as wrong teachings. Being spiritually unleavened implies walking in sincerity and truth. So while the Jews still purge their homes from leavened products, and even crumbs, during this period, the New Testament spiritual application is to purge our lives from wrong ways of living. This is accomplished by following Jesus’ moral teachings, which transcended and magnified Old Testament commands. The spiritual deleavening is also greatly aided by the presence of the Divine Love within which transforms the heart and soul, creating a new heart and resulting in a new birth.52
In his Sunday “resurrection”, Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament ritual of the wave-sheaf offering performed on the Sunday during the Days of Unleavened Bread.53
Upon death, when all human souls leave their physical body and ascend in their spirit body to the spirit world, Jesus did likewise. He then proclaimed the availability of the Divine Love through prayer and the possibility of at-onement with the Father to spirits in the lower regions of the spirit world.54
Then he returned as a spirit to the burial cave and materialized a body closely resembling his own from the elements of the universe using unique power given to him. He walked out of the cave with the assistance of spirits who rolled away the stone from the entrance. This was the Sunday morning, when Jesus appeared alive to Mary Magdalene, and then later, in the evening on the same day, to his disciples. This bodily manifestation was to them a proof that Jesus was still alive and that he was the Messiah.55
Jesus is the first of the first-fruits, having opened the door for others to follow in his footsteps. The New Testament church (from the Greek word ecclesia, meaning called-out ones), becomes the first-fruits and firstborn of the saved, following Jesus’ example. He was the first to have possessed the Divine Love in his soul and to become a divine son of God through soul transformation and new birth. His spiritual brothers and sisters, who are also co-heirs with him of the divine kingdom, will join him as glorified and immortal spirit beings in the Celestial kingdom of God upon having undergone the new birth through their own soul transformation by the Divine Love. This can be considered as the meaning of what the Bible refers to as the first and better resurrection.56
The resurrection and manifestation of the risen Christ is a pivotal event – an “epicenter of history” – which opens the door to real salvation through the promised Holy Spirit imparting the Divine Love into the soul and transforming it into divine substance with divine nature. That promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost which came ten days after Jesus’ ascension to the Celestial heaven (after having preached the truth of the Divine Love in the lower spheres) and fifty days after the Sunday during the Days of Unleavened Bread.57
The day of Pentecost in the year of Jesus’ crucifixion can be considered as the “birth of the church” or, one could say, the Divine Love community. This community includes anyone who sees themselves as following the path of praying for and being transformed by the Divine Love. It can be viewed as the invisible church – all people, wherever they are, who have the Holy Spirit working with them and imparting the Divine Love into their souls. It may well transcend churches and include synagogues, mosques, temples, and the unaffiliated, even those who are not yet conscious of the Divine Love working in their souls. And it stretches into the spirit world.58 It is invisible in the sense that no one can see this body in its entirety. Perhaps the tip of the iceberg is a better metaphor – what is seen is much smaller than what is unseen.
On this unique day of Pentecost, Jesus’ disciples received the real understanding of his Messiahship. Amidst a dramatic display of wind and tongues of fire, the twelve apostles spoke to the startled multilingual crowd seemingly in their own languages. They identified Jesus as the Messiah, witnessing to the fulfillment of an old prophecy that the Spirit would be poured out. What really happened was that through the Holy Spirit, an abundance of the Divine Love was conveyed into their souls, convincing them that Jesus had brought to humankind the essence of the Father. As they exhorted the people to repent, three thousand Jews from all parts of the Roman Empire became convicted, and formed the foundation of the church – the first fruits of the Divine Love Community.59
In Old Testament times, the Pentecost (Feast of Weeks) ritual involved two loaves made with yeast to be waved (offered) before God at the end of the spring harvest. The New Testament parallel is two-fold. The leavened bread (rather than unleavened or without yeast) is a symbol for the converted who while possessing the Divine Love and not habitually sinning are still subject to occasional sin. The two loaves symbolize the two groups who would constitute the new people of God – Jews (the remnant group of ancient Israel who formed the foundation of the church on that first Pentecost) and later also Gentiles (non-Jews, starting with Cornelius, who accepted Peter’s preaching, and later others as the gospel message reached Antioch and elsewhere).60
The church’s commission was to preach and teach Jesus’ message about how to enter the kingdom of God through the Divine Love. Unfortunately, the message has been somewhat corrupted over the centuries to where Jesus’ death as a sacrifice for our sins has become the focus.61 Yet, despite incorrect teachings, there are many in the invisible spiritual community whose souls are being transformed by the Divine Love imparted through the Holy Spirit – perhaps even without their fully understanding what is happening, but the fruits of this transformation are brightly shining through their lives.62
The Old Covenant signs also included circumcision and the Sabbath. The tabernacle and later temple were the centers of worship.
In the New Testament, physical circumcision ceases to be an issue altogether. Instead, circumcision of the heart is defined in various passages as obedience, faith expressing itself through love, putting off of the sinful nature, inward circumcision done by the Spirit, not through the written code, being “in Christ”, and becoming a new creature or new creation. All of these are manifestations of the presence of the Divine Love in the soul.63
The Sabbath, while a good spiritual discipline helping committed believers to keep God in their consciousness at least once a week, will of and by itself not lead to transformation of the soul and the new birth. Jesus, in frequent controversy with the zealous Pharisees, freed the physical Sabbath from its legalistic shackles, which had been imposed on the Jews after the exile for fear of another national disaster. He transformed it into a day of love, healings and doing good. The Sabbath is later transformed further into a spiritual Promised Land, a rest that the people of God can enter in contrast to the ancient Israelites who failed. Extrapolating from the passage in Hebrews 4, one can see the difference between Israel and the church in the availability of the Divine Love, or new heart, which the Old Testament prophets pointed to. As a result of it, the true rest in the Celestial Heavens, where Jesus has been preparing places for his followers, and where there is no longer any suffering or sorrow, can be achieved.64
The tabernacle and temple also take on spiritual meaning, as the physical temple in Jerusalem is destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and from then on ceases to exist. They pointed to the Celestial heavens, including the place where God resides.65 On another level, while Jesus predicted the destruction of the physical temple, he referred to his own body as a temple. In the same vein, the bodies of those who have the Holy Spirit / Divine Love in their souls, as well as the church / community where the Divine Love is working are referred to as the temple of God, temple of the Holy Spirit, or a holy temple in the Lord. Jesus, as the messenger of the New Covenant, was prophesied to “come to his temple”. This may signify Jesus’ coming to lay the foundation of the church, the new spiritual temple, begun through the twelve disciples and others who during his life heard his teachings and imitated his life guided by the Holy Spirit and Divine Love.66