elders who judged for the sakes of the people, but others guided them in every kind of work for God or even in their secular occupations. And all these elders would carefully watch and contribute to the comments during the teaching time. But their principal goal was to lead all elect spirits to Jesus, and to Him alone, so each spirit could be directly taught and trained by Jesus for some unique kind of work. All true teaching elders acknowledged that Jesus is the only Head of every man. Then all tried to enable every soul in their church—each and every man, woman and child—to serve Jesus better.
Every real teaching elder in every true church labours “for
the perfecting of the saints , t o the work
of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith , and
of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in l ove, we may grow up in all things into Him , who is the Head , Christ ; from whom all the body ,
be
ing fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in me
asure of each individual part , makes the body increase to the building up of itself in love ” (Eph.
4:12-16, WEB). Each individual in a church is led to Jesus, so Jesus can raise that individual up in the way He desires, not in the way desired by some human being, neither any of the elders nor the parents. For Jesus created each individual with a unique spirit and body of flesh, so each one would strongly desire to fulfill a particular kind of destiny and joyfully pursue the works God ordained for that one. And only our God Jesus is qualified and able to cause all these individuals to be “fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each individual part.” Only Jesus can make a local church “increase to the building up of itself in love.”
Thus, the work of a teaching elder, and every other member, is to provide for all that each individual requires to do God’s works—all the different kinds of spiritual and physical education needed, all the equipment and tools for whatever secular or church calling that Jesus grants to each individual, all the personal needs of housing, food, clothing, medical attention, rest, fellowship and whatever an individual’s unique attributes might require in Christ, in addition to the wise, loving truths of Jesus.
Jesus knew how the dark world order functioned, especially the fourth kingdom of Satan’s beast, which was founded upon the religion of humanism, the religion of most fake churches today. Jesus knew that Satan established steep hierarchical systems in his extremely factious kingdom, where each arrogant little subject kingdom under his rule esteemed and served a self-centred elite of vain wanna-be human gods. Then Satan commanded that elite, his preferred servants, to suppress and oppress the majority of souls enslaved under their illicit authority, and routinely steal more than their fair share of goods and services from them and from God’s creation, for themselves alone, and let the victims of their thefts starve. Needless to say, Jesus did not approve of these humanistic systems, want His children to be like those servants of the devil. Jesus did not want us to practise their unjust, lying, sinful ways, such as esteeming one sinner over all others, bowing to a human sinner who was usurping the role of God, worshipping a human as the head of every individual person in the church.
Jesus did not want lying elite sinners, either in fake churches or illicit positions of secular authority, to suppress the light of other individuals. Jesus does not want any light to be hidden under a basket, to hide it, nor any attempts to snuff out a light with oppression. Jesus never lets His people stop an honest servant of God from refuting the false teachings of a lying human god in any true church or land belonging to Him. God only allows this in false churches. Nor will Jesus allow a fake human god to remove His true servants through false “church discipline.” None in a true church should ever tell an elect man in a church service to be silent as he is refuting or rebuking a lie, nor think anyone Page 326
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is a god who has any right to edit and alter the words of Scripture written by the real God, nor think any human is a god who bears the exclusive right and power to manipulate and control the real God.
Instead, Jesus told us to light each individual lamp in His city on the hill. This was to be the first and foremost work of every teaching elder. Every true teaching elder (pastor) was to lead each individual in the church to their one and only Head, to the only Teacher with the final authority to judge every word and work in the entire true church, because that church belongs to Jesus alone. Every teaching elder was to pray for Jesus to reveal whatever He wanted to each individual, then provide all of the spiritual and physical needs for each individual, in whatever way Jesus commanded, with the help of all the other elders and every other sibling in the church. Then each individual would become lit and shine brightly in the city of our Lord. And, after that one began to shine, there was to be no jealousy, since each one would be granted all the truth and works that one could possibly handle, all the light that one could possibly shine in joy. So, if some individual shone brighter than others, it was a gift from God, not because that one was any better or more entitled than the rest. If literally all spiritual and physical attributes of all originate from God, none can take carnal pride in anything. Thus, the church was to put each bright light on a high lamp stand, in a place where all one’s gifts could be used most effectively. All had to ensure that each individual light “shines for all those in the dark,”
so everyone in Christ’s universal church could directly or indirectly benefit from each one’s light.
Lastly, Jesus provided the reason for all this: “You people let your light shine before the people, in a way where they might clearly see your good works and have a good opinion of your Father in the heavens” (Mat. 5:16, from: οὕτως λαμψάτω τὸ φῶς ὑμῶν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὅπως ἴδωσιν
ὑμῶν τὰ καλὰ ἔργα καὶ δοξάσωσιν τὸν πατέρα ὑμῶν τὸν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, SBLGNT). So we are not to let each individual’s light shine for the esteem and pride of that one’s own pride of the flesh, and certainly were never to worship any individual instead of God. Rather, because all originates from God, all good opinions of the light, all “glory,” including all esteem and service, must be given to our God, to our heavenly Father and to Jesus, who is one with the Father. The work of Jesus Christ’s genuine disciples, His true priesthood, the church of Israel, is to shine the light of the just love He puts in us. We are to radiate His love, which is grounded on the spiritual and physical realities He caused to exist, then effectively apply the verities He teaches us in a wise way that truly pleases our Teacher, Jesus. All the people around us should be able to clearly see all the just, wise and loving collective work of His disciples, as we shine the light of His created realities and truths. All the people outside the church should be able to recognize that Jesus is working in us and through us.
We, collectively, as local churches, are to do “good works,” useful and beautiful works of love, full of honesty, recognizing the reality of our own sins and the sins of others, but also the power of God to correct souls, to teach for repentance into the truth, to forgive and heal souls. We are to feed the hungry, heal the sick, bring equity and justice to the lands we walk upon. All the works of our hands, collectively as His true church, all our spiritual and physical works done in a way that gives a good opinion of God, through a wise love Jesus teaches each one, are to become one “light of the world.”
Jesus commanded us to do good works collectively, in a way that all the people outside our church can clearly see. So does this contradict Jesus’ command to give secretly, not even letting one’s own right hand know what the left hand is doing, without any fanfare to bring glory to oneself? No! On the one hand, Jesus told individuals to give secretly, not as advertisements for individual glory. But here Jesus was speaking to His faithful disciples working collectively as one people. In each local church, Jesus and His disciples will light the spirit of each individual, so each will shine the light of God in one’s own individual and secret works, that is, through works done in an egoless way. Then Jesus will fit and knit together all those individuals into one city who will do His works together, as Page 327
many lights becoming His one light. So the works of many individual lamps will become one bright light that shines into the dark valley below, even enough to reveal paths to God in that valley below His city. Jesus called each disciple to partake in the collective works of His church. For the works of two or more souls, joined in Christ’s one mind and purpose, can accomplish far more together than the sum of their works as individuals. And, when Jesus adds His own works to their works, it is multiplied many times over again. So the light of the entire city is very great. Then, as the people below look upon that gleaming city on the hill—upon all the freeing truth, effective wisdom and useful works of Jesus radiating from His true church—the elect in the darkness below will develop a very good opinion of the Head of that church, of their Lord who causes and coordinates their works.
So all this is about raising up a good opinion for our God, Jesus. We do not want any attention upon ourselves as individuals, because we know we are all sinners, all infantile spirits only beginning to learn from our sinless and perfect older Brother, Jesus. Furthermore, since the enemy prowls about in the darkness outside, anyone who separates his light from the rest, for his own glory, will become an easy target for that enemy, and they will cut him down. Also, if people look closely at one light at a time, they will only find very small, dim lamps that are barely able to light up the house of flesh it sits within. All they will see is more sinners like themselves. But, if their attention is turned to whole city of lamps, with Jesus magnifying and contributing to their lights, they will see the greatness of Jesus’ light, He who makes the light of our church shine so brightly. And, when they see Jesus, they will indeed find one worthy of their attention, a beauty worth staring at and studying for the rest of their lives. For only one Man, with the very Spirit of the Creator God in Him, bears the amazing ability to multiply and merge the meagre lights of His incompetent disciples, and provide for the multitudes. Only Jesus can feed five thousand with our little offerings of five loaves and two fish.
Mat. 5:17-20,
Jesus Fulfills God’s Law
“Don’t think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill. For most certainly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not even one smallest letter or one tiny pen stroke shall in any way pass away from the Law, until all things are accomplished. Whoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and teach others to do so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever shall do and teach them shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mat. 5:17-20, WEB).
The first part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mat. 5:1-9) would have been His opening statement, a series of blessings and exhortations to begin a normal teaching time—much like the teaching times all His disciples were familiar with in their own synagogues at home, both those on the Sabbaths and those during the week days. Then, from that point on, all the elements of this sermon seem to be His responses to comments and questions from His disciples. For Jewish teaching times involved a very lively interactive dialogue between all the mature males in the group. (Women remained silent, but carefully listened and watched the reactions of the men, seeking to not only understand the meaning of the teachings, but also to witness the spirit and ways they were being applied.) But, if it is true that all these words are Christ’s responses to questions and comments, some might now wonder why Matthew did not also write down those questions and comments, so we could follow the flow of the ideas and concepts more easily. After all, dialogues which recorded both sides of a conversation, like those of Plato, were very common in those days. And we would expect Matthew to use this style too.
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Well, first of all, we need to realize that, at the time Matthew wrote this Gospel, the cost of paper and ink was very high. And Matthew was not a wealthy itinerant philosopher, like many of the Platonic church leaders were in latter years. Thus, Matthew chose to record only the responses from Jesus during this teaching time, and eliminated the comments and questions from the disciples. Then he likely refined, compressed and paraphrased Jesus’ responses at that time as well, into tighter didactic sayings of the kind Jesus likely reiterated often during His ministry. For Jesus Himself would have reduced His more lengthy teachings into brief sayings that His disciples could remember and ponder.
Of course, without the words of the disciples, this “sermon” seems to be disjointed, diverging from one topic to another. And we are left to imagine what kind of question prompted each teaching. Yet, after the initial opening blessings and exhortations, we can usually figure out what kind of question or comment prompted Jesus to speak about each topic. So, when He spoke about “the Law and the Prophets” in this way, what did a disciple ask Him? Well, it seems that someone must have asked Jesus why He did not teach what the Pharisaical rabbis did. And we should note that the phrase τῶν
γραμματέων καὶ Φαρισαίων does not refer to “the scribes and Pharisees,” but is a Greek grammatical construction (i.e., a TSKS construction) which refers to “the scholarly rabbis who are Pharisees,” to the professional scholars who were rabbis belonging to the religious sect called the Pharisees. One of His disciples seems to have spoken at some length, carefully pointing out the various ways in which Jesus did not seem to uphold “the Law of Moses,” simply because Jesus did not studiously follow all the traditions invented by the chief scholars of the Pharisees. And that disciple seemed to equate the following of those man-invented traditions with an obedience to God’s Law revealed through Moses, and with an adherence to the teachings of all the prophets. So that disciple was asking Jesus if He came as a Rabbi to “undo and take down” (καταλύω) that Law, and those teachings of the prophets.
Then the response from Jesus was: “Do not suppose that I came to undo and take down the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to undo and take down, but to fulfill” (Mat. 5:17, from: Μὴ νομίσητε
ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον ἢ τοὺς προφήτας· οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι, SBLGNT).
Of course, “the Law” was a term commonly used to refer to the first five books of the Bible, and more specifically to the 613 “laws” found in those five books, which the Jews considered to be the
“authoritative words” or teachings originating directly from God, all that God revealed about His ways, from the days of Adam to the days of Moses. Then “the Prophets” was a term used to indicate the books of the five major prophets and twelve minor prophets (i.e., in our Bibles, all the books from Isaiah to Malachi), the teachings that Jewish scholars supposedly used to interpret “the Law.”
So Jesus assured this man, the one who asked the question, that He did not come to undo and take down any authoritative words or teachings found anywhere in God’s Law or in the Prophets. Rather, He came to “fulfill” every little detail of all that was found in these most critical books of the Old Covenant Scriptures. To emphasize this, Jesus even added: “For, with all certainty, I say to you people, until whatever [is] the sky and the earth should pass away, whatever [is] any least character or any stroke of the pen should definitely not pass away from the Law, until all should be done”
(Mat. 5:18, from: ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν, ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ, ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ
μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου, ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται, SBLGNT). This was both a physical and spiritual promise from Jesus. On the one hand, He promised that we would receive a fully accurate version of the Scriptures until the end of the earth and universe. On the other hand, after the earth and universe passed away, including literally all physical bodies of human flesh, all the Law would be done by us.
Now look back at the previous verse (v. 17). There Jesus used an aorist infinitive form of the Greek word πληρόω in the phrase, ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι (“but to fulfill [the Law]”). That aorist tense indicated a total or complete action. Then the infinitive form indicated that this was His purpose, “to totally or Page 329
completely fulfill” God’s Law. And even the verb itself (πληρόω) means “to bring to completion that which was already begun ... to bring to completion an activity [in] which one has been involved from its beginning” (BDAG3). Furthermore, in the next verse (v. 18), Jesus stated that none of the Law would pass away “until all should be done/caused.” So Jesus said the Law does some kind of activity or work. So the purpose of our God Jesus was to complete whatever activities or works He intended His Old Covenant Law to accomplish. And what were the activities or works of His Law?
Well, God gave us His Law so it might accomplish good for each individual and for all His church of Israel collectively. For the Law itself declared: “Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive” (Deut. 6:24, WEB).
Thus, in order to “fulfill” the activities or works of His Law, Jesus will first need to teach us about His intended meanings of all His laws, then must train us to wisely apply those laws correctly in every possible scenario. Jesus must cause us to always act in all the just, loving ways that all those laws exhort us to practise. Since the purpose of His Law is to work good for us, Jesus has to make us thoroughly, consistently, harmoniously and forever law abiding, before He can gather us into heaven.
Therefore, the only way Jesus could actually fulfill the Law is to cause us to always and perpetually act through just, God-like love, in a way where we continuously accomplish all of God’s intended meanings of His Law, where we always do good for everyone and everything in His creation. And, since the previous verse (v. 17) also mentioned the Prophets, it implied that He would complete all the revelations of the prophets as well, all the prophecies about the Messiah and the last days. Jesus would do all this fulfilling until literally all of it was totally done or caused (also indicated by the aorist form of γίνομαι, meaning “cause”). To fulfill literally all of the Old Covenant Scriptures, Jesus would need to cause every detail of every teaching and intent of God’s Word to be activated in the very cores of our beings, so that our spirits would intimately and thoroughly know both God and all His ways. And God’s main attribute is love. Consequently, by completing all of God’s Law inside us, Jesus would need to be so thorough that we would eventually be sinless, and do only that which was truly just, equitable and loving for literally every kind of life we ever touched in any way. All God’s Law would need to be activated and accomplished both inside us and through us, without failures.
Now, actually, God was the only one who could possibly do what Jesus was claiming that He would do here, as His reason for teaching His disciples in a way that differed from the way Pharisaic rabbis or scholars taught their disciples. For absolutely no one except God could actually complete God’s own intentions for His own Law, in us and through us. And only God could finish revealing all He had begun to reveal through the prophets. None but God could begin to do all this as a “complete action,” leaving nothing undone by the time He finished doing it, which will be on the last day of our lives, during the judgment day at heaven’s gates. No human who has ever lived, is living today, or ever will live could even start to do such works. And, actually, all this is what Yahweh God Himself promised to personally do inside all His people of Israel through His New Covenant salvation, the covenant which the Messiah was to fulfill in us and through us. Therefore, when Jesus made this statement to some man who asked a question, Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah and our God.
These were astounding words, Jesus’ declaration that He came “to fulfill” every detail of God’s Law in and through His disciples, as well as to complete all biblical prophecies. Those who knew God’s Law and the writings of the prophets would be amazed by this claim. For the principles explained or exemplified in God’s laws were so all-encompassing and harmonious that not even their best and most wise rabbis were able to admit a completed comprehension of them all, much less fulfill them.
Yet even noble pagans confessed that the laws of Israel’s God always proved effective and beneficial for the people of every land, able handle every aspect and obstacle against loving justice. Then the Page 330
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prophets struck such powerful piercing blows at the lies and delusions of men that most did not bear the strength to face their truths. For those prophets warned about the coming wrath of God upon the wicked of the earth, in such striking and honest details that they totally overwhelmed proud hearts, or caused preachers to deny the terrifying realities those prophets revealed. Yet Jesus said He came to fulfill all those words, both of the Law and of the Prophets, of all that God had revealed to the awakened elect spirits of His children. And the only way Jesus could possibly do this is described in God’s New Covenant. That is, the only way Jesus could ever fulfill God’s Law is if He came as our God to personally write all of it upon our hearts, by teaching it all directly to our human spirits, and by training our spirits to accomplish God’s intended purposes of His heart. So Jesus was saying that His own Spirit would teach and train our spirits, until we knew God and His Law perfectly, even how to effectively apply His Law in every scenario we might ever experience. Then Jesus was also declaring that He would fulfill all the prophecies of the Bible, even the end-time prophecies, all that God Himself said He would do on earth, followed by the judgment day for all souls who ever lived.
Such a statement would have shut the mouth of the Jewish disciple who asked the question which prompted Jesus to make this declaration. That man would have been dumbfounded. For he would possess far more knowledge of God’s Law and the Prophets than churches do today. So that man would have thought Jesus was either completely insane, or realized that Jesus was boldly claiming to be the promised Messiah, Immanuel, the human body of God walking among us, just as the prophets proclaimed. But Jesus was not finished this teaching. Jesus had something more to say about the Pharisaic scholars, which this man likely mentioned when he spoke to Jesus. And what Jesus taught next did not flatter either those Pharisaic rabbis nor this man who had apparently esteemed them so highly: “T herefore, whoever might l oosen one of the least of these precepts and teach the people doctrine in this way will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens. Yet whoever might do and teach these as doctrine, this one will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. For I tell you people that, if your righteousness might not exceed many of the scholarly rabbis who are Pharisees, you definitely may not enter the kingdom of the heavens” (Mat. 5:19-20, from: ὃς ἐὰν οὖν λύσῃ
μίαν τῶν ἐντολῶν τούτων τῶν ἐλαχίστων καὶ διδάξῃ οὕτως τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ἐλάχιστος κληθήσεται
ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν· ὃς δʼ ἂν ποιήσῃ καὶ διδάξῃ, οὗτος μέγας κληθήσεται ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ
τῶν οὐρανῶν. λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ περισσεύσῃ ὑμῶν ἡ δικαιοσύνη πλεῖον τῶν γραμματέων καὶ
Φαρισαίων, οὐ μὴ εἰσέλθητε εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, SBLGNT). Here Jesus insinuated that those robed and titled clerics neither taught right doctrines nor followed the principles God revealed.
Of course, Jesus knew that most people in every local church (synagogue), those who did not claim to be rabbis, would be somewhat lacking in knowledge and partially confused about the meaning of God’s Law and the words of the prophets. For most did not have the time to thoroughly learn the original language of the Bible and study its teachings in greater detail. But these professional Bible scholars did have the time, along with the resources and training, to explore the truth and wisdom of God’s Word. Now it is true that, in those days, the Pharisaic scholars were also expected to do some kind of manual work, in some kind of physically useful occupation. Yet their disciples and others in the community often granted them much help in this, so much that some virtually did nothing but study and teach. So most did have the time, resources and training to serve the people in right ways.
Therefore, Jesus judged these rabbis far more harshly than He judged the common people, although all those common Jews also heard and studied the Scriptures in greater depth and detail than we ever see in any modern churches. God has always judged those claiming to be teachers of His Word far more severely, because the people rely on them to expound on God’s teachings, to guide them into a right understanding and application of God’s truths and wisdom. They need a “tithe” of their people Page 331
to labour at the task of finding God’s own intended meanings of His words about life and faith. And these rabbis knew that the people depended on them to serve them in this way. Those false teachers also knew how God demanded that only those whom He Himself taught, trained, called and sent can become true teachers of His Word. Yet they usurped the calling of true teaching and judging elders sent by God, so they could transform that service into an entitled, esteemed, exploiting authority over the very people God Himself served. This is why our God Jesus was angry with them. James stated in Christ: “Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment” (James 3:1, WEB). And this “heavier judgment” of those falsely claiming to be teachers of God’s Word would fall on these very Pharisaic rabbis during their ministry in the church of Israel on earth, as well as in heaven on the judgment day. For this is what Jesus meant when He spoke of “the kingdom of the heavens” (plural). It referred to the church both on earth and in heaven.
Consequently, when Jesus said that anyone who “might loosen one of the least of these precepts and teach the people doctrine in this way,” He was referring to the teaching elders in the church, that is, to those rabbis or teaching and judging elders belonging to the Pharisaic or Orthodox sect claiming to belong to God’s true church of Israel. For Jesus was referring to the men who “loosen” any of the precepts of God’s Law and, at the same time, also teach those loosened precepts as church doctrine.
That is, the form of the verb διδάσκω, in this statement by Jesus, was a common ecclesiastical term referring to the teaching of biblical doctrine (i.e., to their explanations of God’s own teachings about life and faith within the Scriptures). So Jesus was saying that any teacher of God’s Word who might
“loosen” God’s intended meaning of even the least part of God’s Word—by removing some of its intended meaning or by adding some unintended meaning—was destined to “be called least in the kingdom of the heavens.” And this theological passive (i.e., “be called”) implied that God Himself would call that one “least in the kingdom of the heavens” (note: “heavens” is plural). In other words, God would call a false teacher “least” in both His church on earth as well as in His eternal heavenly priesthood above. And being “least” meant that God would limit the personal effectiveness and the blessings that any elect false teacher would receive from Him, more than all the others in His church.
God would only allow that kind of weak and worldly elect soul to do the least of all works for Him and His creations, the kinds of works that do not require any deep knowledge of Him or His Word.
But, of course, the only false teachers who could be “least” in God’s earthly and heavenly kingdoms are the deceived elect. For none of the psychopathic non-elect false teachers, who pretend to be
“great men” in the church of Israel, will remain in God’s kingdom on earth after Jesus returns, since He will slaughter them all. And the non-elect will never set foot in heaven, since they will all be sent to hell before they can. However, all elect are drawn to God’s Word. So some go to Bible Colleges, and most of those are fake institutions which practise Satan’s hellish religion of humanism, and ruled by an elite hierarchy of that devil’s children. Yet that devil’s children are like him. They too are very good at pretending to be holy, although they are evil to the core. Satan’s chosen “leaders” are also highly skilled in the art of making carnal souls believe their lies are “truths”; excellent at enslaving the spirit and flesh, even as they make their overworked and wretched dupes think they are gaining
“liberty”; and excellent propagandists, who can make destructive traitors believe they are godly
“patriots.” Those esteemed human gods in those fake churches can even make their people believe they are “serving God” as they build up a demonic, greedy, oppressive, exploitative kingdom of hell, as their dupes replace a freedom of conscience and religion with a violent denial of both, and where they censor God’s immutable truths so they can replace them with impulsive dictates of psychopaths.
Naturally, God prevents most of His elect from going to those fake “Bible Colleges.” Still, God does let some of His most infantile, ignorant, carnal and vain children go, and even somehow endure long Page 332
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enough to graduate, so they might become pastors and priests in those false churches. For it only takes a few of the “least” of the elect to act as a tempering element among those deceivers, to limit the evil that the non-elect heads in those institutions can accomplish. And this is why God allows the least of His elect to be flattered, conned, cajoled and coerced into believing the lies and delusions of those institutions from Satan’s world order—although those elect are still able to love a little, and hear a few words God whispers to their spirits. There are always a few elect who become pastors and priests in humanistic fake churches, although these will usually become the “least” of the pastors and priests in those fake churches as well. For, as soon as it is discovered that they do not thoroughly hate God and are not totally ruthless, these elect pastors and priests are assigned to the smallest local churches and to support roles in service to the psychopathic human gods. After all, Satan appoints only the most demonic of his non-elect children to positions as authoritative heads in all of his own churches, or to any of the elite positions in his hierarchical institutions. We need to remember this.
For we should realize that there are elect in those false churches, and we must not disregard all of them. However, none are human gods whom we should bow before, since the only elect there are the
“least” of all our siblings in our family, and the only Head of literally all the elect is our God, Jesus.
In Christ’s true priesthood, the real church He established on this earth, all the men are to comment and ask questions during the church services. There are to be no lectures, like there are in most of the pagan, Roman-like, false churches or cults. Therefore, in a true church, elect men soon reveal their God-given attributes, since all continuously grow more spiritually mature and some eventually prove to be sound teachers of God’s Word. But many honest, just, loving elect men are never granted a very deep understanding of His Word. Those men are equal brothers, but they do not serve Jesus in the same way as the men Jesus calls, teaches, trains and sends to teach His Word. Nor will God allow those elect men to invent laws or doctrines that affects the lives of His people. So, in the church services, during the teaching time, most men are humble enough to refrain from making doctrinal teachings, from implying their words are based on God’s authority. Most men will simply state what they observe and ask questions, but will not teach, will not explain (exegete) Scriptures in a way that might sound authoritative, lest they might lead others astray and God might condemn them. For they know God only calls some men to teach. God equips some men with truth and wisdom, then raises them up to be teaching elders. His Holy Spirit will also cause His people to trust those words, for their own good. And we should realize that every member’s teaching and training on earth prepares each for the works one shall do in heaven. Our predestined lives on earth train us for joyful works of service, of the kind we will do at home, in our Father’s eternal estate. So doctrinal teachers on earth will teach spirits in heaven too. For the calling to do certain works on earth is also a calling to do similar works in His eternal lands above. All who bear good spiritual fruit for God on earth, will also bear a similar kind of fruit in heaven. Christ’s earthly and eternal dominions are really one kingdom.
Now we must look carefully at how Jesus ended this particular teaching, with a stern warning for all the souls claiming to be His disciples, for all declaring themselves to be members of the priesthood of Israel. For there are many non-elect whom Satan sends into God’s true church, to sabotage our faith and our works. Many elect walked many miles, through dangerous territories, to hear Jesus’
answers to their sincere questions. But many non-elect also came, not to hear Him, but only to spy on Him, or to trap Him in their slanderous deceptions then steal His disciples. And the most zealous and jealous of these enemies came from the elite in sect of the Pharisees, from the Evangelicals of that day. Thus, Jesus told this mixed crowd of elect disciples and enemies, “if your righteousness might not exceed many of the scholarly rabbis who are Pharisees, you definitely may not enter the kingdom of the heavens.” Jesus said this as though He was the Judge of all human beings, as though Page 333
He were God, the only One able to choose who will or will not be allowed to “enter” the true church of His priesthood on earth, and in heaven above. For Jesus is that Judge. He is the Messiah, our God Immanuel, the Creator’s Spirit walking among us in the flesh of a human man. Therefore, if Jesus is not now fulfilling the Law and the Prophets in one and through one, if He was not writing His Law on one’s heart and in one’s mind, if He is not teaching and training one’s spirit to know and apply a far more just and loving righteousness than that of the most revered teachers among the Evangelicals and other churches, then He will not let one enter His true priesthood, neither on earth nor in heaven.
Mat. 5:21-26,
Jesus Defines Murder
“You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, ‘You shall not murder;’ and ‘Whoever shall murder shall be in danger of the judgment. But I tell you, that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment; and whoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council; and whoever shall say, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of the fire of Gehenna.
“If therefore you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are with him on the way; lest perhaps the prosecutor deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. Most certainly I tell you, you shall by no means get out of there, until you have paid the last penny” (Mat.
5:21-26, WEB).
Shortly after Jesus spoke about fulfilling the Law and the Prophets, “until all should be done” by His disciples, someone in the crowd seems to have asked Him how God’s laws against murder could be
“fulfilled” in a way that would be more righteous than the righteousness of revered rabbis from the highly esteemed Pharisees. For the man asking this question could never even imagine how any of those rabbis could ever commit a sin like murder, although they actually broke those sixth-order laws against murder daily, both in a direct and indirect way. This questioner also seemed to think that, if Jesus’ disciples did not commit a literal murder, did not intentionally kill another human being through evil motives, then they would be just as righteous as others who did not do the same.
So exactly how could Jesus’ disciples “fulfill” the category of God’s laws related to His archetypal commandment forbidding murder, in order to become more righteous than Pharisaic rabbis? Devout souls thought they had never committed a “big” sin like murder, nor any other sins with a maximum penalty of death. Thus, if they did not commit murder, they could only be “more righteous” than the worst of criminals who committed physical murder. But they could never “more righteous” than those who did not commit any physical acts of murdering. And, if they did not commit physical acts of murder, were they not already “fulfilling” God’s Law? Then, whenever they committed “lesser”
sins, they believed that God always granted forgiveness and atonement, if they returned to Him and confessed their sins, as well as the sins of their fathers (whenever they emulated or condoned any ancestral sins). So, after God forgave them, would they not be clean, considered to be righteous in God’s eyes? Yet, even then, they wouldn’t be “more righteous” than the best Pharisaical rabbis were.
In other words, many disciples in that crowd were thinking in the same way most do in our churches today. They thought that, if they did not commit an overt, direct, physical murder, nor physically and directly committed any of the other sins forbidden by the Ten Commandments, then they could not Page 334
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be called sinners and were righteous—although not nearly as righteous as revered pastors from the Evangelical sects, who also heeded countless man-invented rules which those pastors claimed to be God’s laws too. So how could Jesus say these “good” people, these “righteous” church members, did not “fulfill” God’s Law and the teachings of the prophets? How could they possibly “fulfill” God’s precepts in a way that was even more righteous than the way those Evangelical pastors obeyed God?
Well, Jesus proclaimed them to be criminal sinners because they neglected the intent of God’s Law.
Many of God’s laws were stated in the negative, such as “You shall not murder.” But this was only for the sake of those who did not truly know God. Also, all negative forms are always minimum requirements, and no one can ever fulfill a prohibition. To not do what is forbidden is merely to do
nothing, and doing nothing can never fulfill anything. However, Jesus has called us to “fulfill” all God’s Law, which means He wants us to complete the works required by all God’s Law. But the works of God’s Law can only be practised according to positive forms of God’s laws. That is, to fulfill the negatively worded prohibitions of God, we actually need to do that which is logically the
contraposition of the negative forms. In other words, when God said, “You shall not murder,” He prohibited killing a person through evil motives and malicious intent, and the only way to fulfill that prohibition would be if we actually built up and saved lives, through good motives and loving intent.
It is a grave error to think we “fulfill” any of God’s laws by not doing what He forbade, and merely doing nothing is God’s absolute minimum standard, that with is required to avoid the wages of being deliberately loveless and sinful, that is, to prevent God from awarding the death penalty. Thus, by simply not doing what God forbade might allow one to live on earth for a time, but will surely lead to hell. For even the most cunning psychopathic children of the devil can do the minimum, and not do what God prohibited, by manipulating their dupes into doing their dirty works, even the murders they want done. Yet our God and Judge, Jesus, will never let any psychopaths enter His real church on earth, nor heaven, just because they did not physically murder anyone. After all, their hearts and souls practised ruthless lies, apathy, selfishness, wilful ignorance and negligence, which caused many deaths. So our just Judge will count all these sins of omission and all their indirect causes of deaths as forms of murder too. So there is absolutely no hope of eternal life in heaven, where we will all labour beside God, if we simply do not do what God has forbidden. Rather, to live, we need to do the works of God together with God. And we need this promise of God, to grant us life both on earth and in heaven: “Yahweh your G
od w
ill circumcise your heart , and the heart of your seed, to love
Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live” (Deut. 30:6, WEB).
Our earthly and eternal lives depend on God’s own personal works in our hearts, His works which will cause us to love Him with all of our hearts and souls, until both the minds of our spirits and the minds of our flesh can work together in harmony within our souls, to serve Him. For only this God-given love for God can cause us to love all that is in Him and all that originates from Him. This love for God will love all His inner attributes and all that belongs to Him, all His earth and all life upon it.
Love for God will actively seek and strive for His just, equitable, loving will to be done on earth, in exactly the same way His will is done in heaven. If one loves God, then one will also love all that is in Him and from Him. Love for God will serve Him by serving all He loves, and in the same way He serves all that He loves. Then we will truly fulfill His sixth-order laws, which merely prohibit murder and all forms of dehumanizing violence or slander. Then we will work beside our God to save and build up the inner lives of His elect children, as well as all lives on earth, even the least of His lives.
Now devout Jews and Gentile proselytes of that day had been taught that a time would come when God shall purify their hearts and minds. And they also knew God would cause His priesthood of Israel to serve Him faithfully after He returned them from their captivity in foreign lands. For the Page 335
prophets spoke about all this, and how all this would be fulfilled by the Messiah’s New Covenant salvation. But most common people were far more interested in God’s physical promises of His covenant, such as His promises of owning land and being fed. Then most perceived righteousness to be defined in terms of the “natural laws.” That is, they somehow thought that being good meant not doing what God forbade. And this was the only criterion they used to judge physical behaviours and relationships. Most souls in God’s priesthood of Israel simply wanted to know what they should not do, in order to avoid hurting others in ways that God condemned. Then some also wanted to know what physical actions they needed to perform in order please God and earn a few extra credits from Him. That is, some thought, if they studiously performed the rituals described in God’s Law, He might bless them with better physical health and more wealth on earth. But few looked beyond the physical. Few were like Abraham, Job and the other ancients. Most lost any spiritual desire to rest with their fathers in heaven. For false churches had now transformed them into entirely physically and earthly oriented fools, incapable of seeing how life on earth was meant to teach and train their spirits for an abundant eternal life heaven, and how that abundant eternal life began here on earth.
Now one of the disciples had asked Jesus how he could fulfill the sixth-order laws of God, all the laws related to the sixth of the Ten Commandments, that is, all the laws related to His prohibition,
“You shall not murder.” For Jesus proclaimed that He came to fulfill all God’s laws (see v. 17), but this man did not see how anyone could fulfill God’s prohibitions, and almost all the sixth-order laws were prohibitions. Also, Jesus words here suggest that this disciple knew which of the other 613 laws found in the Books of Moses were sixth-order laws, which were directly related to God’s prohibition against murder. This man seems to have known that the sixth-order laws included God’s prohibitions against unjust violence, oppression and all forms of dehumanization. So this is why Jesus then gave this man two case laws as examples of sixth-order laws of God, to serve as precedents, to instruct his decisions and judgments throughout life. One of them was against unjust anger. But the other case law, which Jesus here classified as sixth-order laws, actually overlapped another order of laws. That is, God’s prohibitions against slander is one of the ninth-order laws, but also one of the sixth-order laws of God. And Jesus defined the fulfilling of both case laws as positive acts of humility, by first admitting that one was wrong to entertain the lies and delusions that cause unjust anger and slander, and by striving to restore the broken relationships those sins caused, even at great cost to oneself.
But now we need to take another look at God’s laws, since most people today do not seem to even know that all 613 laws of God were categorized by the ten archetypal statements God uttered as His Ten Commandments, how all the laws He gave us through Moses flow out of or lead into those ten laws. To illustrate this fact, let us study God’s sixth-order laws further, and discover how the false churches have loudly and proudly murdered innocent souls for two millennia, and how they are still doing so to this very day. Worse yet, those churches have been committing those murders falsely in Jesus’ name! Thus, they also have abused His name, and have broken His third-order laws everyday and in every way possible. Then, after this little study, we can more closely examine how Jesus taught us to practise overcoming our sins and bearing fruits of repentance. We need to understand the solutions Jesus provided. In other words, we must learn more about how we can fulfill all God’s Law, in the way that only our God Jesus can cause us to fulfill it, which is our true eternal salvation.
Different Kinds of Murder
Jesus began by acknowledging that His disciples correctly interpreted the negative form of God’s command against killing through evil motives and malicious intent: “You have understood that it was said to the original ones [in the days before rabbinical times]: ‘You shall not murder,’ so whoever Page 336
Mat. 5:21-26, Jesus Defines Murder
might murder will be held liable in the judgment” (Mat. 5:21, from: Ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη τοῖς
ἀρχαίοις· Οὐ φονεύσεις· ὃς δ’ ἂν φονεύσῃ, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει, SBLGNT). Jesus said this to all His disciples, but more specifically to the man who asked the question that He was now responding to. All obviously understood that murder is wrong. And anyone who might murder someone else shall indeed be subject to the condemnation of a judgment, either the judgment of God’s appointed authorities on earth, or the ultimate judgment of God, or both. However, there are actually many ways to murder, other than to physically kill someone through evil motives and malicious intent.
According to God’s Law, a person can even murder another soul without ever touching that soul’s flesh. And, if one does not physically murder anyone, then one might be able to remain free from condemnation and punishment performed by God’s appointed earthly authorities. Yet one could still be condemned by God, even eternally. The murdering of another person’s relationships, reputation and ability to survive can still be punished by God, both on earth or on the judgment day. And all these spiritual and emotional forms of murder are indeed sins related to the archetypal sixth law of the Ten Commandments. Thus, God has a right to punish with a death penalty, if God deems the motives and intentions of the sinner to be evil enough to warrant such a punishment. For God does condemn many kinds of murder, including inward types of murder. Then God will punish every unrepentant murderer, and may sentence some to a physical death on earth, then also sentence all the non-elect, who are incapable of repentance, to an eternal “spiritual” death on the final judgment day.
Here Jesus explained exactly how one could break God’s sixth order laws and murder in a way that did not involve physically killing anyone, by providing two case laws that illustrate how one could steal another’s life through premeditated and malicious intent, with evil motives, yet without even touching the victim: “I now reason with you that everyone remaining strongly inwardly opposed to his brother will be held liable in the judgment. So whoever might say “Ignorant fool!” to his brother will be held liable in the Sanhedrin. But whoever might say “Worthless soul!” will be held liable unto burning Gehenna” (Mat. 5:22, from: ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ
ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει· ὃς δʼ ἂν εἴπῃ τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ· Ῥακά, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῷ συνεδρίῳ· ὃς δʼ ἂν
εἴπῃ· Μωρέ, ἔνοχος ἔσται εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός, SBLGNT). Here, the substantivized articular present participle form of the Greek verb ὀργίζομαι is durative. Thus, it refers to an ongoing anger or continuous “strong displeasure, with focus on the emotional aspect” (see BDAG3 regarding the cognate ὀργή). This “emotional aspect” suggests that the action of this participle is a strong inward displeasure, anger or opposition. Therefore, in this particular context, the phrase, ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ
ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ, would refer to a person who is “remaining strongly inwardly opposed to his brother,”
in any way. And, in the context of this crowd of both Jewish and Gentile disciples, as well as in the New Covenant context, the term “brother” (ἀδελφός) did not merely refer to a male relative, nor even a member of the church family. It was used as a gender indefinite term referring to any human being on earth. So Jesus was proclaiming that one who clung to any kind of strong inward opposition to even one other human being, much less to a whole identifiable group, is committing murder, and will “be held liable in the judgment” by God, just as one would for committing any physical murder.
In other words, a murderer is anyone who spitefully degrades, humiliates, disrespects, marginalizes, dehumanizes, discriminates against, persecutes or enslaves any other human being. And, if it is an act of murder, punishable by death, to do this to only one person, then God would condemn us far more if we did such things to a multiple persons, such as to a race, religion, political party or any other identifiable group of people. Anyone who gaslights (cruelly tells lies or denies facts in an attempt to make another soul feel incapable, confused, anxious, stupid, worthless or insane, and tries to destroy, manipulate or subjugate that other person) is a murderer. Any bitter and ongoing negation Page 337
of the rights, worth, value and dignity of anyone else, in any way where one believes the other soul is less human than oneself, is murder. Then, if anyone does such things to an entire body of people, it is mass murder. Furthermore, God considers one who aids or abets a murderer to be as guilty of the murder as the actual murderer. So, if we look the other way when a person or a group of people are murdering another person or group of people, and do not take action in some wise and legal way to prevent or stop that murdering, God will consider us to be equally as guilty as the actual murderers.
Now, if one kills another by total accident, or if one kills in genuine self defence, or if soldier kills an enemy in a battle and out of necessity, or a designated authority executes an extremely dangerous criminal to safeguard others, or if one kills an animal for food, then there are no evil motives nor malicious intentions. And the sixth-order laws only prohibit actions committed through evil motives and with malicious intent. God prohibited “murder” here, not all killing. So those who call necessary killing a form of murder, and say such things are against God’s Law, are wrong. Yet, here Jesus, our God, defined any action that intentionally causes severe inward harm to another person, through an unjust motive, to be an act of murder. For God expects us to help and heal, not hinder and harm. And every human soul is a member of one family, all who descended from Adam and Eve. We are all brothers and sisters in God’s eyes. Just because God allowed some to become genetically altered in some slight way, or culturally influenced in superficial ways that differ from the ways we have been culturally influenced, it does not mean those others are either inferior or superior. In reality, literally all are equally sinners, equally in need having our infantile, ignorant, unloving, unjust spirits saved by the inner works of our Creator God, Jesus. And none but our God, Jesus, will be our final Judge.
We desperately need to rightly and fully understand what Jesus said here. For there have always been so-called “Christian” churches that hate these words of Jesus, and try to undo them. Therefore, they actually hate Jesus Himself, and oppose the Messiah whom they falsely claim to worship as their God. Even the post-apostolic and humanistic church “fathers” maliciously practised many ways of
“remaining strongly inwardly opposed” to their brothers and sisters—to Jews, to other humanistic sects of so-called “Christianity” (who were no worse than they were), to people of all other religions, and to people from other cultures or nations (some of whom were from their same denominations).
Today, some so-called “Christian” churches are openly fascist, demanding that their “white” brothers and sisters must be granted a good life in a nice house with a picket fence, and many other privileges of “white” entitlement—while outsiders, especially Jews and the “black” or “brown” people, must bow to them and serve their whims, must be subject to severe limitations, stricter laws and draconian penalties for every hint of rebellion against their “white masters.” Then these fake churches gather around leaders who tickle their ears with flattering lies, who tell them they are “superior” to all the other sheep just like them. And the lies of those churches cause these dupes, who are carried to and fro by even the slightest breezes of false teachings, to murder in the name of Jesus. And, as long as Satan and his most demonic children keep the elect imprisoned, bound and chained in dungeons of dark delusions and lies, even those foolish elect are willing to shed their own blood, and the blood of others, to preserve the so-called “liberty” of their own captivity. So their inward murdering of other souls transforms into physical murder, which is what usually occurs after a soul embraces those lies.
After declaring this definition of inner murder, Jesus gave two similar case laws. One was the case of a person calling a brother an “ignorant fool” (ῥακά), and the other was the case of calling a brother a
“worthless soul” (μωρός). Now, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament says: “ῥακά expresses contempt for a man’s head: ‘you stupid.’ μωρέ expresses contempt for his heart and character: ‘you scoundrel’” (Rogers and Rogers, 1998). Thus, considering this and each judgment delineated after each case, Jesus was clearly indicating that the first insult (ῥακά) pertained Page 338
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to a slandering of the mere physical abilities and attributes of a person, while the second (μωρός) slandered the inner attributes and the entire intrinsic worth of a person. So the first made a sibling feel inadequate but the second dehumanized one, and both did so through lies and delusions based on evil intentions and motives, not based on facts. For our God Jesus only called something a sin if it was done through a spirit’s evil motives and malicious intent—since Jesus always keeps God’s Law.
God’s Law requires at least two or three reliable witnesses or irrefutable pieces of evidence which not only prove guilt, but also the sinner’s evil motives and intentions. God requires both physical and spiritual proofs to determine if an action is a sin, so the weight of that sin might be known, so the weight of the punishment for the unrepentant will be equal to the weight of the sin. Without proof of evil motives and intentions, even physically killing a person is not called murder. But intentionally dehumanizing a sibling in one’s own family of humankind, through pride and greed, weighs so much that God will assign a death penalty to the unrepentant. Of course, human judges do not always have proof of inner motives and intentions. So they may strongly suspect a murder through evil motives and intentions, but must acquit. Yet God sees all thoughts in all hearts and minds, and cannot ever forget what He sees. So God always has proof of everyone’s evil motives and malicious intentions.
Therefore, before God, it does not matter whether anyone actually vocalizes or merely thinks evil thoughts, whether or not one reveals inner motives and intentions to the rest of us. On the final day, God will indeed find that one guilty of murder if one dehumanized other souls through evil motives and with malicious intent, while hiding one’s thoughts, pretending to be good and just Churchian.
For instance, there is obviously wide-spread and deadly systemic racism running rampant throughout our entire society. Every statistic, every objective study and every empirical observation confirms this to be true. It is simply a fact. Yet the vast majority of those racists deny that they are racists at all, and many even refuse to admit that there is any racism present in any of our economic, medical, welfare, law enforcement, judicial or penal systems, but think only a few lowly individuals are real racists. Thus, we can safely say that most people are judging themselves falsely, through the lies they tell themselves to delude themselves into feeling good about themselves. Still, the vast majority think their particular race is physically superior to all other races, or their particular culture or creed has made them more intrinsically valuable than the captives of any other culture and creed. At the present time, in North America, it seems the “white” races, and those who hold power through a fake
“Christian” culture and creed, have risen to the “top” of the heap. In other times and in other lands, the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Japanese, English, Germans and others have all done the same, have all committed spiritual murder against other races. Likewise, various sects of humanism, fake Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on have committed spiritual murder against other religions. In their hearts, as God is a witness, they have dehumanized others through the pride of the flesh, through greed, and through an insatiable lust for status or power. So all will be justly condemned as murderers on the last day, and all the lies of their evil souls will not save them.
Next, look at the kinds of judgments Jesus warned about for each kind of slander. First Jesus said that one who slanders the physical attributes or abilities of another person, such as by calling that one an “ignorant fool” (ῥακά), “will be held liable in the Sanhedrin.” The Sanhedrin was a council of seventy-one respected Jewish biblical scholars who conducted daily meetings in Jerusalem. They determined all matters of life and faith for the world-wide church of Israel. Then counsels of twenty-three scholars, called Lesser or Small Sanhedrins, were also appointed in each major city. But, since the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was the final governing authority for all Jews, any Jew could appeal to it, if they were not fully satisfied with the decisions of local church elders or a Small Sanhedrin (just as we might appeal to our Supreme Court if we feel that a lower court made an Page 339
erroneous judgment). Now, if a Jewish man damaged the reputation of his Jewish brother, the brother could sue the one who insulted him, demanding a payment to cover emotional and financial damages incurred through the slander. If local elders or judges of the Small Sanhedrin did not award payment, the plaintiff (damaged party) could go to the Sanhedrin to seek a fair settlement from the defendant.
But Jesus then told us that one who slanders a brother in a worse way, by discounting that brother’s entire moral and spiritual value as a human being, by calling that brother something like a “worthless soul” (μωρός), then the one who did this “will be held liable unto burning Gehenna.” Gehenna was a dumping site for Jerusalem’s trash—including human excrement, dead animals and all other kinds of waste. And, since there was a high volume of organic materials in that dump, the decomposition by microorganisms kept it hot (like a compost pile often becomes hot). Then some parts of it would ignite. So Gehenna was actually burning continuously, in a way no one could extinguish. Thus, due to its horrible smell and the constant heat of smouldering flames, its name became a figurative term referring to hell, where the fires of spiritual cravings continuously burned in eternally damned souls, and the stench of their lies and delusions is too nauseous for the elect to ever go anywhere near it.
Therefore, in this statement, Jesus was clearly implying that God Himself will judge and condemn all who dehumanize other human beings, all slanderers of souls, and eternally sentence them to hell.
Unless all those who are proud of being white Churchians fully repent, the angels will definitely herd them all into hell during the first moments of the judgment day. All who arrogantly mock “city slickers” and think their “country ways” are superior, will share the same fate. All of our “superior”
scholars and self-worshipping men of science will join them. All the Chinese who think their race is superior to the Japanese, together with all the Japanese who think their race is obviously superior to the Chinese, and all from both races who think they are superior to European races, will share the same fate. All the African empires, such as Egypt and Cush, who enslaved their “inferior” brothers from other African and Semitic nations, will fall into hell as well. All the Semitic souls who dared to think they were superior, due to their great empires and false religions, although they gave birth to Satan’s hellish religion of humanism, will forever drift through the darkness of hell. All indigenous nations in North, Central and South America, all who felt superior to other indigenous tribes, then slaughtered and enslaved them, will burn eternally in that bottomless pit too. In fact, all carnal souls who think in terms of superior and inferior “races” and genetics will go to hell. Then, surely, all who dehumanize their equal female heirs of heaven, through lust and vain lies, will also die that second death with all the rest. On that last day, only the spirits who learned the real truth, that literally all human beings are their siblings in the family of humankind, and have fully repented into that truth, will remain standing at the gates of heaven after Christ’s initial judgment against all wanna-be gods.
How to Deal With Sin
After this stern rebuke, our God Jesus spoke about repenting into the truth, with a right motive and intent to reconcile with God and with man, as required in His Law and illustrated in His commanded repentance on the Day of Atonement. First there must be godly sorrow of the spirit, a recognition of one’s own inadequacies before God, an afflicting inward honesty that faces facts, a total surrender in one’s heart to the wisdom of God’s just ways and the real truth about oneself, an utter abhorrence of one’s own hypocrisy, an urgent and eager desire to make wrongs right, a willingness to get up and do what God calls one to do for the restoration and healing of all one’s victims, followed by sacrificial and pure deeds to even restore the losses of sins done by others in a way that nullifies the works of Satan and builds up God’s genuine, honest, loving kingdom filled with elect souls who forgive the sins committed against them. Of course, some souls never forgive and cannot truly love. Some may Page 340
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remain too bitter or are simply incapable of true reconciliation in any real way. But elect sinners will try, in order to maintain their relationships with the Spirit of their heavenly Father and one another.
Now, by using singular pronouns, Jesus spoke to each individual in the crowd about how to repent:
“Therefore, if [any one of] you might be bringing your gift to [lay] upon the alter, and there
[you] might be reminded that your brother has something against you, lay aside your gift there, before [going to] the alter, and depart. First reconcile with your brother. And then, having gone [to him and returned], bring your gift [to God]. Become well-wishing together with your accuser, quickly, while you are with him anywhere in the road, lest the accuser might hand you over to the judge, then the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison. I surely say to you, you definitely shall not get out from there until you might repay the last cent” (Mat. 5:23-26, from: ἐὰν οὖν προσφέρῃς τὸ δῶρόν σου ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον
κἀκεῖ μνησθῇς ὅτι ὁ ἀδελφός σου ἔχει τι κατὰ σοῦ, ἄφες ἐκεῖ τὸ δῶρόν σου ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ
θυσιαστηρίου καὶ ὕπαγε πρῶτον διαλλάγηθι τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου, καὶ τότε ἐλθὼν πρόσφερε τὸ
δῶρόν σου. ἴσθι εὐνοῶν τῷ ἀντιδίκῳ σου ταχὺ ἕως ὅτου εἶ μετʼ αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ, μήποτέ σε
παραδῷ ὁ ἀντίδικος τῷ κριτῇ, καὶ ὁ κριτὴς τῷ ὑπηρέτῃ, καὶ εἰς φυλακὴν βληθήσῃ· ἀμὴν
λέγω σοι, οὐ μὴ ἐξέλθῃς ἐκεῖθεν ἕως ἂν ἀποδῷς τὸν ἔσχατον κοδράντην, SBLGNT).
The teachings of Jesus often provided multiple layers of meaning, as is the case here. And, to find those meanings, we must also comprehend many biblical teachings which do not outwardly seem to be related, yet instruct us about applicable principles which are the foundations of all God’s laws.
Only then can we see what Jesus was implying through His exhortations and illustrations. To begin, we first must understand the scenario Jesus described here. Considering this context, Jesus told us that a man was on his way to the temple, intending to give a gift to God. On the road, the Spirit of God reminded his spirit about the way he had slandered someone else (v. 22). Because this man had an honest spirit and could not refute the truth God was uttering in his heart, he knew full well that he was guilty of this sin. This man’s spirit acknowledged and confessed that he did indeed speak some kind of lie or half-truth that had harmed someone, that caused either financial, emotional or spiritual damage to one of his own brothers in the family of his own church, or in the family of all mankind.
Consequently, this man had to be forgiven by God, before any kind of gift or sacrifice to God would be even remotely acceptable to God. There could be no inward blessing through anything he could possibly give to God and to God’s creations until God provided atonement, to restore his relationship with God. But God will never reconcile with a sinner before that sinner truly repents. And all true repentance from the spirit in the heart will always try to restore the losses caused by his sins, then also attempt to restore his relationship with the sibling he sinned against. For God is holy and just.
So God cannot forgive unrepentant sins, since this would mean that He was partaking in those sins.
Now also notice the clause, κἀκεῖ μνησθῇς ὅτι ὁ ἀδελφός σου ἔχει τι κατὰ σοῦ (v. 23) in these words of Jesus. This phrase is usually interpreted as: “and there [on the way to the temple, to give a gift to God]
you might remember that your brother has something against you.” But this clause uses an aorist passive subjunctive verb. Thus, Jesus was probably intending it to be interpreted as a theological passive, since Jesus was always making references to God in all His teachings. Therefore, Jesus likely wanted us to interpret that clause in this way: “and there you might be reminded by God that your brother has something against you.” We should realize this because this is what Jesus frequently taught us, that we must allow our elect human spirits to listen for the soft, still voice of God’s Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts. We must not ignore that counsel of His Holy Spirit, thinking it is some kind of foolish and impractical thought entering the chambers of our souls, because such advise will Page 341
interfere with the physical tasks we are trying to perform. Now, obviously, this man was “too busy”
to hear this rebuking exhortation from God’s Holy Spirit before this Sabbath day, when he dutifully set out to give a gift to God. His job, earning money for the welfare of his family, was far to critical to listen to God’s voice, and feelings of guilt would interfere with his work. So he ignored God’s calling and demand. But God’s voice grew much louder as he was on his way to give that very God his gifts, because he knew it would be utterly futile to give anything to God, until he repented and bore fruits of repentance. If he did not, his gifts to God would become a stench in God’s nostrils.
So let us listen for the voice of God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts and souls, so we might hear and heed Him even before we sin. For, if our spirits are deaf to His wise voice, if our spirits are asleep and allowing our minds of flesh to make all the decisions of our lives, we will surely sin, in many ways and often in very bad ways. But, if we do sin, then let our spirits wake up and hear God’s counsel, then apply it as soon as possible, even it might interrupt some physical task we might be doing. For the less time we give the devil to work his machinations through our sins, the better. And, the sooner we repent from our sins, accompanied by our works to undo our sins (which God makes effective), then the sooner we can stop the devil from causing further harm to the victims of our sins and even to ourselves. Immediately after God reveals our sins to us, we must repent and try to reconcile with those we have sinned against. We must begin this process before God can grant us reconciliation.
Jewish religious teachers, like John the baptizer, called the actions of trying to heal or make right the damages caused by one’s own sins, our “fruits of repentance.” So we first hear God and repent into His truth and just ways. Then, if possible, and with the help of God, we bear the fruits of our spirits’
repentance. We begin by seeking God’s forgiveness, and He will forgive, to restore our relationship with Him. But this process of repentance and forgiveness of God always involves bearing fruits of repentance. To complete the process of repenting, we must often get up and do physical deeds. As Jesus commanded, “First reconcile with your brother. And then, [after] having gone [to attempt reconciliation], bring your gift” to God. Thus, it is after forgiveness and atonement that we give to God and to His creations, especially to His elect, to gain inner blessings. And these are sin offerings.
Of course, Jesus is the actual and final sacrificial sin offering, the one which all the Old Covenant animal sin offerings merely symbolized for a time. So we do not need to lay a gift upon an alter. It has already been done for us. The only part of this sin offering ritual that remains for us to do is our spirits’ genuine repentance into God’s revealed truths, into the just and loving principles His Holy Spirit wrote in His Word through His servants, the prophets. But, as an aspect of our repentance, we must pray for God to help us in our attempts to reconcile with whomever we have sinned against. We must go to the victims of our sins, including the victims of our sins of omission, as soon as His Spirit calls us to do so, and try to make all things right again. Yet note, there are times when God forbids us to do this. For a victim of our sins may not be ready for reconciliation. And the non-elect are never ready, but will view any apology as a weakness they can exploit, as an opportunity to attack and destroy the repentant through demonic vengeance. So we must remain prayerful and seek God’s wisdom in reconciliation, as in everything else we may do. After this repentance and its fruits, we can then go to our God Jesus with gifts, and share in His works to build up His kingdom on earth.
Using an imperative in the present paraphrastic construction of the clause, ἴσθι εὐνοῶν τῷ ἀντιδίκῳ
σου, Jesus commanded each sinner to “become well-minded with your accuser.” And this kind of construction has a stronger durative aspect than a normal present tense verb. So here Jesus indicated that each should do an ongoing and continuous actions in order to reconcile and build up a right and well-minded relationship with the brother whom you sinned against. We do this over time, with our constant and repeated efforts, as long as those efforts are welcomed. For Jesus wants us to form a Page 342
Mat. 5:21-26, Jesus Defines Murder
lasting and loving relationship with our siblings in the family priesthood of God. Now the Greek periphrastic phrase, ἴσθι εὐνοῶν, is often translated as “agree with.” But it cannot be interpreted that way here, since agreeing with adversaries could lead into agreements with self-convicting lies or cause other sins. Naturally, we definitely should agree with truths that our accusers utter, and not tell one who is angry with us, “You’re wrong,” nor arrogantly command them to stop being so angry, since that merely incites more conflict and bitterness. Rather, we need to actually acknowledge and agree with all the valid points anyone makes, and admit our own faults whenever it is expedient to do so, in order to avoid stirring more wrath. Still, Jesus obviously commanded a more complete and long-term kind of relationship here. For the present participle form of εὐνοέω literally meant being
“well-thinking” or “well-minded” in an ongoing way. It is defined as: “be well-disposed, make friends” (BDAG3). Also, Jesus told us to start this ongoing process as “quickly” as possible, even if we find our accuser on a public street, or any other public place. We should not even wait until we can arrange for a private meeting, although we should also use some tact, so as not to embarrass our sibling in the Lord. For it is not good to let your sins continue to hurt your brother or sister for even a moment longer. And the longer you wait, the more damage your sin might cause your victim, who might be suffering more every minute. As soon as God counsels your spirit and makes you able, restore the good thoughts that God wants you and your brother to have, so you can be friends again.
Jesus also provided another very good reason for fully reconciling with the person you slandered. An offended party could take you to court. And, in that land at that time, one did not need to give any kind of retainer fee to an extremely expensive lawyer. Lawsuits were free, in order to provide equal rights to both the rich and the poor, so true justice could rule in their land. A plaintiff did not need a small fortune to pay a lawyer, if he needed sue someone who wilfully harmed him. Only in our unjust society must the poor remain silent and abused by the rich who can afford lawyers. Also, only our unjust society allows the rich sue the poor who cannot afford to defend themselves, even the poor did nothing wrong except honestly speak the truth. But God’s Law also demanded that every defendant should be able to provide an equally well-counselled defence against his or her accuser.
So here Jesus was assuming that the system of justice was biblical and just, where multiple teaching elders served as the judges in each trial, and they were the ones who questioned and cross-examined the plaintiff, defendant and the witnesses, and where their own experts gathered, examined and also interpreted the evidence. For all these Jewish disciples listening to Jesus at this time knew that God’s Law demanded a fair and equitable justice system for everyone, for all souls in the priesthood of His church and for all Gentiles as well (and where judges made major concessions for every Gentile’s freedom of conscience and freedom of religion). Even the godless know that God required all trials of all kinds to be fairly administered without charge to anyone. Otherwise, courts might find an innocent man guilty because he could not afford a good enough lawyer to defend himself, or a rich man might take advantage of the poor through bogus lawsuits which the poor could not afford to defend against. Naturally, God’s Word and the judging elders encouraged the plaintiff and defendant to bring all the evidence forward, then sent out officials (Levitical investigators and police) to gather more, if necessary. But God and the people expected those older and very experienced teaching elders, who knew God’s Law very well and had acquired the wisdom to rightly handle it, to judge in a diligent, equitable, honest and just way. Then other elders would sometimes attend court hearings to help their people as well, to serve either the prosecution or defence, much like lawyers do today.
And these were welcomed too. However, those elders did so without payment, so justice was done.
Therefore, in this passage (Mat. 5:23-26), Jesus assumed that, if you were guilty of slandering any brother, and actually did cause financial, emotional or spiritual harm, but never even tried to repent Page 343
and bear fruits of repentance, a Jewish court would force you to pay a penalty. A just court would order you to pay enough money to compensate for all losses, or provide some other recompense for the unjust harm you did to your brother. In some cases, judges may even consider an unrepentant slanderer to be so malicious that they would throw him into prison, and could even execute him. So the truly guilty feared the courts and, in civil disputes or lawsuits, a slanderer was well-advised to repent and settle the matter “quickly,” before being taken to court. So here Jesus reminded His guilty disciples to fear true justice. And they did, since they still had some biblical judges in those days, who could and would administer justice. But the wealthy in our lands do not fear justice, since their lawyers help them get away with injustice, even negligence causing death and intentional murders.
In that day, while some biblical justice did exist in the land, Jesus would have caused some genuine concern when He said: “the accuser might hand you over to the judge, then the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison. I surely say to you, you definitely shall not get out from there until you might repay the last cent.” For, if some thought they could win a lawsuit in a humanistic Roman court, or in a corrupted Jewish court, Jesus here reminded them that He was also a teaching elder, one whose authority was acceptable to thousands of Jews. Thus, Jesus Himself could be one of the elders judging them in a trial, and He obviously was not weak and unjust. So the unjust would have trembled at His words. Also, the noun κοδράντης (quadrant) referred to a very small amount of money, equal to a little more than a cent. So here Jesus was saying, if a court declared that you owed a huge sum of money to pay for the damages you caused to the defendant, but you could not pay that full amount, all you owned would be taken from and sold. Then you would remain in prison until some friend paid the very last quadrant (penny) you owed, or until you died, whichever came first.
For a just and biblical court did not show mercy to those who refused to willingly repent, to those who showed no mercy to their victims. Equitable justice can be equally merciless to the merciless.
Of course, all this was a didactic proclamation taught to devout disciples who knew far more about God’s Law than even most theologians do in our day. And many disciples would soon memorize this teaching, so they could meditate upon it in depth. Then all His disciples would have known, in a way that would always remain at the top of their minds, that all sins were ultimately against God alone, because literally everyone and everything that anyone could possibly sin against belonged to God alone. That is, since every sin is against God’s property, every sin is a sin against God. Thus, in His dialogue about sixth-order sins (all the laws of God related to the sixth of the Ten Commandments, that is, all the laws forbidding murder, unjust violence and dehumanization), all His Jewish disciples would have realized that—when Jesus spoke about a slanderer and an accuser who could sue him for defamation—Jesus also implied that He, our God, was commanding us to reconcile with Himself.
We slander God’s utterly holy name by sinning, since we bear His name in His priesthood, as members of His church. So, if we sin, we must act quickly to restore an ongoing, loving relationship with our God, as His children, and do this wherever and whenever we might hear God in our journey through life. Otherwise, we may be handed over to the highest Judge, God. And that Judge will hand all unrepentant ones over to the angels, who will cast them into hell. Then not one of them will ever escape from that prison. For all will have such bankrupt and impoverished spirits that they will never be able to pay the enormous debt of their sins, and not one will have any friends to pay the last cent.
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Mat. 5:27-32, Jesus Defines Adultery
Mat. 5:27-32,
Jesus Defines Adultery
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery;’ but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.
“It was also said, ‘Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce,’
but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery”
(Mat. 5:27-32, WEB).
At this time, another man, or perhaps the same man, asked Jesus about how one would fulfill the seventh-order laws, all the laws against sexual immorality, those which fall under the seventh archetypal law of the Ten Commandments (“You shall not commit adultery”). For the contraposition of this law was not nearly as clear as the laws against murder. Each law against each kind of sexually immoral act was worded in the negative. In all the laws against adultery, fornication, rape, incest, homosexuality and so on, one could only find prohibitions. The Law seldom mentioned anything in the positive, very little which told one how to live a sexually moral life. Now the man who asked Jesus the question which solicited this response probably could understand how God’s laws included the contraposition of “You shall not murder.” For he knew God commanded His people to love and build up other lives, such as by demanding a tithe to provide for Levites, immigrants, widows and orphans, or by making it compulsory for the wealthy to lend money interest-free to the poor for all their needs, and wipe out that debt every seven years. But how could one fulfill God’s laws against adultery? For, in this man’s eyes, the most anyone could possibly do was not commit any kind of sexual immorality. And, if one could only not commit acts of sexual immorality, then one would not be fulfilling any of the seventh-order laws, but simply obeying them. But, if one could not fulfill these seventh-order laws, then how could one become more righteous than the esteemed scholars of the Pharisees, in the way Jesus was commanding His disciples to become, in order to escape hell?
So here Jesus responded to that man’s questions with this teaching about sexual immorality, and told him how to fulfill the seventh-order laws of God. The positive forms of those laws involved a true, honest, real and loving perspective on the needs and spiritual worth of women. Here Jesus pointed out how a disciple could take affirmative action against the sexual impulses from the mind of flesh, and how these affirmative actions must be done through a just love worked by the man’s human spirit. Actually, the contraposition of “You shall not commit adultery” is God’s command to walk according to your spirit, to let your spirit love, heed and serve the Spirit of the Creator, who teaches your heart to act in His just and loving ways. For every command to not commit sexual immorality is actually a command to not to conduct your daily life according to the sexual lusts in the mind of your flesh. God did not want men to simply suppress their natural sexual impulses, but to step up into a higher plane of existence, where they let their spirits hear God and manage their minds of flesh rightly. If the minds of their spirits love, heed and serve God, they will surely love and care for the well-being of women, do all they are able for the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of women through just, pure, God-like love. Elect spirits of men, when those spirits are counselled, Page 345
taught and trained by the real God, love the equal spirits of women. Yes, their flesh is an amoral and loveless thing with strong instincts. But their spirits never let their flesh exploit women as inanimate objects that are only useful for the flesh, to gratify the basest lusts and selfish whims of their flesh.
Ocular Adultery
Jesus began by declaring: “Any man looking at a woman in order to covet her already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mat. 5:28, from: πᾶς ὁ βλέπων γυναῖκα πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτὴν
ἤδη ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ, SBLGNT). This refers to an instantaneous act of real adultery, the kind that is punishable by a maximum penalty of death in the Old Covenant Law. Yet almost all men frequently commit this sin of ocular adultery, and many encourage it. Of course, God did not require the maximum penalty every time someone committed adultery, only when it was done through evil motives and malicious intentions that caused harm, and only if the sinner had no true repentance of the spirit. However, here Jesus stated that a man who looks at a woman with the sole purpose of coveting her body of flesh for his own selfish sexual gratification actually was worthy of that death penalty. If a man’s spirit allowed his flesh to freely think exploitative thoughts, and his spirit did not refute those thoughts, but encouraged them, so that he had no other motives or intentions other than lovelessly gratifying his lusts, he would face the condemnation of God, either during his life on earth or on the final judgment day, or both. And one can never escape from God.
God created the spirits in women exactly the same as the spirits in men, and there is no such thing as a male or female spirit. A spirit is either an elect child of God’s creating Spirit or a non-elect child of Satan’s spirit, and none of us can tell whose child a woman’s spirit may be. And the same applies to the spirits of all men. So elect men are not to treat any women as mere objects for their own sexual gratification, or as livestock to produce sons. That kind of selfish thinking is from the mind of flesh and only harmfully exploits women, our sisters in God. It can only lead to destruction. The fruits of sexual immorality have manifested everywhere, throughout history—in the wasted lives and talents of oppressed and abused women, in the hardships of single parents, in the suffering and deaths from sexually transmitted diseases, in sad eyes of children from broken homes, in violence and emotional trauma arising from carnal acts of unfaithfulness, in depression and substance abuse caused by or resulting from the emptiness of so-called “sexual freedom,” which is actually the imprisonment of the spirit by the flesh. That immorality is a superficial, selfish and exploitative delusion constructed by the mind of flesh. And all sexual impulses in the brain of flesh must be managed by the mind of the spirit, immediately managed by the spirit as soon as they arise. Sexual gratification must be reserved for appropriate and lawful concessions of the spirit to the flesh, such as with one’s spouse or by “an emission of semen” (e.g., Lev. 15:16-17, 22:4, i.e., masturbation). All else causes both spiritual and physical harm, and is a selfish sin against self, a sexual partner, humankind and God.
Here Jesus was claiming that God may actually condemn some instances of unchecked, deliberate, selfish ocular adultery, with unrepentant exploitative intentions, as much as He condemns physical acts of adultery. For literally all sinful thoughts in the members of the body must be managed and rebuked by thoughts arising directly from the spirit in the heart. And one must not let a mind of flesh take the spirit captive, to suppress its thoughts. Yes, the amoral flesh will automatically lust when it sees a body that is suitable for its sexual needs, and God created the flesh to seek the gratification of those needs, just as that body will also seek the gratification of thirst, hunger, sleep and the relief of excreting urine and fecal matter. However, there are right and wrong ways of gratifying all these things, and gratifying any of our carnal desires through evil motives and intentions is always wrong.
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Now God only calls a thought, word or deed a sin if it is accompanied by evil motives and malicious intentions. So it is not a sin to gratify God-given sexual lusts of the flesh if one’s spirit has no evil motives nor any malicious intentions. And this is true for other desires of the flesh too. There is no sin in drinking when one is thirsty, no sin in eating when one is hungry, no sin in sleeping when one is tired. But, if one is selfish, if one focuses solely upon the desires of one’s own flesh, if one’s spirit lacks love for anyone else, if one’s spirit allows one’s flesh to exploit others for its own gratification, if one never serves God nor His needy creations, then literally all of one’s drinking, eating, sleeping and sex will be sins against all God’s creations and against God Himself. Then we need to realize why our God Jesus chose to speak about ocular adultery. It was because pagan cultures were carnal, superficial and exploitative in all their ways. Thus, since they all gladly let their flesh rule in the chambers of their souls, they viewed women as livestock owned by men.. They perceived women as property to be used for the gratification their lusts and for the production of sons, then abused them to ensure obedience or disposed of them when they were no longer useful (e.g., the Roman “laws” of usus, fructus and abusus regarding women). Then, especially since their Babylonian captivity, Jews had been syncretizing those pagan concepts of women with biblical doctrines. So, by the time Jesus came to His priesthood of Israel, many rabbis were teaching those pagan doctrines in God’s church.
Our God Jesus did not want any of His disciples to believe any of those loveless, destructive and exploitative doctrines of the pagans, especially those of the devil’s ultimate false religion of vile humanism perfected by the Romans. And Jesus also knew that physical adultery or fornication very often begins with ocular adultery, whenever a wicked spirit allows the covetous thoughts of the flesh to try to own a desired woman. Jesus realized that the pagans, and even some Jewish rabbis, thought that lusting after women was a good and “natural” thing, even though they lusted in a way which viewed women as subhuman or nonhuman entities while they did so, and never even thought about adequately managing their sexual impulses with the minds of their spirits, according to the counsel of God. Thus, since those lusting thoughts of their flesh became the root cause of their physical acts of sexual immorality, God also condemned those root causes just as much as their physical adultery.
Sexual Sins in the Church
Therefore, Jesus then told us how our spirits can manage our flesh, and overcome the sins of ocular adultery that almost every man commits many times in his life. Jesus gave us this command: “So, if your right eye entices you into sin, tear it out and cast it from you. For [this is] for your benefit, so that one of your members might perish and the whole body of yours might not be cast into Gehenna.
Also, if your right hand entices you into sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For [this is] for your benefit, so that one of your members might perish and the whole body of yours might not depart into Gehenna” (Mat. 5:29-30, from: εἰ δὲ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου ὁ δεξιὸς σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔξελε αὐτὸν καὶ βάλε
ἀπὸ σοῦ, συμφέρει γάρ σοι ἵνα ἀπόληται ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου βληθῇ εἰς
γέενναν. καὶ εἰ ἡ δεξιά σου χεὶρ σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔκκοψον αὐτὴν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ, συμφέρει γάρ σοι
ἵνα ἀπόληται ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου εἰς γέενναν ἀπέλθῃ, SBLGNT). Of course, all His disciples knew this command was figurative, indicating what their spirits must do to the flesh.
It is not one’s physical eye nor physical hand that entices one into sin. It is not even one’s own amoral mind of flesh which entices one into sin. Rather, literally all morality is spiritual. All sins begin through the wrong motives and intentions of a spirit. And, if a spirit has no wrong motives and intentions, if a person does something by accident or through complete ignorance, without any moral motives or intentions of one’s spirit, whatever they might do cannot be called a sin. It is one’s own spirit which allows the flesh to pursue selfish, exploitative and loveless thoughts in a mind of flesh Page 347
which is incapable of loving or any moral thoughts. Then the words of another spirit, either a demon or a human spirit, if one’s own spirit heeds those words, can also entice one into sin. Therefore, this command from Jesus was not about our supposedly “righteous” and “moral” flesh plucking out its own eye of flesh, nor cutting off its own hand of flesh. For the amoral flesh does not govern any of the moral actions of any human being. Only the life-giving spirit in a human being governs all of that one’s moral actions, because literally all morality is spiritual. Thus, in Matthew 5:29-30, Jesus is commanding our spirits to tear our our eyes of flesh and cut off our hands of flesh, then cast those members of our body from us. In other words, our spirits are to permanently disable our flesh from being able to sin. In dramatic terms, Jesus told our spirits to withdraw our flesh from all temptations.
We know Jesus did not mean this command to be interpreted literally, in a way where some carnal souls would actually dismember and mutilate their own bodies, the same bodies which God gave to serve them as the temples of their spirits. For Jesus never taught anything which opposed God’s Law.
And God’s Law forbade all kinds of self-mutilation, even tattoos, much less a severe dismembering like tearing out one’s own eye or cutting off one’s own hand. And Jesus just finished saying that He came to fulfill even the least of God’s laws in us and through us, including: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you. I am Yahweh” (Lev. 19:28, WEB).
The principle illustrated by this case law was that no one was to mutilate or mark one’s own body of flesh for any reason, because the body of flesh is to be a servant of the spirit, and a spirit is to focus on spiritual or moral things, on solutions which apply spiritual wisdom and love, then trust in God’s care for all departed souls. Devout Jews adhered to this principle and forbade any self-mutilation. In addition to this, the symbolic laws of the priesthood forbade any priest with a defect of any kind, such as a missing eye or hand, to enter the inner rooms or make offerings to God (Lev. 21:18-21).
And all the disciples of Jesus were to become the “royal priesthood” of God (I Pet. 2:9). Thus, we definitely must not take this command of Jesus (vv. 29-30) literally, but only as a spiritual command.
So what did Jesus mean when He commanded us to tear out our “right eye” or cut off our “right hand,” if either might entice us into sin? Well, first of all, it obviously implies that we are are to permanently eliminate temptations that may cause the spirit to sin. But how? Look at how devout Jews and the apostles figuratively called the people in a synagogue or local church a “body,” and even called the entire universal true church of Israel “the body of God.” In particular, Paul, while addressing the Roman church, stated: “For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members don’t have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, if prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or service, let us give ourselves to service; or he who teaches, to his teaching; or he who exhorts, to his exhorting: he who gives, let him do it with liberality; he who rules, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness” (Rom. 12:4-8, WEB). Thus, it is most likely that, since this Jewish apostle, steeped in the teachings of the Pharisees, called the church of Israel a “body” with many “members” (parts like limbs and eyes), that Jesus was also using the same figurative language, as did many Jewish rabbis and both His Jewish and Gentile disciples. So His disciples would instantly know that Jesus spoke about removing a beloved human “right eye” or “right hand” from their church and from their lives.
Every devout disciple in Jesus’ audience would have concluded: (1) Jesus, as a deep and careful Teacher of Scripture, who was so close to God that He was able to work loving and just miracles, would never command anything that opposed God’s laws against self-mutilation; and (2) the “right eye” and “right hand” must represent two kinds of members in their church, two kinds of people with whom they prayed together, studied God’s Word together, ate together, lived beside, worked Page 348
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beside and spent every waking hour of every day beside. So the only parts of this allegory we need to identify are the kinds of people that He called the “right eye” and the “right hand” within our churches, communities and lives. And we should realize that the use of the term “right,” as opposed to “left,” would indicate the most dear or most beloved member serving the church body as an “eye”
or as a “hand.” It would refer to the one who is most trusted and relied upon to share in one’s works.
The “eye” would indicate a member who helps to define and develop one’s world view and perception of life and faith, and does so for the entire body. So one’s own “eye” would refer to a teaching elder whom one relies upon for one’s understanding and perception of God and His truths, even ones’ most trusted and beloved elder in the church. And the “eye” would also include all the guiding words of that beloved elder. So Jesus was saying that, if that cherished elder teaches false doctrines, then one must tear both that teacher and his false doctrines out from your life, out of all the thoughts of your spirit and your flesh. For, if your “right eye” is darkness, your whole life will be darkness. You must abandon that blind guide of the blind, so you will not fall into a pit during your life on earth, and die, trapped in his or her darkness. It is better to rely on your own spirit’s ability to see than to blind your spirit so you can blindly follow a blind guide into all his or her errors and sins.
Then the “right hand” would refer to the most helpful person in the body of one’s church family and community, one who is relied upon for many physical aspects of life. It could be an energetic person with many useful skills and much knowledge about many different kinds of equipment and other things needed to do physical works. Or it could be a wealthy person who freely and frequently gives or lends money to those in need, or donates to all kinds of charitable works. However, if a man uses his good works as bribes, so the church will give him what his greed or selfish ambitions desire, such as to become an influential member who can use his power to benefit himself, such as to advertise his own business, then that whole body will soon become tainted and corrupted by that “helpful”
person. If that “right hand” poisons the other members, it will cause the entire body to die, unless it immediately cuts him off. Naturally, cutting off a “right hand” is a great, painful and permanent loss of physical capability within the church body. Still, it is better to be physically disabled than to die.
But the subject of this particular teaching from Jesus was sexual immorality. Yet the same principles apply to any of the “right eyes” or “right hands” in every church, regarding their sexual immorality, including any of their actions or teachings involving the exploitation, oppression or abuse of women.
As we saw in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians (I Cor. 5:1-13, II Cor. 2:5-11), and in Jesus’ teachings about the sins, lies or hypocrisy of church members (Mat. 18:14-22), God commands the faithful members of His church to confront sins of any kind, including sexual immorality, in their sanctified body, and to expel the unrepentant from the family priesthood of their heavenly Father. For we do not want any elect soul in our body to walk in darkness and slowly die in the flesh, due to sins of any kind. We need to remove those causing dark inner thoughts, to prevent the spread of sin throughout the body of our church, by plucking out or cutting off even the most prominent infectious members.
Therefore, if a member sees another member trapped in some kind of lie or delusion that manifests in a physical sin, such as through acts of sexual immorality, a brother or sister in the Lord should personally confront those lies or delusions causing the sin in the other member. But let a man reason with his brother and a woman with her sister, regarding sexual sins and most other kinds of sins. For it is usually not wise, nor appropriate, for a person to deal with the lies and sins that bind a soul of the opposite sex, since male and female minds of flesh think differently and are tempted into lies and sins differently. Then the brother or sister confronting the lies and sin must only use the spiritual weapons of actual truths, nothing outside of what Jesus’ Holy Spirit teaches, only that which fulfills God’s Word. For instance, false doctrines invented a “law” that requires marriage in a church or in Page 349
some other official institution of men, but God does not. God only requires a true covenant between the spirits of the married couple. So a church cannot accuse a couple of “living in sin” if their spirits have made a covenant of faithfulness with one another. All God allows must be allowed, but always in spiritually healthy moderation. A church’s man-made rules, traditions and doctrines mean nothing, because only God’s opinion counts. Then the church member who confronts the sin must reason with the sinner as an equal sibling, as an equal sinner, humbly, not as some kind of superior judge with a right and authority to condemn. For none have any such right or authority. Besides, God’s almighty utterly holy Spirit humbly reasons with our sinful, lowly, ignorant spirits humbly, as with His little beloved children, then walked among us as our oldest Brother, contending against all sin-causing lies and delusions within us. And God even backs off when we become stubornly unreasonable, remains silent until He is once more able to speak reasoning, reassuring, hopeful and rational words to our spirits again. So, if Jesus will humbly wait until we are able to hear His exhortations, so should we.
Of course, it will not always be possible to take a sexually immoral member aside to have a long and intimate dialogue. And it may take hours or days to delve into very personal matters, to hear and understand the inner thoughts of the sinning one, then slowly build a knowledge of the truth in that one’s heart and mind, where both trust one another and honestly search together for the loving, just, effective, godly solution, to find the way that takes into account every aspect of the sinner’s life. And the one who goes to confront the lies, delusions and sins of a brother or sister will never possess the wisdom, knowledge or skill to lead anyone, even oneself, into that kind of fulfilling, right solution which provides an abundant life full of loving relationships built on truth, since literally all humans are merely foolish sinners. In fact, all humans lack even the physical time to truly help anyone, and can only assist in the works of our God Jesus. Only the Holy Spirit of Jesus has the love, wisdom, knowledge, power and time to truly lead any human being into the destiny He created for that one.
Of course, a sexually immoral member of the church may be too afraid or too shy to discuss the inner thoughts causing the sin, or simply not willing to take the time to discuss it, possibly because that sinner is so deluded that he or she bears unwavering confidence in the lies causing the sin. Or the sinning member may be too proud or too stubborn to admit the sin is a sin. Or the sinner may be too prone to anger and violence to engage in any kind of rational discussion about deeply personal matters. Whatever the reason, if it is impossible to make any progress in confronting lies, delusions and sins of a close family member in one’s church, and that sinner’s spirit does not allow Jesus to counsel it with truth for repentance, then it is time to involve the older members of the church with experience in those kinds of lies, delusions and sins. And about a tenth of the church should consist of somewhat wiser older people, male elders able to counsel other men and female elders able to counsel other women. Sometimes one or two of these elders can lead the sinning sibling to Jesus and repentance, to save that sinner from self-destruction. Often a sinner will open up to experienced and familiar older members, in private personal meetings. So a member confronting the sins of another member will often need to seek the help of one or two of the older men or women in the church, those whom God has granted the gift of some compassion, empathy, knowledge and wisdom. A loving experienced male counsellor, proven through time and familiar with those sins, can be very effective in helping a male sinner. Likewise, an older experienced female counsellor may be very effective in helping a female sinner. Older ones can often lead a sinner back to Jesus and into life.
However, if a sinner refuses to hear anyone who has walked according to the truth and counsel of our God Jesus, and that one’s spirit even refuses to hear Christ’s Holy Spirit, then the whole church must told about the sin of the sinner, with a detailed explanation about why it is a sin and how it will cause harm. For the church cannot let that sinner lead other members into the same lies, delusions Page 350
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and sins. What that sinner should be presented to all the adult members of the church, to all who are over twenty years of age and able to comprehend the teachings of Christ. The person or persons who witnessed the sin, as well as the teaching and judging elders, must testify to the other members about what is happening. Then the accused sinner must be granted a chance to defend himself or herself, without prejudice, under the assumption of innocence, to fulfill the demands of God’s Law. For Jesus came to fulfill that Law, not to undue and nullify it. If the accused member cannot be present, the accused may send a defender and witnesses to the church hearing, or a defender may be appointed and granted time to look into the matter, and to build a defence. Then, if the whole church finds the accused to be guilty, according to God’s Law, that member shall no longer be allowed to partake in the works of the church. The guilty one will be handed over to Satan’s world order and will not receive an equal measure of fellowship and aid enjoyed by the other members. Yet, that expelled member can go to the church services in the same way any orderly outsider can, to politely listen to the prayers and teaching time (but cannot participate in prayers, nor in voicing opinions or questions during interactive teaching session, nor share in the communal meal after the service). And the other members of every true church should remain open to further discussions with the expelled sinner, with the hope that they may lead that one to Jesus, who will lead that one to repentance into truths.
This last step is sometimes called “church discipline.” But, of course, it is absolutely nothing like any of the so-called “church discipline” found in the humanistic, Romanized false churches we have in our lands. For Jesus, our God, did not allow any kind of “church discipline” without the church attempting to fulfill all of the procedures outlined in Matthew 18:11-20. And we always see hints of how the true apostolic church always did follow those procedures, and always in Christ, guided by His Holy Spirit of our loving, just, wise God. And there were no hierarchies in those churches, no one with undue authority and influence, no one to sway the church into false judgments and wrong decisions. Rather, each individual member’s only Head was Jesus. So the love, wisdom, power and authority of Jesus led all the faithful members into making right choices. Then even the most lowly could confront the most respected teaching elders in the church, as we saw occur in biblical records.
Thus, if no individual tries to confront another member’s sin and plead for repentance, while also listening to the defence of the accused one, there can be no “church discipline.” And, if an accusing member discovers that he or she was wrong, and was falsely accusing that other member of sin, then that accuser must apologize to one’s sibling in the family of God. But, if a member commits real sin, and a private resolution cannot be achieved, then the accuser may call in one or two older members, those truly called by God, whom God gifted with spiritual knowledge and wisdom, who will exhort through the real Holy Spirit of Jesus. And, if this is not attempted, then no “church discipline” can take place. Nor can any “church discipline” occur against anyone who is not a member of the true church. For we are not allowed to judge anyone who does not acknowledge the real, biblical Jesus as one’s only Head and only Judge. We are only to maintain biblical standards within the priesthood of the church, like David did in Israel, and only subject outsiders to minimum standards, to keep order.
For we need to maintain freedom of conscience, so the hidden elect may be chosen and called by our God Jesus, and come to Him willingly. Also, if the sinner’s spirit repents into the truth and strives to bear fruits of repentance, and does so before the matter is brought before the whole church, then the matter cannot be laid bare before the whole church, and there can be no further “church discipline.”
Yet there are the false churches who only want “like-minded” souls to be members, and judge all according to carnal and usually very evil criteria invented by human sinners or even by demonic spirits. And the majority of these fakes love to engage in what they call “church discipline,” in order to legitimize their evil ways and deeds, as well as to unjustly bolster the power and authority of their Page 351
false priests and pastors, who are all wanna-be gods. True churches in the real Jesus Christ must flee from them, must studiously avoid even the slightest attempt to emulate them or their hierarchical systems. For all those fake churches are practising demonic tactics of Satan’s anti-God religion of humanism. All tell lies to make their people afraid of the outside world, instead of building up the love of their people, to make them into an honest and pure light for the good of the hidden elect in the world. Then all the human gods of those fake churches inwardly desire the power to enslave and control the outside world, as a theocracy with them as god-kings dictating their edicts and lies to all.
But true churches wait for Jesus to come and rule all. Above all, those fakes tell lies to convince their dupes that only they, not Jesus, bear the knowledge, wisdom and power to save them. Then, once those dupes believe all these lies, those wicked sons of the devil terrorize them with threats, saying they will expel if they do not comply with all their stupid and petty rules and demands. Worse yet, some even use threats of violence and murder to keep their prey from escaping their clutches. The Roman Catholics and some Protestants even tortured true believers to death in public, just to prevent any loss of their own power over their dupes, and to keep their obscene wealth received from tithes.
So “church discipline” can never be used to expel souls who refuse to worship the fake human gods who falsely claim to be the saviours of the church. And “church discipline” must never involve any form of violence or murder, not even a hint of a threat, since the only kind of true church discipline taught by our God Jesus Himself was expulsion. This was the maximum penalty for any deliberate, wilful, unrepentant sins of church members. And “church discipline” cannot be used to “weed out”
any “undesirable” members either, is not a tool to prevent membership of the poor who cannot tithe and need help, nor those from the “wrong races,” nor those who know the Bible well enough to rebuke false teachings, nor any other elect siblings. We cannot even use “church discipline” to get rid of weak and impulsive members, who repeatedly fall into errors and sins. For, even if a soul sins seventy seven times per day, yet repents each time, with an inner desire to please God each time,
“church discipline” can never be used against that repentant one. No matter how often we sin and our spirits truly repent, Jesus forgives. Furthermore, if evidence and testimonies prove a church to be wrong in its accusations, or if God’s Word proves that a church is falsely condemning something as a sin through their false doctrines, that church bears no right of “office” to do anything against anyone through any lies. No church can claim that it bears the authority to practise “church discipline” in any right or wrong way that it desires. For Jesus is the one and only Head of His church, the King of all kings and Owner of all life. And Jesus only allows right judgments, according to His own will.
Thus, there is no real “church discipline” in a false church, and we brush off their condemnations like dirt off the soles of our shoes. For the only ones subject to any true church discipline are sinners with evil motives and intentions, who claim to be our siblings in our church, but consistently refuse to repent into the truth no matter how much others try to reason with them. Even so, these sinners must first be “bound” in heaven before a church, or anyone in a church, can “bind” them on earth in the name of Jesus, through His power and will. Before anyone can hand them over to captivity in Satan’s world order, to be deluded according to the devil’s will, our heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus must first choose to do so. And, since only faithful members of His true church can hear and heed the commands of His Holy Spirit, only they know when He has bound someone in heaven. So only these true Christians can obey His commands to their spirits, to practise His true, just, effective church discipline, the kind that the power of the almighty God will enforce in His irresistible way.
If we understand the context and the audience to whom Jesus was speaking, we can be certain that He was talking about tearing out a “right eye” or cutting off a “right hand” from the body of one’s local church, not parts of one’s physical body. And this can sometimes be more painful than losing Page 352
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an eye or hand from one’s physical body. Because Jesus was speaking to His own disciples, who had followed Him up to the slope of a mountain in an uninhabited area, and He was not speaking to the general public in a marketplace, we know He was teaching this only to members of His true church.
So surely the “right eye” would be a teaching and judging elder. And, like Jesus and His apostles, the teaching and judging elders of that day were not men who had been chosen and taught doctrines by a college or some other formal institution. Rather, teaching elders were taught as apprentices, that is, as personally chosen disciples of other teaching elders. Every teaching elder had been a man who had once proved to be an exemplary disciple of his teacher. Likewise, every teaching and judging elder in God’s true New covenant church must first be chosen by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Himself, then prove to be a faithful, adept, honest, wise and loving disciple of our living Head Teacher. And this Teacher will not die nor allow His disciples to graduate until they have been completed and perfected on the final judgment day. Thus, those elders can only be His teaching assistants. Still, Jesus sends some of His disciple to teach His truths to His less-informed disciples, although these elders cannot be called “rabbis,” but are merely older brothers serving Jesus, our Head Teacher, as His assistant teachers, as disciples who are not yet completed and perfected, just a little more knowledgeable about some matters of life and faith than most other disciples in their local church.
Likewise, a “right hand” in the true church would figuratively refer to someone who helps others in ways that do not involve teaching God’s Word. It would refer to a member of the true church whose spirit has been called, taught, trained and personally gifted by the Holy Spirit of Jesus, but to do some other kind of work in the church body. And remember, in every true church, Jesus will call, teach and train every individual member for some kind of life’s work, so that each will joyfully fulfill some kind of destiny through the church body. So, if we find an “eye” or a “hand” who has been taken captive by some sin like sexual immorality, and if that member of our true church refuses to repent into God’s truth, then we take the steps Jesus required of us. We make a right judgment that has already been made by Jesus in heaven. But we never do any of this to members of our biological families or to our friends who are not members of His one true church. “For what have I to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within?” (I Cor. 5:12, WEB).
Christ’s true church consists only of the elect elect whom Jesus has personally awakened and called into His body. But Jesus has not yet awakened and called most of the elect on earth, has not called most of the elect on earth to faithfully serve in His priesthood of the true Israel. Therefore, none of these procedures of church discipline apply to the majority of the elect, who still remain outside of the church. And church discipline certainly will never apply to any of the non-elect, because Jesus has never and never will call, teach and train any of them as His disciples, as member of His church.
Now let the awakened elect in Jesus’ true church serve Him and the undiscovered elect siblings of their family, as well as the rest of His creation, by speaking truths learned from Him, and by doing the works He calls them to do. For members of Israel are hidden everywhere in this world, even among false churches and secular humanists. These expressions of love will testify about His love and power for the salvation of our spirits. But, in order to speak His truths and do His wise works as members of His real body, awakened elect spirit must learn to hear and heed Jesus, and all siblings joined to them in Jesus. And, to do this, all have to draw close to one another, share their lives with one another, become one mind in Christ, serving one purpose of their one Head, Jesus. They can no longer serve human heads, wanna-be gods. We need to become the one body of Jesus, where each can fully trust the others. So, since only Jesus can make this happen, and competing human gods can never make this happen, we need to unite in Jesus, and in Him alone. Only He can prevent our works from being corrupted or sabotaged by contrary purposes instigated by the spirits of devils who gain Page 353
access to our family through the brood of Satan. Since even small lies and sins can produce distrust and factions, we must not allow stubborn, deliberate and unrepentant liars and sinners to be counted among us in our churches. Yes, they can hear us and watch us, so they might repent into the truth.
Yet we cannot let them share in our works of proclaiming Christ’s teachings, nor partake in any of our labours for the benefit God’s creations. We can only serve Jesus if He serves directly through us.
One cannot become a member of Christ’s true church by the election of men, nor by the decision of some kind of church authority. For the only one who chooses His own disciples, all members of His own church, is Jesus. Only our Head, Lord, King and Owner chooses His people. Thus, having one’s name written on a list of church members means absolutely nothing to us. For we know Jesus has chosen us and written us into His Book of Life, for all eternity. And none of us want anything to do with signing a document which states that we believe the creed of a church, because salvation is an ongoing process worked by God alone, who is continuously writing His Law and His Word on our hearts, in the minds of our spirits. Consequently, since this work will not be completed until the end of the judgment day, how can we know if a creed has rightly interpreted and teaches real truths of God until then? We cannot! We learn more as we walk in Christ’s counsel, and some learn more than others. And all we learn is permanently embedded in the minds of our spirits, for all eternity. But we do not all learn the same things, nor at the same rate. So we cannot blindly accept the teachings of mere men as facts, and cannot swear to their creeds. Rather, we leave interpretations and teachings of truth solely to the Holy Spirit of our Head Teacher, who corrects all errors according to His will.
Likewise, we never think we are members of His true church through magic rituals. Rather, we only baptize ourselves to remember Christ’s works of casting our old lives of sin into the depths of death, then raising our spirits into new lives, counselled by His Spirit. And we confess directly to Him. We also make all our covenants, including our marriage covenants, according to the will of Jesus, and know He is the only Witnesses who can ratify them. So we do not need any magic physical rituals.
Hearing real truths of God from His church, and witnessing just and loving works in Christ, may lead an elect soul to Jesus. But only Jesus, only His power and His love, can awaken any elect spirit in a soul, then call that one to become His disciple. Only the Holy Spirit of Jesus can directly teach the very spirit of an elect person, bring that one into the light of His truth, train a spirit to rightly and wisely handle His truth. Only Jesus is able to call, gift and send one to do the works of His loving body. There simply are no words or training methods of men that are capable of doing such things.
At the same time, we need to also remember that the devil and his minions are always prowling near Christ’s church, and strive to enter it, searching for souls to devour. And those wolves all know that the easiest way to enter the chamber of a soul, and seize it, is by tricking a mind of flesh to invite them inside. For the amoral, selfish and often stupidly rebellious flesh will always open the door to the soul for anyone or anything that promises to reward it with pleasure or provide for any of its real or falsely perceived needs. And Satan and his minions create countless “needs” of the flesh, which do not exist in reality. They say we “need” money and other harmful things, which only they are able to provide, to save our flesh. Then the devil invents many unreal dangers, to make the stupid believe they must escape them, lest they die. So, since the loveless and amoral flesh does not care who saves it, even if it is murdering thieves, that self-destructive flesh will cling to those demonic liars without any consideration for others, caring nothing for the welfare of others. Everyone’s flesh is the same, even the flesh of the elect whose spirits our God has saved and gifted. Even the most wise and godly elder, or the most useful and skilled worker in the church, can easily fall into lies and sins through the mind of flesh. So the devil watches all closely, until he finds a weakness of the flesh. As soon as he does, that devil and his minions pounce at just the right moment, when one is not expecting it, to Page 354
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deceive flesh, to gain an invitation into the soul, so he might convince the flesh that the only way it can save itself is if it silences the elect spirit and the Holy Spirit of Jesus in that soul. Once Satan has succeeded in causing the mind of flesh to rebel in this way, he has trapped that one’s entire soul in lies, delusions and sins. So that one’s elect spirit must turn to Jesus, and wait on Him to free itself from the devil, to burn those lies and subjugate one’s mind of flesh under its own control once more.
All the elect possess two defences against the temptations and attacks of the devil and his children.
First, since we know all demons are bound and limited by God, and are guarded by God’s angels, we can turn to our God Jesus for help, and fully trust in Him to help us. For not one demonic spirit, nor any of Satan’s human children, can make a move against us unless God allows it for our ultimate good, such as for the training of our spirits, or possibly to gather us home into heaven. And this leads us to the second defence. Since God trains the members of His true church to love and care for one another, until we prefer one another above all others, since He grants His beloved disciples in His Father’s family the highest priority in all His decisions, we can also rely on our siblings in His true church, if their spirits are hearing and heeding the Holy Spirit of our God Jesus. For Jesus will call them to speak His truths, to penetrate and burn away the darkness of lies and delusions. And Jesus will call His family to work against the destroying works of the devil and his brood, to nullify them.
Jesus wants us to guard the lives of one another in our church family, even more than we guard the lives of outsiders, although He also calls us to do that work as well, to ensure that our lands do not fall into chaos, injustice and the destruction of lies and sins. Consequently, Jesus expects us to keep His body clean and pure, free from infectious lies and sins, and free from all who come to spread those infections among us, from all who come to sabotage and destroy the body of the real Jesus, who come to crucify the members of that body, just as they crucified His body that walked among us in the first century. Now let us remember that Jesus has already given up His body in death for us. So we no longer need to give it up again, not ever. Today, His body of the church can and will live forever. Let us never again hand His body over to crucifixion, by allowing members to be nailed to a cross with demonic lies and sins. At times, if He sees too much pride or complacency in His body, and He must train either an individual member or the entire church body to be more zealous for the food and drink of His freeing truth, Jesus may allow a fall into lies and sins. Jesus may even let the devil send a non-elect Judas into His church, one taken captive by lies and sins. Thus, each member and the whole church must pray fervently, directly from their spirits, and earnestly seek His ways of truth. Jesus wants us to heed His voice and apply His words, to overcome lies and sins. If we do not, our whole body might spiritually die, and become just another vile institution in Satan’s world order.
How Divorce Can Be a Sin
Jesus’ teaching about divorce (in Mat. 5:31-32) may have been His answer to some man’s question about what he could do if he suspected his wife of committing adultery. Or perhaps some other man, after hearing Jesus’ teaching about adultery, felt guilty about his divorce and remarriage to “hotter”
looking and younger woman, although it was a practise that many rabbis allowed. Or possibly a man asked Jesus if he could divorce his wife to marry a woman with whom he committed ocular adultery.
Regardless, this teaching about divorce is directly related to the previous teaching from Jesus about the seventh-order sins, where Jesus forbade ocular adultery and all other kinds of sexual immorality (Mat. 5:27-28). For teachings about divorce were hotly debated in all discussions of God’s seventh order laws, since the carnal humanistic church emphasized sexuality far more than spirituality. In fact, although sexual activities only occupied an extremely insignificant portion of their lives, these humanists discussed sexuality far more than the spirit’s love for God, which was to permeate literally Page 355
every aspect of our lives. As for the subject of divorce, to gratify base fleshy lusts, there was a great controversy between Jews who each sided with one of two Pharisaic scholar: Hillel (died about AD
10) and Shammai (died about AD 30). For each interpreted one phrase from God’s Law differently.
God’s Law allowed a man to divorce his wife, and stated: “if she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some unseemly thing in her, ... he shall write her a bill of divorce, and put it in her hand, and send her out of his house” (Deut. 24:1, WEB). Here, the Hebrew words translated as
“some unseemly thing” literally referred to “a matter or cause of shamefulness or uncleanness.” Now Hillel thought it was more compassionate to let a man divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever, even if she merely burned the bread they were to have for supper. For Hillel reasoned that a man should be able to own a wife that pleased him in every way, just as a man has a right to own any other kind of livestock to please himself. But Hillel never considered the welfare of the woman at all. And, in their society, a single woman could not possibly earn enough to live in any reasonable way. Most divorced women were sentenced to lives of extreme poverty. If a divorced woman’s father could not or would not take her back into his home, she might also be homeless, since most men did not want to marry a divorced woman. And Hillel also did not consider how heartbroken she would be if she had to leave her children behind, nor how would she could care for her children if her husband sent them away with her. So, actually, although many preferred Hillel for his more “loving”
and liberal ways, he actually was not very loving or godly at all. Then Shammai believed that God only allowed a man to divorce his wife if she was sexually immoral, if she intentionally broke any of God’s sixth-order laws (adultery, lesbianism, incest, abandonment and so on). For Shammai based his doctrines on interpretations harmonized with other laws of God. An example was if a man hated his wife and falsely accused her of adultery, God’s Law required him to pay a huge fine and care for her needs, as his wife, all his life, without any possibility of divorce (Deut. 22:13-19). This law clearly taught the principle that a woman, not just the man, had the right to justice under God’s Law.
Of course, Jesus sided more with Shammai, but taught God’s Law in greater depth than Shammai.
For, in the eyes of our God Jesus, the spirit of an elect woman was equally a child of God, just as much as the spirit of an elect man. And Jesus came to fulfill all the Law, not just the parts that some selfish souls preferred to interpret in the way that suited them best. But, in that day and age, the Romanized views of Hillel won out. The male-dominated, pagan type of humanism in the Pharisaic churches allowed a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all, until about the 11th century. But they were no worse than the humanistic churches which falsely called themselves “Christians.” For those so-called “Christian” churches twisted both God’s Old Covenant Law and the words of Christ out of context, so they could fashion their Roman laws to serve their own selfish desires of the flesh.
Those churches made subjective laws, from the viewpoint of ruling classes in their steep hierarchical systems, and to serve only them. But all God’s laws are objectively good, benefiting all people and all creations. Only God’s ways are right and able to produce benefits for all, because God created all life, and designed all the laws and ways of both the material and spiritual realms, in ways that made them to be most effective. And remember, God also designed the loving and flat organizational structure of His kingdom, where all with power or influence must serve all, as the dependants of all.
Consequently, Jesus stated: “So it was said, ‘Whomever might have divorced his wife, give her a divorce document.’ But I reason with you that every man divorcing his wife, except for a reason of sexual immorality, is causing her to commit adultery. And, whoever might marry the one having been forsaken, is committing adultery on an ongoing basis (in a way where the effects of this ongoing adultery fall upon the man who unjustly divorced her)” (Mat. 5:31-32, from: Ἐρρέθη δέ·