Ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, δότω αὐτῇ ἀποστάσιον. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων
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τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι, καὶ ὃς ἐὰν ἀπολελυμένην
γαμήσῃ μοιχᾶται, SBLGNT). To interpret this correctly, we must first recognize that Jesus used a present (durative) form of the verb ποιέω, to indicate that a man who is in the process of divorcing his wife, for any reason other than sexual immorality, “is causing” that woman to commit adultery, that is, in an ongoing way. For he leaves his wife destitute, forcing her to continuously seek a home.
In God’s Law, it is only the one who causes a sin who is guilty of that sin, not anyone caused to commit the sin through coercion. For nothing is a sin if it lacks any evil motives or intentions. So, in those days, a divorced woman had to find a new place to live and another source of income, for the survival of herself and her children. But a woman’s work was never valued nearly as much as a man’s work, and women seldom owned property. So divorced women were often forced to find new husbands, or perish. Even an independently wealthy divorced woman had no voice and was usually ostracized in her community. So even she was coerced into finding a new husband. Therefore, by divorcing his wife, a man “was causing” her to search for a new husband, continuously, so she could marry again. He coerced her adultery. But she had no motive nor intent to leave her former husband.
Second, we must recognize that ἀπολελυμένην is the perfect passive participle form of the verb ἀπολείπω. It is not an aorist participle, and cannot be treated as such in this context. Here the context is a man causing adultery. For he is guilty of pretending to divorce his wife. He made an unlawful divorce, which God refused to recognize as a legitimate dissolution of his spirit’s marriage covenant.
Then, although he could legally marry a second wife, his fake divorce of his first wife coerced her into seeking a new husband, even though God considered her to be still married to her first husband.
Consequently, this perfect tense participle is focusing on the effects or results of her being cruelly and unlawfully divorced and forsaken. And Jesus actually used this perfect tense to indicate that her former husband, because he unjustly divorced her, is also guilty of the adultery that her new husband commits with her. But God will not find her new husband guilty of adultery, because adultery is a sin, and all sins, by definition, must have evil motives and intentions. However, if a man’s intent was to provide for a destitute divorced woman, then his motives and intentions were good in God’s eyes, and marrying that unlawfully divorced woman could not be called a “sin,” could not be called any kind of “adultery” on his part. Rather, the first husband who unlawfully divorced his first wife was the one whom Jesus claimed to be guilty of adultery, for coercing his former wife to find and new husband and for coercing her new husband to saved that woman by marrying her. This Greek text is very difficult to translate into idiomatic English, but interpreters must try to do so. For we must make clear that Jesus did not condemn the victims here, neither the unjustly divorced woman nor the man who married her after she was left destitute through an unjust divorce. Rather, Jesus was only condemning the man who unlawfully divorced his wife, and him alone. For that man committed two acts of adultery, by coercing his divorced wife to marry another man while God considered her to be still married to her first husband, and by coercing her second husband to marry her. And the Law’s maximum penalty for adultery is death. Thus, God could justly cause the man who unjustly divorced his wife to suffer both a physical death and a second death in hell. This is what Jesus was implying.
Now, when Jesus declared that God does not allow divorce “except for the reason of sexual immorality” (παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας), devout Jews there, in about AD 25, would have instantly recognized that Jesus was endorsing the hermeneutics of Shammai, that is, his methods of biblical interpretation. Shammai interpreted Scriptures in the light of other Scriptures. He believed that all principles taught in God’s Word were harmonious, because all of the omniscient and honest God’s thoughts and words necessarily and logically had to be harmonious. Therefore, any teaching from one verse of Scripture must not ever contradict the principles taught anywhere else in any other Page 357
Scriptures. And here Jesus did the same. Jesus used the principles taught by seemingly unrelated Scriptures to exegete the meaning of one particular verse of Scripture. Jesus harmonized Scriptures teaching us to judge by motive and intent, with the Scripture about divorce, to condemn a man who unjustly divorced his wife. And, if Jesus did this, we should do the same in all our interpretations.
We must strive to find out exactly what God Himself actually meant in every Scripture, by seeing every word in the light of all His Spirit teaches our spirits about them. This process not only involves our own spirits in our hearts, but our minds and bodies of flesh as well. For we get our bodies to do research, to study the Bible in its original language, to understand both the historical and situational context, and so on. Then will discover, to our utter amazement, that literally everything that God’s faithful prophets and apostles penned in every word of the Scriptures is completely harmonious. Not one spiritual, moral, logical principle contradicts any principle taught anywhere else in that Book.
Yet we find this kind of harmony and consistency is always absent in literally every other religious scripture or philosophical writing, not even in those written by just one author, much less in those written by authors from different cultures at very different times in history, like the Bible was. Now some might reason that all the books in the canon of Scriptures were chosen specifically because all they were consistent and harmonious, and they refused to include books with contradictory teaching.
Thus, there is nothing amazing about the consistency and harmony of biblical writings. For all the authors in the Bible intentionally made their works harmonize with the other authors, so that their writings would be included in the canon of Scriptures. Yet these critics are not considering these two factors: (1) The prophets and apostles had no worldly incentive to harmonize their own writings with the rest of the Bible. Rather, they were most often persecuted and killed for disagreeing with the trends of their times and contemporary religious “leaders.” (2) And, even when our contemporary authors of religious or philosophical works try to be harmonious and consistent with past authors, they always fail. None have ever been able to remain logically consistent and harmonious, since literally every author finds it utterly impossible to remain logically consistent and harmonious in his own writings, and always contradicts himself, much less every other author of the past and present.
Therefor, even when some authors try to harmonize their writings with other authors, that impossible task can never be achieved. Yet, the more we study the Bible, the more we see how all the prophets and apostles wrote harmonious and consistent religious teaching, and they did this over a period of 2,000 years, from cultures as diverse as ancient Chaldea to Rome. Furthermore, the spiritual, moral and logical principles found in their harmonious teachings remain effective and true to this very day.
So, looking at what Jesus actually said here, in the light of all the other Scriptures, can we say that a divorced woman or man cannot remarry, in the way some churches do? No, because God’s Law allows either a divorced man or a divorced woman to marry again, and Jesus came to fulfill God’s Law, not nullify it. Consequently, a right interpretation of these words of Jesus must allow a divorced woman or man to marry again. But what about a spouse who actually did commit sexual immorality of some kind? Can that one marry again, after the sexual immorality is exposed, after we know the spouse broke the trust and unity of the marriage covenant he or she made with the other spouse? For the maximum penalty for deliberate and unrepentant sexual immorality, such as adultery, was often the death penalty. Thus, since the dead cannot marry or be given in marriage, shouldn’t that immoral one be forbidden to marry again, at least in a church? Not necessarily. For God’s Law requires a just trial regarding every accusation, including accusations of sexual immorality, and every man and woman has a right to offer a defence in that trial. So, do churches who forbid remarriage after being divorced every bother to find out exactly who and what caused each individual divorce, in a way that Page 358
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involves witnesses and evidence, where the motives and intentions of each divorced spouse can be judged rightly, and also where they consider the repentance and fruits of repentance in the immoral?
During a discrete and private “trial” of some divorced person seeking to remarry, multiple male and female older members of a church should consider extenuating factors as well, such a spousal abuse and so on. Also, God’s Law presumes the innocence of every accused person before a trial begins, so the accused can never be sentenced to any penalty, such as forbidding remarriage, only after enough evidence proves guilt beyond any doubt, as well as proves an evil motive and intent for the sin. Even then, mitigating factors will not necessarily allow the maximum penalty for the sin. Furthermore, the minimum penalty in God’s Old Covenant Law is not necessarily the maximum in His fulfilled New Covenant Law, since fulfilling the Old Law is done by effectively applying the wise principles of the Old Law in us and through us, through a new priesthood with a new High Priest and Judge who can cause repentance into the truth, and therefore eliminate all penalties for every kind of sin or crime.
So a trial need not sentence a sinner to a maximum penalty, but can often require no penalty at all, even if the accused is actually guilty of an intentional sin. If motives and intentions change through true repentance, as evidenced by fruits of repentance, then human judges must show mercy and compassion. For God demands this, according to exactly the same measure He forgives and unbinds each individual soul through each one’s humble repentance into truth. Thus, the maximum penalty stipulated by God for adultery, or for any other kind of sexual immorality, can only be administered to one who deliberately committed the sin through selfish and evil motives, without any extenuating circumstances involved, and is still remaining stubbornly unrepentant. But God even forgave the worst sins, such as David’s deliberate adultery, where he used his authority as king to coerce a married woman to commit adultery with him, then tried to hide his sin by murdering her husband, and also murdered other men who were with her husband. If God forgave David’s adultery and his murdering because God saw David’s spirit, how he later repented into the whole truth, then we must follow God’s example and forgive whenever we see repentance. No judgment in Christ is simple and straightforward, but requires a thorough knowledge of His Word and His Spirit’s wisdom to be just.
In the end, no church can invent and enforce simplistic doctrines applied to all divorced men or all divorced women. Under God’s Law, which Jesus fulfills in each member of His church and in the church as a whole, each individual divorced person’s case must be judged separately, where all of the individual’s actions, circumstances, motives, intentions and repentance must be taken into account.
Otherwise, a church is unjust and has rejected the teachings of Christ. And if they reject Christ’s teachings, they reject Christ Himself. Also, if they reject Christ and His teachings, they are not being saved by Him through His teaching and training of their spirits. So they are not true Christians and their church is not a true church. Since God’s Law stipulated that a woman must be granted a document of divorce, it means she can marry again. Also, it is certain that a divorced man can marry again, since a man can even have multiple wives under God’s Law. Since Jesus did not nullify those laws, but fulfills those laws, a man who is justly divorced can marry again, and a justly divorced man can even become an elder in the church too. For Scriptures indicate that Paul was once married, and implies that his wife did not die. Yet he was not married by the time he began to serve Jesus as an apostle, as an extensively gifted teaching elder. So Paul was most likely a divorced man, and Scriptures never actually forbade a divorced man from becoming a teaching elder, although God’s Word does forbid a man who has more than one wife from becoming a teaching elder (I Tim. 3:2).
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Sexual Responsibility
Many laws in North America and in other nations are based on the biblical teachings of Jesus. These have spread around the world, especially after the 16th century reformation and 18th century revival.
Of course, there are also many pagan Roman laws practised by nations of the world, spread by the secular humanists serving Satan, and by the false humanistic churches. So there is still much work to be done, to make laws more just. And that work will be completed in full, on the days Jesus returns.
But, for now, let us examine one of the laws based on Satan’s religion of Roman humanism. In our land, and in many others, a divorce is extremely costly, forcing each spouse to hire an expensive lawyer. And it can often take years before it is settled. Also, if one spouse committed unjust acts, the children and the victimized spouse are caused to suffer even more victimization through the courts and legal system. This is because these divorce laws are based on the desires of elite Roman men, so they could take revenge on their property, on their former wives. And those men could easily get another wife as their previous wives suffered their vengeance, since there were no laws against that.
But, in Roman law, rebellion against one’s owner had to be severely punished, with as much excess pain as the authorities could possibly inflict. Thus, divorce laws were designed specifically to cause pain against a spouse and terrify a man’s property into complete submission. Yet, in time, nations adopted the Christian principle of treating females as equal spiritual heirs of God. Then a woman could also divorce her husband, if she proved that he committed some kind of sin. And humanists accepted this, since they knew that even some elite women, in ancient Roman times, held enough power and influence to divorce their husbands. However, the same Roman principles applied. That is, the Roman laws of divorce were all about providing the elite, all who had money and power, the legal opportunity to exact revenge upon their former spouses. Their divorce laws had nothing to do with any kind of real justice at all. It was strictly an adversarial system designed to appease the most carnal and vengeful desires of the psychopathic elite, and thus always involved expensive litigation.
But, in the Bible, God commanded that a faithful group of judges, the Levites and community elders, should bear the authority to seek the required evidence and quickly settle matters according to God’s Law. And these judges were paid by the tithes and gifts of the people, and by income from publicly owned lands worked by the Levites. So justice was freely available to all at all times. And biblical Christians also seek to fulfill these laws of God in Jesus, to establish a free justice system supported by taxpayers and income from government-owned properties and businesses. Then, in a divorce, if a man is at fault and has to pay alimony and child support, God also expected the local elders, rabbis and people to ensure he would do so, whenever he was able pay his just share. Yet, if he was not able to pay, God wanted the elders, church priesthood and whole community to provide adequate support for those divorced women and their children, as well as many other benefits, such as right to glean crops from any farm land. These laws did not apply only to “widows,” only to those whose husbands had died, but to all women bereft of husbands, and to their children who were bereft of a father. This law applied to widows, divorced women, abandoned slave women and so on. Also, if neither spouse contested the divorce, judges allow the divorce to be settled immediately, only requiring the man to write up a divorce document, stating that the woman was no longer his wife so she would be able to marry again, without any accusation of adultery. Of course, since a man could marry multiple wives, he did not need a certificate of divorce in those days. Perhaps, in some cases, a divorce certificate might be witnessed by a confidential local authority, but that was never required by God. And the intent of this law was to ensure that struggling souls would remain free from unnecessary burdens.
Freely available judges held different levels of authority as well. So there were higher courts where even the poorest of the people could appeal faulty decisions made by lower courts, since those Page 360
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higher courts were also freely accessible to all. So the point of God’s Law was for those judges to serve the people for their good, and to handle all the complexities of real justice according God’s loving and just will. They were to take responsibility for the care and welfare of everyone who relied on them, in whatever task they were to perform. God wanted each judge and counsellor, anyone who was an expert in any aspect of the Law, to thoroughly know all there was to know about that aspect of the Law, then faithfully follow all the core principles of true justice found in all God’s other laws as well. He also expected each judge or counsellor to remain honest and true to Him, as well as to all His people. None were to side with unjust individuals or groups of people against the truth. For God demanded equitable and fair justice, without regard for wealth or status. All spirits of all the people were to be granted equal status, an equal right to justice. For God Himself judged all kinds of people, but each kind in the same way. God defended or condemned both males and females equally, as well as both Jews and Gentiles, both rich and poor, both kings and paupers, both locals and foreigners, both the young and the old, both the religious and non-religious. We see this throughout the Old and New Covenant Scriptures. He treated every spirit alike, gifting true justice to all, ignoring the esteem awarded by men through unlawful matters of the flesh. And we are always to follow the example of our God, rather than the desires or petty rules of men. Only God’s opinions and words are our guide.
Furthermore, we must understand how God and His Word defined a marriage. From the beginning, a man and a woman simply came together after their spirits made a covenant of love and faithfulness with one another. There was no ceremony, no authority to authorize the marriage, and no certificate of marriage. God alone could authorize a marriage and declare it to be genuine, as with Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and so on. Often, a couple’s inner marriage covenant was not even spoken, since it was a spirit’s commitment witnessed solely by the Spirit of God, to serve and remain faithful to one’s spouse. Whenever the spirits of both spouses made such an inner covenant, God recognized that the two were married. Then God’s Spirit helped each spirit’s bond in this covenant, causing it to grow and evolve into an ever deeper love and commitment to a spouse, so the two became one flesh. Soon everything each said and did in their lives on earth would involve a deep concern about how one’s own words or deeds would affect the other, where each only desired good for the other, often without a thought about one’s own wants or needs. This is how they became one flesh, especially in caring for their children. Both responded as one, to provide all their children would need. Then, as each couple grew older, both spouses served as one body for their people in their land, enhancing the power of the other to work good for God’s kingdom on earth, in His name.
So a “Christian” marriage need not involve a piece of official-looking paper signed by some human authority from a church or government. Nor did God ever require any kind of witnesses to confirm a marriage. For God considered Himself to be the one and only required witness, together with the husband and wife. Of course, if the couple’s family or community wants a ceremony and a piece of official-looking paper, God will not object. It is not a sin to celebrate a marriage or get that piece of paper, especially out of love and respect for others. But neither are ever required by God. Thus, it is indeed a sin to condemn a couple, and accuse them of “living in sin” just because they did not get a piece of paper created by human authorities who have no right to marry anyone, according to the laws of God, the same laws which our God Jesus fulfills in us and through us. Only covenants made by the spirits of both spouses, which God Himself witnesses, are necessary. If the covenants of both spouses exist, no human being has any right to tear the two apart, and no right to accuse the two of adultery. We must be careful about this, lest we unjustly condemn a common-law marriage, then are condemned by God. And, conversely, if the spirit of one spouse has not made a genuine marriage covenant in his or her heart, or if God has not ratified the marriage covenant, there can be no real Page 361
marriage, not even if the highest human authority on earth proclaims a marriage to be official. If a couple is married by the pope or a king, during a ceremony in a palace with thousands of guests, but one spouse’s spirit did not make a true marriage covenant, the marriage is fake. Therefore, we must not judge any marriage to be real if it was merely ratified and certified by human authorities, for that couple may indeed be “living in sin” and guilty of adultery. One may have married the other through lusts of the flesh, or to obtain status or money. So that one is essentially a prostitute. Consequently, we cannot force a couple to remain together after this is discovered. If they divorce, we dare not condemn an innocent party unjustly, nor stigmatize a spouse who is justly divorced. Otherwise, God will see our ruthless injustice in this matter and condemn us. For Jesus, our God, allows divorces.
We need to learn to respect and fear our God, to admit the fact that our God, Jesus, allowed divorce, and realize that infantile human beings, like ourselves, often make terrible mistakes. So God expects us to comfort and help the victims of a false marriage. We must not automatically condemn and stigmatize divorcees, as though divorce itself is a sin. Since Jesus fulfills God’s Old Covenant Law, and that Old Law provided for just and needful kinds of divorce, it is a great sin directly against God Himself to unjustly condemn and stigmatize divorce and divorcees, without a fair hearing and
“trial,” without any witnesses or evidence, without any reference to the just and loving principles and intentions of God in His Law. Furthermore, even if we do find that a spouse was guilty of a sin, we must take a spirit’s repentance into account. Also, we must not think anyone should be bound to a marriage covenant if one spouse deceived the other spouse into thinking his or her spirit sincerely entered into a true marriage covenant, although that spouse never actually made such a covenant. If a marriage covenant is broken by sin, or never really existed in the first place, then God’s justice will demand that we acknowledge the resulting divorce without any condemnation of the innocent victim of that broken marriage. And even the guilty spouse has the right to a fair hearing, where that sinner is taught the truths of God and granted an opportunity to repent into those truths. And, if the sinner made a victim of a spouse whose spirit actually made a loving and true marriage covenant with that sinning spouse, and was faithful to that covenant until the sinning spouse broke that covenant, then we will need to provide much loving, empathetic comfort and emotional support for the victim of that divorce, usually together physical and financial help as well. And, if there is to be any kind of judgment, condemnation and penalty for the sinning spouse, a free, fair hearing is required. Then, if a sinner repents, with true fruits of repentance, a couple might even restore their marriage covenants.
The point is that our spirits must learn from our God Himself, from the Holy Spirit of Jesus, so we can make right judgments and take responsibility to act in a just, loving way towards every soul in the family of the church and in the family of all humankind. We can no longer afford to blindly follow the unjust and vengeful ways taught by the humanists, by false churches and irresponsible governments. For the ruthless injustice of our churches and our governments are destroying our lands, and the most psychopathic of Satan’s loveless children now rule over God’s elect, nullifying every kind of compassionate, healing, restoring justice that the people desperately need. So it is time to teach God’s real and actual truths, to wisely educate our people, to encourage our churches and our nations to provide vetted, just and free decision-making authorities, those whom God has clearly called and trained for those positions, who follow Jesus as His faithful disciples. Otherwise, God will allow our own injustice and cold hearts to fall into all kinds of delusions, until we perish in our own self-inflicted pain. If we do not love the truth, His greatest of all punishments will surely fall on us.
Now let each individual in the family of God take personal responsibility for one’s own behaviour.
First, men must no longer casually dismiss ocular adultery. Each man must realize that looking at a woman as a potential object of his lust’s gratification makes him less manly, not more manly. For the Page 362
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manly men will carefully structure their innermost thoughts in ways that correctly determine what is actually true, just and loving in the eyes of God. Then they apply this internal structure, which God builds inside the minds of their spirits, to build up God’s just kingdom on earth. In doing so, men need to provide structure for their beloved wives, sisters and daughters. For men know that God created female minds of flesh to focus on the more physical characteristics and expressions of inner desires manifested by the people in her sphere of life. So her focus rests on the individuals among her people, not upon the moral and spiritual structures that support her whole community. Thus, a woman lacks the structure and judgments required for functioning of the entire community, and can often cause major problems, without the input of men whose spirits focus more directly upon God.
Women need what only a man can provide, to keep them from falling into excess or misdirection regarding their works. At the same time, the structured mind of a man frequently misses the spiritual, emotional or physical details required to make right judgments. And God created female minds that are able to provide this information to men. Thus, every church and community needs couples of men and women to deeply and constantly remain in communication with one another, in ways where the two become one flesh, labouring for God as one mind in perfect unity. Otherwise, nothing wise and just can be accomplished in any church or community. Because God made male and female minds function differently, the minds and bodies of two spouses, working together as one, become a powerful force, much greater than the mere sum of the two. So sexual lusts may be very strong, especially among the young and foolish, but those lusts are designed to draw a male and a female together, so their spirits can make a marriage covenant, so they can become a powerful binary force.
But, if a man takes no responsibility for his own sexuality, he becomes a worthless idiot. First he commits ocular adultery in his mind of flesh, then physical acts of adultery. And, in all this, he is only thinking with his mind of flesh, while suppressing his spirit. Thus, there is no spiritual, moral structure being built up in his spirit, no wisdom nor love, absolutely nothing of any real worth. So he has made himself into a selfish, useless parasite. In his mind, women are nothing but pieces of meat, not spirits and souls assigned by God to help that man do God’s works on earth, as they are done in heaven. And he himself begins to live only for what lies between his own legs. Such a man defines his own existence in the most shallow, exploiting, useless terms, as a tool of the devil. Nothing is left of his life. Anything that may have once existed inside his heart dies, until all is led by destructive impulses of his flesh. This is why God wisely counselled: “Flee sexual immorality! ‘Every sin that a man does is outside the body,’ but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (I Cor. 6:18-20, WEB). All men engaging in sexual immorality are empty, worthless exploiters of women. None are real men. For real men take responsibility and built up God’s just kingdom on earth. They live abundant lives of loving and being loved, in ways that the sexually immoral can never know. Mature elect men are builders of solid moral and spiritual structures. And all other men are destroyers of God’s just, equitable kingdom, who serve only Satan.
God has granted men a greater ability in their minds of flesh, the ability to take what their spirits hear from Him and systematically store those thoughts, in their minds of flesh, in a structured and accessible manner. Women have less of an ability to do this, although some are able to do this far better than immoral men. Because God created women for different works, their minds of flesh tend to compromise, confuse, weaken, over emphasize, distort or misapply God teachings, although God also teaches the minds of their spirits. The way female minds of flesh store God’s teachings, which He equally grants to their spirits, is not as useful in matters of moral and spiritual judgments, not as Page 363
structured and functional as the way male minds of flesh can store, retrieve and apply the just, loving principles of God’s laws and ways. However, on the other hand, the way female minds of flesh store the whole array of the teachings God gives to their spirits, a good woman can more randomly access those truths. Thus, a good woman’s mind of flesh is more useful in the daily and widely varied applications of those truths, in the unconditional love that an elect woman expresses in the works she is called to do for her people. Therefore, neither the man nor the woman is spiritually greater or more valued than the other, just different. And both sexes need one another, to do all that God wants them to do, to fulfill their destinies. Even single men and single women need the input of the opposite sex at times. Men need female observations and opinions to make just judgments, and women need the spiritual and moral structures provided by good men. While we live in flesh on earth, every just and godly people requires both male and female voices, though there are no males or females in heaven.
Of course, God wanted most men and women to be married, although not all. God wants a male and a female to become one mind and body of flesh, serving Him by serving His creations in a true marriage. He wants both spirits to build up, develop and share a truly loving covenant of marriage with one another. But that covenant can be broken by sexual immorality or other sins that shatter the trust each places in the other. This commitment of a spirit cannot function in a spirit that is bound to the other through a deep trust and knowledge of the other, if one spouse’s mind of the spirit is taken captive by amoral, loveless flesh. For the mind of flesh knows nothing about trust, nor the kind of love and commitment that spirits build upon foundations of trust, and will sin to destroy that trust.
Even if a true marriage covenant had been formed between the spirits of a husband and wife, the two often cannot continue to trust and serve one another if that covenant is broken through one’s sexual immorality, or by some other kind of trust-destroying sin. Most often, that covenant is completely and permanently ripped out of the heart of the victimized spouse, in a painful way that God will not restore, not without the sinner’s full repentance, with spiritual fruits of repentance. And that kind of repentance seldom occurs because the sexually immoral one is usually walking according to his or her mind of flesh, not according to the spirit. But, if God refuses to restore a marriage covenant for a spirit, then that covenant simply cannot ever be restored, because God is the only witness who can ratify that covenant, or cause it to effectively bind spirits together in love. For all love is from God.
So, to keep our marriages, our spirits must rely upon our God, look to Him for His help to make our spirits strong enough to manage our flesh, so we will not fall into sin. Jesus trains our flesh to walk according to our spirits’ control, in His counsel. But, if one spouse ignores Him, and walks according to the lusts and cravings of one’s flesh, that one’s spirit will not strengthen the marriage covenant, but weaken and possibly destroy it. Spirits of both spouses must learn to manage their minds of flesh adequately, by heeding God’s Spirit and causing their flesh to submit, so each can grow and build up one’s own loving inner trust and wisdom which binds one to the other, to become one mind and body of flesh. Yet even ocular adultery, including pornography, can grow into a sin of adultery. For it can cause the flesh to usurp control over one’s life within the chamber of one’s soul, then suppress the managing thoughts of one’s spirit, until one sins and breaks trust. And ocular adultery can work against either one’s present or future spouse, since it conditions the flesh to rule over one’s life, either during or before marriage. Ocular adultery transforms one into a carnal fool, inhibiting any true spiritual companionship, friendship or loving bonds, preventing all covenants ratified by God.
Women simply want to be noticed and cherished by men. But, in a dead and unjust society, the only way they can do that is by becoming more sexually attractive. Thus, many women instinctively dress in provocative clothes, or take off their clothes entirely in some circumstances. They even learn and practise sexually alluring ways of talking and walking, in the hope that they might lure the eyes of Page 364
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certain desired men into committing the sin of ocular adultery. But their intent is often merely to initiate a deeper relationship. However, undesired men are also attracted to their sexually alluring flesh. So they tell those men to take responsibility for their own sexuality and to stop looking at them in such a carnal way. Yet whose spirit did not take responsibility for their own sexuality first, the undesired man or the woman who dressed and acted in a sexually provocative manner? In reality, given their instinctual need to initiate relationships, women are less guilty than the men who lust after their flesh, because men are to take up their spiritual responsibility to provide sound spiritual and moral structures for the women in any society. However, women have equal spirits, elect spirits that can hear and heed God’s Holy Spirit. Therefore, elect women must do so, and not become fools like the carnal women who cannot love and cannot hear God’s Spirit speaking in their hearts. And, if neither those women nor those men take any responsibility for their own sexuality, love cannot exist.
Still, some women insist that they have the right to dress in any way they desire, to express their sexuality, simply because they are lonely and want attention, as well as sexual gratification. Of course, these women are partly right. Because their society is so unjust and superficial, they do feel a need to dress and act in sexually provocative ways. And they strongly feel this need mostly because the godless men in their society promote ocular adultery, thus making it extremely difficult for a woman to dress and act in any other way. Even a good and godly elect woman will compromise and dress in a sexually provocative way, if that is the only way that the spiritually bankrupt men in her society will allow her to compete with other women, for the attention of the men in her church or community. For most women cannot help but desire and need male attention. So, if the men in her church or community are stupid and shallow, she will have no other choice but to compete with other women for male attention in those stupid and shallow ways. Otherwise, she may never initiate any kind of relationship with a man, nor enter a marriage union, or possibly lose a man she married to a
“hotter” woman. Thus, blame women for all this is not the way to stop all this insanity. Rather, the only real solution is to get the men in the church and community to do what they do best, to teach truth and wisdom that their spirits learn from God’s Spirit, then make right judgments and act wisely.
It is never enough to make rules and demand: “that women also adorn themselves in decent clothing, with modesty and propriety; not just with braided hair, gold, pearls, or expensive clothing; but (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works” (I Tim. 2:9-10, WEB). In fact, it is stupid to make such rules if the men in a church remain carnal, and live according to the thoughts of their minds of flesh. Yes, this can and should be asked of elect women, but only in a spiritually true and mature church, where men walk according to their spirits in Christ. It cannot be asked of women in a false church or in a spiritually dead community, where they use terrorism to enforce unjust laws.
It is only fair and just to ask women to dress modestly if men first learn to serve the real God a just, equitable way through loving righteousness, in a wise way, in a way where their spirits have learned directly from Jesus, where Jesus is the one and only Head of each man. First let the spirits of men forbid their flesh to practise ocular adultery. Then women can be taught to dress modestly. When each man only seeks a wife with whom his spirit is able to form a true marriage covenant, then the woman’s spirit will also seek to form a marriage covenant with him, and she will also become more modest in the physical aspects of her clothing. If each man wants a woman to be his closest friend and companion throughout life, not a sex toy, the external appearances of women will change. In fact, when men are sexually responsible, women are glad to stop trying to lure men with sexy clothes and jewellery used as eye candy to attract male eyes to their best sexual features. Of course, women still want to express godly feelings and messages through their clothing and appearances, or act in Page 365
sexually provocative ways while alone with their husbands. But, in a right environment structured by faithful men, women will be free to develop and express their spiritual and intellectual gifts for such.
Mat. 5:33-37,
Promises or Oaths
“Again you have heard that it was said to them of old time, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall perform to the Lord your vows,’ but I tell you, don’t swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can’t make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’
Whatever is more than these is of the evil one.” (Mat. 5:33-37, WEB).
After Jesus taught about divorce, one of His disciples likely began to think about the covenant of marriage. And he was likely thinking in terms of humanistic types of oaths, which both Jews and Romans enforced through terrorism. Then this man remembered how God, through Malachi, once taught: “Y
ahweh has been witness between you and the wife of your youth , against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion , and the wife of your covenant . D
id He not
m
ake you one, although He had the residue of the spirit ? Why one? He sought a godly seed.
Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth”
(Mal. 2:14-15, WEB). So this man, influenced by pagan humanism through his Jewish rabbis, was confused. For, through Malachi, God spoke about a man’s spirit making a marriage covenant. But humanistic Jews and Romans taught that the “free will” of a man’s mind chose to make a contract of marriage, then forced his will on a wife through terrorism, through threats of putting her to death.
In reality, God makes a man and a woman become one flesh through a covenant of love that He also creates in their spirits, where God Himself is the witness who ratifies that covenant. God does this because He owns both their bodies and their spirits. God not only owns each spouse’s “residue of the spirit” (all the choices, commitments and thoughts produced by the spirit), but actually possesses the entire human spirit in each spouse. As their Owner, God is actually the one who arranges marriages, decides whom each of His elect children will marry, but guiding, teaching and training their spirits to produce a “residue” or effects which lead them to one another. Yet God merely shapes the spirits of spouses, and does not autocratically control their spirits. He did not create robots, but children whom He educates into maturity. So God causes a man to choose his bride. Or, more likely as not, God will cause a woman to choose her husband and initiate a relationship. Also, under God’s Law, a woman was granted the right to either accept a marriage proposal or reject it, without undue coercion—just as Rebekah was asked to choose if she would be the wife of Isaac (Gen. 24:58). For no spirit can become a true companion of another spirit, and grow a covenant of love, if the spirit is not willing.
God predestines and directs all that influences all our decisions while we live in flesh on earth, since all earthly time is predestined. Still, He uses earthly time to teach and train the spirits of His elect children, so those spirits might gain knowledge, wisdom and love through all the predestined times He created for each of them. Therefore, the wills of elect spirits in each elect man and each equally elect woman learn to make very real decisions, even though their physical lives are predestined. For the physical teaches and trains their spirits to make right choices, since this is the role and purpose of all the earth. Thus, each one’s elect spirit, if it is awakened and learns what God wants it to learn, can learn to limit one’s own life in the flesh for the sake of one’s spouse. Each one’s spirit can make a promise or covenant, to unconditionally fulfill one’s own commitment to serve with a spouse, as one Page 366
Mat. 5:33-37, Promises or Oaths
body of flesh, both for their shared purposes of God. And each does this to build one earthly temple of God, full of just love, a temple of flesh that serves Him in a greater capacity than two individual temples could. Each works with the other to maintain that one temple, to keep it repaired, clean and able to serve God. This also means they might bear “godly seed,” give birth to God’s elect children, whom they diligently, wisely and lovingly serve in God’s name, patiently teaching them to be just, loving children, whose spirits will serve God too, and multiply the works of their parents’ hands.
But the disciple who asked Jesus the question about oaths seems to have thought about this passage from Malachi in more carnal terms, and believed marriage covenants were vows made before human witnesses, with words spoken through the will of the flesh. He apparently thought something like this: “Jesus declared that divorce was acceptable when a spouse discovered some kind of sexual immorality. But, if there was sexual immorality, the spouse who did it, who broke a marriage vow, should be stoned to death, not divorced. If sexual immorality is the only reason that anyone can get a divorce, then a divorce is never actually possible, since sexual immorality always ends in death.” So this disciple now wanted Jesus to eliminate his confusion, and likely asked Jesus a question along these lines: “Now God said, ‘You shall fear Yahweh your God; and you shall serve Him, and shall swear by His name’ [Deut. 6:13, WEB]. Then God also said, ‘ You shall not swear by My name falsely, and profane the name of your God’ [Lev. 19:12, WEB] Therefore, if one swears to fulfill a marriage oath in God’s name, before a rabbi and other witnesses, then how can one be divorced if one breaks that oath? For, if anyone commits the sins of sexual immorality and profaning God’s name, then one must pay the penalty for those sins. Then the elders must stone that sinner, and death will end the marriage. However, if one did not actually commit those sins, and the elders acquit that one, then the marriage covenant will remain as it was, and there will be no reason to divorce. If the spouse is acquitted, then the two must remain married, just as God demanded through Malachi, the prophet.”
When Jesus gave this teaching about oaths (Mat. 5:33-37), He seemed to be answering the question of a man who did not seem to realize that a marriage covenant was not a vow made by the mind of flesh and ratified by human witnesses, who are all sinners. In other words, the disciple who had asked Jesus a question did not actually comprehend what God taught through Malachi. For there God stated that a marriage covenant is an inner commitment made by the spirits of spouses who heed the will of God. And true marriage covenants can only be truly ratified by the witness of God.
A real marriage covenant is not a vow made through the “free will” of a man, since God’s Word defines all those kinds of choices as mere fantasies of the flesh. Nor can a marriage covenant ever become binding by the testimonies and carnal wills of other men. And, actually, God obviously did not ever command anyone to make any kind of vow or oath at all. Rather, God only commanded those who made vows and oaths in His name to make sure they tried to keep those oaths, and to make only the kinds of oaths that would cause them to develop a deeper relationship with Him. Also, His people of Israel were to remember that almost everything they said or did would reflect upon His reputation. Furthermore, no one could possibly control their own destiny, nor even predict whether or not one would live to see tomorrow. Thus, how could anyone make a vow or oath to do anything in future? To make any kind of honest vow or oath, a person would need to be omnipotent, able to control all that occurred on earth and in the universe, to ensure that all the right circumstances would align in a way that allowed one to fulfill one’s oath or vow, and prevent oneself or the entire earth from being destroyed before it was fulfilled. Either that, or one would need to know the future to honestly declare that one would fulfill a vow or oath. Basically, unless one was the omnipotent God who knows the future, it was utterly impossible to make any kind of vow or oath in an honest way.
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So Jesus declared: “[You people are] not to swear under any circumstances; not in [the name of]
heaven, because heaven is [the property] of God; nor in [the name of] the earth, because it is the footstool of His feet; nor for Jerusalem, because it is a city of the great King. Neither should [one of]
you swear in [the name of] your head, because you are not able to make one hair white or black. So your reasoned word must be ‘Yes, yes,’ or ‘No, no.’ But anything beyond this is originating from evil” (Mat. 5:34-37, from: μὴ ὀμόσαι ὅλως· μήτε ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὅτι θρόνος ἐστὶν τοῦ θεοῦ· μήτε ἐν
τῇ γῇ, ὅτι ὑποπόδιόν ἐστιν τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ· μήτε εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα, ὅτι πόλις ἐστὶν τοῦ μεγάλου
βασιλέως· μήτε ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ σου ὀμόσῃς, ὅτι οὐ δύνασαι μίαν τρίχα λευκὴν ποιῆσαι ἢ μέλαιναν.
ἔστω δὲ ὁ λόγος ὑμῶν ναὶ ναί, οὒ οὔ· τὸ δὲ περισσὸν τούτων ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ ἐστιν, SBLGNT).
All promises—even little ones, but definitely the formal ones such as covenants, contracts, oaths and vows—are to be honest words managed by our spirits, words that our spirits cause our mouths of flesh to utter. Every promise must be a spirit’s genuine commitment before God, a heart-felt “Yes” to God, whenever God asks the spirit to say or do something, or an equally sincere “Yes” to the earthly souls for whom you intend to do something. And certainly, every promise must be made with the caveat, “if God is willing to let me fulfill it.” This is why many add the words, “so help me God,”
after making a promise. And the Law commands us to make all our promises, vows and oaths in the name of God, that is, according to His will and in His power, where God is the only ratifying witness between us and the party with whom we make the promise. For only God’s will and power allows us to fulfill any promise. And, if we do not make a promise according to God’s will, it is a false promise or a lie, because we have no power of our own that is able to fulfill any kind of promise we might make. And, since God condemns both false promises and lies, God will never help one keep a false promise, unless He uses the fulfilling of the carnal promise to punish that dishonest one’s sin, and let that liar reap what one sowed. God will not make a lie into a truth. Rather, God exposes all lies. So all false and dishonest promises, all that are not made by the commands of God’s Spirit, will be automatically rendered null and void by God. The only valid promises, vows or oaths we can ever make are those which God’s Spirit commands our spirits to make, those which are ratified by our Owner, by the Creator of all human beings and all that exists. This is why our God Jesus firmly exhorted us to never make a promise, vow or oath through our human wills alone, but to be more honest in our dealings with others. He expects each spirit to honestly admit one’s own limitations.
Let us accept the reality that we have no ability keep any kind of promise, and simply tell people that we will either make a sincere effort to do what they ask, or we will not. And, if we cannot do what they ask, because we made other commitments, then we should respond with a definite “No.” For, in Greek, Jesus repeated the words twice, “No, no” (οὒ οὔ). This repetition indicated a definite and certain “No.” For we must not deceive others with false hopes, when we know we are not likely to even try to fulfill a promise. But, if a spirit hears God, and God wants one to try to fulfill a promise, we can answer with a definite “Yes,” as indicated by the repetition of the words, “Yes, yes” (ναὶ ναί), although, even then, we should add, “God willing.” For, if God wants us to “try” to do something, it does not necessarily mean He will cause us to succeed in doing it. Unless God promises that we will succeed in our attempt to do that thing, we may not succeed. That is, God teaches and trains our spirits through our actions, and wants us to try many things. Yet we learn more through our failures than through our successes. So we know that we will not always succeed in what He calls us to do.
If someone asks us to do something, and God’s Spirit tells our spirits to say “Yes” with our whole hearts, through our spirits’ love, we must also pray: “So God help us to fulfill this commitment of our hearts, for the sake of Your name. Do not let the evil one slander Your name, nor bring harm to Your people. If You are willing, send us Your power to work good. Allow us to share in a small part Page 368
Mat. 5:33-37, Promises or Oaths
of Your works here on earth, for Your name’s sake, and for our own joy. We know we are utterly incapable of controlling anything, and cannot see the future. We cannot even know if we will live long enough to fulfill any commitment of our hearts. But our hearts long to partake in Your loving works as long as we live.” In other words, our spirits must be humble before our God and before other souls. Grounded in God’s created reality on this earth, every awake elect spirit realizes that it is an ignorant, weak and infantile entity requiring much teaching and training from the Holy Spirit of Jesus, and definitely is not capable of fulfilling any kind of commitment without the power and will of God causing necessary events. All the awakened elect will soon learn “not to swear under any circumstances.” All learn to simply make inner intentions as clear as possible, and hope upon Jesus.
Through James, God taught us: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.’ Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For you ought to say, ‘ I f the Lord wills , we will both live, and do this or that .’ But now you glory in your boasting. A
ll such boasting is evil . T o him therefore who knows to do good, and
doesn’t do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:13-17, WEB). Clearly God was talking about our body of flesh being a vapour that soon vanishes—since James knew the spirit and soul could never perish like mist in the sun and wind. Whether or not one is honest enough to admit spirits are eternal, they are eternal, and each spirit on earth will be granted a new body, made of a spiritual substance, after death, then exist forever in an eternal realm. Since our flesh will soon vanish into nothing, we do not live for the flesh, but walk according to our spirits, as God educates our spirits within this flesh. For the eternal places are not predestined, not like the material universe. Those who go to hell will have
“free will,” and make choices in their wicked hearts, without manipulations from a brain and body of flesh, although those non-elect will possess absolutely nothing to fulfill any of their desires. Only the elect spirits will be utterly purified on the judgment day, taught to perfection and completion. Then they will descend from the gates of judgment into heaven. And, after they desire only good, through love, they will forever use their free will to serve all life there, for its good, labouring beside Jesus.
In the meantime, while we live in vaporous flesh on this earth for a short time, our daily work is to let Jesus teach and train our elect spirits. Our spirits must learn truth and how to apply it wisely through genuine love, the kind that originates from God and is found in God. And this training will involve nullifying much evil and building up much of His just, equitable, loving kingdom. We are not to waste our time on earth pursuing selfish ambitions and the gratification of carnal greed or other lusts of the flesh. Yet God can even use the emptiness of a forfeited abundant life on earth as a painful lesson for some elect spirits, when they face Him on the judgment day. When those elect die and their spirits painfully realize their great loss, how they accomplished nothing of real value during the earthly lives, their godly sorrow shall more firmly establish His truths within their spirits. All the elect who did not faithfully serve His priesthood during their lives on earth will repent on that day.
But let us now allow our spirits to wait for Yahweh, until He decides to visit our spirits seated in these bodies of flesh. Then let our entire souls, both our minds of flesh and minds of our spirits, focus on hearing and heeding His words, regarding every aspect of our lives. We need to practise this attention to the Holy Spirit of Jesus throughout our lives on earth, and do His works, though we will fail more often than we succeed. And, if God gifts some with a little more strength or skill in a few kinds of labours, if He enables some to serve better in some works, let those elect remember they are utterly dependant on Him. For only Jesus, our God, causes the circumstances which make our words and deeds effective, to bear good fruit. Yet Jesus can also take away all He granted, from those who abuse His gifts. In a moment, He can confound a gift or skill, nullify it completely, or even remove Page 369
it. Or He can take one’s whole life of flesh from the earth. Therefore, there can be no personal glory for anyone, in body or in spirit. None can take credit for God’s gift of attributes, in either the body or the spirit. Rather, one can only do His works through His gifts and through His power, to personally learn His ways from Him. Any personal glory is a lie whispered in a mind of flesh by the evil one, or by one of his non-elect minions. The only reward we need, and should seek, is the joy of our spirits as we learn to love in truth and wisdom, as we see God’s loving, just works done on earth, knowing He allowed us to partake in those works. To forfeit all this will only result in the spirit’s painful regret on the last day. Jesus has called His elect to share in His good works, so let our spirits heed His calling. For, if one “knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin,” where God’s Spirit shall raise a wall between Himself and sin—though He tears it down through a spirit’s repentance.
Now look at how the religious leaders of first-century Israel found ways to avoid making promises in God’s name, how they studiously contrived ways of not saying or doing God’s works according to His authority, power, will and calling. In fact, those rabbis stopped using the names of God entirely, and even severely punished those who spoke His name, Yahweh. They wanted their people to swear in the name of heaven, of the earth, of things on the earth, or God’s temple in Jerusalem. Some even taught the people to utter curses upon their own heads, which they somehow believed would come to pass if they failed to keep their promises, although God alone bears this right, the choice to bless or to curse anyone. Instead of making an oath, vow or promise from the spirit in the heart in God’s own name, in a way where one seeks His help to fulfill it, and only desires to say and do whatever God Himself calls one to say or do, those blind guides told souls that they themselves must cause their own human wills to accomplish whatever they promised. In other words, those fake teaching elders were humanists, not pure theists who worshipped the real God in spirit and in truth. For humanists teach the people that they are their own gods, who able to control their own destinies. Then, as mere humanists, those fake pastors also caused their people to “glory” and boast in how they themselves kept their promises. But God proclaimed that “all such boasting is evil,” and forbade all these things.
Their man-made traditions sinfully disobeyed God’s command to use His name incessantly, in all their godly words and deeds, so they might have good opinions of their heavenly Father and grow closer to Him. For those false teachers wanted glory for themselves instead. Then they bribed the people to believe their lies, by allowing them to receive small payments of some scraps of glory for themselves too. Yet those fakes still had to outwardly appear to be worshipping the God of Israel, so they could maintain their deception, so the people would trust in them as priests of God. So they misdirected the attention of the people away from God, towards the physical things that God created and commanded. Those fakes told the people to focus on the physical aspect of rituals, pretending that God intended those rituals to be performed in ways that would manipulate Him into blessing them. Those false priests acted as though rituals were a pagan-like magic that ruled over all God’s decisions. Then they vilified any prophet or teacher who reminded the people that God commanded those rituals so they would meditate upon Him and His works. Then those liars also distracted the people away from God Himself, by turning all their attention on the temple and other earthly things.
This is why those heirs of the devil, after infiltrating the church of Israel, wanted their people to swear upon an imagined materialist version of heaven, as though their own human wills could say or do works “in the name of heaven,” and as though heaven, not God in heaven, possessed some kind of authority, power or will to ratify their promises. However, God commanded them to swear “in His name,” to choose what they would say or do according to His will, power and authority alone. And heaven is God’s property, because He created it from within Himself, and the creator is the Owner.
So the people certainly had no right to demand that the lands of heaven must ratify their promises.
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Mat. 5:33-37, Promises or Oaths
Then, clearly, none had any right to demand that anyone or anything upon God’s creation of the temporary earth must ratify one’s own promises either. For there is no human authority that is able to cause even blade of grass to live or die, nor change anything in the future or past. For the earth also belongs to God alone, and was created for His comfort, as His “footstool,” as the place where He found His eternal rest at the beginning of His eternal Sabbath. For God no longer served Himself from the seventh day on, but only served His elect children and all His other beloved creatures which He made for Himself. And that is rest for Him. Nor must one ever swear “for Jerusalem,” in either a nationalistic pride or religious zeal. For that city, like all the other cities on earth, is a city belonging to “the great King,” to the Messiah who is Immanuel, “God among us.” We are to be loyal to our one God, to our King, Jesus. We are not to be loyal to any city or nation whose rule has been usurped from God and stolen by men, even by psychopathic heirs of Satan. When those lying priests wanted the people to make promises, oaths and vows “for Jerusalem,” they were actually saying they wanted the people to fulfill their false and illicit obligations to them, to their fake religion and false religious leaders, as well as to their nation and to the human gods pretending to be their national leaders. Yet God commanded us to reserve all our zeal for Him alone, for Jesus, since only He can bless our churches, if we remain faithful, and only He can bless our lands, if we walk according to His will.
Furthermore, in the light of all God faithfully and honestly proclaimed truths through His prophets and apostles, who can be so arrogant as to think that he or she can edit and judge God’s Word, in a way that claims we should not make promises “in His name,” but in some other name? Or who is so vain as to think he or she is able to say or do whatever one promises to say or do, without seeking the permission and help of God? And how can anyone think they can place either blessings or curses upon themselves, according to their own wills, by declaring curses upon themselves if they fail to fulfill their own promises, or blessings if they do manage to fulfill them. This is actually the act of commanding God Himself to curse or bless one’s own head, since none but God has the power to bless or curse. And who do they think they are, if they think they bear the authority and power to tell God what to do? All such teachings of false religion are actually forms of the devil’s preferred false religion of humanism, which teaches people to worship themselves and other human beings as gods.
None are able to force heaven and earth to fulfill one’s own promises. What flesh has the power to live one day longer, or change circumstances to obey the ignorant will of one’s own feeble, filthy flesh? Some may think they rule their own lives, or even the lives in churches or nations, and believe their commands cause multitudes to serve their wills. But those stupid souls cannot even be trusted with the responsibility of faithfully washing dishes for the public. And the only reason God grants those useless, vile souls the power to delude, the ability to trick souls into serving their wills, as the worthless “leaders” of Satan’s world order, is to punish their people, when those people do not love the truth. For no human being possesses any real authority or power, not even enough to cause one hair on one’s own head to turn white, nor to make white hair roots produce the natural colour of one’s youth. Much less can anyone keep oneself from pain and death, spiritually or physically. Yes, one can fake it, even make others believe one possesses those powers. But that is just a sinful lie. In reality, all power in heaven and on earth is God’s power. And all human souls are merely servants of the Creator God, where the “greatest” of all receive gifts from Jesus to serve Him for the good of all.
Mat. 5:38-42,
True Justice
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the Page 371
other also. If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and don’t turn away him who desires to borrow from you” (Mat. 5:38-42, WEB).
Jesus had just finished exhorting His disciples to make inner commitments before God alone, from their spirits in their hearts, and avoid making any kind of promises, oaths or vows. Then one disciple must have immediately thought of how Israel had sworn an oat to obey God’s laws, to keep His Old Covenant relationship with them (e.g., Ex. 24:3,7). And, if they did not make an oath to obey God’s Law, how could there be any justice? In this disciple’s mind, everyone had to make this kind of oath, and there could be no exceptions. For God demanded that all the “heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the foreigners who are in the midst” must all make this oath (Deut. 29:10-13, WEB). However, if we actually look at those Scriptures, we find that the people simply agreed with God. Some may call it an oath, but God did not call it an oath. In fact, in all Scriptures, God was the only party in His Old Covenant relationship with Israel who actually swore any oaths or made any vows. And this disciple also seemed to forget that, on the very day God commanded this, Moses also said: “But Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day” (Deut. 29:4, WEB). Only when God would grant them “a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear,” that is, when their Messiah brought His true priesthood of Israel into a New Covenant relationship with Him, would their spirits personally know and love Him, and be granted the ability to comprehend His just, wise truth, as their spirits began to hear the counsel of His Spirit. Even then, they would not fulfill God’s Law because of oaths, but only because God would quicken and shape the wills of their spirits in ways that desired to fulfill His Law. Then God Himself would provide the power and circumstances to make their deeds effective.
Since the disciple who questioned Jesus, and prompted Him to utter this teaching, seemed to think in terms of making emotional and sincere commitments (oaths, vows and promises) strictly through the mind and body of flesh, he did not yet know much about God or His New Covenant. In other words, he was like the so-called “Christians” who practise the religion of humanism in main-line Protestant, Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches of our day. However, as a devout Jew following Jesus, his spirit would have been less silenced and bound by his mind of flesh, far less than all of the spirits of humanists today. So he would have put less confidence in the emotional and deluded thoughts from his mind of flesh, and would not have called such thoughts “religious” and “spiritual.” Still, like the religious humanists of our day, he seemed to think that psyching up his mind of flesh to make an emotional and sincere oath or vow was what God required everyone to do, in order to keep His Law, to keep justice and order in his land, so his land would prosper. If this is true, then he also naturally believed God’s Law was to be interpreted through the mind of flesh. Since his spirit was not yet awake, and able to hear the Spirit of God Himself, he appeared to know nothing about his spirit using his mind and body of flesh to serve God’s through love, how God’s Spirit could teach him the real meaning of His words. Nor did he know that his spirit should manage his flesh to apply God’s Law rightly, in a way that would truly please God. All this man knew was what blind guides taught.
We can surmise that, before Jesus spoke these words (Mat. 5:38-42), some disciple likely asked Him a question which went something like this: “You imply that swearing an oath is evil, when you say that anything beyond a simple ‘yes” or ‘no’ is evil. But all God’s Law is upheld through oaths. And how can there be justice in Israel if the people, especially the elders who judge the people, do not swear an oath to obey and uphold God’s Law? It is only because of their oaths to keep God’s Law that judges bear any authority to administer His Law. If it were not for the oaths those judges make, they could not enforce God’s laws, and could punish no one. Then no one would fear God and all Page 372
would become lawless!” But Jesus did not believe any of this, because none of this man’s logic had been built upon any correct and biblical premises. Since all his assumptions were wrong, so too were all his conclusions. Neither the Scriptures nor God’s created realities will ever make justice depend on the oaths of human wills of flesh, on any of the volatile emotions and ignorant, coerced, deceived, deluded thoughts from minds of flesh. For, if justice did choose to depend on such things, then it would indeed produce lawlessness, since psychopathic liars would make false oaths and take over the land, until all died from the chaos they caused. So, knowing the heart of this disciple, Jesus then taught about true justice. Jesus explained the core principles of justice, and gave us two examples illustrating what is not true justice, followed by two examples of true justice, to define true justice.
Jesus began His response with the words, “You people heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” Here Jesus was not talking about retaliation or revenge. This quote is actually God’s demand for completely equitable justice. At the core of biblical justice is the principle that all must be fair for all. First, one cannot punish with a penalty weightier than God has determined the weight of the offence to be. And He determined how weighty the sins or crimes will be through things like the Ten Commandments, which are listed from the worst and most destructive sins at the top down to the least destructive at the bottom, although a sin can be classified under two or more of those Ten Commandments. For instance, a ninth order sin of lying, if it causes harm or death, is also a sixth order sin. But only God can set the weight of a sin, since all sins are ultimately against God.
So, if an person deliberately damaged another person’s eye, that is, through malicious intent and evil motives, but refused to repent and bear fruits of repentance, the greatest penalty a court could give to that sinner would be to lose one’s own eye (e.g., Ex. 21:23-25, Deut. 19:20-21). But, most often, the perpetrator would pay the equivalent, that is, pay for the suffering and loss of income incurred by the victim due to the loss of the eye. But each penalty had to be adjusted to the income of the sinner. So, if a poor man deliberately destroyed the eye of a rich man, that impoverished sinner would only pay the equivalent income that he would forfeit due to the loss of an eye. But, if a rich man destroyed the eye of a poor person, that rich sinner would pay what he himself would forfeit due to the loss of an eye. For each must sinner must pay a penalty equal to the amount that he values his or her own eye.
So God’s Law demanded that, even if the victim was a rich man or a king, a deliberate unrepentant sinner who injured him could not be penalized more than what that sinner could pay. So, applying this to traffic tickets and law suits, God would only consider a ticketing system or law suit to be just if all tickets and law suits were adjusted according to the income of the defendant who is found to be guilty of an offence. For a sinner only had to pay back his or her own eye, or an equivalent, for an eye one took from another. Also, during a trial, if elders found that some extenuating circumstances precipitated the offence, sin or crime, a lesser penalty could be demanded. Then, of course, if some evidence of true repentance, fruits of repentance and attempts at reconciliation were discovered in the subsequent actions of a sinner, the victim was expected to reconcile with that sinner, so there would be no need for a court case. But, if the sinner refused to forgive and accept atonement for the wrong done to him, and took the matter to court, a just court would not let that victim exact revenge, and would not penalize the sinner. For God did not allow victims, nor vigilante mobs, to take any kind of revenge under any circumstances. All justice was to be equitable, and always accompanied by the works of teaching and judging elders to recover losses and damages as much as possible, so they could restore trust, so the family of the entire community could live in peace, free of all fear.
Second, if God’s kind of justice required an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, then this also meant that, if anyone prevented someone from losing and eye or a tooth, that good deed should be rewarded. For this principle of equity works both ways. This principle of justice did not merely Page 373
legislate penalties for sins, but also rewards for good deeds. It was a law of reciprocation, for either bad or good done by one person to another, and its goal was to establish trust among all the people, where that trust would ultimately enable love to thrive among the people. For love is built on a foundation of trust, and cannot exist between two parties if neither trusts the other. Furthermore, if the people learned to trust one another, then love one another, they would also learn to trust the God who gave them their just laws which enabled their love for one another. But, if a land and its judges become unjust, and falsely practise their injustice in God’s name, then the people will learn to hate God and one another. Therefore, it was critical to practise God’s laws of reciprocation in right ways.
Therefore, if someone helped you to save your own eye or your own tooth, and worked a good deed for you through loving compassion and mercy, you were expected to return the favour. If someone gave to you, you were to give at least the equivalent amount in return, at least as much as the gift, an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth. But this principle of reciprocation had no limits on the love and gifts one could give back, nor any limits on how much anyone could lovingly help others, except the physical limitations of one’s time, energy and resources. Furthermore, although the penalty for an unrepentant sinner was to pay the victim of his or her crime for the losses or damages caused, the reward for a good deed could be paid back to anyone or anything chosen by God. For God gave us the example of this principle in action. That is, God always gave, both in all the material fertility and resources of the earth which belongs to Him, and in His works of maintaining both the earth and the life-giving spirits in all. Yet God never requires anything back for Himself, because He is the richest Entity in all existence, both on earth and in heaven. Rather, all that God wants from us is to do unto others as He has done for us. Yes, He causes punishment for unrepentant evil motives and intentions of our spirits against His owned creations, and thus against Himself. But He never penalizes us as much as we deserve. Likewise, God never expects us to repay Him or His creation nearly as much as He has given us. So let us remember His example as we interpret His just laws, so we too may be loving and just in the same way. For elect spirits were created in His image, from His very Spirit.
So how should we interpret and apply these laws and principles of reciprocation? For one thing, we can also accept repayment “in kind,” that is, we do not need to demand an eye for an eye, but can accept any equivalent amount in terms of labour, time or gifts of other kinds. Then we must take into account a person’s ability to repay. If a poor or weak person receives much and cannot repay much in return, or nothing at all, then we give to that one in the same way God does, expecting nothing in return. Or, if we have enough for all our own needs, and someone wants to repay us for a good deed we did for them, then we can simply ask that one to do good for other worthy souls or God’s natural creations in return, as much as that one is able. These principles apply in law suits as well. If a party prepaid a worker who becomes unable to fulfill his or her financial obligations due to circumstances beyond one’s own control, and is unable to repay the full amount, then party who paid that worker may need to accept that loss. However, judges will need to examine and prove all claims, so they act wisely and do not encourage fraud or other crimes which destroy trust, and thus love, in their people.
Now, keep in mind that Jesus came to fulfill all the Law and the Prophets, not to alter nor nullify any word or intention of God’s Law. So Jesus was teaching about how His New Covenant priesthood of Israel would not only meet all the expectations of God’s Law, but also exceed them. So, yes, Jesus would require equitable justice, as well as continuous good deeds, from all true members of His New Covenant church. All His awakened elect would be their brothers’ keepers, to maintain trust and love among all, with freedom from fear, nullifying the terrorism worked by all the unjust laws of Roman humanism. His new church of Israel must work a more true and equitable justice, even in all the world which His priesthood served. Thus, the next statement He made was this: “Now I reason with Page 374
you people, to not stand against the evil, but whoever strikes you on the right side of the face, also turn to him the other” (Mat. 5:39, from: ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν μὴ ἀντιστῆναι τῷ πονηρῷ· ἀλλʼ ὅστις σε
ῥαπίζει εἰς τὴν δεξιὰν σιαγόνα, στρέψον αὐτῷ καὶ τὴν ἄλλην). Here, Jesus was not teaching us to be pacifists. Rather, in the context of justice pertaining to an eye for an eye, He was declaring that God did not permit His priesthood of Israel to “stand against” evil. What it meant to His Jewish disciples was that God did not allow an individual or mob to take justice into their own hands. They were not to “stand against” evil through violence, by striking back, by removing the eye of the one who took one’s own eye. Rather, each must try to resolve the matter of injustice through peaceful means, by soliciting repentance into the truth. If a reconciliation is not possible, they must take up the matter before a just court with honest, humble and well-taught teaching and judging elders, and let them determine what must be done. Jesus simply confirmed the right interpretation of God’s Law, that which faithful prophets and teachers in Israel were already teaching. Victims were to let authorities handle the evil done to them, through courts, police and armies. None of His disciples were to strike back, to deliver blow for blow, or they would be condemned together with the one who struck first.
Furthermore, Jesus also wanted His true disciples to “stand” with Him, to do His works with Him.
And some of His works involved actions that “undo t
he works of the devil” (λύσῃ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ
διαβόλου, I John 3:8). This might occasionally involve some violence, if it is necessary to defend others or ourselves from the unjust violence of perpetrators. However, we can take a slap on the face without having to resort to violence. We can even take a second slap on the face without too much damage, just a little stinging on our cheeks. So there is no need to escalate the situation by slapping the angry person in the face too. For slapping back will only lead to a full-fledged fight, to more dangerous blows, possibly to real injuries or even death. And keep in mind the society Jesus was living in at that time, where some men would fight to the death if their “honour” was offended by someone slapping them in the face. This is obviously the kind of thing Jesus was talking about here, in this teaching about equitable justice based on God’s principles of an eye for an eye. If we strike back for a small thing, like a slap on the face, we definitely are not going to reconcile whatever the one who slapped us had against us. If we strive only to get revenge against those who harm us, we will never achieve any kind of equitable justice that establishes trust between all and works peace.
Therefore, to “undo the works of the devil,” we must not fight the devil with evil works of our own, with things like lies to counter lies, or violence to counter violence. And we certainly must not keep order by terrorizing the people, by threatening them with inequitable punishments, so they live in fear while psychopaths rule over them. Besides, we know we are utterly weak and powerless, totally unable to overcome demons, nor the individuals and nations God has handed over to their deluding and controlling powers. We can only “undo the works of the devil” though the will and power of Jesus, our God. In Jesus, we can even overcome literally all the demons at once. For Jesus can easily to limit the devil in whatever ways He desires, or command demons to stop their works completely.
Although human spirits are very small and infantile, we can and should partake in the works of Jesus to “undo the works of the devil.” Yet we must do so together with Him, which means we must do so according to His will, by heeding His commands to our spirits. We are not to gratify fleshy lusts like pride, not to directly confront and “stand against” evil, especially not the devil himself. Actually, we seldom have the strength or power to “stand against” other human beings, much less the deceiving and manipulating power of demons. Furthermore, what good does it do to strike blow for blow? The pride and lust for revenge in our manipulated minds of flesh can accomplish nothing good. Yet, in Jesus, we are able to entirely “undo” the evil works of both men and demons. We can restore trust and love among the people by humbly admitting our own sins and weaknesses, by speaking the truth Page 375
through love, by giving away the excess we receive from Jesus, and by doing all in our Lord’s just, equitable, wise, effective ways. We only need to let the Holy Spirit of Jesus command our spirits to do things in His way. People think that making a stand against evil must involve guns and terrorism, that this is the only way to overcome or eliminate evil. But that way is, at best, extremely inefficient, and most often causes extreme collateral damage, unjust captivity, injuries or deaths to countless innocent souls. The only good way to overcome evil is to do so beside Jesus, by heeding the counsel and commands of His Holy Spirit to our spirits. Then we will effectively expose the delusions and lies which are inciting evil, and bring the light of truth to the hearts and spirits of many sinners, with no collateral damage to the innocent. In Jesus, we will have the strength for the difficult works of building up trusting, loving, just, equitable lands within God’s Kingdom, all built upon that freeing foundation of truth. These kinds of works require more unity with Him and one another, so we can complete His works with wisdom, intelligence, research, planning, time, effort, resources, skilled labour and patience. So this is much harder than taking a direct “stand against” evil, by stupidly acting through violence. However, the results are always superior, for long term peace and freedom.
If we want God’s kind of true, equitable justice, then it will not simply involve punishing evil out of a carnal lust for revenge. Nor will it involve coercing souls to make oaths and terrorizing them so they will obey laws, neither God’s laws nor man’s laws. For the the flesh is never truly capable of making any real commitments or covenants of the heart to do good through God-like love. And the flesh cannot hear nor heed the Holy Spirit of God, since His Spirit only gives His counsel to our elect spirits, and seldom speaks to our spirits through our ears of flesh. And, ultimately, this is what God’s Law actually wanted, the covenants and commitments of our spirits made through love, and witnessed by Him alone. The only time physical punishments will be absolutely necessary would be in dealings with the brood of Satan, since they only understand and respond to threats, to their fear of the rod of punishment. Yet, neither God’s Old Covenant Law nor Jesus has ever allowed the victim of evil to take revenge, to “stand against” evil, through anger and amoral, irrational, unjust emotions of the flesh. Nor was “mob justice” ever allowed, since Jesus also came to fulfill the law: “You shall not follow a crowd to do evil” (Ex. 23:2, WEB). All forms of vigilantism are called sins against God.
Instead, every criminal and sinner was to be granted a biblical kind of trial, one which carefully and honestly examines, then cross-examines, multiple witnesses and testimonies, to understand the offender’s intentions and motives, both during and after the offence. And this was to be done by the proper authorities, who were chosen from the men whom God had previously chosen for those very purposes, from men who were taught, trained, called and sent by God Himself. No person nor mob had any right to usurp the roles of God’s chosen judges. The due processes of His Law—dealt by multiple gifted and appointed servants of God and the people, by proper authorities who are able to provide just and true teachings, wise counsel and right decisions which will truly please our loving, merciful God—are required in every circumstance. Every individual sinner or criminal bears a right to a fair trial. Even individuals from criminal gangs or enemy nations possess this right under God, whenever we are forced to defend innocent souls in any just war against any unjust gang or nation.
Therefore, instead of striking back at “whoever strikes you on the right side of the face, also turn to him the other.” Then you can begin to do the hard work of finding and exposing the truth, repenting from one’s own sins, bearing fruits of repentance, and reconciling differences as much as possible, without causing any further injustice or evil to be worked either by oneself or by the one who had slapped you. Begin with a prayer for the truth, and let your spirit receive all the Holy Spirit of Jesus wants to tell you about the situation. And remember that any injustice done to you will not likely be undone in a day. Still, if Jesus tells your spirit to speak some words of truth at that moment, then do Page 376
so. And do it through respect and love, knowing your “enemy” may have an elect spirit, may be an undiscovered brother or sister in God’s family. Treat the offender as your equal. Do not let the devil use your anger to dehumanize any soul, not through any lies he might cast into your heart and mind.
If someone slaps you on the face, and you did not think you deserved it and do not know why that one did this, then you must first find out why. Then you might be able to repent then and there, with fruits of repentance. But you will need to do some genuine research first, if it is a false accusation.
You, or someone acting on your behalf, must ask questions of first-hand witnesses, and examine those testimonies, carefully and candidly. And you must remember that “he who pleads his cause first seems right; until another comes and questions him” (Prov. 18:17, WEB). And as you gather testimonies and evidence, trust most those who have already proven to be honest and correct most often. Never blindly believe anyone, and do not trust a big name or celebrity as your expert witness.
Just as God commanded, we need to look at the evidence before making judgments, and seek other opinions from true experts, from those experienced in interpreting and cross-examining it. Finally, we must make a plan to confront injustice, based on wise, solid, godly advise from those proven to be truly effective in understanding and doing God’s will. For, “where there is no counsel, plans fail; but in a multitude of counsellors they are established” (Prov. 15:22, WEB). During and after all this, we continue to pray and open the minds of our spirits to the correcting guidance of Jesus’ Holy Spirit. We must walk according to all that Jesus tells our spirits. We must not let anger or desires of our flesh silence and suppress our spirits in our souls. We need to let Jesus warns our spirits about lies and confirms truths, and even direct our thoughts to the most relevant details. After all this, we can confront a liar or unwitting sinner, or ask the church to confront that one, or go to the police and courts of the government which God established and owns in the land, or sue in a court. We must do whatever Jesus calls us to do, to undue evil works and build up God’s just and equitable kingdom on earth. And remember above all, our goal is to nullify evil works, not to nullify any evil human lives.
When Jesus told us not to take a “stand against the evil,” He meant that we must not do so either as His body of the church, nor personally and directly. He told His disciples, as a group (indicated by the pronoun ὑμῖν), that we are “not to stand against the evil” (Mat. 5:39, from: μὴ ἀντιστῆναι τῷ
πονηρῷ, SBLGNT). And here the negative with the aorist infinitive form of νθίστημι meant that we are not to even begin to “be in opposition to, set oneself against, oppose; be resistant to power, resist” (BDAG3). So Jesus was actually saying that God’s kind of true, equitable and loving justice is not about defending the church, and certainly not about gratifying one’s emotions and pride of the flesh, not from little insults like a slap in the face. When Jesus used the illustration of a slap in the face, He obviously was not talking about violence or murder, not about attacks that we might need to fight against or flee from, nor about criminal offences against us, not about the kinds of things that His Law calls us to justly defend against. Rather, a slap in the face was merely a degrading insult in those days, not considered to be violence nor an assault, although a slap might be called a physical assault in our day. So Jesus was saying that such little matters were not worth too much of our time and effort. There is no need for a costly and often prolonged legal battle, if we cannot settle the matter quickly. For we need our short time on earth for far more important matters of life and love.
We need to choose our battles wisely, not waste our time with countless fights over worthless things.
Likewise, Jesus did not want us to worry about money too much either. If we take a financial loss to appease an unreasonable opponent, or to prevent a law suit, it does not matter much. In those days, a tunic (χιτῶν) cost quite a bit, but a robe (ἱμάτιον) cost much more, at least a month’s wages. Then both together could be as much as a year’s wages for a common labourer. Yet Jesus said, “If [there is] one wanting to sue you and to take your tunic, give him also the robe” (Mat. 5:40, ALT). For it is Page 377
better to lose money, in an attempt to restore a broken relationship with someone who is angry with you, than it is to quibble about money and lose precious time in a short life. So, with this, and the previous Scriptures, Jesus illustrated that true justice is not about petty quarrels over pride, money or the emotions of the flesh. Thus, Jesus gave us two examples of what
is not true justice . And Jesus
often gave two or more examples because all matters had to be established as the truth by two or more witnesses. Then Jesus provided us with two more examples to illustrate what
is true justice ,
what is important to “stand against,” as two more “witnesses” of truth from God’s Law to His elect.
Jesus did not want us to think our work and time was so important that we could not engage in any public service. We must not think we are entitled to exemptions from working for the good of all the people in our land. Rather, we must remain grounded in reality, knowing that none are greater than any others, and keep a realistic, humble view of ourselves. Now, back then, a Roman soldier could compel, by law, any non-citizen to carry his pack for about a mile, as a public service. So Jesus said,
“And whoever might compel you into public service for one mile, go with him two” (Mat. 5:41, from: καὶ ὅστις σε ἀγγαρεύσει μίλιον ἕν, ὕπαγε μετʼ αὐτοῦ δύο, SBLGNT, ἀγγαρεύω means “press or compel into public service”). Since a soldier provided several essential public services, especially safety through policing, Jesus’ disciples are not to begrudgingly help a soldier (or policeman) as he provides those services. We should not only do what he requires, but even freely and willingly help in excess of that, to serve the people’s government. And notice how Jesus used a secular Roman law as an example of how God expected His religious Law to be fulfilled by us. He used a man-made law, created by secular humanists and usually administered and enforced by the despised and often immoral Roman soldiers. For Jesus wanted us to let His light shine out into Satan’s corrupt world order, through our good works done through love, by helping our fellow man, secular souls. For our own elect siblings, elect spirits able to love, may dwell there, souls who need both our help and love.
Next, Jesus gave an example of how true justice provided care for the needy. This was His second witness testifying about how we can fulfill God’s Law. He said, “Wholly give to the one asking, and do not turn away the one wanting to borrow from you” (Mat. 5:42, ALT). For God knew every land had ruthless exploiters causing poverty. Therefore, God’s Law commanded His priests and all His governing officials to equitably distribute the goods and services in His land. Through Moses and the Old Covenant Law, God commanded: “For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land” (Deut. 15:11, WEB). And the way God commanded His priesthood and secular government to care for the poor was through a form of taxation, such as tithing and other compulsory gifts to God, as well as through a compulsory lending system. The government was to enforce His laws regarding compulsory loans that the wealthy had to make to the poor. Anyone with excess was force to freely lend one’s excess to the needy, to provide for any dire needs of anyone in their land (Deut. 15:1-11).
Every well-to-do individual was forced to give an interest-free loan to anyone who asked for any necessary thing—such as to purchase food for the family or even to provide basic hospitality for guests, as well as to provide adequate shelter or repairs for a shelter, adequate clothing, medical care, proper education, emergency assistance, farming equipment or anything required to perform one’s occupation, and anything else that was a legitimate need, anything required to maintain an average acceptable lifestyle in society. Then all these interest-free loans were to be completely forgiven when the Sabbath (seventh) year began (i.e., God commanded Israel to divide time into seven-year periods for various purposes, such as to leave the land fallow for the poor and for nature to recover, and to forgive debts). God’s Law did not allow a person with excess to refuse to give a loan, even if he knew the borrower could never repay it before the Sabbath year began. If a wealthy person knew the Page 378
Sabbath year began the very next day, and the loan would be forgiven the very next day, he or she was not allowed to refuse to lend money to the needy who asked for it. So this sixth-order law of God was another form of taxation for the wealthy, a law to be enforced by His secular authorities and by His church. And it was considered a crime of robbery if a wealthy person refused to lend to the needy. This was just as important as tithing. And, if anyone stole from the needy by not tithing or not lending money to them, it was also considered to be stealing from God, since the needy belong to Him. So God expected even the most ruthless rich to practise civic responsibility in His kingdom of the earth. And it was for their own good. For, to maintain personal wealth, the rich had to make every soul in the land prosperous enough to never need to lend from them at all. Otherwise, if the rich exploited the people, and many grew so poor that they required loans for necessities every day, it would soon make all those wealthy exploiters just as poor as them. Either the rich paid fair wages and charged fair prices, either they took their public responsibility seriously, or none could be rich.
Therefore, all His disciples were to practise true justice and fulfill God’s Law. Jesus wanted us not to worry about the pride of our flesh or money. For Jesus actually wanted us to give more than the Law required, both in terms of public service and to those in need. For the Old Covenant Law was merely a shadow of the Messiah’s greater fulfilled Law of His New Covenant. The Old Law allowed some to be greedy, with limitations. But His New Law did not. This is what this teaching (Mat. 5:38-42) was actually about, a true, equitable justice practised through love for God and His creations. Only this could truly please our God. His fulfilled Law was not about forbidding revenge and retaliation, although God’s Old Covenant Law, and Jesus who fulfills it, both forbade revenge, since the Owner of all existence is the only one with any right to retaliate against those who damage or destroy His property (e.g., Rom. 12:19, cf. Deut. 32:35). Nor did Jesus command us to practise pacifism. Nor did He forbid all law suits. But He did want us to fulfill God’s Law, by only engaging in just warfare to defend the innocent and to only sue for just, loving purposes. Clearly, from the context, this logically and spiritually must be what Jesus meant. For all Jesus taught was to fulfill, not nullify, God’s Law.
We must interpret all the teachings of Jesus rightly, in the context of literally all the Scriptures. God does not allow us to invent any of our own interpretations, but commands us to acknowledge only His own intended meanings of His words. And God’s intent is to work true justice through us and among us. In context, these teachings of Jesus (in Matthew 5:38-42) would have been precipitated by a question about whether or not God required an oath to obey His Old Covenant Law. From the viewpoint of His Jewish disciples, who were all steeped in teachings about God’s Law, Jesus was obviously saying “No!” Instead, He was telling them that justice is not about administering penalties severe enough to terrorize souls into blind obedience, not about an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” as an act of carnal revenge. And God’s kind of justice definitely is not about us stubbornly defending a petty principle through pride, not about taking a “stand against the evil,” even for the most insignificant matters like a slap in the face. Rather, God’s true and fulfilled kind of loving and equitable justice must labour in all His necessary hard works, and make sacrifices, to build up His kingdom on earth, in a way which undoes all the unjust and inequitable works of Satan’s kingdom.
In essence, this teaching from Jesus (Mat. 5:38-42) was teaching the same thing God did through Paul, His apostle: “Be of the same mind one toward another. Don’t set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Don’t be wise in your own conceits. Repay no one evil for evil. Respect what is honorable in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as it is up to you, be at peace with all men. Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written,
‘Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay, says the Lord.’ Therefore, ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head.’ Don’t Page 379
be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:16-21, WEB). This is exactly what Jesus was teaching here, a perfect exegesis of Matthew 5:38-42. And also keep in mind here, that when Paul said we “will heap coals of fire on the head” of an enemy by being just and good to him or her, what he meant that it will make that enemy feel guilty and ashamed of attacking us, after he or she finds out that we are more just and loving than he or she was. And it may cause repentance.
We need to “overcome evil with good.” For, only if we practise this core and essential principle can we ever effectively nullify Satan’s works, which will then enable us to build God’s just, equitable, loving kingdom in its place. We will never succeed at stopping evil by “fighting fire with fire” and attempting to “overcome evil with evil,” since all such things build up the devil’s kingdom. And we always fail if we allow ourselves to be “overcome by evil,” if we let the devil corrupt our motives and intentions through anger, pride and other impulses of the flesh. Only if we are just and do good to our enemies—whenever it is safe to do so, without enabling evil—will the thoughts of our elect siblings, all who are trapped among our enemies, burn with shame and perhaps repent into the truth, to see Jesus as their only Lord. Or we may make peace with enemies that we somehow offended, if we do what is right, even in a sacrificial way. Let us also remember that, whatever is just and loving in God’s eyes is most often also what is “honourable in the sight of all men,” and respected by most souls—although the non-elect, who actually recognize a just and good work when they see it, will lie and call it evil, simply because they hate when a good work of Jesus and His true disciples will undo their evil works. Then we should also remind ourselves that Jesus does all, and we can do nothing without Him. Thus, if we are not doing His will, it will not accomplish anything except loss for us and others. Conceit and pride in one’s own abilities and gifts, without acknowledging that all this originated from God, is a trait of blind wanna-be human gods in Satan’s kingdom. Arrogance should never be found in any of Jesus’ true disciples. To nullify works of the devil and build up the loving, just, equitable kingdom of God on earth, His disciples need to humbly seek His help in all matters.
Mat. 5:43-48,
Love for Enemies
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? If you only greet your friends, what more do you do than others? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mat. 5:43-48, WEB).
After Jesus taught about not making a “stand against the evil,” a disciple seems to have asked Him a question about the Roman Gentiles who mocked their invisible God and His ways, then persecuted God’s people who did not adopt their culture and assimilate with them. Of course, this Jewish man would have known that all 613 laws of Moses only applied to the Jews, and God merely held the Gentiles accountable for a few core principles in His natural laws, such as “Do not murder,” “Do not commit adultery,” and “Do not steal.” But most Gentiles did not even do that much. Most lived as outright enemies of God. They attacked Jews because of their more godly customs and beliefs. Since those Roman citizens felt entitled, they greedily exploited Jewish people, treating them like beasts of burden, or lured the faithless Jews into their service. Some traitorous Jews even became Rome’s tax collectors, extorting from their own people, to make themselves rich. Those evil tax collectors even Page 380
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sent Roman soldiers to threaten, confiscate goods, beat or imprison the Jews who could not pay what they demanded, causing good Jewish families to starve when they had nothing left to give. So surely those ruthless Romans and the Jews who served them were enemies that all the good people of God should “take a stand against.” How could Jesus possibly say they deserved a biblical kind of justice?
Jesus would have looked around at the repentant Gentiles now following Him in the crowd, and at Matthew, the repentant Roman tax collector, sitting among His twelve assistant teachers. And He would have thought of the Jewish zealots who went around stabbing such souls, not even bothering to find out their names, much less the motives and intentions of each individual spirit. None of those terrorists taught souls the truth. None patiently waited for their enemies to absorb that truth in the minds of their spirits, giving them a chance to repent into that truth. No, those zealots simply clung to lies and delusions which dehumanized their enemies and stroked their own egos. And now this man questioning Him had a heart that was primed and ready to believe all the zealots propaganda.
Such a disciple seems to have been corrupted by bitter rabbis who hated and wanted kill all enemies of Israel. This is why he probably asked Jesus a question something like this: “Did not God send Israel to utterly destroy His enemies in Canaan? Did He not tell His people to hate them, to crush their false gods into dust and slaughter them all, even their women, children and livestock? Is this not justice for those who war against God?” But our God Jesus knew this was a great distortion of the Scriptures, and not true. Jesus knew it was a lie, because He was the God who commanded Israel from the days of Moses to this very hour. His Spirit had seen, in real time, what He sent Israel to do back then. Yes, He was harsh to the most demonic tribes in Canaan at that time—after sending them prophets like Melchizedek and waiting 430 years for them to repent, at least enough to stop casting their own children into fires during their orgies, and to stop bowing to psychopaths who promised to make them rich through the murderous pillaging of peaceful neighbours. But He never told Israel to war against any the relatively just Gentiles in the land, and only told them to destroy the children and livestock that the demonically insane Gentiles who had sex with them, who mercilessly abused them so much that His weak and infantile people could never possibly offer them the healing of their lives.
To Jesus, that was not a dim, faded story from long ago, but a reality before His eyes right then. And Jesus knew how, at that time, Israel was totally unable to cope with or care for the elect souls among the worst of the Canaanite tribes. Those tribes were steeped in evil, to the core of their beings, so that even the elect among them could only be redeemed by a great love and wisdom, which Israel had in very short supply. Women were made to have sex with animals, and children were raped or killed in sacrifices to their gods. Becoming a pure psychopath was considered the highest calling of souls in cultures of that land. So how could Israel, as spiritually immature as they were, heal the broken elect souls among those demonic tribes, or even find the redeemable ones among them? Only God could find the elect spirits among those Gentiles. But most of the elect among the Israelites of that time did not have spirits that were able to hear and heed God’s counsel, not able to let Him lead them to elect Gentiles, then teach the truths required for repentance into abundant lives of loving and being loved.
Only a few, like Moses, had spirits that were able to serve God well enough for those kinds of works.
Consequently, God told Israel to send all the worst of the Gentiles to heaven. For, in heaven, God could grant each a new body. Then God could separate the elect from the loveless non-elect, purify each elect individual’s thoughts and restore each elect to perfect inner health. And those of us who suffer from abuse that causes a permanent inner rage and conflict know how welcome and beautiful that inner healing will be. For God alone is able to gift us with an incalculable reward of blessings for an eternal abundant life, to pay for all the losses we incurred on earth. So God did that. And those who think God unjustly judge the Gentiles in Canaan also forgot that other tribes there actually were Page 381
inwardly heeding some of the warnings God sent them through His servants for more than 430 years.
So God let those city states and tribes live, through His commands to Israel and by circumstances working to spare them. God truly takes “no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” On the contrary, God is always sending truths so that “the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11, WEB).
So Jesus then addressed the disciple questioning Him, and the zealots of Galilee, all who hated their enemies, all who never thought of teaching and justly judging each as individuals, who dehumanized all collectively. For Jesus knew their radical ideologies were consuming cancers, fed by rage worked up in their minds of flesh. First Jesus pointed out two contradictory principles taught by the zealots, and argued that only the one of the two was actually true: “You people heard that it was said: ‘Each of you shall justly love the one in the sphere of your life and shall not love your enemy.’ Now I reason with you people, continuously and justly love your enemies, and do not cease offering prayers of petition on behalf of those always persecuting you people. In this way, you people might become heirs of your Father in the heavens, because His sun continuously rises upon the evil and the usefully good. Also, He frequently sends rain upon the just and unjust” (Mat. 5:43-45, from: Ἠκούσατε ὅτι
ἐρρέθη· Ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου καὶ μισήσεις τὸν ἐχθρόν σου. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς
ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν διωκόντων ὑμᾶς· ὅπως γένησθε υἱοὶ τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν τοῦ
ἐν οὐρανοῖς, ὅτι τὸν ἥλιον αὐτοῦ ἀνατέλλει ἐπὶ πονηροὺς καὶ ἀγαθοὺς καὶ βρέχει ἐπὶ δικαίους καὶ
ἀδίκους, SBLGNT). Now keep in mind that Matthew usually recorded didactic sayings from Jesus, brief summaries of His words. This was a succinct saying which was to be remembered, but led their thoughts into a much larger body of related teachings. Thus, we need unpack this teaching, diligently search for the Scriptures to which this brief and very carefully crafted didactic saying would allude.
Since this didactic saying was very carefully worded for teaching purposes, we are meant to analyze it in every detail, examining every aspect of the grammar and words used. In fact, most of the Bible was carefully crafted and can be analyzed in this way. So we can begin by looking at the command that Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, Ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου (often translated as: “Love your neighbour”). Leviticus 19:18, in the Septuagint, adds “as yourself” (ὡς σεαυτόν), just as Jesus did when He reiterated this teaching (Mat. 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27). And this became the
“Golden Rule” for all matters of life and faith, for both Jews and Christians. Now the Greek verb ἀγαπάω carried an ecclesiastical meaning among the Jews, and later among Christians. In biblical contexts, it referred to God’s kind of just, moral, unconditional, pure kind of love. This was the kind of love God commanded us to have for others, and this kind can only come from our spirits. For God is a Spirit and has this kind of love. Therefore, God is the only source of this kind of love and grants this kind of love to our spirits, and our minds of flesh cannot love like this. Then, in the Septuagint version of Leviticus 19:18, and in the Hebrew version, we were commanded to love “neighbours,”
meaning “those near us.” The Greek noun translated as “neighbour” is πλησίον, which devout Jews took to mean all those whom our lives touched, anyone God has brought within the sphere of our lives or our influence in any way. To Jesus and devout Jews, as well as His true church, this did not merely refer to what we call neighbours, those living in close physical proximity. Rather, it referred to all who were spiritually, morally, emotionally, mentally and physically affected by our lives, in a direct or indirect way. And, clearly, Jesus began with a reference to God’s command to love all whom He gathers into the sphere of one’s life to establish the main principle of this entire teaching.
In the next clause (μισήσεις τὸν ἐχθρόν σου), Jesus acknowledged that many Jews were told to not love their enemies. In fact, some rabbis interpreted a passage from Deuteronomy 23:3-7 as God’s command to not hate the Gentile nations who helped them and, therefore, as His command to hate Gentile nations who were their enemies. Of course, this is not sound logic and not what God meant Page 382
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in that Scripture. Actually, God forbade Israel to make peace with the Ammonites and Moabites as a nation, and never adopt their culture nor even trade with them. Even if those nations made peace with Israel, their spiritual world view was so corrupt that they had to wait for ten generations (400
years) before God would accept them in equal fellowship with His priesthood of Israel. But this did not apply to any repentant individuals from those nations. One of their people could choose to join Israel at any time, as we saw with Ruth, who was a Moabite. She joined Israel and was accepted as a Jew immediately. In fact, she became the great grandmother of David, Israel’s most beloved king.
The Jews knew that God proclaimed: “You shall not abhor an Edomite; for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land” (Deut. 23:7, WEB). Also, God allowed Israel to remain friendly with, and not “abhor,” several other nations and tribes, such as the Kenites, some Hittite city states and other Gentiles. And they knew that God commanded them to
“not abhor” those Gentiles by permitting those Gentiles to have “freedom of conscience,” and that they must never impose all of God’s Law upon those Gentiles in the same way they did upon their own priesthood of Israel. Rather, Israel had to allow those Gentiles to live according to their own consciences, and allow any individual elect spirits among them to freely and willingly choose the God of Israel as their God, then serve Yahweh from within the priesthood of Israel. But, if God commanded Israel to “not abhor” the Gentiles who were friendly toward them, it did not logically mean that God commanded them to “abhor” their Gentile enemies. The contraposition of “you shall not abhor X nations” is “you shall abhor those who are not X nations.” But Israel actually was one of the “not X nations.” So, clearly, God was not commanding them to abhor all other nations, and certainly was not commanding them to abhor any individuals from any nations. Logically, since God commanded them to not abhor those nations, He was not forbidding them to love Israel, Gentile individuals or anyone else. What God really said was “hating X nations is bad.” So the logical and biblical contraposition of this command would be “loving X nations is good.” That is what God said.
Now, in the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 23:7, the Greek verb βδελύσσω, with a negative, indicated “not hate, loath, despise or abhor.” But, since some rabbis were not very good at logic, nor biblically analytical, especially about interpretation through their carnal emotions like wrath. They put the two verses together and irrationally assumed that God commanded them to “hate” or “abhor”
all their enemies, anyone resembling the Ammonites and Moabites. Of course, God did not intend His words to mean anything like that. God prohibited peace treaties and trade agreements with certain extremely violent and corrupt enemy nations. But, at the same time, God told them not to
“abhor” certain other enemies, though kings and individuals from those other nations, from Egypt and Edom, had also persecuted them. Therefore, logically, if God commanded Israel to “not abhor”
those nations, God clearly did not want them to abhor all their enemies. All that God implied in these Scriptures was that certain Gentile nations have less demonic cultures, beliefs and world views than others. So the Edomite and Egyptian nations were less evil, at that particular time in history, than the Ammonite and Moabite nations. And the elect among those more spiritually wise cultures can more easily repent into His truth. Likewise, Jesus also pointed this out. His teaching here is an attempt to stop us from hating our enemies. Jesus understood God’s real command here, and it contraposition.
For Jesus is the God who said that “hating enemies is bad,” meaning that “loving enemies is good.”
To soften the divisive, hate-filled, irrational teachings of extreme right-wing rabbis, Jesus chose to use the Greek verb μισέω instead of βδελύσσω, since μισέω indicated a much broader range of the spirit’s choices, including: “loving less,” “simply not loving nor hating at all,” and spiralling all the way down to demonic “hating, despising, loathing and abhorring.” In the context of the first clause (“Each of you shall love the one in the sphere of your life,” 5:43a), His second clause used μισέω to Page 383
illustrate how rabbis falsely claimed that God commanded Israel, “You shall μισήσεις [not love] your enemy.” Then Jesus proved that God had never actually said that, and how wrong those rabbis of the zealots were to have dared to false claim ever God taught this to His priesthood of Israel, to the very priesthood God established for the sole purpose of representing Him before all Gentiles on the earth.
If we are to love every life we influence in any way, directly or indirectly, then we must also love our enemies too. For we definitely affect their lives. Therefore, we cannot also “not love our enemy” at the same time. And God certainly would never command us to demonically hate and abhor them, as the zealots did. For that offends the logic upon which God constructed all that exists, the logic which permeates the mind of God Himself. Our God came to reason with us, not confound the minds of our spirits with vile contradictions. And everyone who truly knows God is taught the principle or “law of non-contradiction,” that two opposites cannot be true at the same time. Only the Great Liar, called Satan, and his lying children, try to convince us to believe contradictions. But we can either love all whom our lives touch or turn away from God. There cannot be any middle ground in His command.
Yes, we set priorities on the beloved ones to whom we allocate our time, energy and resources. We can determine whom our love chooses to serve first, second, third and so on, where our beloved God is always at the top of that list. Those with the most pressing and immediate needs may be served before those with lesser needs, and those who are more loving and truly God-like may be served before those who are less loving and less godly. Even then, God often wants us to pay attention to the little needs of our loved ones too, lest our many little negligences grow into a major sin causing much harm. So the most ruthless enemies of God will often be near the bottom of our list, those whom we spend the least of our time, energy and resources to help or redeem. At times, we may even need to imprison or execute those individual enemies who endanger our beloved ones, who we place near to the top of our list. Yet there may be elect brothers or sisters who dwell among those enemies, whose hearts and minds have been deceived, who serve evil through the lies and delusions of their land. And these elect among our enemies are potentially our beloved ones, the kind we put at the top of our list. Thus, we must not abhor nor dehumanize all enemies, but respect enemies as equal sinners in God’s eyes. We must not treat enemies like animals, but as we would want to be treated if we too had been deluded in ways that caused us to commit the same sins and crimes they did. For we must remember, we are indeed weak, and we too are actually capable of doing any evil.
Therefore, our God Jesus commanded: ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν. The present imperative form of the verb ἀγαπάω is durative. So Jesus command us to continuously love our enemies, in a humble, just and ongoing way, in the same way God loves them, especially His elect children among them.
And He used a second person plural form. So He wanted “you people,” all His disciples, to do this.
Then Jesus added: προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν διωκόντων ὑμᾶς. Again, the second person plural present imperative form of προσεύχομαι and the present participle form of διώκω are both durative. So this text means: “You people, do not cease from offering up prayers of petition on behalf of the ones always persecuting you.” Here Jesus commanded “you people,” that is, all His true disciples, to pray for those unjustly slandering and attacking us, even fascists like Hitler and Trump. We especially pray for God to remove His curse over our lands, to stop handing our people over to his delusions, to awaken His elect and lead them into truth for their repentance into a life of loving and being loved, so they might redeem our lands, by doing His wise works for His people and creations on the earth.
Jesus commanded us, all true Christians being saved by Him, to petition God, so He might do His good and powerful works both for and against those who persecute us, for the elect deceived by them and against the non-elect serving demons. We are to ask our God to do good, to overcome evil Page 384
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with good. So, first and foremost, we should ask God to complete the lessons of His correcting punishment upon the elect trapped among our persecuting enemies. We know that God’s greatest punishment of the elect, for those who walk according to the flesh and do not yet love His truth, is to hand them over to the devil, so he can delude them. But this is done so that Satan’s deceiving may cause them to repent. Otherwise, Satan and his non-elect brood will destroy their lives in the flesh.
Therefore, above all, we pray to our heavenly Father, if Jesus wills, that He might cause His elect among our enemies to repent into His truth, so they begin to love Him and His truth more than their own lives in the flesh. If God does this, if He wakes His elect children and brings a true and biblical revival to our land, then our non-elect enemies will have no power of Satan to uphold them, and no elect workers to labour for all the necessities they need to accomplish their evil. For we should all realize that our enemies rely on their captive deceived elect to provide all their necessities. Without the order, stability, goods and services produced by God’s elect, the non-elect will grow frustrated, stab each other in the back, and destroy themselves. For the non-elect are loveless wanna-be gods, and too arrogant to be truly useful for any task required for the good of God’s creations. All are just selfish destroyers, like their hellish father. Consequently, non-elect seek only to advance their own selfish interests, even if it causes harm or death to others, and there is no inner loyalty among them, nothing to bind them together in warfare, where they can work against us in one mind as one body.
Whenever we see an enemy continuously persecuting us, the very first petition we make to our God is to deliver the elect among that enemy into repentance, into an understanding of Christ’s truth. And God can do this. God can expose the lies and horrors of that enemy to His elect, and cause the elect to depart from among them. When this occurs, the enemy is already defeated, even if they do not yet know it. For, throughout history, we have seen how our enemies internally destroy themselves, once the elect are delivered from them. The most well-armed and advanced nations on earth have fallen when God has rescued His elect from their deceptions. For the elect are the only ones who are able to design and build their arms, the only ones who advance them. When all who are able to love and take responsibility for the family of human lives God put on earth, begin to leave the non-elect to themselves and their hellish father, the enemy soon loses all the power they ever had. Then God also confounds their thoughts, in ways that their lying father is not able to straighten. So they begin to make extremely foolish decisions, which nullifies the deadly force of all their trusted weapons, and shatters confidence in the power of all their massive armies. Soon the chaos in their ranks cannot be contained, for not one soul among them cares for anyone else, never enough to stand together. All they share is a common greed and lust for power. So, when their terrorism is no longer powerful enough to force the elect to serve them, each little psychopathic demon has trapped oneself in one’s own bottle of flesh, in a dark and confining prison of one’s own making, with no way to ever escape.
God alone is powerful against our enemies. We have no power. Thus, if we rely on worldly weapons and ways to overcome our enemies, without first seeking the will of our God through our love and prayers of petition, we will always fail. Even if the faithless might win a physical war against some kind of enemy, but have not heeded God’s will, they have lost. For those “victors” will find that they have simply established yet another subject kingdom belonging to Satan, just another enemy of God within the devil’s greater kingdom of the world order. Thus, they will be the new enemies of the elect, and the elect will need to begin their prayers and spiritual warfare all over again. The elect need to repent from all the delusions and lies of any and every enemy kingdom they once supported.
If they help a subject kingdom of the devil war against another subject kingdom of the devil, they will gain nothing and will lose much. They will have senselessly sacrificed their time, energy and resources, even the lives of innocent souls, for absolutely nothing. We have seen this occur many Page 385
times in history, where the elect have fought together with false churches, oppressive governments and charismatic deceivers, only to find that God has condemned and damned their sacrifices and all their works for those evil ones, leaving them with only spiritual, physical and emotional loss. Many elect followed Hitler for a time, and many follow Trump today. But never has been nor ever will be any gain of any real value in any of those betrayals of God, only many pains for this grievous error.
Now let us begin to heed the reasoning of Jesus, and apply His commands to love our enemies, in a way that continuously offers prayers of petition on behalf of them, where all our prayers are made in the name of our Lord and Owner, Jesus. And, to pray “in His name,” means to pray according to His command and His will, so we may receive all we need through His authority and power. “This is the boldness which we have toward Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will , He listens to us.
And if we know that He listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him. If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for those who sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I don’t say that he should make a request concerning this” (I John 5:14-16, WEB). If we let our spirits hear the Holy Spirit of Jesus, even when He tells us not to pray for something, the more “bold” we grow in our prayers. Soon we become confident that our God will answer every prayer we make, even for big things that take generations to accomplish, for things that we will not see done in our lifetimes.
Now, the longer a soul is exposed to real truths, the more one’s spirit either gravitates either toward or away from it, that is, depending on whether one has an elect spirit or a non-elect spirit. The non-elect hate any truths that might inhibit their selfish ambitions, and sin against Christ’s Holy Spirit every day, by calling His truths false and His good works evil, because their spirits believe only the lies of their father, the devil. When some of these non-elect are young, their faces are not evil. But, with age, the true nature of their non-elect spirits is exposed more upon their faces, and they need to practise in front of a mirror to look charming. Their true inner character is more plainly seen in their words and deeds, even all their ruthless, lying, greedy, selfish ways. And we are not to forever hope that those kinds of people, who sin daily against Christ’s Holy Spirit, whose sins of their very spirits will lead to eternal death in hell, whose lies and delusions become all that they cherish in their evil hearts, can ever repent into God’s truth and learn to love. They cannot. Thus, after we see the total hardness of their spirits against all truth and love, and God confirms that we must no longer continue to serve them in His name, then we must either cast them out or abandon them to themselves. And there are even times when we will need to call the authorities to deal with them. But it is not God’s will that we waste our love, efforts and time in continuously praying for them and serving them, since God wants us to use our love, efforts and time to build up His kingdom on earth, to pray for and to serve His creations in other ways, where we receive His good report and prefer His elect.
And we need to know this: The minds of our spirits can surely know the will of Jesus when we pray, if we do not let our minds of flesh interfere with what His Spirit whispers to our spirits. For Jesus’
Spirit hides nothing from us. He told us: “I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from My Father, I have made known to you” (John 15:15, WEB). If our minds of flesh will allow our elect spirits to hear and heed Jesus, He will not leave us ignorant. For His Holy Spirit stands ready to teach us at all times, never sleeping and always only inches away. “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you” (John 14:26, WEB). Only let us pray in the name of Jesus, that is, not only by calling to His name, but also by allowing our spirits to listen. And our spirits do not hear Him in the same language our flesh has learned. Rather, our spirits receive whole concepts from Him. He pours truth into our spirits, which our spirits cannot forget, which He also reminds our spirits about when Page 386
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we choose to conveniently “forget” them during the distractions of life. And, yes, it often takes a little time for the minds of our spirits to translated those concepts from God into a language our minds of flesh can partially and figuratively “understand,” so our spirits can utilize our flesh to act upon the words of Jesus. However, we desperately need to take that time, so we do not impulsively act through our minds of flesh. We must let Jesus teach us all truths, and keep reminding us of them.
The awakened elect can actually know what to pray for, can know the will of God, regarding all of our persecutors, and everything else. Now there are always some things we will need to know first, before we can learn the other deeper and more complex truths from Jesus. More complex principles always require a thorough and sound comprehension of more basic concepts, before we will be able to understand and apply those more complex ones. Just as one cannot learn algebra before one learns basic arithmetic, or must learn letters of the alphabet before one can read, Jesus will need to teach us the basics before we go on to learn the rest. He cannot reveal some deeper and more complex truths to the minds of our spirits before He teaches and trains our spirits about the fundamentals of love.
So, yes, we can ask Jesus about anything, but must patiently learn all He has to reveal one step at a time. Then concepts, some of which seem totally unrelated to what we want to know, are fed into the minds of our spirits. Later, He fits all these together, to develop a deeper understanding of Him and His truth. And each step along the way, our spirits translate these truths to our minds of flesh, in the chambers of our souls. As a result, we begin to use our minds and bodies of flesh to apply His truths in our daily lives, as we walk according to our spirits and not our flesh. But we can receive only one epiphany at a time, each building upon the other. Thus, I can testify that we can grow forever in this knowledge received from our God, Jesus. There is no limit to His depth of knowledge and wisdom.
Then Jesus also gave us the reason that we should love and respect our enemies, knowing that there may be undiscovered elect brothers and sisters among them. He told us why we should often offer up honest prayers of petition for them, with respect directly from our spirits in our hearts, knowing that we too could be easily lured into equal or worse sins than the kinds our enemies commit. The reason we need to do all this so we “might become heirs of our Father in the heavens” (γένησθε υἱοὶ τοῦ
πατρὸς ὑμῶν τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς). Notice how, once again, this refers to our Father in more than one heaven, that is, our Father is ruling His earthly kingdom, even while He is also ruling His home in heaven above. He is both on earth and in heaven. The Father of our elect spirits is always near us, wherever we might be. For time and space, here and in heaven, were created by Him and are being maintained by Him in real time at all times. So He is ubiquitous, omnipresent, never far from any of us. And He wants to be near, because He loves us, since we are His heirs, His children who will inherit His kingdom and work beside Him forever. No matter how stupid, fleshy and sinful we may become, He waits to redeem our eternal spirits. So this plural word, “heavens” (οὐρανοῖς) indicates much to us. Jesus used that plural word to remind us that the Father of our spirits is never far from us, and He will call us to inherit His love in both kingdoms, for the benefit of all creations in both.
Jesus taught us to love our enemies because God loves them too. God eternally loves the elect who are duped and walking among our enemies, and will save them all into heaven by the end of the last day. But God also patiently endures our non-elect enemies too, until their purposes are fulfilled. God has watched every thought His enemies ever had since birth. God saw them all being born, saw them deceived and abused, felt every spiritual, emotional and physical blow they took. From the moment time began, God also prepared an eternal home for each: an eternal place where the non-elect could forever indulge in the darkness of their precious lies and delusions; then another eternal home of light, love healing and joy for His elect children, with more than a full compensations for each and every pain each elect soul ever felt. The heavenly Father and oldest Brother of all our elect enemies Page 387
knows the potential abilities of each one, how each may even be able to serve beside us, even here on earth, for benefit of all His creations. His love for each baby elect spirit and soul trapped in the enemy’s clutches is powerful and strong. So let us not dare to harm our enemies indiscriminately. We must not believe the “war propaganda” created by the loveless non-elect who claim to be our allies, who hate any who might hinder their selfish ambitions. For there are also many wanna-be human gods that walk among us, but are God’s true enemies. And these, through their greed and lust for power, dehumanize whole nations, races and other identifiable groups with God’s elect among them.
If God can find a wise way for our enemies to live in peace with us, a way where they cannot harm or kill anyone, then God will not destroy them. If He is able to allow them to live, through the works of His own priesthood of Israel, where the elect spirits of true Jews and Christians hear and heed His Spirit, then He will not kill them. We know this because of what is written in His Word and by the way our heavenly Father has always let His warming and life-giving sun to shine upon both the evil and the beautifully useful souls alike. Likewise, His light of truth and wisdom can shine anywhere and everywhere on earth, just as His physical sunshine does. Then He also makes His cleansing rain, which is even more immediately necessary for life, fall upon both the just and the unjust alike. So too, His life-giving love, expressed by His unstoppable good works, can rain on all, anywhere and everywhere on earth. God can cause the lost elect among our enemies to repent into the truth, to become beautifully useful and just. And we do not know who of these He will waken. Besides, God even employs the non-elect for a purpose, to exercise and strengthen the spiritual wills of His elect children, to train us to love Him and His ways more fervently and zealously, as we keep them in check and guard against them for the sakes of our loved ones. They cause us to seek Jesus more.
This brings us to the next words of Jesus. Here He asked a couple of cutting rhetorical questions, then ended with a command to be like Him: “For, if you people might have loved those loving you, what reward do you possess? Nothing! Even the tax collectors do the same. And if you people might have welcomed your brothers only, what are you doing beyond the norm? Nothing! Even the Gentiles do the same. Therefore, you people be mature, as your heavenly Father is mature!” (Mat.
5:46-48, from: ἐὰν γὰρ ἀγαπήσητε τοὺς ἀγαπῶντας ὑμᾶς, τίνα μισθὸν ἔχετε; οὐχὶ καὶ οἱ τελῶναι τὸ
αὐτὸ ποιοῦσιν; καὶ ἐὰν ἀσπάσησθε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς ὑμῶν μόνον, τί περισσὸν ποιεῖτε; οὐχὶ καὶ οἱ
ἐθνικοὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ποιοῦσιν; Ἔσεσθε οὖν ὑμεῖς τέλειοι ὡς ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος τέλειός ἐστιν, SBLGNT, Note: The traditional punctuation here was not in the original manuscripts, and is not likely what was originally intended. ). So Jesus told His disciples—most of whom were well-taught adults, especially the rabbis coming to assess His teachings—that they were all actually so spiritually immature that they acted no better than the extorting, greedy tax collectors and pagan Gentiles, as spiritually messed up as those who worshipped demonic spirits or imagined false gods fashioned by their own hands. Here Jesus told them to grow up! For mature spirits love in equitable and just ways, like God. And the only way to truly overcome evil, to establish God’s loving kingdom on earth, is through God’s just, humble kind of love, which His Spirit will teach and train our spirits to work through His wisdom.
Now Matthew was a tax collector himself (Mat. 9:9, 10:3). Yet he did not hesitate to record this stern rebuke from Jesus, where Jesus used tax collectors as examples of the most spiritually immature and lost of all souls. For Matthew knew how bad they were, and how bad he was before Jesus called him to become His disciple, before Jesus began to teach him truth, wisdom and how to love. Matthew held no delusions about himself. He was indeed an empty shell, before Jesus rescued him from the dark prison he built for himself. Then Matthew also saw, with his own eyes, throughout his life, how Jewish rabbis, elders and their people were no better than him, and not even much better those hated pagan Romans who were exploiting their people. Before Jesus called him, Matthew found no hope Page 388
Mat. 5:43-48, Love for Enemies
in anyone or anything. For none of the fake religious leaders, nor any of the wealth he received from Rome, was able to drive away the ever-churning darkness consuming him. For all were very limited in the amount and quality of love they gave. None had a mature, wise, effective kind of love like the love of Jesus. Essentially, they all lived by the principle that it was every man for himself. Survival was the most anyone could strive for or hope to gain, never a real inner joy or true peace with God.
When Jesus equated the esteemed Jewish religion and its followers with tax collectors and Gentiles, Matthew knew exactly what Jesus meant. Basically, most in the church and priesthood of Israel were caring only for themselves, and only reciprocated that which was equal to what they received from one another. Their man-made traditions, that falsely claimed to expound upon God’s Law, actually produced more carnal pride and banal self-entitlement in them, worked by loveless and unjust minds of flesh. Then, the moment any felt the least bit betrayed, they stopped giving even any of this fake, shallow, conditional kind of love. So, in reality, their great arrogance, which esteemed themselves for their physical acts of piety and their knowledge of falsely interpreted words from the Scriptures, was a complete sham. All those people had spirits which were just as untaught, untrained, unwise and unloving as the tax collectors and Gentiles, whom they shunned, hated and dehumanized through the religion of their flesh. But Jesus taught that love was consistent, committed, equitable, just, wise and unconditional. And even God’s natural creations around them proved all this to be true, every time a wolf died to protect its pack, every time a bird protected her young from a large and deadly predator.
God’s own welcomed sunshine provided life and light for both the evil and the beautifully useful.
God also sent His rain to water the crops and forests, for both the just and unjust. So God’s love did not forsake those who were ignorant of His ways, those who offended Him every day and in every way. In fact, the opposite was true. Actually, the Father punished His elect children more than the others. Whenever God granted His truth and wisdom to His elect children, when He gave them the words of His Bible, but they refused to heed those words, He sent them much trouble for their flesh, far more than He sent to the flesh of the ignorant elect trapped in Gentile darkness, even more than He sent to the non-elect sinners. “For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every [heir]
whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6, WEB). Because God loves His children more than the non-elect, He wants their spirits to remain fully awake, to wisely discern between the clean and the unclean in all matters of life, to grow mature and become more like Him, especially in their love. So, whenever His heirs walk according to their flesh alone, and let their minds of flesh suppress their spirits, our heavenly Father punishes their usurping flesh. Our Father ensures that our flesh serves our spirits, as the obedient, short-lived and inferior servants of our eternal elect spirits. God will not allow our elect spirits abdicate our responsibility to wisely and lovingly manage and rule over all the thoughts and actions of our flesh. He wants us take responsibility for the good of all life in His loving kingdom.
Clearly, most souls live only for the flesh. And, if any want religion, they only want the kind that provides simplistic answers to all the hard questions exposing their hypocrisy, the kind of religion which falsely promises to keep God’s wrath from interfering with the comfort and pleasures of their flesh. They want nothing of the deep and complex wisdom that rightly applies a massive body of knowledge for the just, equitable and loving care of God’s kingdom. For God’s genuine truth and wisdom requires them to sacrifice some of the time, energy and resources they want to use solely for the benefit of their self-indulgent flesh. So their most popular religious leaders are only those who flatter their carnal egos and ask them to do only foolish works of the flesh for their own glory, even works of exploitation for material gain and pride, which they call “God’s blessings.” They only want to please God enough to keep Him from causing any trouble for their flesh. They want false teachers who tell them that, if they never physically murder, while ignoring the plights of brothers and sisters Page 389
until they die, while even exploiting the desperately needy for profit and pleasure in ways that will indirectly kill them, painfully, they can proudly proclaim their clear conscience before God and man.
Then, with a few magic tricks, such as reciting a magic prayer or submitting to a magic sacrament, or by wearing “holy” underwear over lusting organs, God will forgive their sins and guard them from any other kinds of harm that He or demons might cause them. This is what most want to hear, not the deep, profound, complex truths of God, through which His priesthood can work wise love.
In the end, in spite of all the little magic tasks these religious hypocrites perform, they remain just as godless as the extorting tax collectors whom they condemn, and just as idolatrous as all of the pagan Gentiles they mock. For their spirits remain the same, while their flesh practises fake religion. Their spirits are not being taught by the wise and loving Spirit of their Creator and Father. Rather, the elect trapped in those false churches possess even more infantile, immature, confused, ignorant, unwise and unloving thoughts in the minds of their spirits than they did at the moment of birth. Their spirits have not matured at all, but have grown worse, as their hair turns silver and their faces wrinkle. No true knowledge or wisdom, no just kind of love, is found in their hearts, though they have studied God’s Word for decades, searching for loopholes that will give their flesh some advantage over their brothers and sisters. So now it is time for those elect spirits to learn from Jesus and start to grow up!
Our God Jesus commanded us to become “mature” (τέλειος, “pertaining to being mature, full-grown, mature, adult, ” BDAG3). And, in context, He more specifically meant mature in our spirits, in how we love. Our spirits must learn to love in the same unconditional, consistent, wise, responsible, just, equitable, sacrificially serving way that God loves. There are many definitions of maturity, but only one real definition, which is the definition God chose for His creation in the very beginning, and now upholds throughout eternity. No other definition matters. And God’s kind of spiritual maturity is actually the entire goal of His New Covenant salvation through the Messiah Jesus. All His elect heirs must learn to love as God loves, so all may serve heaven’s creations together with Him, as He does.
Mat. 6:1-4,
Working Righteousness
“Be careful that you don’t do your charitable giving before men, to be seen by them, or else you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Therefore when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you do merciful deeds, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand does, so that your merciful deeds may be in secret, then your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Mat. 6:1-4, WEB).
After Jesus rebuked the zealots and commanded us to be mature, like our Father in the heavens, it seems that one of Jesus’ disciples asked for a little more information about this. How, exactly, was he supposed to be more mature than the rabbis and zealots, who seemed to follow the letter of God’s Law? For this questioner did not realize that those religious fanatics were actually committing every sin in the Book, and that their very spirits hated God. At the same time, this disciple was likely still thinking about how Jesus had previously taught that, unless one’s own righteousness, before the eyes of God Himself, proved greater than the righteousness of the Pharisaic rabbis, it would be impossible for one to enter into either the true church of Israel, God’s kingdom on earth, or the eternal home of God above. All these teachings began to greatly trouble this man’s soul. If his own righteousness, as Page 390
Mat. 6:1-4, Working Righteousness
well as the love of his spirit, was actually no better than the righteousness and love of tax collectors and Gentiles, and his spirit was not mature, he surely needed to repent. For what would his end be?
Those with elect spirits worry about such matters. The non-elect do not. So we can conclude that a man with an elect spirit had asked Jesus something like this: “How can I be more righteous and more loving in my spirit? For I see the rabbis, especially the Pharisaic rabbis whom you criticized, doing many good works, all the time. But I don’t have the money nor time to do more than they do. So how can I be more loving and more righteous than them?” Thus, Jesus responded by commanding:
“Now you people be
careful not to do your righteousness in front of the people , in order to be seen by them. For, if [you do] not [stop this], you surely have no reward from your Father in the heavens”
(Mat. 6:1, from: Προσέχετε δὲ τὴν δικαιοσύνην ὑμῶν μὴ ποιεῖν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων πρὸς τὸ
θεαθῆναι αὐτοῖς· εἰ δὲ μή γε, μισθὸν οὐκ ἔχετε παρὰ τῷ πατρὶ ὑμῶν τῷ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, SBLGNT).
The elect were being deceived. Wealthy manipulators had many rabbis in their pockets, who helped them pretend to be good. The rich were very rich back then, so rich that they basically purchased total impunity from the laws of God and men. Thus, they could threaten, violently abuse or even kill whomever they wanted, and could enslave their own brothers and sisters, force them to do their works for them. So they lived in obscene self-indulgent luxury, where captive siblings bowed to them and served their every whim. Yet they also needed to buy the “good will” of the masses, lest the throngs turned against them, causing great financial losses, or even injury and death. So those rich people gave a tiny fraction of their wealth to “good works,” but only in the most public ways, and only to the “good works” that purchased the most financially rewarding good opinions of the people. They did “good works” to advertise themselves, to get the most good opinions from the most people, and from the most financially rewarding people. The wealthy were very careful about which
“good works” they did, to “get the most bang for the buck.” They calculated every cent spent on this kind of advertising, so they would obtain the maximum financial returns through the good opinions they purchased, by doing their “good works.” They only sponsored “charities” which best promoted themselves and the products or services they sold. So funding church charities was always a good money maker in religious places like Israel. For pastors would praise those rich psychopaths, telling the people how loving and godly they were. Then those pastors took great pride in reminding the people how they personally knew those famous rich people, and how those rich ones gave money to the church because they themselves were such good and loving pastors. Thus, there was absolutely nothing righteous in the hearts of those wealthy exploiters, nor the hearts of rabbis who lied about them. This is why Jesus gave this warning, telling us to be careful and not to be anything like them.
We need to realize that an abundant life with inner joy, full of love, is a reward from God, built up by the teaching and training of our spirits. For God inwardly rewards us as we express the love of our spirits through true righteousness, during our training, by doing His will for no other reason than to wisely serve His creations through the love of our spirits. And even the smallest sincere gifts of the common folk to common folk, as they give through the love and trust of their elect spirits, will produce this reward from God in them. Then God’s power multiplies all the cumulative small works of His faithful children, to make them effective, to bless the entire world through them. Thus, all the most free and happy places on earth are formed by thousands of small works done by the common folk, while all the most terrorized and miserable places on earth consist of oppressing elite who do a few “good works” for advertising purposes only. And the obscenely wealthy and powerful elite, as well as the pastors in their pockets, completely forfeit literally every aspect of abundant life from the real God, because they are all rejecting His Holy Spirit’s teachings, wisdom and love. So God causes our meagre gifts to work wonders, and makes our five loaves and two small fish feed five thousand; Page 391
even as He lets millions of charitable dollars from deceiving givers, as the advertising costs for their filthy lucre, accomplish nothing, then often causes those loveless gifts to do more harm than good.
It is critical to realize that God is a Spirit whose principal attribute is a just, honest, pure love. And His Spirit is the Father of many elect spirits scattered everywhere. Since all those elect spirits are of the same “breath” and spiritual substance as their Father’s Spirit, all the infantile minds of all those elect spirits long to learn how to love in the same way their Father loves. This love is truly righteous, and incessantly seeks to help others in equitable, just and personal ways—except when their minds of flesh interfere with that love, and bully their spirits into silence, so the flesh can serve itself alone.