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So neither evil nor hate is biological. Neither originates from the brain of flesh, although both cause emotions in the mind of flesh. We judge sin based on how much it opposes, threatens and harms that which our spirits value. There are no purely material or biological considerations that can possibly define hate or evil. In fact, even the collective welfare of a community cannot be considered in any definitions of hate or evil, since an entire community can be dedicated to hatred and evil. Thus, the whole of it can be condemned for its hatred and evil, even if that hatred and evil physically benefits that whole community. We condemn whole societies due to their inner motives and intentions, not just individuals, yet we judge those successful evil societies for spiritual reasons. For hate and evil are always based on real or perceived spiritual, non-biological, non-material principles, or from the gods that a non-material mind within each one chooses to esteem, heed and serve. Thus, hate and evil are not biological or material attributes, but must be entirely spiritual attributes of human spirits.
We also see clear evidence that some elect are capable of acting upon a just and God-like love that is also more powerful than anything the will of the mind of flesh can possibly control. So love must be be spiritual, must be received and given by elect spirits. For the mind of flesh definitely cannot love in any way whatsoever. And spirits love solely for spiritual reasons, never for biological or material reasons. In fact, many have sacrificed their biological lives because of the love in their spirits, or even for a law or principle which their love believes in and upholds. And all love is founded on shared moral values, upon perceptions of value and beauty, upon shared non-material goals. We love only those with similar inwardly valued precepts. And all love is ultimately built upon a mutually worshipped god or gods. That is, we love others who esteem and serve the same entities through the sacrifices of their flesh, according to the commands of their spirits, in the same way our spirits do.
Also, a spirit loves only what it was inherently created to love, but cannot love any entity that it was not created to love, nor in a way that it was not made able to love. Furthermore, love for God may even cause one to separate from one’s entire hating and evil family or community, and walk alone in greater danger, or even sacrifice one’s own biological life in this opposition. So, clearly, there are no biological, physical, survival reasons to love God, or love truth and build love upon a foundation of moral/spiritual truths. Rather, it is biologically beneficial to lack love altogether, and build up one’s personal life and community on more physically pragmatic principles through a lack of love, which is why Satan has been so successful at doing just this throughout history. Yet, although love is clearly not an emotion which can be turned on and off by the will of the flesh, and is so powerful that it can cause one to sacrifice one’s biological life for it, love is super-rational to the point of being infinitely more effective at producing long-term benefits for both the flesh and spirits of ourselves and our loved ones. And this is why love is not trusted by any of the loveless hard-core humanists, why they slander love and tell the lie that love is not rational. They hate the way that wise, just, God-like love is always proving their loveless pragmatism to be foolish, irrational and deadly. So their hatred of the attributes of real love is evidence that spirits and love are real, since that kind of people “loves” only delusions and hates realities. Thus, if liars hate the way elect spirits rationally and wisely love, then elect spirits and their love must be real. After all, a double negative is a positive. So, if any do not
love and do not “love” the reality of elect spirits expressing God-like love, it is a positive, a proof.
These are all proofs in inductive logic. If we have a theory that seamlessly and reasonably explains all our observations, and none of our observations rationally contradict our theory (in a way where our theory cannot possibly explain those observations), then all our observations are proofs that our theory is correct. Thus, our theory that we all have two minds, both a mind of flesh and a mind of a spirit (either a spirit that is capable of love or a spirit that is incapable of love), proves true, since this theory explains all that we see. Nevertheless, it is also true that all human spirits are very infantile Page 537
and ignorant. So an elect human spirit can be easily deceived into believing lies, such as the false teaching that literally everyone is able to “love” someone or something. And humanists convince the elect to believe this lie by simply denying the Creator’s definition of love, and by redefining the word “love” as an emotion, or even as a chemical reaction in the mind of flesh. But, the definition that God gave to the word “love,” as an attribute of Himself and of all elect spirits He created in His image, is the only one He teaches to all elect spirits throughout their lives. And absolutely nothing can change that definition while God’s power upholds it. Also, although non-elect spirits can never experience love, they all recognize it, fear it, and oppose it whenever they see it. Thus, they will forever continue to try to deceive the elect by redefining love, and this is where our problems begin.
All elect spirits were created with a propensity to love the real Creator God, as well as to love all their elect siblings and all of God’s other good creations. All elect were also born with an innate propensity to hate that which harms or destroys what God owns and calls good or true. And they hate this evil through their love for God, and through their love for all that possesses God’s just and loving attributes. Yet cunning spirits, demons or their non-elect human minions, often trick infantile elect spirits into thinking good is evil, or evil is good. The non-elect primarily do this by inventing a false creator god, and by convincing the elect that this fake god, either a demon or another human being, is the real Creator God. Then they also dupe the elect into believing that loveless non-elect souls are their elect siblings. After this, most elect will lie about God’s creations, saying they can be owned by men through the exchange of the demon Mammon’s currency, then can be exploited, abused or destroyed according to human wills. But once the elect believe these lies, the almighty God will not uphold the works of those elect who cling to those lies, whose spirits do not love the realities and truths God created and revealed through His creations and through the words of His faithful servants. So this is why our world now exists in an extremely complex and confused state.
Satan and his minions, through innumerable false religions, have now made it almost impossible to discern between the spirit and the flesh, between an infinite array of false gods and the one real God, or between countless lies and the one truth. And today, service to false church gods has transformed worship into a duty to hate others who are physically different, and to more strongly hate all those who believe the real truths of God. But, before the devil’s most excessive deceptions of the Roman religion of humanism spread throughout the world, God mercifully gave the infantile spirits of His elect children a Law, then showed them how to fulfill that Law, so all these elect might learn how to practise just and pure love. That is, just after Satan’s most cunning, vile and destructive religion was fully formed (which is the religion of the fourth kingdom of the beast, the humanism of the Roman Empire), God came in a body of flesh to open the eyes of elect spirits, to see Him and His ways of love, then gave them the gift of His power worked through His Holy Spirit. Thus, it is now possible for any individual elect soul to fulfill God’s own loving intentions of His Law. God did not leave us without any help or guidance. So, if the elect allow their spirits to accept His truth and power, there is nothing in heaven nor on earth that can possibly stop them from becoming truly just and loving.
In reality, all the elect can learn the one truth, and distinguish it from all lies, if their spirits patiently quiet their noisy and rebellious minds of flesh, so the ears of their spirits might be able to listen to the personal teaching and training provided by the Spirit of the real God. And this Holy Spirit of our God Jesus is very willing to teach and train every elect spirit, as well as able to hear all of the queries of our spirits, because He is very near to all of us. Then, once we hear Him, He will explain His true and intended meaning of His Law, teach us how to apply it effectively, and how to use His created rational principles to analyze the words and ways of others, to test what meets the requirements of His just and loving words and ways. Once we develop a firm foundation of truth and wisdom from Page 538
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our God, we will be able to rightly judge whether or not elders have been chosen, taught, trained and sent by God, to become the teaching and judging servants of the people in our lands. We will then correctly discern between the faithful and the deceivers. We will find the narrow path that leads to an abundant, just and loving life, where we effectively produce only good for all God’s good creations.
Once we are freed from the chains of lies and delusions tightly held in the brutal hands of deceivers, we can stand as free souls, even as judges, and judge others by their fruits. The results and effects of other spirits, expressed through their religions, laws, words and deeds, will be either: (1) truly good and beneficial for all God’s creations as a whole, allowing for a free and loving life in truth; (2) bad and destructive for many of God’s creations, inhibiting freedom, binding souls in abject slavery and suppressing the truth; or (3) close to neutral, actions that cause very little harm or very little good, and can be ignored by all. But our elect spirits will be able to practise God’s ways, which always will work a lasting and even eternal opportunity for ourselves and others to live and grow. And God’s ways will also nullify the infinite number of possible lies that always lead to destruction, and often lead to death with everlasting loss. So it was because Jesus wanted us to apply the loving, wise and effectively beneficial ways of our living Creator God in our daily lives, that He ended this Sermon on the Mount with a stern warning against believing lies, and commanded us to choose God’s truth:
“Therefore, any kind of person that is hearing these words from Me and is doing them, will become like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they fell upon that house. And it did not fall. For it laid its foundation upon the rock.
“Then any kind [of person] hearing these words from Me and not doing them will become like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they fell upon that house. And it fell. And its fall was great!”
(Mat. 7:24-27, from: Πᾶς οὖν ὅστις ἀκούει μου τοὺς λόγους τούτους καὶ ποιεῖ αὐτούς, ὁμοιωθήσεται ἀνδρὶ φρονίμῳ, ὅστις ᾠκοδόμησεν αὐτοῦ τὴν οἰκίαν ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν. καὶ
κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι καὶ προσέπεσαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ
ἐκείνῃ, καὶ οὐκ ἔπεσεν, τεθεμελίωτο γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν. καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἀκούων μου τοὺς λόγους
τούτους καὶ μὴ ποιῶν αὐτοὺς ὁμοιωθήσεται ἀνδρὶ μωρῷ, ὅστις ᾠκοδόμησεν αὐτοῦ τὴν
οἰκίαν ἐπὶ τὴν ἄμμον. καὶ κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι καὶ
προσέκοψαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ ἔπεσεν, καὶ ἦν ἡ πτῶσις αὐτῆς μεγάλη, SBLGNT).
Of course, we often hear deceivers give us this same warning, but twisted to serve themselves, where they say their lies are the words of our God Jesus, which we should practise, and that the real meaning of Jesus’ words are lies, which we should reject. Thus, they cause us to build homes for our spirits on shifting sand, then wonder why they collapse in the storms of life. Many of them will proclaim that, if we do not heed and do their words, our physical and spiritual lives will fall in the storms of future days. For instance, Hitler and Trump built their kingdoms on the ever-shifting sands of continuously changing lies. Then they both demanded that all their duped minions do the same.
Both copied Jesus, by constantly warning their fascist followers that, if they did not hear and heed their ever-shifting lies, the nation and the whole world would fall into ruin. Both said that, without their lies, the world would perish. Yet their lies destroyed all. For fascists carefully and diligently build houses for their spirits on the black sands of hatred, greed and arrogance. But the living waters of truth inevitably fall from above to flood their lands, and powerfully wash away those weightless precepts. Fascists have always seen their foundations crumble, and their houses, build from the straw Page 539
of darnel, smashed into rubble, even as they cowered inside them. All their psychopathic, racist, ignorant, arrogant delusions suddenly collapse, and kill all the dupes relying on those unstable lies.
But, when Jesus proclaimed this warning, He was referring the immutable rock of God’s own created realities, to the solid truth of His own meaning of His own words, to precepts that had been proven totally reliable and effective throughout all past history, and will be proved trustworthy again and again throughout the future, to the end of time. Our God Jesus was saying that we need to build homes for our spirits upon this kind of rock, and that we must also use this kind of precious rock, full of gold, silver and jewels, as the building materials for our houses. For every individual and every society that ever built their lives upon the immovable, impenetrable rock of God’s intended meaning for His just and loving Law have seen their spiritual houses stand strong through every kind of storm that could possibly come against them. And every just and loving spirit that dwelt in those inner sanctuaries, founded solidly on truth, still remains alive and well to this day, though their flesh may have turned to dust centuries ago. There is not one exception to this observed fact in all of history.
Clearly, all the spirits in history who have spent their thoughts, time, energy and resources to build and furnish homes and warehouses for their spirits and spiritual treasures, and laid the foundations of those inner structures upon the shifting sands of lies and delusions, have always lost all they worked so hard to achieve. If nothing else, age and death takes it all from them. After a lifetime of vanity, where their spirits have always committed themselves to slavishly labour for the lusts of their flesh, their flesh has always failed them. Then those spirits leave this earthly life completely defeated and impoverished with unfulfilled, bitter and empty spirits. And the last day will leave them tortuously vexed for all eternity, forced to drift forever in total darkness, unsettled and writhing in nightmares of their own making, lost in an everlasting anxiety without purpose or direction. On the judgment day, these non-elect will be tossed like useless and nameless things into a bottomless and lightless pit, to forever endure the second death in the vacuum of all the lies and delusions they cherished on earth, without ever finding any gratification for their hearts. So their final fall will be great indeed!
This is the reality regarding what human spirits choose. This is not some imagined tale, but a very real spiritual state that our spirits begin to experience while living on earth. We have all seen the very real physical harm, suffering and death that results from wrong spiritual and moral choices. So, at the very least, we should not forget what we have seen, and avoid making those choices. But we tend to overlook the effects upon spirits. With Satan constantly turning our focus to things of this world, to things of the flesh, the elect often forget about the great reward of hearing and heeding the true and fruitful words of God personally pouring concepts into their spirits. So they stop listening to Him, and forfeit the very real inner joy and life that results from their right spiritual and moral choices.
We often do not consider how important it is to make good choices, according to the wisdom that God grants to the minds of our spirits. We tend to think it is not critical for us to hear and heed Jesus, but let our flesh pursue its survival and pleasures at the cost of sin’s wage, which is death for those whom we have not served through our own criminal negligence. We believe we can do good later, if necessary, but need to avoid big mistakes that will be costly for our own flesh now. However, it is often the case that what we think is harmless self-indulgence, what we dismiss as little errors and small sins, are precisely those sins of omission that are causing both us and all the world to perish.
Our carnal indifference and inaction frees Satan and his minions to express their psychopathic wills.
More often than not, it is what we do not do that causes the most harm. And, if we do not choose to hear and heed Jesus now, we will not learn enough knowledge, nor become wise enough, to make right choices when we most desperately need to do so. If we do not start building our spiritual Page 540
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houses on the rock of truth in Christ before the storms begin to rain God’s judgments on our lands, but spend all our current time and resources building pleasant summer homes made of straw upon the shifting sands of beach resorts, we will not have a solid stone house built upon the Rock of the higher lands, where the floods cannot reach it. Then we will have absolutely nowhere to flee when the storms come. Nor will those inevitable sudden storms of life give us time to flee to another house. If we try, we will be caught unprotected in those storms, will be injured or possibly killed. In fact, since all houses built on shifting sands of ever-changing lies are always temporary, it is never wise to spend any time or effort to build one. If one must dwell on sand for a time, it is wiser to sleep in a tent until one can build a solid house on the Rock. And now is the time to start building on Him.
If anyone desires to be great in Satan’s world order, that one’s inevitable fall will be great. On the other hand, if anyone longs to have a just and loving heart, even if one does not know how to become just and loving, that one can become just and loving. All that one needs to do is to allow one’s spirit to hear and heed the concepts of God. For anyone desiring to be just and loving is an elect child of God, and God is always faithful to His children, always pouring His truths into the minds of their spirits. And we need to hear and do what the Spirit of the Creator says, for our own sakes and for the survival of the entire world. It is critical to know the created truths of God, which Jesus’ Holy Spirit teach to our spirits, which He trains our spirits to wisely apply. For His teaching and training of our spirits is the only way we can gain love, justice, equity, humility and a deep respect for all other human beings, even for all the rest of God’s creations. However, if one does become a true disciple of the true Head of all men, one cannot be “great” in one’s own eyes, nor in the eyes of Satan’s world order. This also means that the demon Mammon will refuse to make you wealthy as well. For no one can believe that one is entitled to rights or privileges that others do not have, cannot set oneself above anyone else, and certainly cannot perceive oneself to be a god who is able to control destiny, if one’s spirit hears and heeds the real God. Our God Jesus always tells our spirits the truth, that we are infantile spirits, ignorant and unwise. Then He allows us to find out for ourselves that He alone is able to bring our spirits and lives into true freedom, the kind that rejoices in our responsibility to sacrificially serve all we love, which is the foundation of all other freedoms.
This inner freedom of the spirit is more untamed, undomesticated and wild than anything in nature, and more powerful than hurricanes and earthquakes, if these were able to build up as swiftly as they can tear down. Not even the death of our flesh can suppress or stop the works that freedom does through its love and truths flowing out from spirits in Christ. When our spirits release the power of God-like love and His truth on earth, it will continue long after our flesh dies, and rise again in other elect souls, often with even more of God’s unstoppable might. And this is why the elect must not let others shackle their spirits into the service of human or demonic gods, nor allow anyone to silence the truth God calls our spirits to whisper in the ears of other elect siblings. This is why the elect must never stop learning how love. Love and the truth need to be shouted from the rooftops. Our loved ones need our hands to remain free, to pull them up from the pit, and our voices to be loud, so we can warn them about ruthless wolves coming to devour them. Freedom relies on us remaining free.
Therefore, let us turn to Jesus, who will make our spirits free to love and apply truth. In His power, let us rid ourselves of psychopathic deceivers, who try to distract us by turning our attention to fake freedoms of the flesh, so they can enslave us. Many want us to fight for the freedom to maintain a racist way of life, freedom to exploit, freedom to steal, freedom to slander, freedom to bully, freedom to oppress, and freedoms to commit other sins. I have even seen “anti-maskers” call their wilful criminal negligence a “right” and a “freedom.” They endanger their own children by not letting them wear face masks in a pandemic, then convince the dupes in their arrogant and entitled flocks to fight Page 541
for this stupidity. And, when a responsible government wisely limits the number who might attend their self-indulgent “fellowships” of their false churches, to prevent deaths from the pandemic, they lie, and say this is an attack on the “freedom of religion.” But encouraging souls to commit criminal negligence is actually a sixth order sin in God’s Law. It is a type of murder, just as much as teaching racism is murder. So how can they claim to be worshipping Jesus, since Jesus came to fulfill all of God’s laws, both in and through us? This falsely claimed “right” to be criminally negligent is simply their desire to become gods in exactly the same way demons want to be a gods. This kind of freedom only frees the enslaving lusts of evil spirits to ruthlessly steal human lives and other creations from God, and to murder God’s servants who try to stop them. It is a desire to do whatever their Satanic enslavers command them to do, without taking any responsibility for their own siblings in mankind.
If any elect wants to be a true Christian, dwelling in Christ’s household and serving as a priest to His earthly kingdom, that one will need to forsake Roman humanism and all its ways. For all in true Israel are pure theists whose only Head is our Creator God, and are being taught and trained by the real God to wisely apply His laws through love for Him and for His creations. This means that we can no longer sit to hear the lectures of pagan Roman priests as a passive audience, as they do in the fake churches. Rather, the elect must now engage in teaching times, where all teachings are actively questioned and challenged, and where the men study to be responsible disciples of our God Jesus, so they can ask the right questions and answer wisely. For Jesus came to make us one in Him, to harmonize all the words and deeds of those in His priesthood and household. And only a genuine fellowship of those trusting in Christ’s words can become a true church. All who want to be human gods, and all who worship human gods, can only serve the ruler of the world order. So, if we see deceivers in fake churches, we will abandon them to their God-ordained punishment, to be handed over to their own deluders, to be imprisoned in their cherished dark delusions and lies. We shall not let servants of Satan’s world order distract us from the truths of Christ’s teachings, nor from His true freedoms that take responsibility for the welfare of our siblings in mankind, and for all His creations.
Freedom from fear, freedom of conscience, freedom to speak the truth in love, freedom to love and serve whomever God calls our spirits to deliver from the hands of their enemies, freedom from want, freedom from enslavement to wanna-be human gods, and all other kinds of responsible freedoms, can only be won through the power of God. And God’s power will only grant us these freedoms if we trust in Him and His words, in all He speaks directly to our spirits. No matter how infantile and inept we might be, if we become His disciples, our omniscient and omnipotent God will surely grant us all these freedoms, as long as our spirits willingly hear and heed His words. For nothing really depends on our own strength and intelligence, only on God’s power and wisdom. And God is wise enough to only teach us what our spirits are able to comprehend, then trains us to apply those truths only as much as we bear the capacity to perform them. God never asks for more than we are able to give. Yet, God multiplies the sum of all works done by His weak and infantile disciples, to produce a moving mountain, which can overwhelm all the armies and greatest rhetoricians of the world order.
Jesus Christ’s Authority
Those who comprehend what Jesus actually said during the “Sermon on the Mount” can become utterly overwhelmed by all the profound implications of His words upon our lives and faith. And our elect, well-taught, devout Jewish siblings from our church family were also overcome when they heard Jesus challenge the man-made norms and traditions of their religious organizations on that day long ago. This is what Matthew, with other Jewish eye-witnesses, wrote after recording most of the didactic sayings Jesus uttered on that hillside: “And Jesus concluded. When He finished these words, Page 542
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the crowd was being overwhelmed by [their contemplation of] His doctrinal teachings. For He had been teaching them as one having decision-making authority, and not as their [religious] scholars
[did]” (Mat. 7:28-29, from: Καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τοὺς λόγους τούτους, ἐξεπλήσσοντο
οἱ ὄχλοι ἐπὶ τῇ διδαχῇ αὐτοῦ· ἦν γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς
αὐτῶν, SBLGNT). So, as Matthew pointed out, an ongoing and continuous feeling of being totally overwhelmed, an utter inability to perform any kind of confident decision or action through one’s own perception and understanding of the relevant information, was the dominant effect of hearing Jesus’ teachings about life and faith. And, if His doctrinal teaching do not affect you in this way, then either you have not really heard His words with understanding, or you do not care about truth at all.
In verse 28, notice the form of the verb ἐκπλήσσω (“to cause to be filled with amazement to the point of being overwhelmed, amaze, astound, overwhelm,” BDAG3). The imperfect passive form (ἐξεπλήσσοντο) indicates an ongoing, continuous past action of being overwhelmed. Then the prepositional phrase with the dative object (ἐπὶ τῇ διδαχῇ αὐτοῦ) literally indicates “at rest upon His teachings.” It means their thoughts were entirely and solely resting upon the doctrinal teachings of Jesus. They were sitting on that hillside contemplating nothing but Jesus’ stinging words during that Jewish type of a highly interactive teaching time (i.e., this was not a Roman type of sermon, like those uttered in churches today, but a lively session of questions, comments and replies, where all mature males contributed). None easily dismissed those teachings of Jesus. But they did dismiss the words of many other speakers that day. The crowd was debating, in their own minds and among one another, only the meaning and biblical evidence of the teachings about life and faith that Jesus spoke.
Then notice how Matthew chose to use an even stronger form of the imperfect tense in the next verse, that is, an imperfect periphrastic construction (ἦν διδάσκων, which consists of an imperfect form of the linking verb and a present participle). By also using the conjunctive particle γάρ, he was giving us the reason for the crowd being overwhelmed, in their attempt to comprehend and make decisions about Christ’s teachings. It was because Jesus was always, in an ongoing or continuous way, teaching as though He had full, comprehensive, “decision-making authority” (i.e., ἐξουσία, “a state of control over something, freedom of choice, right; potential or resource to command, control, or govern, capability, might, power; the right to control or command, authority, absolute power, warrant; power exercised by rulers or others in high position by virtue of their office, ruling power, official power,” BDAG3). Jesus always taught that God Himself intended the Scriptures to mean precisely what He was claiming that they meant. At the same time, this claim that He possessed the decision-making authority to rightly interpret Scriptures, was believable, since He not only kept all His teachings firmly grounded on biblical truths and created realities in a thoroughly harmonious way, with perfect logic and consistency, but He also worked physical miracles through His authority.
Yet none of “their religious scholars” (οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν), even their most esteemed rabbis and judges, dared to openly claim that they possessed the “decision-making authority” to interpret God’s Word, although those hypocrites all actually behaved as though they did possess that authority. Other religious teachers and scholars attempted to make such false claims much later on, by pretending to be vicarious Christs. Despotic popes, using ruthless armies to force their interpretations on all others, claimed to possess authoritative and infallible teachings about life and faith, just as Jesus did when He walked among us. And, in our day, many preachers pretend to prophesy, and some even claim that their authority is greater than that which Jesus possessed. But all these pretenders throughout history have been exposed as liars, since all their self-serving words proved to be merely irrational contradictions, foolish errors, slanderous lies and destructive nonsense. And not one of those vain men backed up their words with any powerful works of God, to demonstrate that God’s powerful Page 543
authority rested in their hands. Only Jesus demonstrated that He held all of God’s authority within Him. Only the teachings from our God Jesus have always withstood all of history’s scrutiny, proving all His words to be harmonious, biblical, and true, always bearing good, useful and beautiful fruits.
The Revealing Works of Jesus
Mat. 8:1-4,
Jesus’ Authority to Cleanse
“When He came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. Behold, a leper came to Him and worshipped Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You want to, You can make me clean.’
“Jesus stretched out His hand, and touched him, saying, ‘I want to. Be made clean.’ Jesus said to him, ‘See that you tell nobody, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ Immediately his leprosy was cleansed”
(Mat. 8:1-4, WEB).
For the devout Jews possessing a thorough knowledge of God’s Law, the healing of this leper, at this time and in this way, was extremely theologically significant, regarding their understanding Jesus’
attributes and nature. Most of them, throughout all the years of their childhood, had been taught God’s Law on week days in synagogue schools. Then they also learned the meaning of His Law throughout their lives, by spending hours discussing the meaning of Scriptures during the teaching time which took place every Sabbath day. Furthermore, they often had private discussions with their families and friends regarding God’s Word, on a daily basis. And now they had witnessed Jesus once more command a physical disease to be immediately healed. Yet Jesus did this by granting the man a spiritual cleansing from sin, which literally all of them knew came solely through God’s authority.
Jesus openly cleansed and healed in His own name, through His own will, authority and power. He healed that leper by commanding him to be cleansed! And this is what truly astounded these devout Jews, who knew the biblical implications of doing such a thing. Therefore, if any elect Jew had any doubt as to the authority and power of this Teacher, this dispelled that doubt. So here the Jewish disciple Matthew showed us how this particular healing of a leper seemed so theologically profound to the Jews. Then Mark added a little more information about the theological and practical effects of this event. However, the Gentile disciple, Luke, placed this event out of its chronological order, and provided us with a slightly different perspective of the effects, possibly a more positive view in the perspective of his Gentile readers, since Luke more plainly told us what the disciples actually gained from the event. So all three accounts need to be examined, although all three agree in all the details.
Of course, Jesus healed many lepers and many other serious illnesses or disabilities. Yet the majority of those healings events were not recorded in any detail, not in any of the Gospels. Thus, it is very interesting and noteworthy that all three synoptic Gospels recorded the details of this particular healing event. First, look at how Matthew said it occurred in front of the people who were following Him after He gave them the Sermon on the Mount, just after His teaching time occurred on the hillside. So this healing happened while all those people were still feeling overwhelmed by the doctrines taught by Jesus, and by the way Jesus had firmly rebuked the teachings of highly respected rabbis, by the way Jesus effortlessly corrected even their strongest and most popular false teachings, and by the way Jesus taught all of this heart-piercing wisdom with absolute confidence. Jesus taught with such certainty about the meaning of the Scriptures that He did indeed seem to possess a real Page 544
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decision-making authority and right to determine the only correct interpretations of all God’s words.
So this presumption of great authority would have made some suspicious of Him, or enraged some.
Matthew told us: “Now, after His descending from the mountain, many crowds followed as His disciples. And, behold, a leper, having drawn near while continuously bowing to Him, [was] saying,
‘Lord, if You are willing, You are able to cleanse me’” (Mat. 8:1-2, from: Καταβάντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ
τοῦ ὄρους ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ ὄχλοι πολλοί. καὶ ἰδοὺ λεπρὸς προσελθὼν προσεκύνει αὐτῷ λέγων·
Κύριε, ἐὰν θέλῃς δύνασαί με καθαρίσαι, SBLGNT). By using a form of the verb ἀκολουθέω with a dative pronoun (ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ), Matthew made it clear that the “many crowds” (ὄχλοι πολλοί) were disciples of Jesus, people who trusted Jesus to teach them the true meaning of God’s Word and guide them into a loving, just, free, joyful and godly life. Then the leper was obviously one of those disciples. For the leper addressed Jesus as his “Lord” (Κύριε), in the way most Jewish disciples of that day addressed their rabbis. Furthermore, the leper was “continuously bowing” to Jesus, as was indicated by the imperfect tense of the verb προσκυνέω. And this was the action of an extremely devoted disciple who greatly revered one’s rabbi. After this, the leper sought to know the will of Jesus concerning a certain matter, just as good disciples sought to know the will of their rabbi. In fact, this leper even treated Jesus like an Aaronic priest. For he wanted Jesus to “cleanse” him, since his leprosy made him “unclean.” According to God’s Law, leprosy made him unfit to live and walk among God’s people, forced him to dwell apart from his family and all the other Jews of Israel. And, once a leper might have been healed of leprosy, presumably by God Himself, only an Aaronic priest was allowed to examine that leper and declare him to be ceremonially clean. Only then could the leper return home, after a week with two baptisms and the offering of an animal sacrifice. Yet this leper not only wanted Jesus to heal him, but also to declare him ceremonially “clean,” so he could immediately return to his family and people. Furthermore, an Aaronic priest could only do this by God’s commands in God’s Law, that is, “in God’s name,” through God’s will and authority, never through the priests’ own will and own authority. Therefore, this leper clearly treated Jesus as a Priest with the authority and power to do both. He believed Jesus was their new High Priest, the Messiah.
Although this leper would always need to stand alone, apart from the rest of the crowd, he had obviously been following and listening to the teachings of Jesus. And he must have had a very deep knowledge of the Old Covenant Scriptures as well, considering the reverence he held for Jesus and His teachings. Clearly, this leper seemed to assume that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, since he asked Jesus to “cleanse” him. Then Jesus’ words and actions confirmed this leper’s belief, and the faith of all who witnessed the event. Jesus proved that He was indeed the real Messiah, who was prophesied to be the New Covenant High Priest of Israel. Matthew wrote: “And, stretching out the hand, He took hold of him, saying, ‘I am willing. Be cleansed!’ And immediately the leprosy was cleansed from him. Then Jesus reasoned with him: ‘See to it that you might tell no one. Rather, go present yourself to the priest and offer up the gift which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them’” (Mat. 8:3-4, from: καὶ ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα ἥψατο αὐτοῦ λέγων· Θέλω, καθαρίσθητι· καὶ
εὐθέως ἐκαθαρίσθη αὐτοῦ ἡ λέπρα. καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Ὅρα μηδενὶ εἴπῃς, ἀλλὰ ὕπαγε
σεαυτὸν δεῖξον τῷ ἱερεῖ, καὶ προσένεγκον τὸ δῶρον ὃ προσέταξεν Μωϋσῆς εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς, SBLGNT). Now it is important to comprehend what a knowledgeable disciple saw in this event.
Now look at how Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of this leper. God’s Law forbade this!
In fact, a leper had to cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” when anyone drew near him (Lev. 13:44-46), to prevent anyone from touching him and becoming unclean themselves. For anyone or anything would become “unclean” by touching anyone or anything unclean. God’s Law required anyone touching an unclean leper to separate himself from those who were clean, wait until sunset, then go to a mikveh Page 545
(baptism), so one could be declared “clean” again (Lev. 22:4-7). Thus, since Jesus touched this
“unclean” leper, but did not separate Himself from others, nor wait until evening and go a mikveh to be made ceremonially “clean” again, this proves that Jesus had already deemed that leprous man to be ceremonially clean before He healed him. And none dared to say the one whom Jesus called clean was unclean. For, “What God has cleansed, you must not call unclean” (Acts 10:15, WEB). As soon as the man asked to be made clean, Jesus made that man clean, and proved it by touching him; before saying anything, before proclaiming or demonstrating the effects of that cleansing through His power as God. The will and thoughts of Jesus had already cleansed the leper. Jesus cleansed and healed that leper through His own will, authority and power. Thus, Jesus cleansed and healed the leper in His own name. But such things are utterly impossible for men. None but God has the power and authority to do such things! Humans can only cleanse and perform miracles in God’s name, that is, through the willing power of God and according to His commands. Therefore, by putting His hand on the leper, then proclaiming him to be clean and healing him, Jesus proved that He was not just a mortal man with an infantile spirit of life created in Him. Jesus proved Himself to be God.
This was observed by Jews who knew the Law of God. And the moment Jesus placed His hands on the leper must have stunned them. Then, when Jesus proclaimed that leper to be clean, and healed him miraculously to back up His proclamation, this must have amazed those Jews beyond measure.
For all knew that God alone could make a leper “clean,” then heal the leper. Yes, an Aaronic priest was allowed to proclaim that a leper was cleansed. But the priest received this authority from God, and had to proclaim that G
od had cleansed the leper , and only after carefully examining that leper, to ensure it was a genuine healing. God’s Law stated: “The priest shall examine him, and behold, if the plague of leprosy is healed in the leper ...” (Lev. 14:3, WEB). In this law, the passive verb (“is healed”) implied that God Himself was the One who ultimately healed the leper, either directly by a miracle or indirectly through the agency of other people and His medicinal creations. It also meant that God commanded the priest to examine the leper only for the purpose of confirming that God had actually healed the leper, or that God had allowed the leper to be healed by other means. And a leper could only be clean if he had been completely healed. Then, only after seeing the empirical evidence of God’s direct or indirect healing of the leper, did God grant the priest the authority to conduct the rituals which indicated that God did indeed heal and cleanse that leper. That is, the priest would send the leper to a mikveh (i.e., to a ceremonial “bath,” where one would pray with thanksgiving to God, then immerse oneself under the water). After this, the priest would tell the leper to wait outside the
“camp” (apart from the other people of Israel) until the seventh day. Then the priest would send the leper to the mikveh again. Finally, on that eighth day, the priest could receive the offerings that God prescribed for the leper, the sinless animal sacrifices which symbolically provided a substitute payment for the leper’s trespasses (see Lev. 14:2-32). These Jews knew these laws. Yet Jesus not only acted as though He were greater than the Aaronic priests, but portrayed Himself as the God who made lepers clean and caused lepers to be healed. Jesus was a Priest bearing all the authority of God!
Jesus placed His hand on the “unclean” leper and commanded, “Be cleansed!” (using the imperative form of the verb καθαρίζω). And after Jesus declared the leper had been “cleansed,” the leper was also healed, without Jesus uttering even one more word. Now let me repeat, God’s Law commanded a priest to examine lepers, to ensure they were not pretending to be healed, before those lepers were allowed to go to a mikveh and give thanks for God’s cleansing, where the mikveh symbolically and publicly proclaimed that the leper was forgiven and inwardly purified by God. Therefore, since God required a priest’s examination by before a leper could go to the mikveh for this declaration of God’s forgiveness and cleansing, it actually meant that God took measures to ensure no one lied about His Page 546
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forgiveness and cleansing from sin. Also, this process clearly suggested that every leper’s healing must have occurred through God’s will alone, solely because God had first forgiven and cleansed each one of sin. Of course, not all lepers became leprous because they had sinned, and certainly not if their sins were unintentional. Like all suffering, God often allowed leprosy for the teaching and training of souls, for the lepers and the community in which the lepers lived. But, if God did cause a person to become leprous due one’s sins, then one’s healing definitely would indicate that God had forgiven and cleansed that one from sin. Then consider how all humans are sinners. So any healing, of leprosy or anything else, would mean that the spirit of a sick one was forgiven and cleansed of sin.
Sickness often causes introspection on a spiritual level, where one reevaluates one’s moral actions and views. The pain and threat of death makes one look more closely at how one lacked the kind of love and just behaviour one should have expressed toward God and His people. Yes, there are also many who never think about such things, and go from bad to worse after suffering. But those are healed and strengthened by the devil, not by God. Yet the elect are healed by God, after considering how they had sinned, after repenting into the truth about oneself and one’s own harmful sins. For God only forgives repentant sinners, and never falsely declares that a wilful sinner is forgiven and clean. God does not heal an unrepentant leper as a lie, to give His people a false impression that the sinner had been forgiven and made clean. God will only heal a leper either because that sinner repented, or because of another reason that He will not count the sinner’s sin against the leper, such as because the leper sinned unintentionally. Since leprosy symbolized the deadening of the heart through sin, the healing of a leper always implied God’s forgiveness, cleansing and healing. Only if God actually did forgive and cleanse a leper, would God heal a leper, so the leper could go to the priests, then the mikveh, and be restored as an accepted member of God’s serving people of Israel.
Thus, the cleansing of a leper, with the accompanying forgiveness of sin and washing away of sin’s numbing effects upon the spirit, always came first, before the physical healing. And God alone had that authority to forgive and cleanse. Only after it was proved that God did indeed cleanse and heal, could the priest verify that God forgave, cleansed and therefore healed the leper. Only after God did these works, beginning with forgiveness and cleansing, could a priest proclaims to the people at the temple that the leper could perform the required mikveh ritual. So, after Jesus forgave and inwardly cleansed the leper, then proved this by physically healing the leper, Jesus had also proved that He held the authority to forgive and cleanse this man. Like the knowledgeable Jews in that crowd on that day, I hope we can all see how Jesus proved that He possessed this authority of God by healing this leper after proclaiming Him to be clean. This is what astounded Matthew and those other Jews who spent their lifetimes learning God’s Law. Then Jesus also sent the leper to the priests and told him to offer up the gift required by the Law, just as God revealed it to Moses, to publicly proclaim his cleansing to the people of Israel, so the leper could once more live and walk among them again.
From the perspective of a devout Jew who knew God’s Law, this particular cleansing and healing of the leper, simply by commanding “Be cleansed!,” and Jesus enjoining the leper to go to the priests with “the gift which Moses commanded” (i.e., the offerings to be given to the priest on the eighth day after the mikveh), had staggering implications. And this is why all three of the synoptic Gospels repeated a version of this event. All three synoptic Gospels focused on historical events of Christ’s ministry, to prove Jesus is the Messiah. So this was one event that those three Gospels wanted all the people to know about. For it proved that Jesus not only claimed to be Immanuel (the incarnate God walking among us, the Creator’s Spirit dwelling with us in a human body). Jesus also gave physical evidence and clearly demonstrated that He possessed the actual power and authority of God. For the personal will, power and authority of Jesus forgave, cleansed and healed that leper. Jesus did not say, Page 547
“May you be cleansed if God is willing.” Nor did Jesus say, “God has healed you,” after the leper was healed. Also, the leper did not ask Jesus if God was willing to make him “clean” and heal him.
Rather, the leper believed the Scriptures about the Messiah being “God walking among men,” and asked Jesus if He was willing to make him clean, by forgiving his sins and healing him. This leper believed Jesus was the true Messiah, whom the Old Covenant prophets portrayed as Immanuel, the one God, Yahweh, dwelling in human flesh. Then Jesus replied by saying, “I am willing” (Θέλω).
Thus, Jesus Himself, through His own will alone, through His own power and authority alone, and through His love for the leper, commanded: “Be cleansed!” (καθαρίσθητι, in the imperative mode).
To the authors of the three synoptic Gospels, and to all knowledgeable Jews, the way Jesus healed this leper clearly indicated that Jesus claimed to be Yahweh God Himself, then proved that He was.
And that leper believed the Scriptures, that this Jesus was truly Israel’s Messiah and God. This is what was so intriguing about this event, and why everyone was more excited about this healing of a leper, more than all the other healings of leprosy. And that leper was ecstatic too. So, once the leper was completely forgiven, cleansed and healed, he was likely too filled with excitement and hope to hear any instructions from Jesus about going to a priest, so he could be accepted back into his community, so he would not need to remain apart from them any longer. Thus, there would have been a long pause before Jesus told the leper to show himself to the priest. Jesus would have waited until the leper calmed down. Furthermore, in the same way Jesus told His disciples not to tell anyone that He is the true Messiah (Mat. 16:20), He told the leper, “See to it that you might tell no one.”
When Jesus said this, He was not actually telling the leper to be silent about being cleansed and healed of leprosy, but was enjoining him to keep quiet about telling others that He is the Messiah.
For why would Jesus tell the leper to refrain from spreading the news about being cleansed and healed while “many crowds” also witnessed that healing on that day? Furthermore, Jesus exhorted this leper to go to a priest in the crowded public temple, then publicly give a gift as a testimony or witness to all the Aaronic priests and all the other Jews in the temple, so he could return to his community and home, through the witnesses of many priests, as a leper who was healed. The very next thing Jesus said to him was: “Rather, go present yourself to the priest and offer up the gift which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.” And giving that “gift,” as a testimony to the priests, was a public declaration that he had been cleansed and healed of leprosy, which the crowds in the temple, and his family, would witness. So, logically, here Jesus was actually telling this leper to keep silent about Him being the Messiah, until the New Covenant was ratified through His blood.
Now the “gift which Moses commanded” was to be given on the eighth day, a week after the examination by a priest, and after two mikvehs/baptisms and other rituals demonstrating that his cleansing and healing were real. For that “gift” was not the two doves that the priest provided upon declaring the leper cleansed (Lev. 14:4-7). Actually, that “gift” was to be what Moses commanded:
“On the eighth day [the leper] shall take two male lambs without defect, and one ewe lamb a year old without defect, and three tenths of an ephah of fine flour for a meal offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil” (Lev. 14:10, WEB). However, God also commanded a “progressive tax system”
of sorts. So the better-off Israelites would offer the gift above, but poorer Israelites were required to give a far less expensive gift. For God, through Moses, commanded: “If he is poor, and can’t afford so much, then he shall take one male lamb for a trespass offering to be waved, to make atonement for him, and one tenth of an ephah of fine flour mingled with oil for a meal offering, and a log of oil; and two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, such as he is able to afford; and the one shall be a sin offering, and the other a burnt offering. On the eighth day he shall bring them for his cleansing to the Page 548
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priest ...” (Lev. 14:21-23, WEB). Still, both kinds of gifts were to be given on the eighth day, after the priests had thoroughly affirmed that the leper was indeed healed and cleansed by God Himself.
Of course, most of these gifts given to the priests were a supplement to a tithe (10% “tax”), which all members of the church of Israel gave to support the priests, since those priests did works of teaching, judging, caring for the needy, policing the community, providing music and other services. Many offerings and gifts were food, to feed the priesthood and the poor. Yet Jesus told this particular leper to give his gifts of food “for a testimony to” the priests. So the tithes and offerings of the people were not merely for physical reasons like bodily sustenance. Things like this eighth-day gift of food, after God had cleansed and healed a leper, were also public testimonies or witnesses to the priests and to the people in the temple grounds, about the grace of God. Then this particular gift of this leper, together with his explanation about how he was healed, would also testify to the priests about the visitation of Yahweh God in the body of Jesus. Those priests, who all knew God’s Law regarding lepers, would realize that their God, Yahweh, the Spirit who created all existence, had come to them within a body of flesh, just as the Scriptures had prophesied. This gift was to be a proof of Israel’s Messiah having arrived in the land. To those priests, the forgiveness of a leper’s sins by Jesus, along with that leper’s physical healing to prove that he was indeed cleansed by Jesus, would testify that Jesus was their long-awaited Messiah. For it testified to them that Jesus Himself had the authority and power to cleanse and heal a leper. Of course, this was infallible evidence provided to the priesthood, since none but God could heal a leper instantly. And that healing also proved that God first willed the leper to be declared “cleansed” from all sins (i.e., leprosy killed the sense of feeling, so it symbolized how sin killed the spirit’s sense of empathy for the victims of one’s sins, and thus required a sin offering for the leper to be cleansed). On the other hand, by claiming to be the Messiah, and therefore God, in this indirect way to the priests, Jesus protected Himself from His enemies. Human spirits that lacked any vested interest in truly comprehending God’s Word—such as the materialistic and selfishly ambitious rabbis who jealously sought to destroy Jesus, because Jesus turned people away from them and “stole” their source of income—could never point to this and say:
“Stone Jesus for blasphemy! For this Jesus claimed to be God!” After all, what Jesus said and did here was too indirect to used by those liars as evidence against Him. The people would never believe this wonderful and loving act of healing an ostracized, lonely leper deserved the death penalty. So this was a brilliant way of telling devout priests, “Yes, I am the Messiah, God. But tell no one this.”
To Matthew, and the other devout Jews who knew God’s Law, there could be no clearer claim and proof of the true divinity of Jesus. The same goes for Mark and Luke, who both mentioned this event as well, although they emphasized different details, since their Gospels were written for the Gentiles, while Matthew wrote His Gospel for Jewish readers. Mark tells us that, after choosing and calling the core disciples (the first 12 apostles), Jesus took them to a solitary place in the wilderness and prayed. Then Jesus told them, “We should be going elsewhere, into the towns having [need], so that I might also preach there, for I came out for this [purpose]” (Mark 1:38, ALT). And that is exactly what Jesus was doing, preaching the Gospel, as He was teaching on that hillside (i.e., the Sermon on the Mount). Then Mark provided us with some of the same information that Matthew did. So Mark related this event about the healing of the leper to the purposes of Jesus, and implied that this healing of the leper in this way contributed to the preaching of the Gospel by Jesus. Since Mark said that Jesus came there to publicly proclaim the Gospel, and this Gospel is about the Messiah bringing the prophesied New Covenant salvation, we can conclude that Mark was also claimed that this leper’s healing related to the Messiah saving Israel and the whole world. Mark also thought this healing of that leper proved that Jesus was the Messiah, Immanuel, God walking in a human body among us, to Page 549
save us. Mark seemed to see how this cleansing and healing of the leper proved the deity of Jesus, as the Messiah, because Jesus did it solely through His own personal will, authority and power alone.
Now look at how Mark also told us that Jesus sent the leper away after “sternly charging him,” or
“firmly enjoining him” (ἐμβριμησάμενος αὐτῷ), to “say nothing to no one” (μηδενὶ μηδὲν εἴπῃς).
Yet, like Matthew, Mark also did not specify what Jesus commanded the leper to remain silent about.
Mark did not specify what that leper was not to reveal. Just like Matthew, Mark told us that Jesus warned the leper to say nothing, but did not specify what the leper was to keep as a secret. Then Mark’s account continued in the same way Matthew’s did, by telling us that Jesus sent the leper to the priests, commanding the leper to give them the gift required by the Mosaic Law, “for a testimony to them.” Thus, from the Gospel of Mark, we can also assume that Jesus was not telling the leper to keep his very public healing a secret, especially since his miraculous healing would be made even more public when that leper entered the public temple to be declared clean by the priests, as a public testimony to those priests. For those priests were then obligated to make a record of his healing and to inform the general public that he was totally healed and now allowed to walk among them again.
Then Mark ended his account with this additional comment: “Now, having gone out, he [i.e., the leper]
began to preach much and to spread the word. As a result, no longer [was it possible for] Him [i.e., Jesus] to be able to enter openly into the city, but [He] was outside upon a solitary place. And they were coming to Him from everywhere” (Mark 1:45, from: ὁ δὲ ἐξελθὼν ἤρξατο κηρύσσειν πολλὰ
καὶ διαφημίζειν τὸν λόγον, ὥστε μηκέτι αὐτὸν δύνασθαι φανερῶς εἰς πόλιν εἰσελθεῖν, ἀλλὰ ἔξω ἐπ’
ἐρήμοις τόποις ἦν· καὶ ἤρχοντο πρὸς αὐτὸν πάντοθεν, SBLGNT). Because of what Mark said here, many somehow wrongly assume that the leper did not obey the command from Jesus to keep silent.
But this leper likely did obey Jesus, and did keep silent, because what Jesus wanted this leper to keep secret was his faith that Jesus was God. And those who think this leper broke the command of Jesus by testifying about how Jesus had healed him are clearly wrong. For they are not considering the logical problem mentioned above, that this leper was healed in public and was told to publicly give a testimony of his healing to the priests in the public temple, so those priests could make a public proclamation that this leper was indeed fully healed and now allowed to dwell among the rest of the Jews in Israel. Although Mark does not specifically mention that “many crowds” witnessed the leper’s cleansing, like Matthew did, he implied that at others witnessed it. And neither Mark nor Matthew told us that Jesus warned His disciples or the crowds of witnesses to keep silent about the healing of this leper. Therefore, Jesus was not talking about keeping silent about the cleansing and healing, but about something else. And the only thing Jesus always wanted His disciples to keep silent about was the fact that He was God, as the true Messiah. Jesus did not want them to openly state that He was the prophesied Messiah, God in a body of flesh, not until He had ratified the New Covenant in His blood, until He rose from the dead to send us His Holy Spirit. For His enemies would surely slander Him and use that claim against Him, would try to murder Him as a blasphemer before He could finish His predestined mission of teaching and training His disciples for their works.
Like Matthew and Mark, Luke also placed this event of the leper’s cleansing (Luke 5:12-15) early in the ministry of Jesus, just after He chose and called His assistant teachers, the twelve core disciples.
Likewise, Luke said this event occurred shortly after Jesus had just finished teaching the multitudes (see Luke 5:1-3). Consequently, Luke also suggested the leper’s cleansing would have had many witnesses, making it unlikely that Jesus told the leper to keep quiet about being healed. Rather, Jesus must have been telling the leper to remain silent about his belief that He was God, the Messiah who was prophesied to be Immanuel. Yet Luke does not start to record the words from the Sermon on the Mount until the next chapter (beginning in Luke 6:20), that is, after the leper’s cleansing. This may Page 550
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be because Luke received most of his information from others, and was not an eye-witness like Matthew was. Also, the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount were didactic sayings, repeated many different times, with variations in different sequential order, and sometimes with added or deleted words. In addition to all this, the synoptic Gospels were not very concerned about the exact order in which the events and often-repeated teachings occurred. The precise times of certain events were not usually relevant, unless they affected our understanding of the truth. All the Gospel writers spent more time focusing on the more important comprehension of truth than petty physical details.
Still, Luke was a very capable historian and reporter, better than most historians and reporters even in our day. Luke worked very diligently to get all of his facts straight, especially the ones that truly mattered. So, when Luke saw that this particular cleansing of the leper had critical implications to our understanding of Christ’s deity, he recorded the words of the leper and the reply from Jesus in the same way Matthew and Mark did. Luke also claimed this leper’s cleansing was through the will, authority and power of Jesus, then also told us that it had a significant effect upon the knowledgeable and devout Jews in Israel. The crowds following Jesus surged to new heights after that leper was declared “clean” and was healed in the name (i.e., by the will, authority and power) of Jesus. In their eyes, it proved He was the Messiah, Immanuel, God with us. Yet Luke did not put all responsibility for this surge upon the leper alone, as Mark did. Rather, Luke said: “Then the reasoning about him spread abroad more, and many crowds came together to hear and to be healed from their infirmities”
(Luke 5:15, from: διήρχετο δὲ μᾶλλον ὁ λόγος περὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ συνήρχοντο ὄχλοι πολλοὶ ἀκούειν καὶ
θεραπεύεσθαι ἀπὸ τῶν ἀσθενειῶν αὐτῶν, SBLGNT). Here Luke claimed “the rational word/report”
or “the reasoning” (ὁ λόγος) about this leper was the cause of so many souls flocking to hear Jesus, and to be healed by Him. For this leper’s cleansing and healing was no ordinary event, and differed from other healings. This particular healing was accompanied by declarations that proved His deity.
All other healings were also done through Jesus’ own will, authority and power too, and proved He is “God with us.” Yet here Jesus actually declared, “I am willing,” clearly indicating that He was about to forgive, cleanse and heal this man through His own will. Then Jesus commanded, “Be clean!” And commanding one to be clean also indicated the forgiveness of sins. But God Himself held the authority to forgive and cleanse from sin, then physically heal a leper with His power. In all this, Jesus proved that He possessed the full authority and power of God. For God would never allow a mere “good man” to cleanse and heal anyone through one’s own will. It seems that very few fully understand the implications of this event, or how it affected the perception of Jesus among devout and knowledgeable Jews in Israel at this time, which was early in His ministry. To them, Jesus was far more than just a “good man” healing in the name of Yahweh (i.e., by God’s will, when God commanded it, and through God’s external power). After Jesus healed this leper in this way, many saw Jesus as God dwelling among them in a human body, proclaiming His will and displaying His power. These words of Jesus, and their effects during this incident, proved that Jesus literally and fully possessed all the authority and power of God Himself, with the right to judge, forgive sins, cleanse and work miraculous healings, all through His own will alone. This proved that Jesus was Yahweh in a body of flesh. Most devout Jews who knew the Scriptures would have concluded this.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all knew the theological implications of Jesus’ words when He cleansed and physically healed that leper on that day. Of course, all three synoptic Gospels left it to the teachings elders of the local churches to more thoroughly explain the significance of those words and deeds of Jesus, since that was their God-given responsibility. And, for a number of good reasons, the Gospel writers kept this account short, recording only the bare facts, without providing a lengthy exegesis. For the Gospel writers, and the churches to whom the Gospels were copied and distributed, Page 551
were poor, while paper and ink were very expensive. Then they also had to consider how secular and religious authorities would scrutinize the words of those documents. And, if any of them perceived anything to be offensive to them, those authorities might immediately begin to forbid and hinder the dissemination of those Scriptures to the local churches. Thus, it was always better to just state the facts and let individual teaching elders decide when and to whom they would expound the meaning of those details. But make no mistake, this leper’s cleansing and healing are profoundly significant!
Mat. 8:5-13,
Abraham’s Gentile Son
“When He came into Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, asking Him, and saying, ‘Lord, my servant lies in the house paralyzed, grievously tormented.’ Jesus said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I’m not worthy for You to come under my roof. Just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am also a man under authority, having under myself soldiers. I tell this one, “Go,” and he goes; and tell another, “Come,”
and he comes; and tell my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’
“When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to those who followed, ‘Most certainly I tell you, I haven’t found so great a faith, not even in Israel. I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed.’ His servant was healed in that hour” (Mat. 8:5-13, WEB).
Jesus was now living in the Gentile city of Capernaum, a fishing and agricultural town with a population of about 1,500 souls. Roman soldiers were permanently stationed in this strategic location on the northern shore of Galilee as well, since this Roman centurion dwelt there. And this centurion knew that Jesus lived there, and that Jesus would eventually return to Capernaum. So he waited for Jesus, hoping that Jesus would heal his dying “servant.” Now a centurion commanded between thirty and a hundred soldiers, possibly more. And there were various ranks of centurions, some with more seniority, authority and pay than others. This particular centurion seems to have held a more senior rank, with more pay, influence and power than most others, since he built a synagogue for the Jewish people there and befriended their elders (Luke 7:3-5). But every centurion fought and worked beside his men. And most of their time was spent in hard labour, such as building military fortifications and other manual tasks. Of course, to Romans, skill in building infrastructures was not as critical as skill in warfare. So most centurions were chosen for their courage and ability in battle, along with their willingness to blindly obey orders. And all had to be able to read and write. They were educated, but soldiers for life, although they could retire or take on less strenuous duties as they grew older. Yet centurions often did not live until they were very old, since they lived demanding and dangerous lives, forced to lead their men by example, from the front of the line into every battle.
Now, in Luke’s Gospel, we are told this centurion not only thought himself to be unworthy to have Jesus in his home, but was also too sinful and lowly to speak directly to Jesus. Luke tells us that this centurion asked local Jewish elders to approach Jesus, to beg Jesus to heal his “servant.” And, by the way, the Greek word Luke used in referring to the centurion’s dying “servant” was δοῦλος, literally meaning “slave,” but could also refer to a lower-ranking soldier. Then, in Matthew, the centurion’s ailing “servant” was called a παῖς, literally meaning “a child,” but often referred to a beloved servant Page 552
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or lower-ranking soldier. Since centurions trained, worked and fought beside their soldiers at all times, they often developed a strong fatherly affection for them. So his ill “servant” most likely was the centurion’s optio, his second in command, or some other very beloved soldier in his command.
Luke reported that, while Jesus was on His way to the centurion’s house, that centurion sent yet another servant to Jesus with a message. So the centurion, whom Rome chose because of his courage in battle, seemed to be too frightened to personally address Jesus, too afraid of Jesus’ utter holiness, power and authority, especially Jesus’ ability to expose the inner sins and thoughts of a man. Yet this reveals the faith of this centurion, how he believed that Jesus did indeed possess the attributes of God. This centurion greatly esteemed Jesus, and did not want Jesus to trouble Himself by having to walk all the way to his lowly home. Rather, he believed that Jesus could simply command his dying servant be healed, from a distance, since the centurion did not feel nearly good enough for Jesus to see him personally, much less to stand under the same roof with him (see Luke 7:6-7). And we can imagine why this centurion felt that way. For a soldier was forced to blindly obey orders, or face his own execution. And soldiers often drank heavily or took drugs, in order to cope with battle stresses, then did terrible crimes while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. So this centurion had probably committed ruthless, unjust acts that he could never reconcile with the just, loving ways of the God of Israel, with the ways taught by this Jewish Messiah, Jesus. This centurion knew that Jesus always proclaimed truth with gentle wisdom, then healed through His personal love for souls. And he knew he certainly had not lived up to any of that Messiah’s ways. Thus, through Luke, we discover that this centurion never spoke to Jesus face to face, through shame and godly sorrow over his vile sins.
In the way we read Matthew’s account, we think it implies that the centurion came to Jesus himself, personally. But the fault is ours for making this assumption. In reality, Luke was probably right when he told us that the centurion let his Jewish friends speak to Jesus on his behalf. For it was very common in those days, and even in our day, to claim that a man said or did something when, in reality, another person had said or did that thing because that man asked the person to say or do it on his behalf. So Matthew’s account was most likely just a shortened version of the event. Instead of saying that the centurion made his request through Jewish elders and a messenger (i.e., the other
“servant” sent later on), Matthew simply wrote down the centurion’s requests directly, as though the centurion had been speaking himself, in person. After all, the centurion’s request to heal, and his words sent through the messenger, originated directly from him. And Matthew focused solely upon the humility and faith of the centurion, upon his words from his heart. So Matthew did not feel the need to bother with the other details, about how the Jewish elders and the messenger were speaking on behalf of the centurion. However, Luke’s account, with the other details, actually helps us better understand the deep humility of the spirit in that centurion, and why Jesus loved him for his faith.
Now notice how Matthew told us that the centurion called Jesus his “Lord,” and wrote that he said:
“Lord, my [cherished] servant was cast down in the house, paralyzed, grievously tormented” (Mat.
8:6, from: Κύριε, ὁ παῖς μου βέβληται ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ παραλυτικός, δεινῶς βασανιζόμενος, SBLGNT).
Thus, in context, this centurion’s words imply that he viewed Jesus as his Rabbi, as his Head Teacher and Judge. This centurion saw himself as a disciple of Jesus, but a very lowly and unworthy disciple.
Yet that centurion most likely addressed Jesus through Jewish elders (πρεσβυτέρους τῶν Ἰουδαίων, Luke 7:3). Still, those Jewish elders—whom the centurion obviously respected, and who must have highly respected Jesus as well—also suggested that this centurion considered himself to be a disciple of Jesus, since they told Jesus: “The one to whom You will give this is worthy” (Luke 7:4, from: Ἄξιός ἐστιν ᾧ παρέξῃ τοῦτο, SBLGNT). That is, these elders seemed to indicate that the centurion was one who had listened to the words of Jesus, and faithfully heeded those words. So this centurion Page 553
must have somehow been following the teachings and works of Jesus. Perhaps the centurion had been attending some of the outdoor teaching sessions of Jesus. Or this centurion may have listened to Jesus through a proxy, by sending a servant to hear Christ’s words and see His deeds, possibly even the very man whom he wanted Jesus to heal at that time. And this centurion clearly took his faith in Jesus very seriously, for he put his money where his mouth was. This Roman centurion even built a synagogue for the Jewish people, and likely attended that synagogue himself (i.e., Gentiles were welcome in most synagogues, if they were respectful and orderly). And that synagogue was probably one which had a number of Christ’s disciples in it. For true Christians in those days were almost all Jews or Gentile proselytes. And all of them thought of themselves as members of the priesthood of Israel, as one with Israel, as Jews who believed Jesus was Israel’s promised Messiah.
But Jesus knew that this centurion was afraid of being judged as unworthy. Even the other disciples would have suspected as much, since the centurion sent Jewish elders to speak on his behalf, and was too scared to come a short distance in that small town to personally speak with Jesus. So Jesus, to affirm that He found this centurion worthy of His attention and love, immediately declared, “I
[personally], having come, will heal him” (Mat. 8:7, from: Ἐγὼ ἐλθὼν θεραπεύσω αὐτόν, SBLGNT, note the redundant use of the first person pronoun, indicating emphasis, “I personally”). Then both Matthew and Luke record the humble response of the centurion, to the personal attention that his greatly admired Rabbi Jesus chose to give him. But Matthew records this centurion’s response most succinctly: “Lord, I am not good enough that You might enter under my roof. But please only break silence for a word, and my [beloved] servant will be healed. For I am also a person under decision-making authority, having soldiers under myself. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does” (Mat. 8:8-9, from: Κύριε, οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς ἵνα μου ὑπὸ τὴν στέγην εἰσέλθῃς· ἀλλὰ μόνον εἰπὲ λόγῳ, καὶ ἰαθήσεται ὁ παῖς μου·
καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπός εἰμι ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν, ἔχων ὑπ’ ἐμαυτὸν στρατιώτας, καὶ λέγω τούτῳ·
Πορεύθητι, καὶ πορεύεται, καὶ ἄλλῳ· Ἔρχου, καὶ ἔρχεται, καὶ τῷ δούλῳ μου· Ποίησον τοῦτο, καὶ
ποιεῖ, SBLGNT, note, εἰπὲ is an imperative of polite beseeching, “please speak/utter/break silence”).
If we clearly understand what this centurion was indicating through this response, we can see why both Matthew and Luke recorded this event. First and foremost, look at how this centurion’s faith so thoroughly trusted in the absolute authority and power of Jesus. Of course, none but God could heal a dying man through His own will, authority and power. And God could also permit any person to heal a dying man in His name, through His command, will, authority and power. Yet this centurion asked Jesus to heal his beloved servant through His own will, authority and power. So this centurion had the same kind of faith that the leper did in the previous event that Matthew recorded. Yet the leper was healed by the hand of Jesus resting on his shoulder. Jesus knew that the leper wanted Him to physically touch Him, when He healed that leper. Although that leper knew Jesus could heal him through His own will, since he believed Jesus was the promised Messiah and God in a body of human flesh, that leper assumed that the Spirit of God in Jesus was confined to that physical body of flesh. So that leper wanted Jesus to physically touch Him, in order to heal him. However, this centurion knew that the Creator God of the Bible could never be entirely confined to a body of flesh.
This centurion knew that, since God is a Spirit who maintains all that exists, God’s Spirit in Jesus was ubiquitous, omnipresent in all creation, just as the Scriptures say. And the living Creator’s Spirit could never be confined by time and space in His entire created universe, much less in one tiny body of human flesh. The material space-time continuum could exert no limiting effect upon the Spirit of God in Jesus. So this centurion reasoned that Jesus, the prophesied Immanuel, could instantly find and heal anyone in any place at any moment He chose to do so. Thus, the centurion asked Jesus, Page 554
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“Please only break silence for a word, and my beloved servant will be healed.” The centurion would not have said this if he merely believed that Jesus was just a good man who healed in God’s name.
The only reason the centurion asked Jesus to heal his dying servant from a distance was because that centurion believed Jesus was God. For a mortal man would not even know which of the centurion’s servants needed to be healed. So a mortal man would first need to see the man who needed to be healed, in order to pray for the healing of that particular man in God’s name. But God would know which of the centurion’s servants needed to be healed. God would also know exactly where that sick servant was lying, even if that servant was not resting in the centurion’s house, but in his own house located some distance away. Only God could know all the details required to heal from a distance.
So it seems this centurion believed Jesus was God, who knew his even innermost thoughts. And this is also likely why he feared Jesus so much, lest Jesus might judge him to be unworthy of meeting face to face. Yet this centurion still believed this almighty God, who knew the realities of sinfulness and ignorance in all men, was full of grace, willing to heal sinner’s through His love for them. And this centurion also believed that Jesus knew which dying “servant” he loved and wanted to be healed. The centurion further believed that Jesus had the omniscience to instantly find the house and the bed where that “servant” was lying. Then, clearly this centurion was asking Jesus to heal that dying servant through His own will, authority and power. In other words, this centurion actually believed that the Spirit in Jesus was indeed the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator of the universe, Yahweh, the one true God revealed in the Jewish Scriptures. Yet even Christ’s most faithful disciples did not fully comprehend and grasp this fact at that time, not as well as this centurion did.
Yes, much later, after Jesus rose from the dead and gave His Holy Spirit to counsel His disciples, Matthew would also understand the full extent of Jesus’ deity, in the same way that this centurion sinner did. Then Jesus’ Holy Spirit would remind him about this event. Thus, Matthew wrote: “Now, after hearing [the centurion’s words], Jesus admired [him] and said to those following, ‘Surely I say to you people, I found as great a faith [coming] from no place in Israel. So I reason with you people that many will arrive from east and west, then will be seated with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens. Yet the heirs of the kingdom [of Israel] will be cast into the outer darkness.
The weeping and the gnashing of the teeth will be there’” (Mat. 8:10-12, from: ἀκούσας δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς
ἐθαύμασεν καὶ εἶπεν τοῖς ἀκολουθοῦσιν· Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, παρʼ οὐδενὶ τοσαύτην πίστιν ἐν τῷ
Ἰσραὴλ εὗρον. λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι πολλοὶ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν καὶ δυσμῶν ἥξουσιν καὶ ἀνακλιθήσονται μετὰ
Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν· οἱ δὲ υἱοὶ τῆς βασιλείας ἐκβληθήσονται
εἰς τὸ σκότος τὸ ἐξώτερον· ἐκεῖ ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων, SBLGNT). Now we know that many Jews believed Jesus was the Messiah, that is, the Creator God in human flesh. Thus, since Jesus said this centurion’s faith was greater than the faith of all the Jews in Israel at that time, we know that this centurion not only believed that Jesus was God, but also believed that Jesus, as the Creator God, could do literally all that God did, in a way that not even the Jews believed at that time.
Keep in mind that most of Christ’s followers were Jews, “the heirs of the kingdom” (οἱ υἱοὶ τῆς
βασιλείας), the physical offspring of Abraham, to whom God had eternally granted the inheritance of physical land set aside for His priesthood of Israel (Gen. 17:8). And all these Jews realized that this centurion, whom Jesus was admiring and recognizing as a person of greater faith than any found in Israel, was not only a Gentile, but was a much despised Roman officer from the brutal, foreign occupying military force of pagan Rome. Therefore, this rebuke from their Jewish Messiah, from the long-awaited Immanuel, their eternal King and God, would have been highly offensive to them all.
Yet God must tell the truth, and we sometimes need to be humbled by the truth, even if it hurts our carnal pride. And the truth is that this centurion, who wanted his servant healed by Jesus simply Page 555
willing it to happen, from a distance, without being told who to heal or where to heal him, without being told any of the details because he expected his God Jesus to already know everything, truly did have a great faith in Jesus. Then this was also a truly magnificent promise that the Jewish Messiah gave to that Roman Gentile. And Jesus also gave this same promise to many Gentiles in the future as well, since Jesus was referring to the Gentiles when He said “many will arrive from east and west.”
In context, Jesus was talking about people from east and west of Israel, about other Gentiles like this centurion, who would come to Him as His faithful disciples. And Jesus, the Creator God among us, the omniscient Spirit who knows all future time (because He has already created it), proclaimed that many Gentiles “will be seated with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens.” Here, once more, “heavens” is plural, indicating both God’s earthly kingdom and His eternal spiritual kingdom in the third heaven. Thus, many Gentiles will join Israel both on earth and in heaven above.
Since God intended His priesthood of the Israel to counsel and guide His earthly kingdom of the entire world, including all the Gentiles on earth, this is an amazing remark that Jesus made. Gentiles would help Israel build the beneficial and effective spiritual foundation of all God’s just laws and ways, as well as demonstrate all God’s ways to the world through love for God and His creations, especially through love for all their siblings in the family of humankind, even while His church of Israel also nullified the devil’s works through a hatred of all that opposes God’s just, loving wisdom.
Our God Jesus was saying that Gentiles with faith will join His priesthood of Israel as teaching and judging elders too. For some will be “seated with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens,” and sitting with the patriarchs is a term meaning to teach and judge with them as elders.
Now we know that God created and established only one true church of Israel in all history, and did this through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Therefore, since our God Jesus said that many Gentiles will be “seated with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens,” He indicated that many Gentiles will be gathered into that one true eternal church of Israel, both on this earth and forever in the third heaven. It means that, as other Scriptures say, Abraham will be the father of many Gentiles who believe in the one true God (e.g., Rom. 4:11-13). All Gentiles with faith like this centurion are God’s inheriting children, heirs of all the eternal spiritual promises God granted to Israel through Abraham. And remember, the Messiah’s New Covenant salvation into the eternal third heaven was to be God’s fulfilling of the eternal Abrahamic Covenant. Jesus came to do all that He promised to Abraham, all that established His one true church forever. So here Jesus was saying that all of the scattered elect on earth, all Gentiles with spirits born of the heavenly Father, all Gentiles with spirits that are able to love in a God-like and just way, in the same way this centurion was learning to love, will be children of Abraham, together with all the loving elect Jews. Many elect Gentiles were to be brought into Israel on earth, into His one true church. And many Gentiles would even be “seated” as elders, together with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to teach and judge from His church of Israel. Then, on the last day, all the elect Jews and Gentiles will descend into the new Jerusalem of heaven above.
However, not all of the physical descendants of Abraham are his “sons” or inheriting children. For not all physical descendants have spirits born of the heavenly Father, like Abraham did. And if the spirit is not like the elect spirit of Abraham, if the spirit is not born of the heavenly Father’s Spirit, one cannot be a true heir of Abraham. The kind of spirit in a person is all that really matters. For the temporary body of flesh is cast aside after the spirit completes its time of training in that flesh. The flesh will die when its purpose is complete, and it will forever vanish when the Father withdraws His power from the entire material universe. The Creator’s earthly kingdom of elect spirits—those under the first heaven of earth’s atmosphere, as well as under the second heaven of outer space—will be removed from the material universe, and gathered into His eternal third heaven after all of them have Page 556
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been completed and perfected, after all their infantile spirits mature. Then the first two heavens will
“burn” into literal nothing. Since the omniscient God knows all spirits born of His Spirit, all whom He “breathed” into existence, He only allows His own children into His true church that He created through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. All others make a false claim, a lie, if they say they enter Israel.
Now there are many who claim to be Jews solely because their flesh descended from Abraham. But all their laws and ways are made through an inner hatred of the real God. Their loveless spirits also fear and hate their siblings in the family of humankind, through a love for unjust, selfish, foolish lies and delusions which make them feel like gods as they oppose God’s just, loving wisdom. For their spirits were born from the spirit of the devil, and all want to be creators of their own destinies, just as their hellish father does. So none of these non-elect are able to see the humbling transience of their own failing flesh, nor its stinking rot, but insanely glorify their flesh instead. And some of their arrogant souls even strut around proclaiming themselves to be ruling gods in the church of Israel.
Then many of their Gentile siblings, all born of the same hellish father, do the same, and make war against both the elect Jews and the elect Gentiles. These Gentiles invented an new church of Israel, which they claim is a replacement of the old church of Israel, then attempt to rules they invent in their own minds of flesh. But none of Satan’s children can ever belong to God’s one true church of Israel, to neither the Old Covenant branch nor the New Covenant branch, not even to any kind of supposedly temporary “visible” church of Israel, since there never has been any temporary “visible”
church of Israel in all history. All the spirits that enjoy practising the ways of that devil, all the spirits that love their many man-made delusions and lies more than God’s one created body of truth, are fakes who should be expelled from every true local church. For all those must be handed over to their hellish father, given over to the darkness of their delusions and lies for the destruction of their flesh. Then the elect must use the threats of God’s Law to control their behaviours, for these threats were created for the lawless non-elect alone. For elect spirits need no threats to learn to love justly, but love to build up a loving life in God’s earthly kingdom, whenever they are taught the real truth.
This is why Jesus also declared: “Yet the heirs of the kingdom [of Israel] will be cast into the outer darkness. The weeping and the gnashing of the teeth will be there.” Here Jesus was specifically referring to the pretenders, to all the heirs of Satan who falsely claim to be Jews or Christians. God will soon cause His true church to cast those non-elect fakes into the outer darkness of their own deeply darkened delusions and lies, which each one created for oneself. As His prophesied sealing of elect spirits throughout earth begins, which is the great and true revival of His church, the elect will no longer tolerated those self-proclaimed human gods attempting to enslave them in false churches.
Soon God will cause 144,000 Jewish elect men, 12,000 from each tribe, as well as countless other Jewish and Gentile elect souls, to worship Him in their spirits and in truth. But the Great Harlot who gave birth to a myriad of other false churches, called her harlot daughters, will be exposed as the subject kingdoms of Satan’s world order. For, like secular Rome, they too ruled by laws and ways of their own invention, by the darkness of their own cherished delusions and lies. Then the devil and his secular Roman kingdom will burn the now useless fake church kingdoms, because those pretenders will no longer be able to enslave the elect any longer. But even Satan’s secular kingdoms will war against one another, and will be bitterly divided. All factions will become internally troubled lands, and all their wanna-be human gods will raise up armies in attempts to rule over all other human gods. Yet Satan will raise up one man and one nation above all the rest, the man and the nation which the Bible calls “the beast.” And the man called “the beast” will not only worship himself, but force all others to worship him as well. That beast will worship no other god more than himself, since his life-giving spirit will be the spirit of Satan himself, not a human spirit. Although this beast Page 557
will also worship the “god of fortresses” as his lesser god, and other lesser gods like Mammon, he will be his own chief god. But, before this “beast” burns the false church of the Great Harlot, God will call His elect and draw them out of it. For some elect will still be trapped in that false church, held in the bonds of its lies, which keep them loyal to the human gods of the fake church, even until just days before the beast burns it. So the last of the elect will escape the false churches only a few months before Jesus returns to destroy the beast and all the non-elect on earth. And, if they thought the “outer darkness” of the tyrannical and ruthless rule of wanna-be gods was hell on earth, they will find that the spiritual eternal hell, where each rules oneself through one’s own ungratified darkness of delusions and lies, will be much worse. There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the dark, oppressive and unjust kingdoms on earth. But the weeping and gnashing of teeth will be far worse in the real hell, once they realize they will never again be able to satisfy any of their lusts and cravings.
Over and over again, Jesus warned us about pretenders. He told us to watch out for non-elect and loveless wanna-be human gods claiming to be members and even heads of God’s Old Covenant priesthood of Israel. Yet the elect let them usurp the blessed authority of their heavenly Father, just because those fakes made bold claims and slapped their faces, and because their ruthless temporary bodies had descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then Jesus also warned us about the same kind of psychopathic, non-elect, Gentile pretenders claiming to be members and even heads of God’s New Covenant or “Christian” churches too. But Jesus calls all His elect to undo their works, to stop those enslaving slaves of the devil, to oppose their evil, and to build up His kingdom of just love. Of course, God did not want us to continuously war against fakes and their false teachings, as though that were our mission in life. Rather, our mission is to love God, love His creations and be loved by both God and His creations. And we certainly are not to focus on mostly upon physical weapons to do these works of nullifying works of the devil. Yes, His just laws must sometimes be upheld with force, for the sakes of the victims of violence, and He even calls us to partake in just wars at times, to help the innocent who cannot help themselves. Yet the Creator primarily wanted us to organize governing bodies of elders chosen by Him. But God gave those elders the right to use “swords” for nothing but the elimination of injustice and harmful lawlessness, since He demanded that all must pursue peaceful justice worked through a humble, just, equitable, Levitical police force and courts.
For those called and chosen to serve God through genuine worship from their elect spirits in truth, God has given a better “weapon” to use against the children of Satan. The first and most effective
“weapon” we are to use against them and their injustice is the broadcasting of real truth, through the godly wisdom He teaches us, by demonstrating His ways of applying the truth. Only this “weapon”
proves to be “mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor. 10:4b-5, WEB). Once genuine truth is placed out in the open for all eyes to see—including physical facts, but especially deeper spiritual or moral truths that work effective good for all over the long term—then the darkness of delusions and lies will lose its power, leaving all of the lovers of darkness divided and weak, bickering and warring against one another. For the light of truth always pierces into the darkness of lies, and always overcomes it, revealing whatever that darkness has tried to obscure or hide. And God’s immutable created laws have never allowed darkness to penetrate light, to darken light and overcome it, and it never will.
However, we also realize that almost all God’s realities and truths are far more complicated than most lies and delusions. We usually require much more detailed, harmonized data and information to effectively work God’s truths through loving wisdom, and work hard for a full understanding and to produce equitable justice. Yet, at the same time, although it takes more labour and time, the real truth Page 558
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always travels a very straight and unwavering path to specific conclusions, with great speed and power. Meanwhile, all the devil’s delusions and lies merely wind and twist in extremely crooked and convoluted paths leading to an utterly dark vacuum, with absolutely nothing in it, and without even a bottom to it, so there can never be any conclusions, nor any new goals to pursue. Sunlight is a good symbol of God’s truth, since it consists of many different and complex wavelengths of both visible and invisible energy, all travelling in straight lines to a destination, where it does all kinds of works, and can even be converted to new forms of energy that do even more kinds of works. But darkness is just a lack of energy and goes nowhere, accomplishing nothing, as a cold place fit only for the dead.
Now we have all seen how God’s created physical and spiritual truths, His laws of nature and His spiritual/moral laws, are a straight and narrow path of loving, peaceful, joyful, equitable justice, that leads toward an endless array of benefits for all His creations. The closer a land follows God’s truths and ways, the more that land frees and benefits the people and all God’s other creations. But look at how the non-elect, such as Hitler and Trump, use only simplistic lies and delusions, telling us that we can overcome all our troubles by simply worshipping them through blind loyalty, by placing all our faith in every slanderous word that comes from their demonic mouths, and by committing all the sins they command us to do. When psychopaths like this cause our sufferings and deaths, they deflect all the blame to the very ones who are actually trying to stop our sufferings and deaths, then command us to kill those whom God sent to save us, lest they actually do save us from those lying human gods who want us to worship them, lest we begin to trust and serve the real God instead of those vile liars.
Look at how the Hitlers and Trumps of Satan’s world order lie. They said all of the other races were responsible for all the economic, social and spiritual problems that their white majority faced in their lands. Of course, in reality, the other races actually were an economic, social and spiritual benefit to their lands. And, in reality, all their problems were caused through a complex combination of foolish, arrogant and deadly laws and ways which their esteemed wealthy, powerful, self-indulgent deceivers inflicted upon all the people of all races. However, it would take diligent research and education to truly understand the real causes for all their woes, with far more thought, time and research before anyone could derive truly effective solutions. So Hitler and Trump did not want to do all that! And both of those psychopaths actually wanted their lands to remain troubled, unjust and wicked, since both thrived on the darkness of unjust lies and delusions, as their lands destroyed themselves. Thus, to keep status quo, they lied. They told their dupes that, if they persecuted, enslaved, killed and plundered visible minorities, all their problems would disappear. And, naturally, that very simple fake solution did bring some temporary and superficial relief from their economic problems, through the theft of property and the enslavement of the other races, who did much work for the white worshippers of Hitler and Trump. But all those wanna-be human gods did was transfer all the pain and suffering of their worshippers into the lives of all others. Still that temporary and fake “success”
stirred their deluded followers to place even more faith in those liars, and gave them a false hope to serve those human gods even more. By giving their dupes a few more material goods and services for their flesh, Hitler and Trump made them hate God and God’s truths even more. But, of course, this temporary, superficial gain cost their dupes their freedom or their lives in the end, as well as a lifetime of bitterness ending in eternal hell. Thus, that price greatly exceeded the value of the gain.
As time passed, ever increasing suffering and deaths resulted from the lies of Hitler and Trump, and produced only a growing loss of freedoms and rights, with more and more injustice, internal strife, economic woes, wars, man-made famines, environmental disasters and so on. Then, as each new evil manifested, Hitler and Trump distracted their dupes with more lies, and falsely justified the ways in which they themselves caused many evils, much senseless, needless suffering and the deaths of good Page 559
people. Those vain egos were forced to continuously add lie upon lie, and had to create ever more false narratives to esteem themselves and their destructive ways. So their platforms soon became a convoluted mess of contradicting conspiracy theories and incomprehensible false reasoning, which none could comprehend. In fact, Hitler and Trump did not even comprehend their own lies, nor keep track of them, and stopped even trying to make themselves look consistent. So their dupes lied to themselves, and simply reasoned that these self-indulgent gods were incomprehensible geniuses, far too brilliant for mere common souls to comprehend. Thus, God had entirely handed those fascists over to Satan for the deluding of their souls and destruction of their flesh, since none loved the truth.
But the ones firmly grounded in reality plainly saw that Hitler and Trump were merely psychopathic fools who ignorantly destroyed themselves, as well as everyone and everything they touched. Those liars and murderers were just like their father, Satan, whom Jesus described as “a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44), that devil who is also called “Abaddon” (meaning, “Destroyer,” see Rev. 9:11). So each lie itself is simple, easy to comprehend. But each leads to more lies, to an endless and winding trail that goes nowhere, except loss, destruction and eventually hell itself. Yet each genuine truth is difficult to comprehend, with numerous physical and spiritual considerations to weigh as one rightly applies it. But truth will forge a straight and easily followed path, one that even the most simple folk can find and walk along in a fruitful, abundant life, in ways which truly benefit all their loved ones and all of God’s creations.
Lastly, consider the final words of Jesus to the centurion. This was likely a message of Jesus relayed to him through a messenger, but it is something that most churches today need to fully understand.
Jesus said, “Go. In the way you believed, it is commanded to be fully completed for you” (Mat. 8:13, from: Ὕπαγε, ὡς ἐπίστευσας γενηθήτω σοι, SBLGNT). Then the centurion’s beloved servant was healed “in that hour” (ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐκείνῃ), meaning, while Jesus spoke these words. And, when Jesus uttered these words, He used a third person aorist passive imperative form of γίνομαι (“cause, make, become, finish” and so on). Of course, in English, there is no such thing as a third person imperative.
But, in Greek, this third person passive imperative meant that Jesus commanded that an action must
“be completed.” And the aorist tense suggests that it must be done “fully,” not partially. Also, Jesus commanded it “to be fully completed” for the sake of that centurion, as is indicated by the dative pronoun (σοι). Furthermore, Jesus laid out a condition for this command, saying that the action must be fully completed in the way that centurion believed (ὡς ἐπίστευσας). Therefore, the healing of the beloved servant was completed by the will, command, power and authority of Jesus, not by the will nor by the faith of the centurion. That healing was not done in the way many churches now say this and other healings were done. For Jesus willed to do the healing by granting it to be done in the way that the centurion believed Jesus could do it, not through the belief, faith nor will of that centurion.
Most translators are taught to interpret a third person imperative into English by adding the phrase
“let it be” in front of a participle form of the verb. Consequently, what Jesus said here is most often translated something like this: “Let it be done for you as you have believed.” And this might imply that Jesus was saying the centurion’s faith healed his beloved servant, if someone wanted to force that interpretation on Christ’s words. But Jesus definitely did not intend this sentence to mean that.
Every English reader should be aware of this, and every translator should make that perfectly clear.
Doctrines proclaiming the “power of faith” and teachings about how “the word of faith” can make a spoken word come to pass are actually telling people to worship themselves as gods, and to worship
“faith” as a power and a secondary god. They are wilfully serving and esteeming their own wills and themselves in general, by attempting to work their own wills through a pagan “god” called “faith.”
For they do not want to learn truths from God, but want to live by the selfish lusts and greed of their Page 560
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own flesh. Their so-called “Christian faith” is worked by trying to concentrate hard enough, in their minds of flesh, so they can force a healing to occur, or money to fall into their laps. Thus, those wilful souls are, in reality, practising an ancient pagan occult religion dating back to more than four thousand years ago, but in a form that was revived in the 19th century and at other times in history.
Gnostic religions in the second century AD, and New Thought Metaphysics in the 19th century, revived that cult. Then men like Kenneth Hagin read about New Thought Metaphysics and brought it into the church. However, the Bible calls it witchcraft or sorcery, and it is the very same Egyptian cult practice that God’s Law (and Jesus, who fulfills God’s Law in and through us) condemned (Ex.
22:18, Lev. 19:31, 20:6,27). Then Samuel once told Saul: “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and [pagan idols]. Because you have rejected Yahweh’s word, he has also rejected you from being king” (Sam. 15:23, WEB). Now surely anyone who has ever seen the
“Faith Movement” recognizes this characteristic in all the adherents of those false churches. We can all see their stubbornness, as they demand that their own carnal wills must be done. For all those fake churches teach their disciples to reject the teaching that God’s will must be done, and to do only their own will at all times. Thus, they practise that ancient Egyptian witchcraft and act like Saul did, whom God rejected. It is clear that their cults hate God’s Word and rebel against God. Then their worship (serving and esteem) of themselves and their worship of “faith power” as their secondary god is obviously a form of idolatry, and worse than Saul’s idolatry. So they break the first and second order laws of God. And they also practise this witchcraft in the name of our God Jesus, by falsely claiming that their teachings come from God’s Word. So, by using God’s name in their cults, they abuse His name, and break the third-order laws of God. Yet God considers their sins of the first three orders to be the worst of all sins, worse than murder and rape, since the effects of those kinds of sins always lead to other sins like murder and rape. The only thing that witchcraft ever really does is lead souls away from a total reliance on God, away from a trust in His love, words, will, authority and power. Consequently, those false churches of witchcraft, who like to call themselves “Word of Faith”
churches, are actually destroyers of true saving faith in God. All of those self-willed, rebellious cults literally turn all of their duped souls further from true faith in Jesus and His New Covenant salvation.
Let me be clear, the Greek phrase, γενηθήτω σοι, means, “I command it to be fully completed for you.” It means that the Holy Spirit of the heavenly Father, which is the Spirit of life in the body of Jesus, was the Person, Power and Authority which had commanded the healing of the centurion’s beloved servant. God in Jesus caused the healing to occur through His own will, by His own power and through His own authority. And our God did this healing for the sake of that centurion, through His love for that centurion. So there is a huge difference between the pure theism taught by Jesus’
words and the witchcraft practised by fake humanistic churches called the “Faith Movement.” The Greeks and Romans perfected Satan’s religion of self-worship, called humanism. Then that ancient Egyptian witchcraft nicely harmonized with that religion of humanism. For humanism taught that each person could control one’s own destiny, as one’s own god. Then witchcraft taught that one could supposedly use one’s own powerful “free will” to utter words through the mouth and force those words to become real. Witchcraft claimed that the spoken word could produce whatever realities of health and wealth one desired for one’s own greedy, self-indulgent flesh through one’s own “free will.” And this is why that cult of ancient witchcraft kept popping up in humanistic lands throughout history, and why it has also become popular in fake humanistic churches too. However, pure biblical Judaism and Christianity involve a trust, confidence, belief and faith only in the true Creator God and His words, including a belief of His words which say that literally all of us are mere Page 561
sinners without any understanding at all, that we have no real power to see and comprehend realities, much less any power to create our own realities. True saving faith relies on God alone, not ourselves.
“But,” they will say, “that centurion’s faith power healed his own servant, because Jesus told him,
‘as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.’ Since Jesus did not say He healed the servant, only that the healing was done ‘unto him’ by some power in the way he believed, it must have been the power of that centurion’s free will, and the power of his spoken words, which caused the healing of his servant.” However, we need to remember that it was Jesus who was speaking here, and that He used a Greek third-person imperative, a form of the verb which not found in the English language.
So, just like a second-person imperative (such as, “you do this” or “you do that”), where the speaker commands someone to do something, here it was Jesus commanding the healing to be done. That is, the Greek verb clearly indicates that the healing was done directly through the authority and power of Jesus. As for the phrase, ὡς ἐπίστευσας, it clearly and obviously described how Jesus wanted the servant to be healed, and meant, “in the way you believed.” Because the centurion believed that Jesus was Immanuel (the almighty Creator God dwelling in a body of flesh), he believed that Jesus was able to completely restore his servant to health, even by simply willing his servant to be healed, even while standing some distance away, even without being told which servant needed to be healed, and even without being told where that servant was located. So the centurion’s faith believed in the total omnipotence and omniscience of Jesus. Thus, since the centurion believed He was fully and entirely God, Jesus completely healed the servant, in a way that only God could heal the servant, that is, from a distance, after Jesus’ omniscient Spirit of God found out which servant to heal and where that servant was located. In other words, Jesus healed the servant in the way the centurion believed that Jesus could heal that servant, which is the way that the all-knowing, almighty God could heal.
And this centurion not only believed that Jesus possessed God’s attributes of omniscience and omnipotence, he also fully trusted in the love and in the words of our God Jesus. Because that centurion believed that Jesus loved even a Gentile sinner like himself, who had committed unjust violence, and likely while drunk or on drugs, this centurion also believed that Jesus would have compassion on him and his servant. He believed the love of Jesus would heal his beloved servant from a distance, without needing to go and physically touch his servant, without even knowing the name or location of the servant. It was because that centurion placed all the confidence of his human spirit upon the love, will, power, authority, teachings and forgiveness of Jesus “in this way,” that Jesus rewarded his saving faith by granting the healing he begged Him to provide. So do not make the same mistake that humanistic witches and warlocks do. Jesus Himself clearly healed the servant, through His command, according to His own love and will, through His own authority and power.
Mat. 8:14-17,
Jesus Removes Our Infirmities
“When Jesus came into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She got up and served Him. When evening came, they brought to Him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He took our infirmities, and bore our diseases.’” (Mat. 8:14-17, WEB).
Here Matthew paraphrased two clauses that were “spoken through Isaiah the prophet,” both taken from this verse: “Surely He has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered Him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted” (Is. 53:4, WEB). Here Matthew quoted this prophecy in the Page 562
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context of Jesus having healed spiritual and physical infirmities and sicknesses. He was saying that Jesus healed us because He had paid for our sins and was leading us away from sin, into a righteous and loving life, which gave our God the right to heal us, and justified His mercy towards us. For Matthew and the devout Jewish readers of his Gospel all knew how the rest of this prophecy from Isaiah indicated all this. All Matthew needed to quote were these two clauses, in order to remind those well-taught Jews about the rest of this prophecy in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. And Matthew wrote this passage long after the torture and murder of Jesus by the hands of humanistic rabbis and Gentile Romans. So the parts of Isaiah’s prophecy which said that deceived souls would consider Jesus to have been plagued and struck down by God— even though Jesus is the Creator God who willingly submitted His own sinless body to affliction and death to pay the devil’s ransom for the sins they themselves had committed—was also implied. And now we need to remember this too.
In Matthew’s day, and to this day, some Jewish rabbis interpret these first two clauses from Isaiah’s prophecy in false way. They rightly translate those clauses as referring to someone who “bore our suffering and carried our pain.” However, they teach that a mortal man, a priest whom they call the
“Suffering Servant,” would do this. And they claim that this man could not be the Messiah, since the Messiah will be a mighty King who lives forever, and logically could not die in the way Isaiah prophesied that this “Suffering Servant” would die. But is that really impossible? It was beyond the scope of their imaginations to believe that God could dwell within His own creation of a human body, as though God were limited by His own creations of space and time. And they thought God was so weak that He, who created all that exists in heaven and on earth, could never raise His human body from the dead with His own power. Thus, their reasoning is faulty, based on false assumptions.
And, of course, in context, the pronoun “our” in these two clauses refers to those to whom God gave this prophesy. That is, God was speaking to His eternal church of Israel here, through Isaiah. The audience was Israel, the nation of His priests that He established through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Consequently, these rabbis often say that God will forgive, correct, heal and save only the people of Israel through this “Suffering Servant,” with the help of another man called the Messiah. Well, they are partly right. God was addressing His elect in Israel, but also all the elect Gentiles whom He had gathered into Israel from the days Abraham, especially during the exodus from Egypt during the time of Moses, then throughout history since then, even Gentiles from everywhere on earth. For God told Abraham that he would become the father of all nations on earth, that He would save all the elect in all history by the end of the final day. Literally all the Jewish and Gentile elect souls in history are destined to serve in the third heaven as the children of the High King, as His priesthood to all other living creations dwelling in God’s spiritual realm forever, not just those physically descended from Abraham’s Gentile flesh. If we interpret these words of God’s prophecy in the context of the entire books of Isaiah and Genesis, and all the other Scriptures, we realize that God saves Gentiles too.
Now, in the first clause of this verse from Isaiah 53:4, the Hebrew verb means “to lift up, raise up, hold up, bear, take away.” Then the object of that verb means “calamity, sickness, anxiety, grief.”
And, in the second clause, the Hebrew verb means “to carry a heavy burden, bear a burden with strength,” then the object means “affliction, anguish, sorrow, grief, pain.” So Matthew translated these two Hebrew clauses into Greek as: “He received our weaknesses and carried away the infirmities” (Mat. 8:17b, from: Αὐτὸς τὰς ἀσθενείας ἡμῶν ἔλαβεν καὶ τὰς νόσους ἐβάστασεν, SBLGNT). Also, we assume that Matthew translated them directly from the Hebrew text, since the Septuagint’s version is completely different: “This man is carrying our sins and is grieving about us”
(Οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει, καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται). Thus, we know Matthew knew some Page 563
Hebrew and had some access to the original Hebrew Scriptures. For Matthew’s translation captures the essence of Isaiah’s intended meaning, which was written in Hebrew, and he could not have done that if he did not know Hebrew or did not have access to the Hebrew text. But the way Matthew applied this meaning to this context is very subtle and designed to reach a more knowledgeable Jewish audience who could understand his implications hidden in what he did not quote. For the Jews often quoted only the beginning of a Scripture, leaving the rest of the Scripture to be filled in by those who knew the Scripture, so they could imply teachings while hiding them from enemies.
So Matthew left our spirits to fill in the rest of this quote and interpret it in this context of Jesus healing people, physically and spiritually. We are to understand him through our spirits, as Matthew understood Isaiah through his spirit. That is, we know the spirit of Isaiah had received this message from God, who then commanded him to utter it to the ears of His church, to Israel. And our elect spirits also know that spirits do not converse with God in earthly languages. Rather, spirits instantly hear and speak complicated and detailed concepts that would take pages to write in any earthly language, and our spirits usually talk to God without voicing any physical sounds. Our thoughts of our spirits just pour out instantaneously to God. Then our spirits receive indescribably deep and complex thoughts from God, concepts which take hours, days and even decades just to partially process within our feeble minds of flesh. So the Hebrew and Greek words of the Scriptures are very important to get right and translate correctly, for the sakes of the minds of our spirits, as our minds of flesh convey those concepts to our spirits inside our souls. For our elect spirits need to hear them, then ponder them. But it is even more important to then turn to God and let our spirits hear His own thoughts about those Scriptures, so we can gain God’s own right understanding of their meanings.
Thus, to speak or write the concepts that a prophet’s spirit hears from the Holy Spirit of the Creator, the prophet’s spirit must enter the chamber of the soul and command one’s mind of flesh to build an approximation of those concepts in its own earthly language, then use one’s body to utter or write down those words in that earthly language. God’s Spirit will also help the prophet’s spirit edit what his flesh attempts to convey through his earthly language, by saying “Yes” to one version and “No”
to another. But earthly languages are highly ambiguous and must have clear context to signal what they actually mean. Thus, any interpretation of a prophecy must be driven by an honest and diligent intent and motive worked by the interpreter’s own spirit, as that interpreter’s own spirit carefully listens to God’s Spirit. Only then can an interpretation be made in a right and accurate way. Matthew had a spirit that heeded the utterly Holy Spirit of the one living God. So he did interpret Isaiah well.
Now, in the first century, when Jesus’ body walked upon this earth, most Jewish scholars naturally assumed that, what we call the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, was a Messianic prophecy. Of course, because so-called “Christians” had separated from the Jews by the second century, then ostracized, hated, hounded, falsely accused, beat, plundered, drove away, starved, tortured and murdered Jewish men, women and children ever since, many Jewish scholars emotionally changed their minds about their interpretation of that chapter. In our day, many of the Jewish scholars think that, since the so-called “Christians” associate this chapter with Jesus, then persecute them because their ancestors
“considered [Jesus] plagued, struck by God, and afflicted,” they will no longer assign that chapter a place in their list of Messianic prophecies. But what those Jewish Scholars do not realize is that the one whom their so-called “Christian” persecutors call “Jesus” is actually an idol created in their own minds, and that the real spirit they esteem and serve through their worship is the one whom God and His Word calls “Satan.” Most that hate and persecute innocent Jews have spirits born of the devil, not spirits born of God. And those persecutors are criminals, followers of antisemitic teachings from popes, pastors, Hitlers, Trumps and other bigots. They are faithful disciples of Satan, and lie, falsely Page 564
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declaring that they do all their ruthless deeds in the name of Jesus, although they actually do all their psychopathic works in the name of their father, Satan. So the emotional reaction of Jewish scholars to the criminal actions of fake “Christians” cannot alter the fact that the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is a Messianic prophecy. And here Matthew set out to prove that Jesus is Isaiah’s genuine Messiah.
Then look at how Matthew prefaces his declaration that Jesus is Isaiah’s Priestly Messiah, even the New Covenant’s High Priest, who takes away sins and heals Israel, the same Messiah whom Isaiah prophesied about in the fifty-third chapter of his book. First Matthew tells us how Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law from her sickness and fever. And Jesus did this by touching her hand. Then the hand of that mother immediately served Jesus, her God. She likely fed Him, but also learned God’s Word from Him, as one of His disciples. We are not told how she ministered (διακονέω) to Jesus. Yet we do see, by the way Jesus healed her, by touching her hand, that Christ’s healings have a definite purpose. Jesus does not heal so we may then selfishly serve ourselves. Our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being is not for our own self-indulgent, loveless pleasures of the flesh.
We see here that Jesus receives us in spite of our many weaknesses, through His love for us. Then He removes our infirmities so we can recognize His love for us, and reciprocate that love. And if our spirits love Him, we spontaneously serve Him, by serving His creations through our love for Him.
After this first illustration of how Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy, Matthew also declared that Jesus did similar acts for others who came to Him that evening. And, in that region, those people would include both elect Jews and elect Gentiles, hundreds of the elect whom our heavenly Father called and caused to follow and trust Jesus. To begin with, Matthew said: “They presented to Him many who were being vexed by demons, and He cast out the spirits with a purposeful word” (Mat. 8:16a, from: προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ δαιμονιζομένους πολλούς· καὶ ἐξέβαλεν τὰ πνεύματα λόγῳ, SBLGNT). To those who have experienced the power of demonic spirits, this was the most amazing kind of healing possible. For infantile and feeble human spirits have absolutely no power to “cast out” (ἐκβάλλω) the mature and strong spirits of demons. The only limitations demons experience are those placed upon them by God. God spiritually “bound,” “chained” and “imprisoned” them upon the earth and in the material space-time continuum. So God is the only one who could ever “cast out” those spirits from the souls of human beings, “with a purposeful word” (λόγῳ), spoken through His own mouth and by His own will. And Matthew claimed Jesus did this Himself, but not just in the name of God.
So Matthew was here claiming, again, that Jesus is God. Then he added: “and He healed everyone having [physical, emotional or spiritual] needs in a bad way” (Mat. 8:16b, from: καὶ πάντας τοὺς κακῶς
ἔχοντας ἐθεράπευσεν, SBLGNT). So Jesus received those with all kinds of weaknesses and carried away those infirmities. Thus, Jesus had exemplified what Isaiah had prophesied about the Messiah.
Now, in the first chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, he proved that Jesus is the prophesied King of Israel, the Messiah descended from King David. Then, in this Sermon on the Mount, he also illustrated how Jesus is the prophesied Great Prophet, whom God commanded Israel to heed, the Messiah uttering God’s Word with God’s own authority, who would teach a message of genuine truth originating directly from God’s heart. So now, in this passage, Matthew was proving that Jesus is the High Priest of the New Covenant as well, the Suffering Servant of God whom Isaiah and other prophets spoke about, the Messiah who vicariously pays the penalty’s price for Israel’s guilt of sin. At that time in history, some Jewish scholars taught that the Messiah would be three different men: a King from the line of David, a Prophet like Elijah, and a Priest who would die to pay for the sins of His people in Israel. But here Matthew assured us that the Messiah is all three at once, God with us in Jesus’ flesh.
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Look at how Matthew portrayed Isaiah’s Messiah: “He received our weaknesses and carried away the infirmities.” Matthew never thought much of himself, since he had once been a despised tax collector, a sinner who, at the very least, aided and abetted dishonest extortioners, if he did not actually practise some extortion himself. Matthew became this through his own weaknesses, having been duped into taking that job by the convincing rhetoric of souls he should not have heeded, and was likely driven into that career by his panicking flesh, when he faced needy circumstances beyond his control. But now he knew he should have prayed more, and should have followed the calling of God to his spirit instead. Still, his own weaknesses helped him empathize with weaknesses of others who now sought Jesus for truth and healing. They were all just like him, with infantile, ignorant, human spirits that most often ignored the counsel of God’s Spirit, though God’s Holy Spirit always remained faithful to them, always kept on calling and counselling their elect spirits. They were just like him in the way they walked according to their self-seeking, wretched, odious and outright stupid minds of flesh, driven by self-destructive lusts. And all were too foolish to let their own elect spirits firmly manage their minds and bodies of flesh through the counsel of God’s loving, wise Holy Spirit.
Matthew knew full well how his own weaknesses led him into sins that inevitably would have led to the total destruction of his life, and caused great harm to others as well. But none could remove and heal any of that destruction or harm, except God Himself, through His power to overcome and cast out powerfully deceiving spirits, then work physical miracles to restore the damage he did. All these people, his whole nation of Israel and the entire world, would have perished long ago if the almighty, all-knowing Creator did not intercede, if God did not slow down, hinder and stop the effects of their sins, if God did not carry away at least some of mankind’s “infirmities.” Of course, God’s Word also commanded that an Aaronic high priest could make a symbolic animal sacrifice to represent that inevitable cost of sin. And, if God accepted the repentance of a sinner, God could grant forgiveness, with an atonement of the relationship between that repentant sinner and Himself. Yet a high priest and the sin sacrifices were mere symbols of what God intended to do for His elect children in the future. That human high priest had no personal power to actually carry away infirmities, and never claimed to be a powerful magician. True Jewish priests never tried to be like the pagan priests. And Isaiah knew all this. So here Matthew was telling us that the reality, which the symbols represented, had now arrived in Israel, just as Isaiah prophesied. The Immanuel, the saving Messiah, had now come to do God’s real works of actually removing infirmities from His elect, by removing their sin.
The New Covenant’s High Priest, “God with us,” had arrived with the real sinless sacrifice for all time. Now there could be God’s genuine truth uttered to us all, with the power to heal us from all of the destruction we experienced through our own sins, weaknesses and ignorance. Jesus had come.
This is why Matthew prefaced his quote from Isaiah with an account of how Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, cast out demonic spirits and carried away all kinds of infirmities. He knew that he and all other human beings were weak, subject to troubles caused either by sin or resulting from a lack of knowledge, wisdom, foresight, strength, ability and the spiritual, mental or physical resources to manage perilous circumstances. He knew the wretched needed the Messiah’s counsel and healing.
Matthew was calling us to place all the trust of our elect spirits in this King, Prophet and High Priest.
Mat. 8:18-22,
Real Christians
“Now when Jesus saw great multitudes around Him, He gave the order to depart to the other side. A scribe came, and said to Him, ‘Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.’ Jesus Page 566
said to him, ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’
“Another of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead’” (Mat. 8:18-22, WEB).
A real Christian remains a disciple of Jesus throughout one’s very short and ignorant life upon the earth, then remains a child of the heavenly Father throughout eternity. To be a true Christian, to be an active and effective member of our High Priest’s household, as a priest wisely ministering to His people through just love, one must be continuously taught and trained by Jesus, as His disciple, for literally every aspect of life. For there is no circumstance where one’s words and actions cannot either cause harm or else build up God’s loving and just kingdom. Even our most common daily words and actions can be either sins or God’s fruitful works. However, as Matthew points out here, to become the Messiah’s true disciple, one must be chosen by Him. None cannot simply choose to become Jesus’ disciple through one’s own will. For we know that Matthew and all the other disciples were hand-picked by the Head Teacher, by the Lord of all His priests in His church. And, in all of history, both before and after Jesus came to us, not one of God’s true servants chose to serve Him through their own wills. Literally all priests of God, past and future, must be chosen by God alone.
Jesus chose all the disciples whom He made into His assistant teachers, the apostles. Then Jesus chose every soul among the masses of His disciples, every individual whose elect spirit found His words to be true. Then Jesus drove away all whom He did not chose, all the non-elect who wanted to follow Him through corrupted motives and intentions. Jesus would set His eyes upon the spirit of a chosen elect person, then speak directly to that one’s heart. He began to teach that one, and possibly even healed that one, without asking if that one willed to follow Him. For all the true elect spirits that ever existed or will exist possess an inherent nature, a created propensity, to love the words and deeds of Jesus. So, whenever the Holy Spirit of Jesus spoke to an elect spirit, that was the moment the person became His disciple. It has always been the will of Jesus which has made elect souls into His disciples, and human wills have never initiated this calling. Even before any soul journeyed out to hear Jesus, while one was still sitting lost and wretched in one’s home, the urge to seek Jesus did not originate from mere idle curiosity, but came as a compulsion, an irresistible need to know. Then His words captivated one, could not be easily dismissed. For He had taken that one under His wing.
Yet Jesus also looked away from many, did not heal nor teach many, did not draw many to Himself.
During the Sermon on the Mount, and throughout the Gospels, Jesus even rebuked and chased away some who had walked miles into the wilderness just to hear to Him. For Jesus knew they were the ones who came out of curiosity, or to join a leader who might help them conquer their enemies. They did not come because their elect spirits saw that Jesus spoke the truth. Thus, clearly, not one person in all history has ever become a true and faithful disciple of the living Lord Jesus through one’s own human will. His discipleship “just happens.” And most of His true disciples have never even known how or why they were so strongly drawn to Jesus, how or why His words pierced the strong walls around the chambers of their souls, reaching the ears of their spirits so loudly and clearly. Few know how or why His truths grabbed their undivided attention, nor how their lethargic spirits began to awaken in their hearts, spurring them into ever deeper love, and just actions through love. Nor can they begin to reason why Jesus chose them, since they all know they are sinners, incapable of any great loving service for God and His creations, not in any way that is better than anyone else. In fact, Jesus often chooses the most incapable, messed-up souls, those without power, wealth and earthly Page 567
success, the wretched ones. He seems to choose disciples from the lowly who rely on Him more than any others. Matthew noticed this as well, and so did one of His other apostles who prophesied this:
“For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world that He might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that He might put to shame the things that are strong; and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that He might bring to nothing the things that are: that no flesh should boast before God. But of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, ‘He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord’” (I Cor. 1:26-31, WEB).
Our sufficiency in all we say and do is not from ourselves, but from our God, Jesus. And He brings us, who are all destructive sinners without understanding, together, into His body. Then He does mighty works inside us and through us—but not because we outnumber His enemies, nor through the leadership of “great” men among us, nor because of our organizational skills achieved by human heads. Rather, we accomplish His just and loving works on earth solely through each one’s personal counsel, guidance, commands and power received from His holy Spirit. We overcome evil with good by turning our focus to the only Head of each man. By each of us looking to our wise and almighty Lord Jesus, as individuals and as a whole body of individuals, we build up God’s kingdom on earth and undo the works of the devil. By His authority and His power we do works of equitable justice throughout the earth, in our love for Him and for His people, even through love for all His creations.
The Gospel promise of our Messiah Jesus, through His New Covenant salvation in His blood, is that: As each and every true disciple’s spirit heeds the teachings and warnings of Jesus, then does what He calls one’s spirit to do, all will be done according to His wisdom and through His power, and all His true disciples will end up working together for the same goals, as a multitude with one purpose, in one mind, according to His will. And this conscious, or sometimes even unconscious cooperation and harmony of the awakened elect, is one of the greatest of miracles that Jesus performs, the most wondrous of His wonders. To do His effective works, Jesus needs to use His power and authority to choose: (1) which of His elect children are ready to be called into His priesthood of the true church of Israel; (2) which of His elect He created, prepared and destined for each mission; and (3) which missions bear the greatest priority, the order in which those missions must be done, and how each mission must be accomplished to produce the most good and the least harm to innocent souls. For only some elect were predestined to be taught and trained as His servants in His earthly church, to know Him by His name, and to minister to His earthly creations in His name. And many elect will not know they are the children of the heavenly Father, nor be consciously serve Him while they live in bodies of flesh on earth. Of course, literally all elect, including these sleeping elect will serve as the priests of Jesus in His eternal church of Israel after the last day, and serve His heavenly creations at home, in heaven above. But not all elect will enter His church on earth, to directly serve Him here.