Now look at the reasons and principles Jesus revealed to those disciples of John and the Pharisees.
And, with Jesus’ perfect knowledge of the Scriptures, He packed more biblical inferences into His words than most have comprehended. First Jesus responded by saying: “The sons of the wedding hall [i.e., the family and friends of the Bridegroom, all who shared in his mind and purposes] are not able to grieve
[i.e., to devout Jews, this grieving referred to fasting, since they closely associated these two concepts due to God’s commands for the Day of Atonement] about anything whatsoever [while] the Bridegroom is with them. Yet days will come when the Bridegroom should be taken away from them. And then they will fast”
(Mat. 9:15, from: Μὴ δύνανται οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος πενθεῖν ἐφʼ ὅσον μετʼ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ὁ νυμφίος; ἐλεύσονται δὲ ἡμέραι ὅταν ἀπαρθῇ ἀπʼ αὐτῶν ὁ νυμφίος, καὶ τότε νηστεύσουσιν, SBLGNT). Here Jesus used a common Jewish metaphor, likening a marriage to the relationship between God and His church of Israel. The “sons of the wedding hall” referred to God’s family in the priesthood of Israel as well as all elect Gentiles who have not yet entered the eternal church of Israel, but love and do what is right in God’s eyes. Since the Jews remembered how Isaiah had once portrayed God as the Bridegroom of His priesthood of Israel (see Is. 61:10; 62:5), Jesus drew this analogy of Himself with His church (just as the apostles also did, see Eph. 5:31-33; Rev. 19:7-8). Thus, since Jesus likened Himself to the Bridegroom of the church of Israel, He was calling Himself the God of Israel here.
Yet, in those days, before Jesus ratified the New Covenant by shedding His blood, He did not call Himself the Husband of Israel. Instead, He called Himself the Bridegroom. At this time—before He died on the cross, rose from the dead, then sent His Spirit to His church—Jesus called Himself the νυμφίος, referring to His marriage relationship existing in a state where the marriage contract had already signed in the past, and where both He and His bride were officially married, but where He had not yet begun to live with His bride as one body, sharing one purpose in life. For God did marry Israel when He took her as His eternal priesthood through the Abrahamic Covenant, to serve the world with Himself. But, when God, in Jesus’ body, began His ministry in the land, the bridal chamber had been prepared, the wedding feast was occurring, and both would soon begin to live together. In other words, the Holy Spirit of God would soon dwell with His church, in their hearts, after He ratified the New Covenant in His blood and sent them His Spirit on the day of the Pentecost.
There was a difference between a husband and bridegroom in the eyes of the devout Jews at that time in history. For a Jewish marriage began at the moment that the spirits of both spouses made a covenant of marriage with one another. At that moment, the spouses were called the bridegroom and the bride, but were not yet fully functioning as husband and wife, although the marriage was already legally binding and the two had already been bound together for life, before the eyes of God. For, to devout Jews, a biblical marriage was not about physically being together, but about the commitments of their spirits. Marriage was the man’s spirit and the woman’s spirit united in all the goals and all the purposes of their lives. Only after their spirits shared one earthly life, did their flesh, which was to be managed by their spirits, become one flesh. Thus, a marriage was never made by the wills of the spouses’ minds of flesh, through an oath uttered by their mouths of flesh at a physical ceremony.
Yes, a wedding ceremony might take place after the marriage covenant, to celebrate the future of the marriage already established by their spirits. But their two spirits could not be bound together within Page 635
a true marriage at a wedding ceremony. For their spirits initiated the marriage covenant according to the prompting of their Owner, Yahweh God, through His will alone, not through their wills of their flesh. Thus, vows made by the mind and mouth of flesh at a ceremony were totally ridiculous. Nor could a true marriage even be initiated by the wills of their spirits. Rather, it was a destiny created by God’s will, when God caused their spirits to love one another and commit to one another. The will of a spirit had to be caused to choose to make a marriage covenant with a spouse through circumstances and influences ruled by God Himself. God caused a spirit to make this full, loving commitment to a spouse. Thus, if spiritual powers and forces beyond the control of human beings caused the spirits of spouses to form a bond of love, then mere human beings must not ever interfere with those powers.
So Jesus called Himself the Bridegroom of Israel because, even before Jesus had begun His ministry among the people of Israel, God’s Marriage Covenant was made between His Spirit and the spirits of His people in His church of Israel, even when all their spirits had not yet been born into bodies of flesh, as the priestly spirit of Abraham had been. But the Holy Spirit of Jesus had not yet come to live with their spirits in their hearts. So the Bridegroom and the bride were not yet living together as Husband and wife. That time of living together would not begin until the Pentecost. But now notice, in Jesus’ response (Mat. 9:15), that He also spoke about the “sons of the wedding hall.” And Jesus used this terminology in the same way the Scriptures spoke about the “sons of the prophets” (e.g., I Kings 20:35; II Kings 2:3, et al.). The “sons of the prophets” were those who shared the same mind and purposes as the prophets, like sons did with a beloved father. Also, they were often the disciples of a prophet, because that man served as an example to them, of all they wanted to become. They often lived with the prophet who taught and trained them, like his sons. And so were these men that Jesus was talking to. The disciples of the prophet John were “sons of that prophet.” So, when Jesus called them the “sons of the wedding hall,” He was saying that John’s disciples were among God’s family and friends partaking in the celebration of the New Covenant relationship He would now enter with His church of Israel. Those disciples of John would be His disciples, would be His sons too, the priesthood that took care of His bride, the rest of the priesthood called the church of Israel, and share in His works to care for Israel. For sons took care of their “mother” together with their
“father.” And now we are disciples of Jesus, the “sons” of the Husband of the church of Israel. Thus, we now bear the duty of taking care of the church of Israel, of all the elect He gathers into His house.
Now, by calling Himself the “Bridegroom,” Jesus indicated that, at that present time, while He was with His disciples, His marriage covenant between Him and His bride, His New Covenant with Israel, had not yet been consummated and ratified. In Jewish terms, Jesus was saying the marriage covenant had already been established, that He and His church were already legally married and she would never be abandoned after He made His covenant, but He and His church had not yet begun to live together as Husband and wife. It is important to realize that Jesus was declaring this at that time.
Jesus is God, who became the “Bridegroom” of the church of Israel at the moment He married her through Abraham. And this is actually what the eternal Abrahamic Covenant was, the fully binding
“marriage covenant” between Jesus and His church of Israel. Now there was also another temporary contract, the Old Covenant, after this “marriage covenant,” but before Jesus’ Spirit came to dwell in their hearts. Before the eternal “marriage covenant” that God made through Abraham had been fully consummated and ratified with the New Covenant, God asked His bride to make one other covenant, to keep herself pure until they dwelt together, until the New Covenant relationship between Him and His bride began. So the New Covenant marriage between God and His church of Israel was actually made when married His bride through the Abrahamic Covenant. And the Old Covenant was just a temporary and conditional contract with His bride in her youth, lasting only until the marriage would Page 636
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
be consummated and ratified. The Old Covenant was just an intermediate contract requiring her to act in a suitable manner until then. But, when our God Jesus arrived in Israel and began to prepare His bride for their cohabitation through His teachings and personal interactions with her, He was cementing their relationship from the previous marriage covenant. Thus, the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant are one and the same marriage covenant, but the Old Covenant passed away on the day of the Pentecost, when God began to dwell with His church. When Jesus sent His Holy Spirit into the hearts of His priests in Israel, it consummated and ratified the Abrahamic Covenant.
Therefore, this meant that God’s promised New Covenant relationship with Israel had been entirely predestined, because the marriage covenant was made by Him in the days of Abraham. God’s eternal New Covenant relationship, through the Messiah’s works to redeem His church of Israel, had already been ordained, and the actual marriage had already occurred. So there was actually no way to cause the immutable God to nullify that marriage. For God keeps His eternal promises, no matter what the one He made His promises to might do. The only missing element of His marriage relationship with His church of Israel was His New Covenant consummation and ratification, for God’s Holy Spirit had not yet begun to dwell beside the spirits of His bride, in the hearts of His priesthood. This consummation, by His indwelling Spirit in His New Covenant relationship, would occur after Jesus ratified God’s forgiveness and atonement through the blood of His bodily sin sacrifice. Just as a devout Jewish bridegroom would build and equip a home for his bride and family at great personal cost, before they lived together and consummated their marriage, Jesus’ death on the cross built up their spirits’ relationship with Him, their God, by purchasing their forgiveness with His blood and causing their spirits to repent into the truth. Shortly after this, His Spirit, God’s Holy Spirit, began to dwell with their spirits in their hearts, so He could further develop a closer bond with their spirits.
Therefore, at that moment in time, Jesus compared Himself to the “Bridegroom” of Israel, and did not yet call Himself her “Husband.” For Jesus’ Spirit of God inside of Him was not yet dwelling together with the spirits of His priesthood of Israel, or at least inside of His New Covenant branch of that church. And it would take at least two millenniums before His entire church of Israel, both the elect Jews and the elect Gentiles predestined to be His eternal bride, would fully trust Him and His words, to become one with Him. However, in terms regarding devout Jewish bridegrooms, Jesus also declared that God’s New Covenant marriage, through the promised Messiah’s salvation, had been already established with Israel, before that time. And nothing but God’s will could nullify that covenant between Him and Israel, not even for all of eternity. For His true church of Israel always has been, and always will be, His one and only bride. Also, if anyone is a true Christian, God has brought that one into the bride, into the only church of Israel established by God through Abraham.
Then Jesus declared that His disciples “are not able to grieve about anything whatsoever [while] the Bridegroom is with them.” While Jesus was with them, they were “not able” to grieve, “not able” to fast through godly sorrow, “not able” to cause their spirits to commune with the Spirit of God by silencing their flesh through fasting, nor through any other means. They did not have the capability, strength or power to draw near to God through the kind of contrition and repentance required during the reality that existed back then, which was symbolized by the Day of Atonement in God’s Law, not through any kind of biblical fasting which was founded upon those laws of God regarding their own
“affliction of the soul” for their atonement, for the restoration and development of their completed marital relationship with God. And Jesus said this for obvious reasons. The implications when Jesus said this were very clear and obvious to John’s disciples, and to all the Jews who knew and loved Jesus. And all the true Pharisees also defined themselves as those who believed God Himself wrote all the Scriptures. Thus, by definition, all the true Pharisees should have recognized Jesus as the one Page 637
who fulfilled Messianic prophecies and rightly exegeted all Scriptures, as Immanuel, the one and only God who came to consummate, ratify and fulfill His marriage promises. But not all Pharisees were true Pharisees. Only those who recognized and trusted Jesus as their Messiah and God were true Pharisees. And those Pharisees, with John’s disciples, who were also true Pharisees, instantly knew why Jesus said the disciples of the Bridegroom “are not able” to fast while they are with Him.
So what was this glaringly obvious reason for John’s and Jesus’ disciples being “not able” to receive any benefits from “grieving” and fasting? Well, first Jesus declared that His disciples were “not able”
to fast—through godly sorrow for repentance and forgiveness, in order to fully commune with God in a completed relationship— while He was with them. They were “not able” to do so until He “might be taken away from them. ” Therefore, Jesus meant that their inability to commune with God through fasting was because God was already communing with them at that moment, while He was standing there among them. In the Old Covenant relationship with God, fasting still required devout Jews to speak with God in much the same way that a Jewish bride would speak with her bridegroom before she dwelt with him, so she could get to know better before they began to live as man and wife in the same house. Often, a bride’s time with her future husband was limited to an hour or so, and also had to meet formally, in the presence of chaperones, if they were a noble and wealthy couple. So their relationship could not become nearly as intimate as it would be later on. For neither could express the thoughts of their hearts to the other, until they were left alone together, as they would be during the day or days of the wedding feast (i.e., the wealthy held wedding ceremonies that lasted for days or even weeks, and Jesus’ own “wedding ceremony” even lasted for three years, during His entire ministry). So Jesus’ disciples already had a relationship with their God, that is, with Him, even an extensive intimate one. Jesus’ disciples heard God’s own interpretations of His words directly from God’s mouth, all day and every day. Likewise, our God Jesus knew their thoughts, rebuked their errors, turned their hearts towards His heart, defended them against the lies of deceivers, confronted all who tried to bully them, comforted them in their sorrows, brought hope for their eternal futures, and did all the teaching and training God promised to do for His New Covenant. Since Jesus, the Messiah, God in a body of flesh, walked beside them all day and every day, no amount of fasting in an Old Covenant relationship with God could ever bring them closer to God than this. God Himself, through the body of Jesus, was already communing with them, already teaching, correcting and training them. If they hoped on God’s counsel through fasting and prayer, Jesus provided far more.
Jesus gave His disciples everything they previously hoped to gain through fasting, far more than the communion of the spirit with the Spirit of God could achieve by silencing the flesh through fasting.
For Jesus often silenced the thoughts of distracting flesh with stern words of rebuke and correction.
Then Jesus directly provided God’s full and personal counsel regarding every matter of their lives and faith, with perfect understanding of all inside them, and all in the world around them. As soon as their minds and bodies of flesh fell into some kind of deception, error, selfishness or sin, Jesus would immediately reprove their flesh, would then correct and strengthen their spirits against those foolish thoughts and desires of the flesh. When they became anxious, sad or depressed about something, Jesus would counsel them, would wisely comfort and encourage them, in ways that almost instantly and fully brightened their inner beings. Jesus knew each of their hearts deeply, each one’s strengths and weaknesses, each one’s spiritual and physical attributes. So Jesus was always able to command each individual to serve God in the best ways each had the ability and desire to serve. And this made each far more effective and fruitful in their worship of God, with great joy in each heart, through an intense satisfaction of fulfilling one’s highest calling, greatest inner longings and true destiny in life.
Page 638
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
Because our God Jesus provided a far communion of their spirits with God than they could ever gain through fasting in the Old Covenant way, His disciples were “not able” to fast. For, just as one is
“not able” to have a good conversation on the phone with a friend who is already standing beside one, Jesus’ disciples were “not able” to commune with their God through the Old Covenant method of fasting, while He was standing right there beside them. Nor would anyone go to see a friend in a place where each must stand on opposite corners of a noisy and crowded street and need to shout across it to hear one another, not while that friend was already sitting right beside one, at a meal on the same table in the same quiet house. Fasting during the Old Covenant times was the spirit trying to engage in a conversation with God while the extremely loud and very distracting flesh was talking about all it was seeing in the material world. So one is “not able” to do that while one’s spirit is now talking with God who is already seated beside one, staring into your soul and silencing one’s flesh.
Then Jesus added this comment: “Yet days will come when the Bridegroom should be taken away from them. And then they will fast.” A time was coming when Jesus’ body of flesh would be beaten and crucified, receiving the blows and painful death that we deserved. Then He would rise from the dead to be with His disciples, in the flesh, for a few more days, until He ascended into heaven and transformed His flesh into a spiritual body. After this, He would send us His Spirit, the utterly holy Spirit of God, to dwell within us. Then we would sometimes “afflict our souls,” and fast to silence our flesh, in order to commune with God, because “y’all gotta do wat-choo-do wit wat-choo-got.”
However, although we now need to fast at times, because Jesus is no longer physically beside us, we can achieve a far more complete and fruitful communion with our Creator God than anyone ever could in the Old Covenant times. Better yet, with Jesus’ Holy Spirit now in us, our communion with our God is more perfect than that which the disciples had with our God Jesus while He was walking among them in His body of flesh. For now Jesus dwells in our own hearts, right beside our spirits, and can more directly counsel our spirits, as He steps inside the chambers of our souls to rule over our minds of flesh. Now the New Covenant “marriage” is ratified and spiritually consummated with His priesthood of Israel, as His Spirit dwell with each one’s spirit. We can all know our God Jesus, better than a wife knows her husband on their 50th wedding anniversary. And, like a loving wife, we concern ourselves with all that is in His heart and mind, as His closest companions, as His priests.
For the New Covenant branch of God’s eternal priesthood of Israel, established through Abraham, is God’s most beloved and intimate companion on earth, and will be in heaven as well, for all eternity.
The Second Answer’s Principles
After the analogy of Jesus being the Bridegroom with His disciples, He also taught an extremely important doctrine to John’s disciples, and to the disciples of true Pharisees, a principle we should never forget. He then told us: “Now no one puts on a patch of new cloth over an old garment. For it takes away the fullness from it, from the garment, and makes a worse tear” (Mat. 9:16, from: οὐδεὶς
δὲ ἐπιβάλλει ἐπίβλημα ῥάκους ἀγνάφου ἐπὶ ἱματίῳ παλαιῷ· αἴρει γὰρ τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ
ἱματίου, καὶ χεῖρον σχίσμα γίνεται, SBLGNT). Mark’s Gospel records this teaching in slightly different words: “No one sews a patch of new cloth upon an old garment, lest then it takes away the fullness from it, the new from the old, and makes a worse tear” (Mark 2:21, from: Οὐδεὶς ἐπίβλημα
ῥάκους ἀγνάφου ἐπιράπτει ἐπὶ ἱμάτιον παλαιόν· εἰ δὲ μή, αἴρει τὸ πλήρωμα ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ τὸ καινὸν τοῦ
παλαιοῦ, καὶ χεῖρον σχίσμα γίνεται, SBLGNT). Then Luke cites these words of Jesus as a “parable”
(παραβολή), a doctrinal teaching in figurative language, and records it for us using a few different terms: “No one puts on a patch from a new garment over an old garment after tearing [it], lest then, otherwise, even the new will tear and the patch from the new will not harmonize with the old” (Luke Page 639
5:36, from: Οὐδεὶς ἐπίβλημα ἀπὸ ἱματίου καινοῦ σχίσας ἐπιβάλλει ἐπὶ ἱμάτιον παλαιόν· εἰ δὲ μήγε, καὶ τὸ καινὸν σχίσει καὶ τῷ παλαιῷ οὐ συμφωνήσει τὸ ἐπίβλημα τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦ καινοῦ, SBLGNT).
Jesus used an illustration of how new and previously unwashed cloth would shrink after it had been washed and dried. So, if anyone sewed a patch of new cloth under or over a tear in an old garment, which had already been washed and dried many times to thoroughly shrink that garment’s cloth, the new patch would shrink, then pull at the stitches after the old garment was washed and dried again.
That shrunken patch would not allow the garment’s cloth to drape evenly over the body, would make the garment uncomfortable and “not harmonized,” by gathering the older material together around its stitches and causing annoying wrinkles. This was what Jesus meant by the expression, “it takes away the fullness from it, from the garment,” or, “it takes away the fullness from it, the new from the old,”
or “the new will not harmonize with the old.” Eventually, while the garment was jostled and stressed by wearing it, the new patch would tear away from the older cloth. And this tear, in addition to the old tear, would make the garment far worse than it was before taking the time and effort to patch it.
Now the context of this statement about new and old cloth was Jesus’ teaching in the previous verse (Mat. 9:15), about being the Bridegroom, the Messiah who came to complete His New Covenant
“marriage” with the church of Israel. So here Jesus was obviously likening the new patch of cloth to some aspect of the New Covenant, and the torn old garment to the Old Covenant. And He told us that no one could patch the new onto the old. Rather, a torn old garment must be repaired only with equally old patches, or else be replaced with a garment made entirely of new cloth. Therefore, the Old Covenant, which had been torn by sin, must either be repaired by obeying God’s own intended meanings of His laws and teachings, or else must be entirely replaced by the New Covenant defining characteristics and ways of life. For God’s priesthood of Israel wore their covenants with the one Creator God just like garments, because those covenants defined everything they thought and did in life, even as, in those days, a garment publicly defined a person’s sex, marital status, religion, tribe, social status, occupation and other aspects of one’s life. And Jesus was indeed pointing out that He wanted Israel to replace their old garment with an entirely new garment. That is, the Old Covenant had to be replaced with an entirely New Covenant relationship. For Luke told us that the new patch was “a patch from a new garment.” Thus, Jesus was saying that one cannot simply add a teaching from the New Covenant to repair their Old Covenant relationship with God. For a patch of new cloth, cut from the new garment, would then make the old garment worthless and unusable. So, if a person remained so habitually and inordinately attached to one’s Old Covenant relationship with the heavenly Father that one refused to define one’s thoughts and life in a New Covenant relationship, then that person would need to reject the Messiah and His New Covenant salvation in its entirety.
Luke knew Jesus was telling us this. Jesus was indeed declaring that, if some New Covenant belief or teaching was simply added to the Old Covenant conditional relationship with God through one’s obedience to His Law, it would cause irreparable damage both to that Law and to one’s life. And the act of cutting a patch of cloth out of the new garment would also mean that the person would utterly destroy God’s promised New Covenant relationship and salvation for oneself as well. And, in those days, a patch of new cloth was never left over when one made a new garment, because the Jews did not make new garments in the same way we do now. To create a new garment in those days, one seldom cut out the garment’s pattern from a bolt of cloth. Rather, the pieces of the garment’s pattern were all woven to fit together. The main pieces draping over the head and body, as well as the smaller pieces such as the arms or pockets, were all woven into the sizes and shapes required, then sewn together. They would never cut fabric from a large bolt of cloth, as we do today, since that would waste far too much of the extremely expensive material. Thus, they had no scraps of new Page 640
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
cloth left to use as patches. All patches were cut from abandoned garments, from either old or new garments that were cast out. Thus, Jesus said “no one” sews a patch of new cloth on an old garment.
For none but the insane, or wealthy idiots, would be so foolish as to cut a patch from a new garment, which cost as much as a month’s or a year’s wages, to repair an old garment that was worth far less!
Jesus was telling us that our eternal New Covenant relationship with God was like a whole new garment, and the temporary Old Covenant relationship was old and badly damaged with many sins ripping open the fabric. And let me repeat, garments back then were an indication of one’s attributes, character, occupation, social standing and so on. Thus, an entirely new kind of garment represented a new life. Also, the Old Covenant relationship with God was temporary, merely added to the eternal Abrahamic Covenant. But that Abrahamic Covenant was fully ratified, completed and consummated by God’s eternal New Covenant marriage with His church of Israel. The New Covenant relationship finally took His priesthood of Israel unto Himself, into His eternal home of their “marriage.” Thus, it would be foolish, even insane, to remain in the temporary old relationship. Why would a bride live by a temporary promise to remain pure until the Bridegroom took her into His home, but refuse to go with that Bridegroom into His home? Now the previous promise and relationship were redundant.
Now it was time to enter the new and far more full relationship as His bride, with a bride’s focused and tunnel vision upon her truly beloved Husband. And it was impossible to have both kinds of relationships at the same time. Trying to have both would be like a bride choosing to remain in her father’s house, apart from her husband, even after her husband had built them a good house and after they consummated their marriage. If a bride separated herself from her loving and just husband in this way, it would be a definite sign that something was very wrong in their marriage relationship, an indication that she hated the loving and just kind of life that her husband was offering to her. And, if she lived apart from her good and loving husband solely for selfish reasons, but still wanted him to pay for everything she demanded, she would actually be wanting a prostitute’s relationship with him.
Considering the context of Jesus alluding to the New Covenant relationship that prophets spoke about, this is what Jesus implied when He said no one cuts a piece out of a new garment just to patch up an old torn garment. One cannot try to apply some teachings of the New Covenant to the Old Covenant Law, so one can maintain the Old Covenant relationship with God, while also trying to claim all the benefits of the New Covenant relationship. For each covenant was a totally different kind of relationship with God, each based on entirely different goals and purposes. The old was worked by one’s own mind of flesh, in preparation for one’s future Husband. But the other was to be worked entirely by the Husband, by God Himself, through His labours to build a house within the heart, and through His words and deeds that would form the entire structure of life within that home.
The New Covenant spoke of a direct, intimately personal and very close eternal relationship with God, for each individual elect spirit within His entire church of Israel, where God’s Spirit personally would write His Law upon each one’s heart. In other words, the living Spirit of the utterly Holy God Himself would teach and train each individual elect spirit how to live with Him, in the sphere of His influence and power, through love for Him. But the Old Covenant has never been any kind of a personal, unconditional, loving relationship between God’s Spirit and their spirits. Yes, God loved the elect in Israel while they remained in an Old Covenant relationship with Him, and He still does love them, even as most Jews continue to cling to that Old Covenant relationship. But that distant, conditional Old Covenant relationship, which required obedience through the flesh alone, was and is now torn to shreds, barely covering their naked flesh, in a way that can never be patched up and fully repaired. The one and only way that individual lives of the Jews can ever become established in a completely restored relationship with the almighty Creator God, so their love for Him can be freely Page 641
expressed through their spirits, is through the New Covenant of their Messiah Jesus. For that old temporary and conditional covenant was more like a business relationship than a loving marriage.
Although the main promise of the New Covenant was that God Himself would fulfill His Law in us and through us, many incompatible characteristics and attributes of the New Covenant stand against the Old Covenant Law. If a distant bride makes a covenant to behave well until her Bridegroom comes to take her home, most of what she promised to do in that covenant will remain the same as when she actually goes to live with her husband. That is, she will remain chaste, not commit any criminal offences, not act in any obscene or disgraceful ways, and always work towards building up her Bridegroom’s kingdom, interests and name. Then, after she lives with her husband, she will do the same things. But, once she is with him, she will no longer place so much emphasis on the trinkets and letters that she received from him while he was away. Instead, she will focus on her husband husband himself, since he will fulfill and enhance all that she thought about him when she had only those symbolic trinkets with his hard-to-interpret and incomplete words in those letters. Yes, that bride may want to keep those trinkets and letters even after they are married. However, the reality of her husband always being near her and coming home to her will be far more important to her, and she will then be able to grow in her love for him, and in her ability to build up his estate, reputation and name, much more than she ever could while she was living apart from him and not seeing him.
No one can patch up the old with pieces of the new, to create a hybrid covenant relationship with God through one’s own will and cunning. God will never accept a hybrid covenant like that! And it is God alone who bears the authority and power to either accept or reject every covenant that anyone proposes to make with Him. And God alone possesses enough wisdom and knowledge to write a perfect, just and effective covenant in the first place. So God will never accept a foolish little human being’s invented covenant, consisting of a messy patchwork of contradictory, self-serving, irrational conditions placed upon Him, as well as bunch of promises that the human being cannot possibly ever fulfill. Thus, either one must remain in the Old Covenant relationship with God or enter into His New Covenant relationship, but cannot possibly remain in both at once. And it is impossible to patch and repair the gaping holes and tears in the Old Covenant by sewing on patches cut out from God’s New Covenant teachings by the Messiah, who is our God, High King and true High Priest. Likewise, it would also be equally foolish and damaging to cut pieces from the Old Covenant and sew them onto the already perfect New Covenant, which has no tears in the fabric of Christ’s teachings, since the stitching on the old patches would rip the fabric as the new garment shrunk, in same way as an old garment would be torn by a new patch’s shrinking. The two covenants are very different kinds of relationships, where one is temporary and one is eternal. A man can have a business relationship with a female employee who is not even his friend, and ends when she goes home or no longer works for him. But his everlasting relationship with his beloved wife is different, even deeper than friendship.
In the book of Hebrews, a Jewish author, led by the Holy Spirit of God, clearly pointed out some of the differences between the Old Covenant and New Covenant relationships with God. He also told us exactly how the Old Covenant relationship with God was “torn,” just as Jesus’ parable declared that it was. For one thing, in Hebrews, the Holy Spirit emphasized that Jesus is the real High Priest, which the Old Covenant high priest only symbolized. And Jesus could better empathize with our weaknesses than the human high priest, since Jesus’ flesh was tempted in every way we are tempted (Heb. 4:15), and even more powerfully, by Satan himself. So, since we now have a genuine eternal High Priest over our church of Israel, the general priesthood of Israel has an entirely new internal priesthood in it too, other than the Levitical priesthood, with the Aaronic priesthood in it and over it.
And, with a new internal priesthood, there must be a new Law, since the Old Covenant Law defines Page 642
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
the old priesthood and is administered by the old priesthood. Then, since we have a better High Priest, God’s new Law must also be better and more complete, with a better application of that Law by the new and better High Priest. For God established the Old Covenant priesthood to interpret and administer His Law under the management of a lesser, symbolic human high priest, who managed the entire internal priesthood of Israel in the name God, until the real future High Priest came. So, when the temporary symbolic high priest was replaced, it necessitated the replacement of the entire temporary symbolic priesthood too, as well as a replacement of the entire temporary symbolic Law.
“For the priesthood being changed, there is of necessity a change made also in the Law.... For there is an annulling of a foregoing commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.... By so much, Jesus has become the collateral of a better covenant. Many, indeed, have been made [high]
priests, because they are hindered from continuing by death. But He, because He lives forever, has His priesthood unchangeable. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, seeing that He lives forever to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who doesn’t need, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For He did this once for all, when He offered up Himself.... But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law.... In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away”
(Heb. 7:12,18-19,22-27; 8:6,13, WEB). Clearly, there is no compatibility between the symbolic Old Covenant relationship with God and the real New Covenant relationship with God. And, since the Law of the New Covenant fulfills and greatly surpasses anything that the Old Covenant Law could ever accomplish through the weakness of human minds of flesh, we are not under the old Law. Now, since it is utterly impossible to have both an Old Covenant and a New Covenant relationship at the same time, we must build either one or the other, and cannot repair the old with a patch of the new.
Then we should also realize that Jesus was primarily speaking to Jews who believed that all of the Scriptures were infallible teachings about life and faith from God, revealing His thoughts and desires through the languages and voices of His human prophets. For the audience that heard these words of Jesus almost entirely consisted of: (1) Jesus’ disciples, (2) John’s disciples, and (3) the disciples of Pharisaic rabbis, who all believed in the inerrancy of Scriptures. Thus, since God’s Word forbids us to have no other God but Him alone, and prohibits us to worship idols, Jesus assumed that He did not need to tell these men that they also cannot enter into a New Covenant relationship with their God, through their saving Messiah and God, while their spirits keep a spiritual covenant relationship with a pagan idol, with neither a demonic nor human god. While speaking to these devout Jews, it was not necessary for Jesus to repeat His teachings telling them that none are able to worship a demon like Mammon or a human god like Caesar, then also worship the living Creator God at the same time. We can give whatever truly belongs to those gods, what God allows them the right to expect from us in the present time, before Jesus returns. But none may demand that we worship it.
Yet, throughout history, demons and their human gods have demanded that we worship them, even even more than we worship the real God. Demonic human gods have wanted us to bow before them first and foremost, to make our worship of the Creator God secondary. Then God hands them over to foolish delusions and destroys them. And Daniel also told us that the beast—a man whom Satan will possess and dwell within during the end times, to transform that body of flesh into a messiah for his non-elect children—will come and demand that all must worship him above all other gods. In other Page 643
words, this beast will be a humanist who allows a certain degree of religious freedom, but only if the worshippers of other gods heed his commands and believe his teachings more than the commands and teachings of all other gods. For this beast will insist that he alone is the saviour, redeemer and champion of all. Then Daniel described a prototype of this future humanistic beast, who was a Greek ruler named Antiochus Epiphanes IV, who allowed any religion and the worship of any god, as long as everyone blindly believed his lies and obeyed his commands without question. And, when some Jews did not worship Antiochus as their highest god of all gods, that humanist burned the Scriptures, censored their teachings, brought misery and death everywhere he went, and eventually came to an end of his own ungratified existence. So, through Daniel and other prophecies about the future beast, sometimes called the antichrist (“anti-Messiah” or “antithesis of God’s Messiah”), we know exactly what he will be like. And God has sent countless other antichrists since Antiochus, who all brought nothing but death and destruction into the world, to remind us what that future beast will be like. For God will not let the elect forget that His just, loving ways alone work peace that provides all for all.
Many humanistic caesars, kings, presidents, popes, priests, pastors, cult leaders, business owners and other deluded souls have become little antichrists as well. And there were a few famous antichrists in the last century or so, like Stalin, Mao Zedong, Hitler and Trump. Just recently I heard Trump claim to be the saviour and chump peon of the USA, although most other antichrists do not want to be so stupidly obvious about their vane delusions in front of the sane ones in their land. Of course, we can all agree that he is indeed a chump peon, too inept to save even himself, much less anyone else, and a dupe serving Putin’s purposes. But his attempts to save his fascist regime by destroying everyone honest, wise and productive, because all of them are opposed to his destructive and evil ways, along with his own psychopathic propensity to toss his own loyal dupes under the bus to save himself, has surely revealed the true nature of the future beast, although that beast will be far more intelligent and subtle when he does the same things that Trump is doing. And, yes, the beast will be another very cunning fascist, a psychopathic gang leader who wants all to worship him and heed his lies. Yet the humanistic churches have often flocked to these antichrists, and willingly worshipped those greedy little lying, thieving, raping and murdering monsters, heeding their commands while they slandered the real God and ignored the real God’s words of truth. Likewise, fake humanistic churches will become lovers of the beast in the end times too, called the Great Prostitute and her harlot daughters.
Surely, after two millennia, the elect have now seen enough to agree with Jesus. By now, those with spirits capable of a God-like kind of love, able to give and receive the just and equitable kind of love described in the Bible, should be ready to reject things like fascism. We must accept the fact that all the laws and ways invented by men, even their corrupted interpretations of the laws which Moses brought down from Mount Sinai, can never adequately construct an abundant life for anyone. And all those man-made laws are simply the tools of antichrists, used to oppress and exploit, not to free and provide for all. Yes, all the spiritual principles taught by God’s written laws in Old Covenant Scriptures are indeed the wisest and best on earth. But now we need to fulfill God’s own intended meanings of those laws, not twisted and self-serving human derivatives of those laws. We need to rightly handle God’s Law, so we might heal more than kill, build up more than tear down, and so we can free souls into the vast spiritual realms instead of physical prisons. We need the New Covenant relationship with our real almighty Creator God. For merely cutting out a few pretty patches from all of Jesus’ teachings, then hastily sewing them onto the countless tears of lies and sins in our filthy old garments, will be totally useless. Patches on worthless garments, especially the humanistic ones, will never serve us nearly as well as the strong, weather resistant, comfortable and beautiful garments Jesus provides when we enter His wedding hall, to begin our New Covenant relationship with Him.
Page 644
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
His Third Answer’s Principles
In the previous parable, Jesus forbade us to add anything to the salvation taught by Him through His New Covenant relationship. We must not interpolate our own self-serving, ignorant, vengeful ways into His New Covenant Law, nor even into the conditional laws worked by human flesh through an Old Covenant relationship. Then Jesus added one more parable, a warning that, if we remain under the Old Covenant Law, we cannot be filled with His Holy Spirit, not in the same way He filled His disciples after He ratified and consummated His New Covenant “marriage” with Israel. Jesus said:
“Neither do they pour unaged wine [just after primary fermentation] into old wineskins, clearly lest the skins are then torn, then the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. Rather, they pour unaged wine into new wineskins. Then both are preserved” (Mat. 9:17, from: οὐδὲ βάλλουσιν οἶνον νέον εἰς
ἀσκοὺς παλαιούς· εἰ δὲ μή γε, ῥήγνυνται οἱ ἀσκοί, καὶ ὁ οἶνος ἐκχεῖται καὶ οἱ ἀσκοὶ ἀπόλλυνται·
ἀλλὰ βάλλουσιν οἶνον νέον εἰς ἀσκοὺς καινούς, καὶ ἀμφότεροι συντηροῦνται, SBLGNT). Mark recorded this parable in a similar way. But Luke added an interesting comment to this parable: “And no one pours unaged wine into old wineskins, lest then, otherwise, the unaged wine will tear the skins. So it will be spilled and the skins destroyed. Rather, unaged wine must be put into new wineskins. And no one, after having drunk the old [wine], wants the unaged [wine]. For one reasons,
‘The old is useful’” (Luke 5:37-39, from: καὶ οὐδεὶς βάλλει οἶνον νέον εἰς ἀσκοὺς παλαιούς· εἰ δὲ
μήγε, ῥήξει ὁ οἶνος ὁ νέος τοὺς ἀσκούς, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκχυθήσεται καὶ οἱ ἀσκοὶ ἀπολοῦνται· ἀλλὰ οἶνον
νέον εἰς ἀσκοὺς καινοὺς βλητέον. καὶ οὐδεὶς πιὼν παλαιὸν θέλει νέον· λέγει γάρ· Ὁ παλαιὸς
χρηστός ἐστιν, SBLGNT). Luke’s said the obvious, that most prefer aged wine. And, if Jesus did not say this outright, He definitely implied it. But Luke was writing to Gentiles, who often knew nothing about the kind of wine Jesus referred to here, and only drank another kind of wine. But, when Luke interviewed the apostles who were with Jesus throughout His ministry, they actually might have heard Jesus make this comment, when He repeated this parable to another audience at another time.
Now, in this parable about wine, we should realize that the Jews had always seen wine as a symbol of God’s Spirit. And the Jews drank kosher wine, the kind Jesus referred to here, at all their feasts, such as at every Passover meal. So, since all that entered their bodies became a part of their bodies and their lives, and also almost instantly affected their thoughts in their souls, they decided to use this Passover wine as a symbol of God entering their hearts, and the food as a symbol of God’s teachings entering their minds. Also, God said that the blood of a creature symbolically held its spirit of life, and that spirit ruled over all one’s thoughts and behaviours. Thus, since their red wine was the
“blood” of the grape, and wine also had a thought-altering “spirit” in it, the Passover wine was often likened to the Spirit of God. And, in those days, literally all their wine had “spirits.” That is, literally all wine back then had alcohol in it. There was no such thing as grape juice in those days, since all their varieties of grapes began to ferment before they were fully ripe. In fact, they seldom needed to add yeast to ferment wine, since ambient yeast, already existing in the grapes, caused fermentation.
So Jesus’ devout Jewish audience, those hearing this parable, knew that it was actually about how God pours His Spirit into their hearts and souls. The “new wine,” more literally “young wine” or
“unaged wine” (οἶνον νέον), clearly represented God’s Spirit entering their lives in order to build up His New Covenant relationship with their elect spirits. Now, in those days, after the wine’s primary fermentation in covered vats, all that was above the dregs was poured into sealed animal skins (or sealed jars) for a secondary fermentation, where it was also aged to produce a good flavour. Once it was properly aged, they would drink it at their feasts, as a symbol of God’s Spirit. Since most Jews knew about this process, they recognized clear parallels in this parable. All would see how the Old Covenant times were much like a wine’s primary fermentation, where the fermenting activity was so Page 645
violent that it even seemed to boil. And, until that initial fermentation was completed, the wine could not be placed into any kind of wineskins. In the same way, God’s priesthood of Israel were not yet ready for God’s Holy Spirit to enter them in Old Covenant times, not until their rebellious arrogance simmered down into humbled acquiescence, through their hardships which turned their ears to the words of God’s prophets. Then, even after the primary fermentation, wine still had to complete its long fermentation process, by continuing a much slower and more gentle fermentation stage in the wineskin. So too, after Jesus sent His Holy Spirit into an individual disciple, it would take time, even decades after God’s initial indwelling, before that elect spirit learned enough knowledge and wisdom from His Spirit to live a truly abundant life, with inner satisfaction and pure joy. And it has taken two millenniums for our God Jesus to refine the flavour of His Spirit in His true church, even to fullness.
Let me pause here for a moment, to reflect a little more on how alcohol in red wine was a symbol of God’s Holy Spirit. For many have now developed a strong bias against alcohol through the many false teachings of humanists, who seek only simplistic, outwardly seen, foolish and destructive political solutions for all the problems their people face. Thus, many now somehow think alcohol is evil. However, all the Jews, and all the apostolic true Christians, believed that alcohol was created by God as His good gift to mankind, and should indeed symbolize His Holy Spirit. So we must not listen to those who say God only wants us to drink grape juice, and never drink any alcoholic wine.
In reality, God actually commanded the opposite. During Passover meal, nothing but alcoholic wine can be served. And the Lord’s Supper is the Passover Seder, where nothing but alcoholic wine can represent Christ’s blood with His Holy Spirit in it. Also, there are some who say the wine of the Lord’s Supper must be diluted with water, because the blood from Jesus body, after His crucifixion had water in it (John 19:34; I John 5:6-8). But that has nothing to do with the wine God required at the Passover feast, which was the wine at the Lord’s Supper. Then they justify this false doctrine with a false belief that the Jews always diluted their wine with water. So, they think Jesus also must have diluted the wine at the Last Supper. But that definitely is not true either. Yes, Jews often diluted wine. They would mix small amounts of wine with their drinking water to purify it (one part wine to six, eight or more parts of water). Yet that was often a different and stronger kind of wine, and they only did it for health reasons, to kill the microscopic eggs of parasites and bacteria. For, even back then, they knew that alcohol kept them from getting sick or dying, if they mixed a little with water.
And this protection and salvation provided by alcoholic wine also seemed to be a clear sign that alcoholic wine was a good gift from God, and contained a “spirit” which could symbolize God’s protecting and saving Spirit. However, no rabbis allowed Jews to dilute wine when they drank it at their feasts, nor when they gave it as a drink offering to God. For the purpose of their feasts was to remember God, as well as all His laws, teachings and mighty works through the symbols of their feasts, in their worshipful service to Him. Thus, wine, representing God who is a Spirit, was not allowed to be diluted, except for physical or medical reasons, since they did not want anyone to get the idea that they could also dilute God’s laws and teachings too. Although rabbis made limited exceptions for the sick, very young or very old, allowing them dilute wine at the feasts if they had to for health reasons, all the other Jews had to drink undiluted Kosher alcoholic wine at all the feasts commanded in God’s Law. This definitely included the Passover meal, which is the Lord’s Supper.
Of course, the wineskins represented the lives of individuals in God’s church of Israel. So the new wineskins symbolized those whom He gathered into His New Covenant branch of His church of Israel. Then the old wineskins represented individuals in His Old Covenant branch of His church.
Now, in Matthew’s Gospel, he told us that the pouring into the wineskins was performed by multiple persons. That is, he said “Neither do they pour unaged wine into old wineskins.” But, in the Gospels Page 646
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
of Mark and Luke, the subject who did the pouring was singular, since both said “no one pours”
unaged wine into old wineskins. However, we should not read too much into this difference between the plural and the singular subjects, since these particular subjects performing the actions of the verbs in these gnomic statements are irrelevant. The statements in all three versions are simply saying that, as a general rule, winemakers, either as a group or as individuals, never pour unaged wine into old wineskins. Matthew was not implying that the Holy Spirit of God can be transferred from one human to another by “the laying on of hands.” God alone decides whether or not He will dwell in anyone, and sometimes commands His faithful servants to lay hands on another elect soul to reassure and comfort that one as His Holy Spirit enters that one. However, God is indeed the only one who chooses to pour wine into any wineskin, that is, His Spirit into an individual. But, in these negative statements about how only a fool would pour unaged wine into old wineskins, the subject who performs this action cannot be God. Jesus was simply saying that, since not even human winemakers are foolish enough to do such a thing, God Himself certainly is not that foolish either.
In this parable, Jesus was telling us that God will not fill elect individuals in the priesthood of His church of Israel with His Holy Spirit as long as they remain in the Old Covenant relationship with Him. God will only allow His Holy Spirit to enter and dwell in the individuals He gathers into His New Covenant branch of the priesthood of the church of Israel. For, if any elect soul tries to obey God’s incomplete Old Covenant Law through interpretations and actions directed entirely by one’s mind of flesh, and God might fill that one with His Holy Spirit regardless, then that one would soon spiritually, emotionally and mentally “tear” apart, because God’s Spirit convicts us of lies and sins.
All the elect who trust only their own minds of flesh, who refuse to let their spirits hear and heed God’s counsel, will invariably commit third-order sins. They all will falsely interpret and apply God’s words in ways that severely abuse and slander God’s good and loving name. For all thoughts in a loveless mind of flesh, as it interprets the Old Covenant Law according to its own anger and selfish interests, end in destructive sins, since the flesh prefers to believe the lies that please it. So the flesh also adds to or subtracts from God’s Law according to the carnal teachings of like-minded men.
And, if men claim to be gods who are best able to make self-serving and false interpretations of the real God’s Law, the flesh will try to appease those human gods by outward appearances of obedience to their teachings. The flesh will succumb to the intense pressure of those false guides, who use mere physical deeds of rituals as a substitute for the worship of the real God, instead of explaining God’s intended purposes and meanings of His ceremonial laws. One’s whole life is compelled to serve religious pretenses, the kind that always oppose the motives and intentions of the real God, the kind that hurt or even kill the lives of other elect siblings. Thus, if God’s Spirit chose to live in such a person’s heart and soul, He would be deeply convicting one’s own elect spirit of sin at all times.
Anyone who places all one’s faith in the power and wisdom of one’s own mind of flesh, instead of the real God, cannot have God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in one’s heart. For God would continuously be commanding that one’s spirit to ignore the ignorant pride and destructive lusts of one’s own mind of flesh, as well as to repel the words and works of the human gods that one’s own flesh worships. So, if God sent His convicting Holy Spirit into the heart of an elect one who foolishly insisted on living by the flesh’s interpretations of His written Law, then that one’s mind of the spirit would constantly approving of the attempts by its flesh to obey God’s Law, while that same spirit also warred against all the lies and loveless sins of one’s own flesh. Thus, a continuous battle would rage in the chamber of one’s soul, between one’s utterly confused, rebellious elect spirit and one’s mind of flesh, where both the mind of one’s spirit and the mind of one’s flesh were also warring against God Himself. If the Holy Spirit of Jesus ever attempted to teach and train an elect spirit that made its mind of flesh Page 647
into its teacher of truth and its lord, rather than placing all its faith in Jesus as one’s only Teacher and Lord, it would result in a violent, maddening, inner conflict tearing apart every aspect of one’s life.
If an elect spirit always submits to the thoughts of its mind of flesh, because that infantile spirit superstitiously believes that it must cling to an Old Covenant relationship with God, then that spirit will remain incapable of receiving the Holy Spirit, who fulfills the New Covenant promise of God’s personal salvation. And this is even more true for an elect spirit that places all its faith in its mind of flesh through a pagan Roman humanistic relationship with a fake “Jesus” or fake “Yahweh” invented by the intellects of flesh in human gods from fake churches. That spirit will never know what to do for the real God, and will become paralyzed, unable to make decisions, incapable of managing its mind and body of flesh. Eventually, the elect who honestly and wholeheartedly attempt to keep an Old Covenant relationship with God, or a relationship with a fake god, will completely break down and perish, and would do so even more quickly if God’s Holy Spirit came to dwell in their hearts. So the first step in saving those deceived elect is to get them to make them aware of their own spirits, and to get their spirits to stop placing all their faith in their own minds of flesh, so their elect spirits can then place all their trust, confidence and faith in God alone, in the Holy Spirit of their God Jesus.
Now, in a New Covenant relationship with God, one will often study the Old Covenant laws. For let us always remember that Jesus did not come to nullify God’s Law, because Jesus is the same God who created those spiritual laws according to His own inner nature and attributes. So Jesus actually came to fulfill all those Old Covenant laws, even the ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant. Jesus came to help us live by God’s Law, in a way where all the principles of all His laws are harmonized, rightly and wisely handled, correctly prioritized and applied in a just, equitable, loving way. Still, at the same time, one’s spirit will not trust nor submit to one’s mind of flesh, to none of its self-serving interpretations. Rather, one’s spirit must trust and submit only to Jesus, our God, and lets His Holy Spirit alone interpret His own Law. The mind of one’s elect spirit needs to learn all directly from the Holy Spirit of Jesus, and let Him decide what applications of which laws one needs to apply at any particular moment. One’s spirit needs to wait for God’s Spirit to choose what He commands one to do. And, after one’s spirit is convicted with a certainty of what God desires, then the elect spirit can confidently and authoritatively command one’s own mind and body of flesh to do it. And God only ever commands one to do what one is ready and able to do. So there is no pressure, just spontaneous willingness from the spirit and harmony within the soul. The spirit, soul and body will be at peace with one another, and with God, as one’s spirit stretches and grows into maturity and the eternal life.
Before anyone is ready to receive God’s Holy Spirit, one must first abandon all attempts to interpret and apply God’s Law through one’s mind of flesh. One must forsake the Old Covenant relationship with God, and cease from attempting to interpret and apply His Law through the flesh. Rather, one must let Christ’s Holy Spirit build everything with one’s whole life—spirit, soul and body—until one can serve as a true priest of God, like Abraham and all God’s true prophets and apostles were. Jesus came to transform us all into a new kind of priesthood, useful for Christ’s works of His church for all creatures upon the earth and in heaven, so each one can rightly serve His kingdoms. Our elect spirits desperately need to learn about God’s just and loving ways directly from Jesus’ Holy Spirit. So now we must allow God Himself to teach His own opinions about His own written Law directly to our own elect spirits, must let our spirits receive and do His Spirit’s commands, since this will train us to rightly apply those teaching in wise and truly effective ways. Then God will expand our lives, filling every aspect of each one’s body, soul and spirit, without overwhelming us. For God our teaches and trains each spirit according to what each is ready and willing to learn, not according to an artificial and arbitrary method, not in a factory style of education designed to make machines out of people.
Page 648
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
Now look at how a comment in Luke’s record of the event reveals the errors of human reasoning when it is based solely on the senses and thoughts of the flesh: “And no one, after having drunk the old [wine], wants the unaged [wine]. For one reasons, ‘The old is useful.’” And Jesus very likely taught this precept many times, albeit mostly through inferences and in different words. Basically, He was telling us that most flesh strongly prefers God’s Old Covenant laws, solely because they can be interpreted and applied entirely through their minds and bodies of flesh. That is, minds of flesh are usually capable of forbidding their bodies of flesh from committing blatantly obvious and purely physical acts of murder, adultery, theft, slander and covetousness. And most human beings love to portray an image of being sane and good people who can be righteous, while they also love to think most others are inferior, insane and far more evil than they are themselves, since those others do not behave like them, or perhaps cannot stop their flesh from committing some physical sins. Yet those self-evaluated “sane” and “good” people never really stop murdering others through the most insane and deeply evil motives and intentions of their hearts, then murder themselves and the children of their own households too. For they dehumanize their siblings of mankind, then classify them into lower categories of the devil’s hierarchical systems, while exploiting and stealing from them through the financial systems that the demon Mammon established to oppress and control those siblings in their evil world order. Those “sane” and “good” people drive their brothers, sisters, children and parents into homelessness, starvation and death, but think this kind of murder is normal or even right, since the unjust laws and ways of the devil’s world order do not forbid it, but actually even encourage this kind of murder. Then the elite and wealthy ones work 24/7 at stealing more from their siblings through Satan’s systems of theft, like usury, yet do not see that they are slaves of demons, because they can “play” in sins while they are working, because they can engage in exploitative, self-indulgent sexual immorality and inwardly emptying games of arrogance. In the meantime, they also threaten their entirely enslaved workers with homeless and death if those brothers and sisters do not obey their selfish whims. Yet all the works they do are lawless, unjust, inequitable, polluting and harmful to all the creations in God’s kingdom, human and otherwise. All their thinking is evil, mere lies and delusions that destroy themselves, their own children, the family of mankind and countless other living things on earth. So these “good” and “sane” ones are, in reality, evil and utterly insane.
Now let the elect realize that all the strict penalties of the Old Covenant Law were provided only
“for the lawless” (I Tim. 1:9). Those harsh actions against the flesh of sinners were created only for those who rely solely upon their flesh to interpret and apply God’s written Law. So, yes, His Law is indeed very “useful” for reigning in the behaviours of “lawless” ones, for limiting the sinfulness of the non-elect, since God cannot grant their spirits any kind of inner conscience, cannot possibly teach and train those kinds of spirits to spontaneously love and apply His truths. Only awakened elect spirits can receive an inner conscience, created by God Himself. And literally all elect spirits will eventually be taught and trained by God’s Spirit, just as all their spirits actually have been since birth. Even now, all have at least a little inner conscience in the minds of their spirits, to govern their lives. And literally all those elect will be able to love in God’s just and equitable way in the very end.
Yes, that inner conscience is very small in some elect, and usually overruled by the lusts and pride of their flesh. Throughout history, God has chosen to build up a deep, broad and wide inner conscience in only a select few of His elect children, while all have lived in the flesh on earth. As most elect spirits have dwelt in flesh, God has left this majority to learn nothing more than than the fact that even the smallest of lies and sins can empty their souls, and that almost anything can kill their flesh.
To save their flesh, and fulfill the longings of their spirits, we need truth and love. Yet God takes all elect spirits to the gates of heaven, to complete their teaching and training in loving righteousness.
Page 649
Nevertheless, literally all the elect who have ever lived on earth, and all who ever will live here, do possess some knowledge of God’s Law, with some wisdom to apply it. None of the elect are entirely
“lawless.” Still, many totally loveless and “lawless” souls live among us. Many covetous spirits are perfectly willing to lie, steal, sexually exploit and murder. Therefore, God’s written natural laws, forbidding sins of the flesh, stipulated maximum penalties that are harsh against the flesh, but are
“useful” for causing the lawless non-elect to fear the consequences of their sins, and makes them hesitate before they pursue their selfish and innately evil intentions with wicked motives. However, it is impossible to build God’s just and loving kingdom through threats of punishments. Such things are only useful for preventing and nullifying the works of the devil and his lawless offspring. Yes, some harsh maximum penalties are necessary, but many lesser penalties are sufficient, and maximum penalties should only be awarded as a last resort. For God only ever gave those maximum penalties to the completely unrepentant lawless criminals through His judgments of individuals and whole nations. God always began His judgments by teaching the truth to sinners, hoping they might repent into it. Then God sought and found His elect who were willing to turn to the truth and bear fruits of repentance, willing to love in a just and equitable way, so He might separate them from the lawless ones who hated light from their inner beings, who utterly refused to repent. After God took all the repentant spirits of the elect to Himself, He set them completely free from the burdens and penalties of sin. For those elect joyfully partook in works of building up God’s kingdom on earth, through love for God and His creations. God only severely punished those who intentionally and ruthlessly broke His laws, since He does not rule by fear, and harsh punishments can only be used to prevent the lawless from lying, oppressing and murdering the innocent as puppets of their demonic owners.
But, since ancient times, Satan’s world order has used terrorism to allow his lawless children to enslave the lawful, to rule over and control the lives of the souls that demon has stolen from God, to force both the elect and the non-elect to lie and sin for him, so that devil could use those virtual or literal slaves to build up his hierarchical kingdoms. And that terrorism, perfected through systems of humanism, has always opposed God’s law and justice. It has never granted fair trials to the accused and has never been equitable. It has never and never will produce democratic states, where there is freedom of conscience, leading to a true worship of the real God by elect spirits who are solidly grounded in the facts of spiritual and physical realities. In fact, all those lying, oppressive theocracies and secular states ruled by Satan are characterized by severe oppression, even for the elite in their steep hierarchies, since even the elite are slaves ruled by fear every moment of their existence. All the severely punishing laws of terrorism only ever serve the elite, only the psychopaths whose spirits willingly and blindly obeyed Satan. Yet those elite remain abused slaves themselves. Whenever God hands sinners over to the devil’s world order, that kingdom allows the most lawless wanna-be gods to create unjust, self-serving laws, then gives swords to lawless thugs who ruthlessly enforce those laws, so literally all become enslaved by all, so that even the elite and their thugs fear for their lives.
In reality, all the subject kingdoms belonging to Satan’s world order are ruled by the non-elect, by inwardly lawless souls who totally lack any inner conscience and do not fear their Creator. From the beginning of time, whenever God handed sinners over to the devil, he promoted only the kind of people who would wilfully remain ignorant of God’s just, equitable, loving laws and ways, and made his only those destined for God’s eternal punishment into the heads of his hierarchies. Some of these lawless ones are secular despots, but many are religious zealots too, since Satan loves to slander God by doing evil in his name. And the vast majority of the devil’s religious authorities become deluded enough to think God will reward them for the terrorism they perpetrate upon others. But God will judge rightly and justly, then cast them into the eternal darkness of their own dark delusions and lies.
Page 650
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
In the meantime, with all these demonic theocracies and dictatorships throughout history, the vast majority of God’s elect have remained totally ignorant about God’s kind of merciful and loving justice. Thus, although all the elect advance God’s kingdom in small ways, by learning His truths and applying them according to His own wise and just judgments, most of the world remains within the control of Satan’s world order. Only in the last few hundred years have the truths of God’s Law, and His just democratic systems ruled by servants of God and His people, been able to establish His earthly kingdom beyond the confines of isolated communities, to the elect scattered throughout the entire world. Since most elect only experience life in subject kingdoms belonging to Satan’s world order, they spend most of their time pondering which of Satan’s unjust choices or systems will work best for them. When the elect build their churches, synagogues and nations, they tend to discuss which is the lesser of two or more evils, and which method of ruthless terrorism will most efficiently serve their little man-made kingdoms they like to call “Christian” denominations or “God’s” nations.
The elect of this world almost never even consider any system which fulfills God’s will, by honestly applying God’s truth in God’s ways, because the elect are seldom ever taught anything about the real God or His ways. Yet the fact remains that no lawless kingdom ruled through Satanic terrorism can ever be truly succeed in providing justice, equity, peace and freedom for all, whether or not liars will call it a “Christian” system. Unjust kingdoms can never belong to God’s true earthly kingdom, and will never be helped by God. Jesus was right about this. Most think the Old Covenant Law, or even any kind of man-made law, is “useful” for preserving order through terrorism. However, that order through terrorism is always ruled by the lawless, through extreme injustice. Only when all the people are educated in the ways of God, and also taught the inevitable ill effects of lies, delusions, sins and crimes, can responsible freedoms, with equitable and merciful justice, be granted to a people group.
Every subject kingdom within God’s earthly kingdom reserves the penalties of the Old Covenant Law only for the lawless and unrepentant, while primarily focusing on building up God’s loving, free and just kingdom, and while maintaining the goal of benefiting all of God’s creations. Not one subject kingdom within God’s kingdom every rules through any kind of Greco-Roman terrorism, nor ever develops steep hierarchical systems which worship human gods. None of God’s awakened elect ever make slaves of any of their fellow human beings, nor dare to ever even classify any human being as either “inferior” or “superior.” We do not even make slaves of animals, but try to give each a full, peaceful life without undue suffering, even the animals we raise for food. For we have the unaged wine of God’s Holy Spirit poured into us. Thus, as that new wine ages and grows the Spirit of God within us, we are learning the difference between spirit and flesh, now even realizing that the spirits of living entities cannot die. Now we begin to walk according to what our God Jesus Himself personally teaches to our spirits, finding abundant life in our New Covenant relationship with Him.
When we want to keep order and judge others, our first thoughts are not about how to threaten them with some kind of punishment, so they will not do anything that might inconvenience us, or lest they neglect to do what is good for our own selfish purposes. For, if we control and judge others in that way, we are actually trying to be our own gods, as well as the gods of other people and things. Then God might let us remain in this delusion, as our punishment from Him. Yes, God will still control all on earth and in heaven, so we do not die immediately from uncontrollable tiny things like diseases or natural causes. Yet He will also gather other unjust human gods near to us, others who try to control and judge in the same way we do, so we can engage in intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual warfare with them, for the destruction of our own flesh, along with all the worldly entities we rule.
Therefore, our first and foremost thoughts are about how we and all our people can learn from Jesus, to become responsibly free according to God’s laws and character, which He revealed in His Word, Page 651
as well as in all His natural and spiritual creations. And we do this for the sake of all. We place our faith in the power, wisdom and love of Jesus. We are confident that His Spirit can and will teach all our spirits well. And He will not only rebuke our spirits until we stop doing wrong, but also train us to do what is right, equitable and just through love. So there is a huge difference between these two methods, between terrorism and His Holy Spirit’s proactive training to work loving justice for all.
To avoid doing wrong, all the elect, both the undiscovered elect and ourselves, will also each need to learn truths and wisely practise works. But, since no one is capable of being God, since no one can learn and do all that needs to be done, each must learn a small subset of truths and wisdom. Each needs to find the particular truths and wisdom that God individually tailored and designed for one’s life on earth, all that harmonizes with each one’s own attributes and innermost desires. All need to seek God’s ways. But each one can only personally serve his or her own unique role that God has destined for one in His kingdom on earth. And none but the one Creator God Jesus is able to build a wise solution for each individual’s life, utilizing all of the spiritual and physical propensities inherent to each one, which He created in each. God teaches each individual and one’s whole community to make accommodations for each one’s innate weaknesses and strengths, each one’s level of maturity, each one’s accumulated knowledge and wisdom, each one’s ability of the mind of the spirit and the mind of flesh to learn new information or reason through problems. And the Holy Spirit of Jesus will teach and train each to rightly interpret one’s own circumstances, so each can glean wisdom from hardships. Only Jesus can prevent each from falling to temptation and sin, because only He knows how each requires a different solution, involving teaching and training to utilize one’s own unique strengths and experiences for good purposes, so each can overcome or avoid the temptations to which one is most vulnerable. Likewise, Jesus will never force anyone to do good works. Rather, He strives to bring souls into a closer relationship with Him, through His inner works. His Holy Spirit builds up love in one’s spirit, with motivation and zeal in that one’s heart, so each will joyfully walk with Him as His disciple, to serve Him in the unique way He calls each particular soul to serve Him.
At the present time, very few who call themselves “Christians” or “Jews” know anything real and true about the Holy Spirit of God. So most attempt to practise God’s Law through their minds of flesh, in a system of terrorism that is only “useful” for the lawless non-elect. Some even try to be human gods and invent their own laws, which they administer through a system of terrorism. So these religious anti-Christs tell themselves, “The ways of God’s Old Covenant Law are useful in causing fear and forcing compliance to my demands.” Yet these same human gods completely ignore the merciful justice and lack of any minimum penalties for crimes and sins that God’s Old Covenant Law commanded. And none want anything to do with God’s fulfilled Law of the New Covenant, His salvation entirely worked in us and through us by the indwelling Spirit of the Messiah Jesus. Most scoff at the true Gospel message, at the coming of God’s New Covenant to His priesthood of Israel, at how Jesus came to die on a cross for our sins so His Spirit could build up our lives, by teaching and training our spirits to repent into His truth for His cleansing forgiveness, so His very Spirit can then dwell in our souls without aiding or abetting sin. Instead, they invent new salvations, fake New Covenants and false Messiahs. They try to patch a tiny piece of the Gospel onto their own invented hybrid religions, and want to be gods administering their man-made laws through terrorism. But all this self-deluding nonsense always fails. All is futility from start to finish. For only Jesus can save.
In the quiet early mornings of each new spring, His Spirit will yet be heard in a songbird’s voice and by a child’s heart, still sweet after winter’s long bitter nights of war and death. His tone will be right and pure, silencing hate-filled deceit, ending the bloodshed of delusions. Heard in every field, forest, river valley, mountain top and prairie, His brightening sound will pierce the hearts of His beloved Page 652
Mat. 9:14-17, Celebrate God’s Presence
elect, and echo from the walls of their eternal inner chambers. Celebration waits in gentle homes of true justice within His kingdom of joy, for all who love and hope in the sunlight of His Gospel truth.
To this day, and to the end of time on earth, our God continues to send out elect souls whom He has awakened and given the ability to hear Him, those with elect spirits that can be taught truths by His Holy Spirit, those who willingly undertake the missions He calls them to accomplish as His priestly apostles. And these have been advancing justice, truth and love in this world, steadily growing God’s kingdom upon the face of this earth, ever since that day Jesus sent out those twelve to teach, preach, judge and do other spiritual or physical works in His name, with Him in them and working through them. For this was an eternal promise God gave to His apostle Abraham, and will not fail to keep it.
Mat. 9:18-26,
The Spirit of Life
“While He told these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshipped Him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.’ Jesus got up and followed him, as did His disciples.
“Behold, a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years came behind Him, and touched the fringe of His garment; for she said within herself, ‘If I just touch His garment, I will be made well.’ But Jesus, turning around and seeing her, said, ‘Daughter, cheer up! Your faith has made you well.’ And the woman was made well from that hour.
“When Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the flute players, and the crowd in noisy disorder, He said to them, ‘Make room, because the girl isn’t dead, but sleeping.’ They were ridiculing Him. But when the crowd was put out, He entered in, took her by the hand, and the girl arose. The report of this went out into all that land” (Mat. 9:18-26, WEB).
Regarding this account of these two miracles, many have noticed that Matthew, Mark (5:21-43) and Luke (8:41-56) all wrote similar and complementary accounts of this synagogue ruler asking Jesus to heal his beloved twelve-year-old daughter; and how Jesus, on His way to heal this girl, also healed an older woman with an “issue of blood” for twelve years. So all three Gospels joined both of these miracles, both done for females, into one event. All three Gospels seemed to treat both miracles as one significant illustration of a principle regarding females. In the eyes of all three, these miracles had provided Jesus with an opportunity to teach them something important about women and girls.
Of course, a second thing many notice is that one female was a child and the other was an older woman. A third thing some might notice is how Jesus called the older woman His “daughter,” in the same way that the twelve-year-old girl was a “daughter.” Then we may also ponder the fact that the woman had an “issue of blood” for twelve years, the same number of years that the ruler’s daughter had been alive. So it is difficult to believe that all these details binding these two miracles together were merely accidental coincidences. Rather, it seems as though God intentionally caused these two miracles to occur together, as one event, so Jesus could teach us some principle through them, some particular doctrine. Both were biblical teachings about women, about their role of life in the flesh.
We must assume that the harmonizing elements of these two healings were not coincidental because there are no mere accidents done by God. It was not a coincidence that Jesus was asked to raise a twelve-year-old girl from the dead, then healed another daughter of God from a twelve-year “issue of blood” while on His way. Jesus, our God, must have caused all the factors which resulted in this event, in order to teach something through these related miracles. God in the body of Jesus must Page 653
have called, motivated and caused all of His elect children to make the decisions which led to all these circumstances happening just as they did and exactly when they occurred. Therefore, it is our duty to find the particular teachings from God’s Word about women and their life in the flesh, so we can extract the truths or doctrines that Jesus was illustrating, all that He was trying to teach us here.
Now the woman’s “issue of blood” may have developed after she had a miscarriage, although, if her condition was menorrhagia, it could have been caused by a number of other factors as well. At any rate, since she had this menstrual disorder for 12 years, she was not capable of bearing a child during those 12 years, although she likely was able have a child twelve years before the day Jesus healed her. This implies that she must have been old enough to be the mother of the ruler’s twelve-year-old daughter. But God’s Law and her own body would not allow her to get pregnant for 12 years while, in the meantime, the ruler and his wife had a daughter and learned to love her deeply during those twelve years. Yet now the little girl was going to die, and permanently withheld from their embrace.
By the time Jesus arrived at the parent’s home, their daughter had already passed away. Now some do not believe anyone can raise the dead, so they say the little girl must have been unconscious, not dead. But, even in those days, physicians and most people were able to determine when someone stopped breathing, had no pulse and their body temperature was rapidly declining. Also, funerary flute players and mourners were already there when Jesus arrived. So she must have been dead for at least an hour or more. Therefore, she may have been so ill that everyone was expecting her to perish when the synagogue ruler ran out of the house to find Jesus. Then look at how some derided Jesus for saying she was “asleep” (Mat. 9:24, cf., Mark 5:39-40, Luke 8:52-53). At such a sad and sombre occasion, they would have never been angry and scorned a highly respected Rabbi like Jesus for this, not unless they were all very upset about the girl being unmistakably dead. They were angry because there was no possibility that she was actually alive. So Jesus did indeed raise this girl from the dead.
Consequently, we see how this event portrayed two very different circumstances here. Yet they were both similar in some way which Matthew, Mark and Luke saw, since all three joined the two events.
A woman suffered for twelve years from a debilitating disorder preventing her from bearing a child while, at the same time, a married couple suffered the loss of a daughter whom their spirits had been learning to deeply love for twelve years. Then Jesus entered their lives, simultaneously granting the childless woman the ability to give birth, while also raising the daughter to life and returning her to her loving parents. So both miracles related to life within, and also born from, the wombs of women.
Now, this woman had an “issue of blood” for twelve years, which likely began after the birth of a child, and women began to bear children at about 16 years old back then. Thus, she was probably about 28 years old at the time, close to the same age as Jesus, who was only about 30 to 32 years old by then. And, back then, the polite way for Jewish men to address a woman of this age was done by respectfully calling her either “sister” or “woman.” Yet Jesus was a already a rabbi by this time, and called her a “daughter,” as such elders in the community often did. Therefore, Jesus was pointing out to her that He was serving her in the role of her rabbi or teaching/judging elder, since a rabbi will call His female disciple his “daughter.” Also, God will call a woman, one with an elect spirit born of Him, His “daughter.” So Jesus spoke to her as both her Rabbi (her Teacher of life principles) and as the Father of her elect spirit. For the Spirit of life within Jesus and the heavenly Father are one Spirit.
Consequently, this woman obviously did not seek Jesus through mere superstition. She did not go to Jesus in the same way a pagan woman might go to a stone idol with the hope of being healed by touching it. Rather, this woman seems to have been a disciple of Jesus, a woman who had often gone to hear the teachings of Jesus, an elect woman who believed His words, even to the point where her Page 654
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
spirit was entirely convinced that He was truly the prophesied Messiah, that He was actually God dwelling among His people of Israel in a body of flesh. Many Jewish women would stand or sit by their husbands, or do so in a separated area surrounding the men during the teaching times. And this woman had likely done so whenever Jesus taught the men, both in synagogues and outside, so she too could learn the Scriptures. Thus, when this woman touched Jesus’ garment, she did so with the belief that He was God dwelling in a body of flesh. This is why Jesus comforted her by telling her:
“Continue to have courage, daughter. Your faith has saved you [with the ongoing effect of having healed you]” (Mat. 9:22, from: Θάρσει, θύγατερ· ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε, SBLGNT). Her trust in Him, as her Messiah and God, with her confidence in His words, saved her soul and healed her body.
Here Jesus deliberately used a perfect tense of the Greek verb σώζω (“to save”), so He could indicate: “Your faith has saved you with the ongoing effect of healing you.” All three Gospels said that Jesus used the Greek perfect tense of σώζω when He spoke to her. Matthew, Mark and Luke all recorded exactly the same clause in Jesus’ response to that woman: ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε. Not one paraphrased it. Thus, those were the exact words of Jesus to that Greek-speaking woman. And the perfect tense of σώζω indicated an important concept to her, and to all those who remembered what Jesus said. For the Greek perfect tense of σώζω meant that He saved her spirit at sometime in the past, but with current, ongoing effects or results. And, in context, that ongoing effect obviously included her body’s healing, so she could continue to serve God, but now in a more fulfilling way.
Of course, Jesus could have just as easily used an aorist form of σώζω, which would be translated as:
“Your faith has saved/delivered you.” Alternatively, He could have used an aorist form of the verb θεραπεύω instead, to tell her, “Your faith has healed you.” He could have chosen to describe His actions in many other ways too, or not at all. But Jesus always used His words carefully and very intelligently. Therefore, we need to pay attention to the precise way in which He used the precisely nuanced Greek language. And He definitely used a perfect tense form of the verb σώζω here. So we need to realize that σώζω was actually a technical term used in the Jewish theology of the day, an ecclesiastical term bearing certain implications to Jews and to His Jewish disciples. To them, in this context, σώζω indicated, at a bare minimum, that God heard the prayers of this woman’s spirit and had granted her what she had justly requested from Him (e.g., see how the infinitive form of σώζω is used in Is. 59:1-2 of the Septuagint). Yet this perfect tense form more usually implied a permanent saving or deliverance of one’s spirit, with many and varied current and ongoing results or effects.
This perfect form included a completed and eternal salvation, along with other good gifts from God.
Then those secondary benefits of being “saved” would be God guarding one’s spirit throughout life on earth, delivering one’s flesh from wicked plots and other evils, or possibly even healing one’s broken body of flesh—all so that one’s spirit could use one’s body of flesh to serve God. Thus, when Jesus used the perfect tense of the verb σώζω, it meant that He heard her prayers and chose to save her eternal spirit, with the added secondary, current, ongoing effect of healing her from her disorder, and where that healing implied that she was made physically whole again so she could serve God.
The accounts of this event in Gospels of Mark and Luke provide further details about how this woman approached and touched Jesus. And both confirmed her true faith in Jesus. But Mark appears to have possessed a somewhat deeper understanding of this woman’s faith, as well as the motive of God’s Spirit in Jesus, the reason Jesus chose to heal her. For this intuitive apostle wrote these words:
“A certain woman, who had an issue of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things by many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse, having heard the things concerning Jesus, came up behind Him in the crowd, and touched Page 655
His clothes. For she said, ‘If I just touch His clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
“Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power had gone out from Him, turned around in the crowd, and asked, ‘Who touched My clothes?’ His disciples said to Him, ‘You see the multitude pressing against You, and You say, “Who touched Me?”’ He looked around to see her who had done this thing.
“But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be cured of your disease’” (Mark 5:25-34, WEB).
One of the first things we notice in Mark’s account was that Jesus actually talked about saving her first, then added that He had also healed her from her disorder. Jesus said: “Daughter, your faith has saved you [with this ongoing effect of being healed]. Go in peace and continuously remain sound,
[free] from your disorder” (Mark 5:34, from: Θυγάτηρ, ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε· ὕπαγε εἰς εἰρήνην, καὶ ἴσθι ὑγιὴς ἀπὸ τῆς μάστιγός σου, SBLGNT). So here Jesus first declared her salvation. Then He commanded (by using the present imperative ἴσθι) that her body would continuously remain sound and whole, freed from her 12 years of suffering through her menstrual disorder. And the word Jesus used to refer to her physical disorder can also refer to a scourging or beating. So Jesus knew that this disorder was no small matter for this woman to endure for all those years. Having to live for 12 years without a child, while also contending with the stigma of being counted as “unclean” through God’s Law during that entire time, was surely constant spiritual, emotional, mental and physical suffering.
Then notice how this deeply suffering woman did everything she could to be healed. She went to physicians and spent all she had, trying to be healed. Thus, she obeyed God’s Law, by taking due care and full responsibility for her own life and well-being, by doing whatever she was able to do, in all the ways she knew how to do it. This is fulfills God’s sixth order laws. That is, in the sixth of the Ten Commandments, God forbade harming or killing any human body of flesh, including one’s own body. He gave us this archetypal command: “You shall not murder,” which encompassed all of God’s laws regarding any kind of harm, violence and killing through any kinds of bad motives or corrupt intentions. Dozens of the 613 laws of God, involving care for our fellow human beings, belonged to the category of sixth-order laws, including care for one’s own body. For we should also realize that the way to truly fulfill this sixth archetypal law is by performing the contraposition of this law. And the contraposition is His command to practise His intended purposes for human life. To fulfill this sixth-order prohibition, one must do all one can to save lives, all positive aspects which counter what He forbade. So these positive aspects of the negative command are actually: “You shall heal and keep alive everyone’s body of flesh whenever you are able, through whatever resources and skills you have been granted in stewardship by God, and do all equitably for everyone.” This, of course, this includes healing and keeping alive one’s own body of flesh. God also illustrated His sixth-order laws with examples of Him doing good for the well-being of souls, if it did not involve aiding and abetting their sins. So God clearly obligates us to take responsibility for the well-being of others and ourselves, in a just, reasonable way that is not selfish nor self-centred, in a way that fulfills the kind of just love God commanded His Law. Our lives’ purpose is to build up life through His kind of love.
Since this woman clearly tried to be healed in every way she could, and fulfilled God’s Law to the best of her ability. However, her condition only grew worse, not better. And this meant that God had wanted her to serve Him in a different way, through her suffering during that protracted period of time, perhaps to learn the skill of loving through adversity. Before Jesus healed her that day, He Page 656
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
wanted her to learn about love, and to serve as an example of a faithful disciple. Yet some preachers, who know neither the Scriptures nor God’s attributes, say that, since she went to physicians and her condition grew worse, it means that going to a physician is a sin. Since she could only be healed by Jesus, they say everyone must be healed by Jesus, through a miracle. Then some of those preachers lie in a worse way, by falsely claim that they heal through a “faith power,” and that Jesus had to use this same kind of external “faith power” to heal others—as though Jesus’ omnipotent power as God was not enough to heal, as though Jesus had to use another fictitious source of power which existed somewhere in the material or spiritual realms, outside of Himself. Then other fake priests and pastors claim that they alone bear access to the healing power of God, that they possess exclusive rights to approach God and influence His decisions as to whether He will forgive, save or heal us. And both kinds of these fakes claim such things solely because they want to be our gods, so we will worship them and give them money to be healed. But their strange, self-serving, unbiblical teachings are lies.
God’s Word never forbids us to go to physicians, but actually encourages us to go to physicians, as well as use medications, foods and other means to be healed or for our own well-being. And, if the healing miracles of Jesus somehow prove that we should never be healed by medications, then the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand must also prove that we should never eat food that is purchased, cooked and offered by human beings either. But, since that is ridiculous, so is the very irrational reasoning of those claiming that we should not be healed by medicines or by a doctor.
Jesus Himself said the sick have need of a physician (Mat. 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31). And God Himself instructed Isaiah to act as a physician for Hezekiah, by commanding Isaiah to make a type of medication for him, a poultice of figs to heal the cancerous growth of that king (see Is. 38:5 in connection with 38:21). Then God added fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life. Also, the Scriptures also called Luke, “the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14), and in a favourable light, which means Luke was actively serving God as a physician while preaching God’s Word, and while writing His Gospel through the commands of God’s Holy Spirit. Paul, the apostle, also served as a physician and had prescribed a medical treatment to Timothy (see I Tim. 5:23). Then, since it is God who provides us with all our bodily needs, all our spiritual desires to help others and all our intelligence to do all useful and good things, it is also God who grants physicians the intelligence, desire and supplies to help others through the works of their hands. The inner zeal causing them to learn their art originates from God’s counsel granted to their elect spirits. God is also the one who grants their minds and bodies of flesh the intellect and ability to learn all that is necessary for them to heal others. God has even provided them with the opportunity to go to a school where they can learn to heal. All things in life come from God, even all the substances used as medicines and all knowledge to heal. Therefore, those false preachers who say that physicians and medications are evil or carnal, and proclaim that all Christians must tithe to them in order to be “miraculously healed,” are actually self-serving little frauds. And many are Satan’s brood, sent by that Accuser to deceive, because both Satan and them are always trying to slander the innocent, forever searching for new ways to falsely accuse honest and loving souls of committing sins. Thus, this woman definitely did nothing wrong by going to physicians. In fact, in the eyes of God, she was actually obeying His Law to the best of her ability.
Therefore, when this woman was healed by Jesus, Jesus definitely did not condemn her attempts to be healed by physicians. Rather, our God Jesus simply did not allow her to be healed by physicians because He had predestined her to become an example of faith to all women, and even to all men as well. The day she was miraculously healed, and the words Jesus spoke to her, were recorded and now have been read for almost 20 centuries. And her trust in the loving power of our God Jesus, as well as her spirit’s confidence in His teachings, still inspires us. We all see how Mark told us: “For Page 657
she was reasoning that, ‘If I so much as touch His garment, I will be saved” (Mark 5:28, from: ἔλεγεν γὰρ ὅτι Ἐὰν ἅψωμαι κἂν τῶν ἱματίων αὐτοῦ σωθήσομαι, SBLGNT). This illustrated her belief that Jesus was God, since all good Jewish women like her believed that none but God Himself bears the power to save, or to instantly heal in a blessed way, through grace alone. And when she wanted to be healed from her physical “issue of blood” in this way, her actions obviously involved faith that this Jesus was the one God in a body of flesh. We know this by how this miracle occurred.
We also clearly see, in this account from Mark’s Gospel, that the mind of flesh in Jesus did not know who this healed woman was, although He knew that she touched His garment and that His Spirit had indeed healed her because of her faith in Him and in His teachings. Nor did His mind of flesh realize she was healed until after she had been healed. Rather, at the moment she touched Him and was healed, His mind of flesh was obviously preoccupied with other matters, such as navigating through the crowd pressing towards Him and all around Him. And, since the Spirit of God had to consciously decide to heal this woman, while His mind of flesh knew nothing about that decision, this indicates that the mind of His Spirit and His mind of flesh could think and make decisions separately. It means that there were two distinct and separately functioning minds in Jesus, a mind of His Spirit and a mind of His flesh. And His Spirit also felt that woman physically touch His garment, because His Spirit healed her at the moment she physically touched Him. Therefore, His Spirit knew all that was being felt by His body, literally all that His mind of flesh perceived through its five senses. His Spirit knew all that was entering into His mind of flesh, literally all thoughts in His mind of flesh. So there must have been some kind of interface between His mind of His flesh and His mind of flesh, which is what we call the “soul.” Yet His Spirit also saw the spirit of that devout Jewish woman too, and saw her spirit’s faith, with the eyes of His Spirit. So this must have been because His Spirit is the one omniscient God, since our spirits cannot see into the minds of other spirits, not unless God allows it.
Consequently, we see how we were made in God’s image, how He created us with two minds that interface with one another through the soul. This is yet another illustration of the biblical Jewish and Christian anthropological doctrines of that time, before they were corrupted by humanistic teachings.
We do indeed have a mind and will of a spirit, a mind and will of the flesh, and a soul that provides a means for communication between our two minds. Also, Jesus’ Spirit, which is the all-knowing God, had likely previously told His mind of flesh that the little girl had already died, and had already seen that her spirit left her body. So Jesus’ mind of flesh could have been distracted with the anxiety of dealing with that girl’s death as well. And nothing in the whole of Jesus’ mind and body of flesh even noticed that this woman was in the crowd. Yet the Spirit of God in Jesus saw, heard and healed that woman, all without His mind of flesh realizing it. This also implies that she was praying to the God in Jesus at that time. She was not striving to get the attention of Jesus’ body and mind of flesh, but only the attention of God in Jesus. Thus, God Himself, the Spirit of life in Jesus, heard her prayer and responded to her petition. The Creator’s Spirit loved that woman as one of His elect children, for her spirit was born of Him. So God in Jesus saw and responded to the true faith of her spirit. The real God in Jesus saw her intense desire to be healed and to bear a child, to love and serve a child on His behalf, to do His will for her own child, just as He taught and trained her spirit to serve Him in love.
This woman of faith clearly did not seek Jesus to be healed for the comfort of her own flesh, but so she could more effectively serve God. And she likely wanted to bear a child too, since most women wanted to serve God in that way, even though they endured extreme pain and risked their lives as they gave birth, not to mention all the exhausting labour involved in caring for children, especially in those days without modern conveniences. So there were no selfish impulses in her, but only a strong desire in her elect spirit to express love more fully, in all the ways her spirit knew how to love. And Page 658
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
her faith was clearly resting upon God Himself, upon Yahweh, the God of Israel dwelling within the prophesied Messiah. Hers was not a superstitious mind pursuing a Man who performed miracles, wanting to touch Him for her own selfish gain. And she certainly did not come to pay that Preacher a portion of her income for the rest of her life, in the way that fake preachers demanded this back then and in our day. She was nothing like the deluded souls we so often see today. Rather, her very spirit directly sought the real God in Jesus, through faith in His truth, power and authority. Clearly, her spirit believed God’s words, which declared His own decision-making authority and power to heal.
We know that this woman directly sought the God of Israel dwelling in the Messiah Jesus because He is the One who healed her, even without the mind of flesh in Jesus’ body knowing it. After she touched Jesus and became instantly healed, Mark said: “And immediately Jesus, having known in Himself that power originating from Him was issued, after having turned around in the crowd, said,
‘Who touched My garments?’” (Mark 5:30, from: καὶ εὐθὺς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐπιγνοὺς ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὴν ἐξ
αὐτοῦ δύναμιν ἐξελθοῦσαν ἐπιστραφεὶς ἐν τῷ ὄχλῳ ἔλεγεν· Τίς μου ἥψατο τῶν ἱματίων;, SBLGNT).
And, of course, many others were also touching Jesus. Many hands were reaching out to touch Him and His garments, at the same moment she touched Him. So His question made no sense to anyone there. But it made sense to Jesus, since the mind of His Spirit, who is God, communicated with His mind of flesh in the chamber of His soul, telling His preoccupied mind of flesh that He had chosen to heal the woman. Power had been issued from His Spirit of God, to heal the woman, without His mind of flesh consciously knowing it. Then Mark confirmed that Jesus’ mind of flesh did not know who was healed when he wrote, “He looked around to see the one having done this” (Mark 5:32, from: καὶ περιεβλέπετο ἰδεῖν τὴν τοῦτο ποιήσασαν, SBLGNT). Jesus’ body would not have searched for her if His mind of flesh already knew who had received power from His Spirit for her healing.
Clearly, from this event, we can conclude a number of things: (1) Jesus had two minds, each with its own distinct will, both a mind of flesh and a mind of a Spirit, where the mind of His Spirit was the very mind of the omniscient, omnipotent Creator God; (2) the mind of Jesus’ Spirit could act entirely independently of His mind of flesh; (3) the mind of Jesus’ Spirit informed the mind of His flesh that He had healed the woman, then commanded His mind of flesh to cause His body to search for her, as His Spirit was ruling over His flesh; (4) the mind of His Spirit, who is God, could see the faith of the long-suffering woman’s spirit, her spirit’s trust in His words and His attributes, her total confidence in His love, mercy, authority and power, her spirit’s belief that her God would want to heal her body and save her life from being rendered useless in her service to Him; and (5) the Spirit of God in Jesus both eternally saved her spirit from lies and sins, then healed her flesh, due to her spirit’s faith.
Now, when Jesus asked who touched His garment, the woman knew He must be referring to her, since she had immediately felt His power completely heal her. Then—also through her spirit’s faith that this Man was the promised Messiah, the man whom the Scriptures declared to be Yahweh, God in a body of flesh—this woman became very afraid and trembled. She somehow thought she may have done something wrong, and now God wanted her to confess. So she did! She also confessed through her faith that Jesus was the promised Messiah and her God. Just as a faithful servant of God always does, she fell prostrate before Him, in the position of full worship, then told the whole truth.
Yet Jesus was not angry with her at all. On the contrary, His Spirit of God just wanted to present her to His other disciples, as a good example of His faithful servant. For Jesus responded by telling her, in front of everyone: “Daughter, your faith saved you [with the effect of also healing your body]. Go within peace and always exist apart from your scourging” (Mark 5:34, from: Θυγάτηρ, ἡ πίστις σου
σέσωκέν σε· ὕπαγε εἰς εἰρήνην, καὶ ἴσθι ὑγιὴς ἀπὸ τῆς μάστιγός σου, SBLGNT). Her past suffering had clearly built up a closer relationship between her spirit and God’s Spirit, with even greater faith Page 659
in His love, words, authority and power. Now that Jesus had healed her from a disability which kept her from serving Him in the ways she longed to serve Him, her peace with God was fully restored.
And there was also a close connection between the two females who received miracles from Jesus on that day. This was a connection that beautifully illustrated the reason and the way God designed His laws regarding menstruation. Both miracles revealed harmonized truths that opposed the common biases of men against women. But, before we look more deeply into this connection, we must first accept the fact that these two miracles for females were not a mere coincidence. We must know that our God Jesus motivated the woman with the menstrual disorder to touch His garment only at that moment, as He was on his way to raise a deceased girl from the dead. God stirred her heart and caused her to touch His garment just then, and ordained her healing of her menstrual disorder at that precise time, in order to reveal a critical truth about His Law. Jesus wanted His male disciples to learn a truth through this event, even His male disciple today, through the Gospel accounts of this event. We must see how the glory of raising a deceased girl to life crushed the false sense of shame associated with the woman’s menstrual disorder, how life and menstruation are closely connected.
So we should look at what God’s Law says about the woman’s “issue of blood for twelve years,”
referring to her menstrual disorder. The Law seemed cruel to women, for it said: “If a woman has a discharge of her blood many days not in the time of her period, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her period; all the days of the discharge of her uncleanness shall be as in the days of her period: she is unclean” (Lev. 15:25, WEB). Therefore, this woman continuously remained “unclean”
for twelve years. And, since almost all women of her age were married back then, she was severely limited in what she and her husband could do during that time. For being “unclean” meant that she could not be with her husband in a the way that would allow her to bear children, since the Law also declared: “If a man lies with a woman having her monthly period, and uncovers her nakedness; h e
has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people” (Lev. 20:18, WEB). And being “cut off” was a severe punishment, a painful shunning by all one’s own Jewish friends and family. Therefore, since this woman was likely married, she was not even allowed to be intimate with her husband for twelve years, or else both of them would be cast out of the synagogue and the entire church of Israel. Yet we must now ask why a loving God commanded this. Was He unjust? And did He really imply that men can treat women as lesser spiritual beings, even as repulsive and unclean souls, just because He Himself caused women to issue blood from their wombs? Or did God have a good, just, spiritually symbolic reason for making these laws? Did His laws reveal an important truth to women, and to men as well?
This event answers these questions. In this event involving two females, Jesus showed us that God created women to have menstrual cycles for a good reason. In His Law, God used menstruation as a symbol of something spiritually important, even critical. For, even before God revealed His Law through Moses, God had already commanded that we must respect the blood of human beings and of all other creatures. Since blood permeated the entire body, and a living creatures would die without blood, the blood of every living entity represented its life, that is, its life-giving spirit. For the spirit also permeated the body of flesh, just as blood did, and a living entity would die if its spirit departed from it. If there was no spirit to manage the impulsive and foolish mind of flesh, the mind of flesh would soon lose its focus on necessary functions, immediately resulting in irreparable harm and death. As soon as a spirit leaves its body, the mind of flesh becomes disabled, incapable of even causing its heart to continue beating or its lungs to keep on breathing. Only if the life-giving spirit controls the mind of flesh, and therefore the body, can the body live. The spirit is to the flesh like a continuous source of electrical power is to light bulb. When the spirit is there, the mind of flesh can Page 660
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
be either turned on or off. But, when the spirit is not there, the light is always off. The spirit is what provides the necessary power for the computer-like brain of flesh to operate. So the mind of flesh stops functioning within moments after the spirit is pulled out of the body. Thus, when God created a system with a continuous flow of blood in living creatures, He designed it as a symbol of how the spirit permeates flesh, and also keeps the flesh alive, by providing the power needed by every cell in the body of flesh, while initiating and managing thoughts in the mind of flesh, to keep flesh alive.
Thus, when a woman bled during a menstrual cycle, it indicated that she was loosing life, sacrificing life in her, but so that she could bear a new life from her womb. She was serving as an agent or an instrument of God, by her sacrifice of her own life and spirit in her blood. Her life made spiritual sacrifices to impart life to others—not only for babies born from her womb, but also for all within the circle of her influence. And God, who assigned this loss of blood to her, saw her sacrifice as a noble, godly and holy duty, which none should desecrate through common or profane matters of the flesh. In reality, all God’s laws about menstruation were not to shame women, but to honour them.
God did not say a woman’s blood inside her heart and blood vessels was “unclean.” So her spirit was not “unclean.” Rather, long before He revealed His temporary symbolic Old Covenant Law, God declared that a woman’s spirit is exactly the same as a man’s spirit. For God is a Spirit, not a physical being, so any entity made in His image must necessarily be a spirit too. Yet His Word has declared: “God created [humankind] in His own image. In God’s image He created [humankind]; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27, WEB). A clear rendering of this verse indicates that it spoke about how God created humankind in His image, not just men, not just males. For God’s Word then specified that He was referring to both males and females, when He declared this. Thus, both an elect male and an elect female possess androgynous spirits which are created with inherent and core attributes that are just like God’s attributes. And, since love is the principal and defining attribute of God, we know that the spirits of both men and women are able to give and receive exactly the same kind of just, equitable, wise love that God can give and receive. Both elect men and elect women can make love the primary influence behind all their actions, thoughts and decisions in life, as God does.
But, if a woman’s spirit is not “unclean,” then why did God call her physical life “unclean” while she is menstruating? Well, clearly, the way God called menstruating women “unclean” was regarding entirely physical, common, mundane activities, especially her sexual relations with men. She was not to be touched in any sexual way by men, not while she was having a period, nor while she was menstruating because of some kind of disorder. So her “uncleanness” never did imply that her spirit was of less value than the spirits of men, not during that time of month or at any other time. Rather, it simply meant that a woman was to think and act for entirely spiritual reasons alone, for the benefit of her spirit and other spirits during that time. Her spiritual service may benefit her flesh or the flesh of others, but not in any carnal way. For an elect spirit is far more stable than the flesh does, and the spirit must not be ruled by the flesh. Menstruation reminded women of this fact, that their flesh is not their life. Their spirits and their spirits’ loving relationships, with God and with God people, is their life, and all else is secondary, to be subjected to God’s calling and to their loving responsibilities to those they serve in His name. Thus, God did not imply anything “dirty” or “unclean” in her spirit.
As we see in God’s laws, such as in Leviticus 20:18 quoted above, it was a man who “made naked”
or shamed her, if he had sexual relations with her during her period. It would be him, the man, who disgraced “the fountain of her blood,” which refers to the “source” of her blood, meaning her spirit, which symbolically dwells in the blood. If a man profaned the spiritual sacrifice of a woman, that is, her blood shed as a sign from God, then the man’s deed would be “unclean.” If a man treated the spirit in her blood as worthless, and disdained the spiritual value of the woman’s sacrificial service to Page 661
God through her loving works, like bearing children, and did this just to gratify his carnal lusts, his selfish, materialistic, faithless and profane deed would offend God. So it would be an “unclean” act.
Then, if a woman willingly uncovered her “fountain” or source of blood, and also willingly profaned this sign, she too would be “unclean.” And, if both the man and the woman deliberately refused to respect the “fountain,” the source or spirit that her issue of blood represented, which God created as a sign of her God-given ministry, then God’s priesthood of Israel was to expel them both, that is, after the motives and intentions of both were carefully examined and proved in a just, biblical kind of trial, through honest and just elders and witnesses. A court must first determine whether or not to the man or the woman or both had wrong motives and intentionally disrespected God’s command, whether or not both willingly displayed hatred for God’s spiritual truths about her sacrifice of blood in service to God. For all souls who deliberately broke this law, although they are not as bad as religious misogynists, would not be spiritually clean enough to be joined with His true church.
God’s laws, and the words of His true prophets, are strictly spiritual, all ultimately and entirely for spiritual purposes. For, as Jesus pointed out in John 6:63, flesh can never profit anyone in any real and intrinsic manner—although God did not create the flesh for our detriment either. In God’s eyes, flesh does have some value, as a temporary training instrument used by God for our spirits. And, if God sets aside any material thing or body of flesh, and calls it holy, if He separates and sanctifies it for His purposes, then all those purposes are entirely spiritual. That material thing or flesh will serve God in a way that benefits spirits, particularly elect human spirits. Thus, no one must dare to use that thing or that flesh for the profit or pleasures of one’s flesh. Any holy thing or flesh must not be used for any profane, common purposes whatsoever. So a woman’s body, as it sacrifices blood through her menstrual cycle, is holy. Her menstruation is a symbol of how her spirit was ordained to make sacrifices for others, especially during the birth of a child. And it is that which does not acknowledge the separated sanctity of that thing or that flesh, or anything which parts from the purpose of it, which is actually unclean or offensive to God. Thus, during menstruation, her body must remain separate from all that is profane, carnal and fleshy, such as from the sexual lusts of a man. And all those carnal things and fleshy lusts are counted as “unclean,” since they oppose the purpose what He set aside as holy. It is “unclean” for a man to touch her if God’s appointed holy sign is upon her.
But a menstruating woman spirit is not “unclean.” She is not less spiritual, nor in any worse spiritual condition than she was at any other time. On the contrary, her body of flesh is being separated and sanctified unto God during her menstruation, evidenced by a spiritual sacrifice of blood. If Israel was made symbolically holy through blood shed by sacrificial animals in the Old Covenant times, and we are made holy and set apart for God’s purposes through the blood shed by Jesus in New Covenant times, then the blood shed by a menstruating woman must be a sign of a similar kind of holiness.
Jesus grants our elect spirits life through the blood of His flesh willingly shed for us on a cross, to free us from sins of our flesh. And only those sins of the flesh are “unclean.” But our elect spirits, freed by His blood, are clean. Likewise, God causes a woman to bear children through the shedding of her blood, as a sign resembling what Christ did for us. The blood of the flesh is holy if it is spilled in performing God’s works done according to God’s will, which is for the benefit of the eternal spirits whom He chooses for Himself. And a woman’s womb provides bodies for the spirits that God sends to live on earth, as a spiritual labour for God’s purposes, according to His will. So her blood shed during menstruation is a sign of her labours for God, a sign of her body’s holiness in His eyes.
Therefore, when this woman had an issue of blood for twelve years, it was a disorder that sanctified those years, set them apart solely for spiritual purposes. Her life was to be dedicated for God’s works alone, where all profane or common life activities, such as having sexual relations with men, were to Page 662
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
be thought of as “unclean” by her, and shunned. She was denied many pleasures of the flesh, and was to focus on pleasures of the spirit for twelve years, that is, the teaching and training of her spirit to rightly serve God. And, apparently, her spirit did indeed benefit much from this time, if we consider how she became our God’s example to illustrate how to have faith in Him and in His words.
Yes, this beleaguered woman did seek medical help for the healing of her flesh during those twelve years, and rightly so. However, she also obviously prayed much too, with an awakened elect spirit, while searching out God’s created truths and realities, which are the foundation of God-like love and useful for her spirit’s growth. She clearly did not ignore anything God was teaching to her spirit, but learned from Him through all her hardships. Instead of becoming bitter, she became a loving spirit of deep faith. Then to her Messiah and God, to Jesus. And her twelve years of suffering in the flesh led her spirit into the trust of all His words and His loving power, as her God in the Messiah’s body of flesh. So it was because our God Jesus saw that she was now ready, He healed her, even as she very humbly touched the edge of His garment, as though she were an unworthy sinner who needed more teaching and training by God to be counted worthy of a home in heaven—which is actually the state of every human being. This is why Jesus confirmed her faith, declaring that her confidence in Him, in the one true God, not only healed her physical condition, but also saved her eternal elect spirit.
After healing her, Jesus went to restore life to the deceased daughter of a ruler (ἄρχων, a man with a higher rank, status or decision-making power). For that ruler had absolutely no power over the life of his own beloved daughter, no wisdom nor authority that might raise her from the dead, absolutely no ability to even guard her life and protect her from death. But Jesus did have this authority and power.
Now most men see that women are different and need to be treated differently. For women tend to live according to the feminine impulses of their minds of flesh, which are nothing like masculine impulses of the flesh. That is, women have a desire to bring others into the spheres of their lives, so they might serve them in whatever ways they know how to serve, and are never very good at judging others or guarding against malicious motives and intentions. Meanwhile, men desire proof of right motives and intentions before they allow anyone into the spheres of their lives, and guard against others instinctively, because their strong inherent impulses of the flesh judge as well as defend both themselves and their loved ones. So male flesh tends to guard female flesh against harm, and this instinct is particularly strong in fathers regarding their daughters. However, humanistic men will tend to believe that they are gods who are wise enough, knowledgeable enough and powerful enough to always protect and do what is best for the women they think they “own” as their property. In other words, humanists are so deluded that they are completely insane. For, first of all, not even a man’s own body, nor a dog, nor a single blade of grass, can belong to anyone except God. Then it is only God Himself who is able to wisely protect both men and women from lies, delusions, disasters, viral illnesses, toxins, the violence of humans and other creatures, or any other danger that can harm or kill. For all humans are far too stupid, foolish and weak to effectively save anyone, even themselves.
Therefore, all elect human beings who are grounded in reality, all who let the rational minds of their spirits rule over their irrational minds of flesh, know that their own lives and the lives of all their loved ones depend entirely upon the Spirit who wisely created all the harmonious and intricately balanced material and spiritual entities existing all around them. That is, all reasonable and sane human beings possess at least some faith in the Creator God. For, whether or not they have received any knowledge or wisdom found in the Bible, their spirits receive a little of both directly from God.
So, when Jesus raised the dead girl to life, this clearly drew a strong connection between the woman with the issue of blood for twelve years and that deceased twelve-year-old girl. For God ordained Page 663
that blood would be the bearer of life or spirit. Thus, both works of Jesus illustrated the spirit of life in the blood and regarding women. When Jesus restored the spirit of life to the girl’s blood, this pointed us back to the issue of blood in the first woman, whom He healed of a continuous issue of blood. And most of His Jewish disciples, who thoroughly knew God’s Law, would have instantly recognized this blood-and-life-spirit connection between the two females. Jesus intentionally drew a line between the loss of blood through menstruation and the fact that the spirit of life dwells in the blood of this deceased girl, especially since that girl was at the age where she too would soon begin menstruating, or possibly had already began to menstruate. Once we see how Jesus joined these two miracles, which redeemed the lives of two females, we begin to understand God’s laws regarding women, especially His laws regarding menstruation. They were actually about the spiritual worth of women in God’s eyes. For God caused their issue blood as a sign of their life-giving sacrifice of their own lives and spirits, the very life He grants to both male and female children. So these two events portray God’s just and loving intentions for women, as His sanctified, highly valued children in His own family—in direct contrast to the carnal, cruel chauvinism and misogyny of humanists back then.
Now, to understand the message God intended to convey through His laws regarding menstruation, it is important to first fully comprehend how God designed blood to be a symbol of the spirit. So we may need to review some of God’s teachings about the symbolic relationship between blood and spirit, since His disciples that went with Him into that room knew them, and most Jews had some knowledge of these truths, but they are seldom taught today, or are taught wrongly in a carnal way.
Long before God revealed the Old Covenant Law on Mount Sinai, even before Abraham was born, God told Noah (who was one of the solitary priests descended from Seth): “Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. As I gave you the green herb, I have given everything to you. But flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat” (Gen. 9:3-4, WEB). This prohibition against eating meat without first draining the animal’s life-blood from it, applied to all whom God chose from the line Seth for His priesthood. So this law of God applied to Abraham too, who was another chosen or elect solitary priest of God descended from Seth through Noah. Likewise, it applied to all of the descendants of Abraham. So this law was practised by Isaac and Jacob, who were also God’s solitary priests descended from Seth. Then it was respected by the entire church of Israel, who came through Jacob, as well as to all whom God adopted into that priesthood. And now all God’s priesthood, all who teach and serve in His name, all with awakened elect spirits brought into His church, must also fulfill this law of God, since our God Jesus came to fulfill all of God’s Law, not to nullify any of it.
Furthermore, because God created the priesthood to serve the entire world, so they could teach His New Covenant Law to all the living souls on earth, so they could help all fulfill His loving Law, this law applies to all humans as well. For we should realize that all humans are either figuratively or actually descended from Noah, through his sons, since they and their wives were the only survivors of the world-wide flood. Whether we take the story of Noah to be an account of the only ones God kept alive to perpetuate a saving knowledge of Him, their Creator, or you take it as a literal account of the destruction of all humans on earth, this law remains in effect for all all human beings. No one is exempt from this command to respect the spirits of all living creatures by refusing to consume their blood, since God deemed that blood would symbolically bear their spirits of life. All must acknowledge that God is the sole Creator, Owner and Lord of all life, including our lives, and that God merely appointed humans to be His stewards of life on earth, taking responsibility for all life.
From the very beginning, man was allowed to eat any animal when he was hungry—even though mankind was commanded to name all other creatures, as a sign that, from the days of Adam to this very day, all humans must take responsibility for the care and welfare of all creatures. But, as Adam Page 664
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
named the living creatures, each according to the attributes of their spirits, he saw them walk and do their works in pairs, male and female. Yet he found no suitable companion for himself among them (Gen. 2:18-24). For no animal spirits were able to know Jesus, our God in a body of flesh, in the same way that Adam did. God, who walked with Adam in the garden, as His Brother, granted Adam the first elect spirit created in His image, with the same kind of love that was in Him. But none of the other animals had a spirit quite like Adam’s spirit. Even the most loving and wise animal spirits were not able to learn truths directly from God, as a child of the heavenly Father. Consequently, Adam had a desire to find a female like himself, one with a complementary but different and equal spirit, so the two of them could become body flesh, so they could build a life together, as servants of God’s new children born through their union. And Adam wanted more than the kinds of unions he saw in the living creatures he served, who could never develop the kind of union that God had with His family of children on earth, who were like a spiritual bride working with Him to build a just, loving life.
So God knew that Adam would become very lonely, and that he longed for a union that could produce more than merely the sum of two individual lives. Thus, after Adam named all the other creatures, God made a woman, Eve, as his spiritual equal. She too would know and walk with God in the Garden, as the companion and helper of Adam, sharing all that Adam’s life would gain and endure. Her mind and body of flesh were different, made with a perfect kind of mind and body of flesh to fully complement Adam’s mind and body of flesh, and enhance all the purposes that both would have in life. Now both could serve God more effectively, as a genius combination, each one becoming more than either could ever become alone, because her spirit was the same as his spirit, because both of their spirits were born from the very same breath and Spirit of the one Creator God.
But there is no such thing as a male spirit or a female spirit, only spirits in temporary male and female bodies of flesh. No spirits can possibly have any sexual identity. For God is a Spirit, and is one individual alone, without equal, and therefore without a mate. So God cannot produce new gods like Himself. Yet God wanted someone to love and serve. Thus, God created all the spirits that exist, to be companions of Himself, as individuals like He is Himself, so all those spirits might be one with Him and in Him, as His family and His bride. Each spirit of life in every plant, every animal, every angel and every human, is as individual as God is Himself, and none can produce offspring, but can create other things with God’s creations, in a way that makes them one with the Creator of all those creations, as well as one with all the other spirits who likewise create good things with His creations.
So the temporary material universe contains temporary bodies of male and female flesh that God made able to reproduce other bodies of temporary flesh, to reproduce things similar to their own flesh. But none of those reproduced bodies can live without spirits inside of them. And only God can create spiritual beings for those bodies, to initiate life in those bodies and to keep those bodies alive.
Then God grants that those spirits of life will be the stewards of their own bodies, which are things made of things created and owned by God. So the spirits of those offspring belong to God alone, who grants their spirits stewardship of their own bodies. Thus, just as no plant nor animal on earth ever becomes deluded enough to claim ownership of their offspring, or even their own bodies, then neither should any human or organization of humans let themselves become that deluded. Instead, every human that produces offspring must realize that, as God’s steward of a body of flesh, creating an offspring is serving God, in order to become one with God and with all His other living creations whom one serves according to God’s will. For all living spirits on earth and in heaven are to be one family in God, and all elect humans will be the bride of God, building one life or “kingdom” in Him.
Since the life of the spirit permeates temporary material bodies in the same way that the body’s blood does, God wants us to always remember the eternal spirits dwelling in the animal bodies that Page 665
we eat. Thus, as His priests, serving as His stewards who take responsibility for those animals, we obey His prohibition against consuming the blood of animals. For, by obeying this law of God, our human spirits show respect for those animal spirits, and acknowledge their value as our eternal companions at home, in heaven, where we will live together with them as God’s beloved family.
By obeying this law of God, we also acknowledge that we own nothing and have no right to take their lives, that is, unless God allows us to kill their flesh for our survival. We can only extinguish any life humbly, and only by God’s permission, which God only grants for good purposes, such as for our sustenance or to save our own lives. And, as we obey this law, it forces us to remember that God commanded us to name all living entities, which is God’s way of saying that we need to take responsibility for all living entities. Yet God’s eternal law also granted us permission to remove life from all kinds of temporary flesh, even to consume some of that flesh for our sustenance. It was only after God gave His temporary and symbolic Old Covenant laws to the church He established through Abraham, that He then placed restrictions on the kinds of animals we could eat. And those temporary symbolic dietary laws of God were solely for the purpose of condemning the practises of pagan idol worshippers, who often killed innocent animals through the most cruel methods imaginable, because that is what their demon gods demanded. For their demonic gods wanted to offend God by torturing animals, and did so by deluding their people into thinking they owned those creatures, not God. The demons also wanted to desensitize their people, turn them into loveless psychopaths, because they want to remove God’s attribute of love from the world. But, although God’s Old Covenant dietary laws were made in opposition to those pagans and the demons they worshipped, they were weak, since they were obeyed solely through minds of flesh. So they did not keep His people from idolatry.
Yet now, in our New Covenant relationship with our heavenly Father and our oldest Brother, we are to fulfill His eternal laws regarding how we humbly kill and eat animals for sustenance. For Jesus fulfills all God’s ways and laws in us and through us. So God’s eternal prohibition about consuming the blood of animals still applies to all whom God gathers into His priesthood, to both the natural and adopted sons of Abraham, as well as all who descended from Noah, which includes every human being. This means need to humbly admit that God alone owns the spirits of animals, and even plants, just as Noah did, even before God forbade him to consume their blood. It means that our motives and intentions must strive to name the animals as well, that is, to take responsibility for their welfare, and also tend the garden of the earth, all to our best ability. We are to treat the shedding of any blood humbly, in fear of God, since He created blood in a way which permeates the flesh of creatures, in order to illustrate how their eternal spirits permeate their lives in the flesh. And, since every spirit of life belongs to God alone, all those with any knowledge of good and evil, all human beings, must acknowledge this fact. Humans, as intentional sinners, can never possess any ultimate authority over any of those spirits, although God grants their flesh for our sustenance through grace alone. And we see the sinless spirits in the animals we name and love. Thus, we find it hard to kill a horse, dog, cat, chicken or duck that is our companion and pet, with a name we call out to. Our human spirits begin to realize that God alone bears the authority to give life or take it away. Therefore, as the children of God, whose spirits are being redeemed by God, and as His owned creations, we serve to build up life according to His will, and shall only kill life for His good purposes, by His permission and authority.
No matter how much time passes on earth, all human beings must refrain from cruelty to animals and respect the spirits of life within them. Then this respect doubly applies for the spirits of life in all human beings. We must not be cruel to our brothers and sisters in God’s created family of humans, nor kill them, but strive to build up love, holiness and truth in them, since their spirits are made in God’s image. And, because all human beings were commanded to name the animals, to ensure they Page 666
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
have a home and food, to do the best we can for their welfare, if we need to end their lives for some good reason, we must do so as quickly and as mercifully as possible. And we must only kill them for our survival, then spill their sinless blood on the ground or give it to other animals, to indicate that we know their lives belong to God alone. For, although the spirit of life is no longer in their blood after they die, we must symbolically respect God as their Owner and symbolically set their spirits free, to dwell with their Owner and Creator in heaven. We return their blood to God, to acknowledge that He owns their eternal spirits forever. This was a universal and everlasting law of God, His inner intent for all life on earth. And all awakened elect spirits know that consuming the blood of any animal is wrong, since it is arrogance against God, the Owner of all spirits. To consume blood is a false claim to be a god, pretending that one is able to create, rule and own animals. It is a refusal to acknowledge God as the only true Creator and Owner. So we must humble ourselves and return blood to the earth, even all sinless life to God’s other sinless plants and animals. And, if we are to respect the spirits in all living things, although those spirits are not born of God’s Spirit like human spirits, how much more are we to respect the spirits of life in the blood of human beings? Thus, if God ordained women to sacrifice their spirits of life in their blood each month, should we profane it?
Human spirits are not like animal spirits. Animal spirits always use their bodies of flesh to do what God appointed them to do, nothing more and nothing less. Instinctively, that is, through the wills of their spirits, animals simply eat, breed and carry out the exact role God intended for them on earth.
In doing so, their spirits can have no evil intentions nor wicked motives. And, without motives and without any inner intentions to oppose God, there is no sin. But humans often distort or destroy what God has created, and they do so with the permission and wills of their ignorant and infantile spirits.
Then these sinning humans even cause animals to do “unnatural” things too, even to commit sins like murder. So it is the humans who sin, but the animals they cause to do those sins do not sin, since they bear no evil motives and intentions in their spirits, and are only doing what they are caused to do, and are manipulated by the humans who “named” them, by the humans who “own” those lives.
Only a human spirits have any real ability to discern between good and evil. Only human spirits are capable of either good or evil motives and intentions of their spirits—not through free will, but either as elect spirits being trained to choose God’s just and loving ways in preparation for lives with true free will in heaven, or as non-elect spirits born to innately hate the truth and God Himself. For God has “named” every individual human that has ever existed, and has taken responsibility for each one’s spiritual welfare and eternal destiny. God created elect human spirits in His image, then also made the spirits of all plants, animals, heavenly angels and other creatures through His power alone.
After this, God created Satan’s spirit, then allowed that devil to create non-elect human spirits. So only human spirits can become holy, just and loving like God, who is a Spirit. And only the spirits God created with a total lack of love (demons, and the human spirits created by Satan) are truly evil.
But, no matter what humans do with plants and animals, the spirits of those creations remain sinless.
And, likewise, no matter what demons and the non-elect do with elect humans, all spirits of the elect remain the children of God and shall be fully redeemed by their heavenly Father on the very last day.
All that God made with His own hands, through His power, belongs to Him, and can never be taken away from Him. For no one owns nor names God. He is the only uncreated Spirit existing, and is outside of every created space-time continuum. Nor are any of His creations powerful enough to steal His possessions from Him. Also, God cannot give any of His possessions away, since all that exists throughout all time relies entirely upon God to continue existing, through His continuous application of His power. Therefore, if God granted real ownership of any of His creations to anyone or anything else, then that other entity would need to provide for the continuous maintenance of that Page 667
creation through their own power. One would need to produce all of the energy which forms the atoms and molecules of that creation’s body. And, if that creation was alive, then one would need to provide even the spiritual substance of that creation’s spirit, through one’s own power. But, clearly, no created entity bears the power to do any of that. No entity can create something from oneself and one’s own power, as God did, nor keep that physical or spiritual existence existing. Even Satan’s continuous existence ultimately needs to be maintained by God, along with all the non-elect spirits God allowed Satan to create. Thus, if God granted a true ownership of anything to anyone, that gift would simply cease to exist at the moment it was given. Consequently, God always remains the only Owner of all that exists, and the most that anyone can ever become is a mere steward of anything or any creature made by God. Certainly then, no woman nor child can be owned by another human. So let us rejoice that we are all mere stewards of God’s creations, as His children and heirs of all the good He grants us, in all we can do with our hands through love, through our spirits’ good intentions and with right motives. Let us humbly acknowledge that the spirits of life in all blood, both in human blood and the blood of animals, belong to our heavenly Father, who dwells in our Brother, in Jesus.
Therefore, we do not disdain the blood shed by women during menstruation, as some are taught to do through twisted teachings of God’s words. For their distorted doctrines blaspheme God Himself, because the slander of that Teacher’s words also slanders the Teacher Himself. Now we know that God told Noah: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in His own image” (Gen. 9:6, WEB). We know God here assigns human beings the task of judging and punishing anyone who sheds human blood, anyone who harms or kills another human being through wrong motives and evil intentions, yet only in a way where the punishment is weighed against the murderer’s unrepentant motives and intentions against God Himself. And it often takes us much time before we can discover the motives and intentions of that one’s spirit. So we must take our time, with very careful observations of that person’s heart, through a wise judicial and penal system, before we presume to punish a sinner in God’s name. For all matters of blood are very serious, relating to every thought and deed in our lives, because our spirits relate to all we love and live to serve through love.
If someone injures or kills someone else, we are to determine whether this was done through any kind of evil intention with wicked motives, and whether or not that one’s spirit has truly repented.
Then, depending on the degree of sin in the unrepentant, God appointed human beings to sentence and punish those unrepentant ones. And this must be done in a just manner, with a punishment that does not exceed the weight of the crime’s intentions and motives of one’s spirit. Then we must admit the reason that God has handed over this duty and responsibility to human beings, so we might know why all must be done justly, why we must judge in precisely the way God also justly judges. God gave this burden of justice to His human stewards because some humans, the elect, were created in His image. So these elect must become just in the same way God is just, and for the same reasons He is just. When God commanded this, He implied that we were created in His image in order to make the same just, wise and truly loving decisions that He makes, so our spirits, born of His Spirit, with the same attributes that His heart bears, would go to Him and learn all His just and loving ways from Him, since that is what all good children do with their good and loving fathers. That is why this law of God is applicable to literally all mankind, since it was given to Noah and all come from Noah.
Because human spirits differ from animal spirits, because all human and animal blood and spirits belong to God alone, because only human spirits were created in the image of God, because God gave man the task of judging the spirits of other humans who shed blood, we must justly judge that the blood shed by women during menstruation is a noble and God-appointed sacrifice. Clearly, God appointed women to make this sacrifice of their own blood in order for them to be set apart for His Page 668
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
purposes, to be holy. Because it is holy, all common and profane acts of flesh are deemed “unclean,”
while women shed blood. For He assigned women the ministry of creating bodies of human beings, even some of the bodies to whom God grants elect spirits of life, spirits created in His image. In other words, a woman’s ministry of creating bodies of children in her womb is not just physical. For all physical ministries of the flesh are always ultimately spiritual duties and responsibilities. Thus, a woman’s appointed ministry of building bodies of children within her body is merely a symbol of her appointed spiritual ministry, which is to build spiritual life for those within the sphere of her life.
When Jesus healed of a woman with a continuous “issue of blood” for twelve years, He intentionally related that work of healing her to His other work of raising a dead twelve-year-old girl to life. So the spirit of life in the girl had left her blood, resulting in death. Then our God Jesus returned her spirit of life to her blood and healed her body. And we should remember that Jewish girls born to higher ranking officials were sometimes already bound to a marriage contract at about twelve years of age, since they began to menstruate at about that age. Of course, those young girls did not live with their husbands at that age, not until they were about sixteen or older. But it meant that these Jews took menstruation as a sign that a women would soon begin to fulfill her spiritual duties and responsibilities, and therefore must begin to think about those works for God, and learn how to perform those works at that age. So this is the world view and context of these miracles He did.
Clearly, some Jews thought that the way to get a young girl to focus on learning her spiritual and physical works as a woman was to make a contract of marriage. This kind of thinking was wrong, because it tried to force what God must produce spontaneously, from the girl’s spirit in her heart.
Nevertheless, we can see how the number twelve, in both of these miracles worked by Jesus, was significant. Jesus was telling us that the menstruation of women is not something that makes them
“unclean,” not in the misogynistic and ugly way the humanist rabbis of that day were teaching, after they were corrupted by Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. For God, Jesus Himself, ordained that women would menstruate, and that the spirit of life in that blood would be the principal factor in determining each individual woman’s role in life that God was symbolizing through the woman’s
“issue of blood.” So this “issue of blood” certainly was not anything that anyone should artificially deem to be unholy through arrogant ignorance. Rather, God wanted the “issue of blood” from a woman to be rightly judged, according to His holy eternal laws, as a symbol of a woman’s holiness.
So the core principle exemplified through these two miracles, which occurred together as one event, was about respecting the sign of God put on women through menstruation. Yet now we may wonder why Matthew seemed to gloss over this event, and wrote only nine verses about it, barely enough to glean all this meaning from it. For Matthew must have been there that day and was probably an eye witness. And, more than Mark and Luke, we can trust his chronology, that this event occurred after Jesus taught about fasting. Still, Luke wrote 16 verses about this event and Mark wrote 23. Both took great care to give us all the relevant details, while Matthew did not. Thus, it is very difficult to truly grasp the message Jesus was illustrating through these miracles on that day, and also why Matthew wrote so little about it, without also examining the accounts in the Gospels of Mark and Luke too.
Since Matthew wrote his Gospel for a Jewish audience, who were thoroughly taught God’s Law, it is likely that he did not feel the need to make the core message of this event so obvious, and assumed that they would eventually figure it out themselves. Also, like Jesus, Matthew did not want to push these doctrines too hard, because he knew that Jewish men took great pride in their role as the heads of their households, as the spiritual teachers of God’s attributes and ways for their families, and as the judges of all in their families. And that pride often corrupted them, especially in the humanistic culture that had permeated their land throughout the past five centuries. By the time Matthew wrote Page 669
his Gospel, many Jewish men did not believe they could be the heads of their households without also being “superior” to their wives and children in their families. Many Jewish men believed that they “owned” their wives and their children, then unjustly judged them, in the same way humanists did. Of course, that feeling of superiority was fleshy and evil, even an attempt to be a human god.
So, knowing that humanistic influences among his readers might start arguments, Matthew hid the implications of this event from the humanists, by only presenting the minimum amount of details.
But the more biblical Jewish men would see all that Jesus was implying here. For being a spiritual head of a family, the teacher whose actions and words determined the spiritual and moral direction of the family through his judgments, never meant that he also needed to be “superior” to anyone in his family, neither his wife nor his children. God desired that the oldest male in each household and extended family would provide order, as an anchor for all lives in the family, to prevent all from drifting into loveless errors and sins. All males who took this role were also obligated to learn the truth from God, so they could fulfill this role. Thus, this role never implied any degree of superiority or status, nothing to set them above anyone. For every head of every family had to be a mere student or disciple of God, who served God by hearing and comprehending everything his family said and did, then take all this to his Head Teacher, to God, so he might know how to respond to his family, in order to fulfill his role as their just and loving spiritual teacher and judge. It meant he had to be fully trusted by each member of the family, someone to whom they chose to consult. It meant he was to be the cherished companion of his wife. For each family member had go to him without hesitation or fear, and openly share all they thought, experienced and felt. For, if his family did not trust their head enough to share their lives with him, then it would be impossible for him to seek God’s counsel for their benefits. Just as God’s family can speak candidly and without fear to their heavenly Father, and even express their anger against Him at times, so too must the wife and children of a human father.
No man was to become so deluded and unjust as to think he was superior. For there is no way a man can possibly hear and fully understand the heart-felt words of his wife and children, or anyone else, if he thinks he is superior. And, if a man cannot learn such things from the hearts of those he teaches or judges at home, then he cannot possibly teach or judge in a church or governing body, no way that he can adequately and justly love outsiders enough to ever be chosen and approved by God. Literally every teaching elder and judge has to be a loving, trusted brother to all in his family of mankind, so he will be able to gain and fully understand the testimonies of witnesses, as well as all the words of the accused, so he will be able to make right judgments for all, according God’s just laws, taking into account all motives and intentions of all spirits, or their changes of intentions through repentance. A head needs to hear all the truth, and hear God’s wisdom, so he can rightly apply that truth, then teach the truth to those who sin, with the hope of their repentance into that truth. A head of anything must be the beloved and trusted servant of all before he is able to judge justly. For there can never be any right teachings and right judgments if a head feels any kind superiority over those he serves. And God only requires us to respect His created truths and realities, not human beings. Therefore, we are only to respect the loving, true, sound and wise words expressed by a judge, not the man himself. So God does allow His people to oppose lies and sins of heads of households, elders of churches, kings, governing officials, judges and other authorities. For God opposes those delusions, lies and sins with us, and lends us the power to overcome them. Just and loving judgments do not require respect for any human head or judge. God only requires respect for all spirits of life, for truth and justice, within His love and wisdom. And God actually forbids us to highly esteem any man, who is a mere sinner.
All humanistic hierarchical systems are unjust and inadequate, including their ungodly concepts of superior male “owners” of wives and children, or esteemed judges on raised benches, as well as all Page 670
Mat. 9:18-26, The Spirit of Life
their other exalted authorities, who are all sinners, and who are all our equal brothers and sisters. So Matthew seemed to shorten this account of these two miracles simply to avoid a quarrels arising from humanists among his Jewish readers. At a more suitable time, he might personally speak to them and delve into revealing details, carefully explaining the just biblical principles illustrated within this event. But, for the time, he chose to hide those principles about women from them.
However, Mark and Luke wrote to Gentiles, without worrying about the endless debates that some humanistic Jews would start, regarding the biblical roles of women. For Gentiles knew very little about God’s Law, and were still willing to discuss all kinds of world views. In fact, there were countless opposing world views proclaimed in their Roman culture, everything from religions based on ridiculous myths to extremely destructive doctrines of megalomaniacs, but even some biblical wisdom. There were also forms of humanistic feminism, much like the kinds of feminism we see today. Thus, Mark and Luke could more openly proclaim truths to the Gentiles, and the spirits of elect Gentiles were often attracted to those truths. God’s Spirit would cause them to gravitate toward truths. Consequently, Mark and Luke revealed details about this event which Matthew had avoided.
So Matthew avoided telling his Jewish readers about most of the information which would condemn their false and highly unjust exegesis of God’s Law, based upon false and humanistic teachings about men being superior to women, and their humanistic way of judging women solely for the benefit of their male superiors, without considering the rights, needs, motives, intentions or spirits of those supposedly inferior women whom they enslaved and unjustly punished for fake crimes and sins. But, lest we think Matthew was wrong to do this, we notice how Jesus did the same thing. For Jesus was also very secretive about the controversial doctrinal implications of these two miracles. In the Gospels of Mark and Luke, we see how Jesus allowed only three of His disciples to enter the house of the ruler, together with her parents and Himself. These three were Peter, James and John (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51). So, why did Jesus take only these three with Him? And why did He order all who were already in the house to go outside? After all, Jesus did nothing unusual in that house. He merely did what He often did in public, in front of all His other disciples and the crowds. The only thing the Gospels tell us is that Jesus held the little girl’s hand and said, in her own native tongue, “‘Talitha cumi!’ which means, being interpreted, ‘Girl, I tell you, get up!’” (Mark 5:41). Then, after the girl rose from the dead, Jesus “strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and commanded that something should be given to her to eat” (Mark 5:43; cf., Luke 8:56). So why demand this secrecy?