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Using this same Satanic process, almost all fake churches in history have tried to trap as many of God’s elect children as possible. Of course, all those fake churches have always marginalized and spiritually beat down those elect as well, then rigorously trained those elect to think only with their minds of flesh. With extreme threats against those who refuse to faithfully practice their physical, man-made traditions, these false churches have been able to suppress elect spirits very well, able to make them fearfully reject the words whispered by the real God to their spirits. Nevertheless, even all this has never been enough to keep all the elect bound in their fake churches. Some elect were always called out from those subjugated dupes, to proclaim one or more truths of God in the world.
In each generation, some elect spirits have heeded God’s Spirit to some extent, and revealed the next important truth needed to build God’s kingdom on earth. And each of these revealed truths have also exposed how Satan’s brood have illicitly made themselves into the gods of fake churches too. Each new truth that God sent into the world exposed the ruthless, carnal natures of the fake priests and false pastors who bitterly and violently opposed those truths. Even as each fake church persecuted those awakened and faithful elect, while pretending to be the only true church, not one could prevent God’s truth from escaping into the world, nor prevent all if its captive elect from fleeing into the real truth. Nor could the chief human gods in each fake church even stop some of their non-elect minions from going to worship other human gods in other fake churches. No human god could effectively bind all souls into his own personal church kingdom. So the fake churches of the world have been slowly and surely torn apart by the truths of God, by the loving, just, equitable principles of God steadily being broadcast everywhere on earth by His faithful elect servants. Then the false churches have also been tearing one another apart by their competitive lusts to become the gods of all men.
But, during the last seven years before Jesus returns, after a full separation of the elect from the non-elect throughout the world through a great revival, God will allow Satan to raise up his own messiah to rule over all the non-elect. That anointed one of the devil will be called the beast. Even so, the beast will only be able to unite the non-elect, and can no longer dupe the revived elect. So he will physically imprison and kill the elect in desperation with help from the false churches, just as Rome did in the early centuries. So, for now, each human god divides his own institution or false church from all others in the world, and from God, by declaring that his or her lies are the only truths that can save. Yet, soon, even the beast and the mother of all false churches will not be able to do so.
For now, we must be aware that the father of all the human gods in all secular institutions and all false churches teaches them the same trick. Satan trains each human god to twist facts and distort biblical teachings in ways that create a new fake belief system, a new heavenly god, or both. And each fake secular belief system promises believers that they will gain wealth, esteem and power if they serve the human god who invented it. Then human gods in the fake churches promise their people that they alone can manipulate their invented heavenly god, often called the god of the Bible, for the financial, social and political benefit of all who worship him or her. So all secular and all religious human gods cajole and bribe their worshippers to serve them, then threaten death or eternal hell if those worshippers are ever unfaithful. Of course, each human god’s belief system or heavenly god is totally different from that invented by other human gods, and each is impossibly inconsistent and logically self-contradictory. But this does not matter to the god’s duped ones, even to intelligent dupes. For a dupe’s lusts of the flesh are gratified by a human god, so the dupe does not care about reason or logic. Thus, secular worshippers of human gods actually place faith in their own greed, pride and wills of flesh. Then religious worshippers of human gods simply dismiss all the stupidity as “spiritual mysteries,” which should never be questioned, and place faith in their greed, pride and wills of flesh. Consequently, all walk according to their blind faith in the darkness of irrational lies.
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Now, naturally, the human gods ruling over the fake churches certainly do not want their dupes to worship their invented heavenly gods more than those dupes worship them. So these human gods of personal religious kingdoms also claim that they, and only they, are able to manipulate the minds and behaviours of their invented heavenly gods, by magic words and rituals which only they themselves are able to perform. Thus, the dupes who worship those human gods may also worship the fake heavenly gods invented by their human gods, but only as their secondary and lesser gods, while those dupes remain far more faithful to human gods than they are to their invented heavenly gods, since those dupes become utterly dependent on the human gods who own them. Yet, at the same time, each human god must still loudly insist that his or her invented heavenly god is indeed the real almighty, all-knowing god, not that “humble” human god himself or herself. For each human god must trick one’s dupes into thinking that he or she is indeed worshipping the real god, even as one’s fake church is actually worshipping only that lying, human, wanna-be god. Then these human gods laugh at how they outsmart their dupes, and even think they have also outwitted the real Creator God too, if any of them even believe that He exists. But, in reality, the real God has imprisoned them all in their own lies and delusions, which their father, the chiefest of demons, coerces them into taking from him. The real God makes abject fools of them, even the most powerful of them. Then our real God continues to rule the entire universe and the heavens above, as He has done from the beginning.
And our God Jesus never stops teaching the spirits of His elect children about His just and wise love.
So, when John the baptizer told the human gods of false churches to “produce fruit worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8, WEB), and wanted them to demonstrate their faith, their trust in God and His words, he did not expect them to do so. For John knew that God had handed them over to Satan, to be deluded far beyond their own means to ever escape into God’s created realities. In reality, John only said this to them for the sake of any elect dupes who might be with those human gods. For he wanted those deceived elect to stop worshipping those human gods, and to start letting the Spirit of God teach and train their spirits, until they became truly just and loving. For God’s teaching and training of the spirit causes the spirit to strengthen until it begins to govern one’s soul, in a way that manages the behaviour of one’s mind and body of flesh. And, when one’s spirit manages its flesh, it causes the flesh to speak truth, even according to the teachings that God grants the spirit, and to do the loving works that God calls one’s spirit to do. For God trains each of His children by calling and sending their spirits out to do His works, on this training ground of the earth, according to the loving wisdom He teaches to each spirit. And, even if one fails, God covers the loss, but also teaches more wisdom through those failures. Thus, each elect child grows more trust and confidence in the good and able Teacher, which is one’s saving faith in God. And this is why works are critical for every elect soul’s salvation, even the many works that fail. “But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? ... For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:20,26, WEB). Thus, if none of this “beautiful fruit” spontaneously flows from the soul, the “axe” of God will cut one down that life. It will not be because of sins or failures that God will end a life, neither in our day nor in the end times. For literally everyone sins and fails, even those with the most mature elect spirits on earth. Rather, all sins and failures of the elect on this earth will be forgiven, since they were predestined to teach their spirits. Still, a soul who does not even attempt to bear any “beautiful fruit” of truth and loving works, because that one’s spirit is not one of God’s elect children, surely will be cut down and thrown into the fire on the day Jesus returns.
To the devout and well-taught Jews of John’s day, all the teachings about all the biblical Messianic prophecies regarding the end times were invoked by his statement about the axe being ready to cut the root of the trees who did not bear beautiful fruit, so God could burn those trees. And most of Page 141
these knowledgeable devout Jews, especially John himself, clearly understood the hypocrisy of false churches led by human gods—like those of the evangelical Pharisees and mainline Sadducees who came to visit John, who came to pretend that they too were worshippers of John’s God, so they might lure the elect who believed in John, into their own religious kingdoms, and could make those elect into their obedient slaves. But this awareness of the destructive and enslaving human gods in the evangelical and mainline churches seems to be very rare in our day. For most Christians and Jews remain so heavily influenced by the devil’s quintessential religion of self-worship, which is called humanism. Nevertheless, both major branches of this religion called humanism, both its secular and theistic branches, will soon be completely exposed, then rejected by most of God’s elect children.
And both will be eradicated through the Messiah’s power at His second advent. And it is my duty, as it was the duty of John, to warn God’s elect to leave those false churches as soon as possible, “that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4, WEB).
The People’s Baptism
As John continued to preach against the humanistic human gods from the Pharisees and Sadducees, for the sakes of the elect coming to him, he also prophesied about the difference between his baptism and the baptism Jesus would provide. In Matthew 3:11, John taught the people about the New Covenant salvation which would arrive as soon as the Messiah replaced him as their Teacher and High Priest. Then, in Matthew 3:12, John taught about the Messiah’s second coming and the resulting effects, how all the non-elect would be eliminated and God’s elect would then be gathered into heaven. So, in essence, when John compared his baptism to the Messiah’s baptism, he was comparing the Old Covenant times, with its lack of power, to the New Covenant times, with Jesus’
almighty power to overcome all injustice and evil in the entire world. Once we understand this, we can also begin to understand that Jesus did not go to John’s baptism of repentance in water. Rather, John baptized Jesus with the mikveh of a high priest, to initiate the Messiah’s ministry for Israel.
John declared: “On the one hand, I myself baptize you people in water for repentance” (Mat. 3:11a, from: Ἐγὼ μὲν ὑμᾶς βαπτίζω ἐν ὕδατι εἰς μετάνοιαν, SBLGNT). After hearing confessions, John, a true prophet acting as a high priest chosen by God Himself, would teach the ways of God, so they could repent away from their errors and sinful ways, into truth from God. Then they knelt in the water and prayed in repentance. After pouring out their spirits to God, they dipped under the water, signifying their deaths to their old lives and their resurrections into new lives with God. Of course, every Jewish baptism was based on God’s laws, those requiring a ceremonial bath or washing. So, considering this, the Jews stipulated that the water used for this ceremonial bath had to be “living water,” that is, clean water that was constantly flowing and thus “alive.” It could not be “dead water,” that is, stagnant water. And it could not be water altered by human beings, not bound nor purified by human devices. Even the Jewish mikveh tanks in their synagogues had to have open canals that allowed rain water to freely flow from God in the heavens above (not pipes that enclosed and hid the water from God’s light shining directly from His home in heaven above). All the Jews designed their mikveh (baptismal) tanks so that God’s living water could flow both into and out of them, so the water could be “alive,” with the life-giving light and Spirit of God Himself. Only His clean, pure, living water from heaven above could serve as a symbol of God’s Holy Spirit, who forgives sin and is “breathed” from heaven, moving into whomever He wills to save. And this ceremonial bath, this mikveh or baptism, required this symbol of God’s Holy Spirit, since it was strictly used to gain spiritual purity before God. Yet all remained a symbol. It was not His Spirit.
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Even in those Old Covenant times, John knew that only the power of God’s Holy Spirit could work a genuine repentance in the spirits of His people. For all the awakened elect knew this truth ever since the day Adam was created. However, John also knew that he and God’s elect did not yet receive His Holy Spirit, not in the way where He dwelt in the chambers of their souls and in the home of their spirits. For His Holy Spirit merely spoke to their spirits, from a place outside their souls and outside their hearts. In fact, God mostly spoke to their spirits through His written words and through other human beings. And this was good, far better than never consciously hearing from and knowing God at all. Yet hearing God in this way was not nearly good enough to transform God’s elect into truly worthy servants of God. To lovingly serve God rightly, wisely and with power, God’s elect needed His Holy Spirit to teach them directly, as He stood beside their human spirits in their hearts and souls, as a personal High Priest who would lead their spirits in a daily discipleship, and as the Lord who understood and counselled them through every aspect of their lives. All God’s elect in His true priesthood of Israel, as well as all the scattered Gentile elect, required all that that an immersion in water merely symbolized and prophesied about. What they needed was to be taught and cleansed by the real Holy Spirit, in the spiritual light shining from God Himself, and to crucify their desires of the flesh with Jesus on the cross, to bury all that in a stone tomb, so His almighty power could then resurrect them into an infallible, irrevocable and unending new life in God’s bright heavenly home.
Therefore, John also prophesied: “On the other hand, the One coming after me is more powerful than me, whose sandals I am not worthy to remove [as a household slave does for his master]. He will baptize you people in the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mat. 3:11b, from: ὁ δὲ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος ἰσχυρότερός
μού ἐστιν, οὗ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς τὰ ὑποδήματα βαστάσαι· αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ
πυρί, SBLGNT). John’s ceremonial mikveh, required by God’s Law, was in symbolic “living water,”
but remained a mere sign of the critically required reality to come. What God’s elect truly needed, in order to see the spiritual realm all around them, and live abundantly, was the Holy Spirit of God. But only the Messiah could usher God’s Spirit into their hearts and souls, through His works to establish their New Covenant relationship with Him. And John would baptize this Messiah, so He could begin those works for His elect as their eternal High Priest, so He could then make the sin sacrifice for the final atonement of their relationship with God, then send His own Spirit into their hearts and souls.
Jesus fulfilled the mikveh laws of God, made real all that this symbol of immersion in physical water merely represented. Of course, when reality comes, the symbol is not abolished or forbidden, as some like to say. The symbolic, biblical, Jewish mikveh ritual, commanded by God in His Law, did not suddenly become evil when the reality of immersion in God’s Holy Spirit came. Rather, the fulfillment of that symbol merely made the sign redundant, not necessary, but never evil. And, as long as a spirit’s faith trusts the reality, not the sign, one can perform the sign as often as one likes, without any disapproval from the God who commanded that sign to be put in place. For instance, a sign pointing to a real place is much like John’s baptism, since John’s physical water pointed to the reality established by Jesus. And, if someone see the real place from the location where a sign is pointing to it, that sign may seem redundant. But it does not mean the sign should be treated as a vile and evil thing, which must be torn down and burned. For that sign may be helpful on a very dreary and foggy day, when it is difficult to see the real place in the distance, so it would be ridiculous to think like that. And John saw how Jesus was bringing the reality that his water immersion merely represented, yet continued to give that sign and symbol to the elect. For he knew they could not yet see that reality Jesus was bringing, and that the sign he gave them would be helpful in leading them to that reality. And, even after you find the good and beautiful place to which the sign pointed, and you learn to love that place, the sign can serve as a good reminder of that place whenever you stray Page 143
from its borders. Likewise, a baptism in water is not required for our salvation worked by Jesus. But it is still a good reminder that we need His Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts and minds, if we want to live an abundant life, full of love. Like all God’s commanded rituals and ceremonies, it calls us to meditate upon what Jesus made possible, our deaths to past sins and our resurrections into new lives.
Now let me point out that, by using the particles μέν and δέ in two successive clauses of Matthew 3:11, John was deliberately contrasting his baptism in water, after repentance, with the immanent and infinitely superior baptism of Jesus in His Holy Spirit and fire, which also occurs after repentance into the truth. On the one hand, John’s baptism was somewhat effective and worked good among God’s people. For John accomplished the main duty that God had called every Old Covenant high priest to perform, that is, to teach and judge the people, hopefully to cause the spirits of some sinners to repent into God’s truth about life and love. And John clearly wanted his people in the priesthood of Israel to come to him, to be taught the ways that God revealed in His Law and by the prophets.
On the other hand, what John wanted infinitely more was for his people to recognize their future eternal High Priest, who would establish God’s New Covenant relationship with Israel. For their Saviour, their God in human flesh, was so superior to him that he was not even worthy to be that Man’s household slave. More than life itself, John longed to see that new High Priest teach, train and judge the elect spirits of His people in the true priesthood of Israel, even the elect spirits of Gentiles throughout the world, so His loving justice, built on truth, could save them all, so their relationship with God could be restored through a full and plenary atonement. And God had been recently telling John’s spirit that the Messiah had already become Israel’s new King, the promised one descended from David. Therefore, the Messiah’s ministry and kingdom were about to begin. Thus, John’s eager anticipation of all this consumed the mind of his spirit, and every fibre of his being, causing him to beg the people to seek this Saviour, instead of himself. All that mattered was that they knew Jesus.
This was what John prophesied about, this first advent of the Messiah. Then he prophesied about the second advent of the Messiah too. John also summarized the Old Covenant prophecies about the days shortly after the Messiah would return and rule the earth: “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor. He will gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire” (Mat. 3:12, WEB). The wording suggests that all of this cleansing, gathering and burning will occur long after His first advent. For the Messiah’s first advent sowed the seeds of God’s New Covenant kingdom on earth. Yet the Messiah already was getting ready for the harvest, and had His winnowing for in His hand. It would require an entire growing season for His seeds of truth to grow and ripen for the harvest, before He would cut, thrash and winnow the grain. But the Messiah was eager for that day, longing to remove the chaff of carnal and vain lies and delusions from His people, then separate them from the liars who deceived them.
John lived in the Old Covenant times, which culminated and ended on the day of the Pentecost, when Jesus baptized His disciples “in the Holy Spirit and fire.” And that season of the Old Covenant times in His priesthood of Israel, from the days of Moses to the days of John, was necessary. God designed that time for the preparation of the ground, where the Messiah’s seed would grow. The hearts of His people were deeply tilled to kill the weeds. Cover crops were grown and deeply tilled again, both to decrease the weeds and increase fertility. This was repeated for several seasons that made many of God’s elect aware of their sins and inadequacies. This self-awareness would crush their hearts, make them contrite and full of godly sorrow. And it turned some away from some sin, caused some to repent into some truth. But what the people actually needed was God’s personal power and wisdom working inside them, directly upon their spirits. To live and love in a way that blossomed into abundant life, the Messiah had to come the first time, and send His Spirit into their Page 144
hearts. So Jesus accomplished this. He sowed seeds of His Spirit, with all the truth He taught them, upon a rich, fertile field with very few weeds in it. And this brought many into a new and radically closer relationship with God. Jesus worked all this through His death, resurrection and ascension.
The Messiah came to “set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed” (Dan. 2:44, WEB), the New Covenant Kingdom of God. And, just as it was prophesied, Jesus did this in the days of the beast’s fourth kingdom, when the Roman Empire had fully formed. His first coming planted the seeds of God’s true priesthood of Israel within His earthly kingdom. But the devil had first sowed the seeds of his own priesthood, for his own evil kingdom on earth, the priesthood of humanism which that demon created through his servants in Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. And those priests of his world order would represent him to his slaves, by abusing them in his name, as well as drag his slaves before his face to be tortured. In other words, Satan’s priesthood would be the exact opposite of God’s priesthood, a total mockery of God’s true priesthood. However, although God allowed the devil to establish his priesthood first, it was not to be the last. After God allowed His true priesthood of His New Covenant to grow, mature, bear fruit and ripen over time, He would return to the earth in His body, as Jesus once more. Then He would eliminate Satan’s entire kingdom and cast that devil, together with all his minions, off the earth. And, for a thousand years, God’s true priesthood would be the sole priesthood remaining on earth, assisting His rule over every nation on earth, bringing peace with loving biblical justice to all, an equitable and informed justice based on mercy through repentance with forgiveness. However, an entire growing season had to pass first, before winnowing could begin to separate the wheat from the chaff. For, although the chaff was always ready to be burned, the wheat had to be full, mature, well-formed and hardened to perfection before the harvest.
All the Old Covenant prophecies suggested that many events and much time had to pass after the Messiah set up His kingdom, and before the Messiah began to physically rule over all the earth.
Thus, there had to be two advents of the Messiah. First the Messiah “set up” the New Covenant kingdom. Then Israel and the world would see the growth of the Messiah’s influence and power. Yet, at the same time, Satan would also extend his beast’s kingdom, governed through the priesthood of his religion of humanism. The devil’s beast was to be a kingdom of many nations. Then all would be ultimately ruled by one man, also called the beast. That kingdom would conquer souls throughout the earth. And that beast originated from four kingdoms: (1) Babylon, serving as the beast’s golden head and forming the lion part of the beast; (2) Persia, the silver chest and arms, and the bear part; (3) Greece, the bronze belly and thighs, and the leopard part; as well as (4) the strong yet factious Roman Empire that was to endure until the Messiah’s second advent, serving as the beast’s legs and feet, made of iron chunks bound together with clay mortar, and was formed from parts of the lion, bear and leopard (see Dan. 2:29-45, cf., 7:3-28, 8:23-26; Rev. 13:2). Both the kingdom and man called the beast would rise from the “sea,” from the earth’s common people, from those whose spirits do not know God’s truth and do not rise above the depths of the dark waters. Yet the beast’s assistant would rise from the “earth” (Rev. 13:11), suggesting that he will come from a false church, will know God’s truths and act like a moral person, yet hate God and cause souls to worship the man called the beast. However, by the time this human beast arrives to rule Satan’s kingdom—as the devil’s own messiah, whose life-giving spirit is the demonic spirit of Satan himself—God will have already caused a world-wide revival. God will have baptized many elect souls in His Holy Spirit and in fire, to gather them to Himself. Thus, after allowing seven years for this beast to complete his rule on earth, Jesus will return and crush the beast’s kingdom into dust, blown away in the winds of truth that sweep over the world. From that day on, Jesus will sit on David’s throne, as the King of kings.
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In the light of all the biblical prophecies about the end times, we must conclude that John’s prophecy about the harvest and winnowing was to occur a very long time after the Messiah’s first advent, even many generations after Jesus first established God’s New Covenant Kingdom. Only after His church and kingdom was ready to be harvested, would He begin winnowing, to separate His own elect from the chaff of the non-elect surrounding them. That is, a great dichotomization must separate the wheat from the chaff, and at a time just before He returns. Jesus will cast everyone on the threshing floor as the “great tribulation” of the world begins. After a long growth process, a world-wide revival, the calling of the elect into His priesthood, will begin. God will allow this revival a short time to mature, perhaps a couple of decades. Then God will shake the entire world with much devastation, during the days of that generation, that is, likely for about another twenty years. The worst times that have ever existed in the history of the world shall occur then. Yet not everyone born in that generation will die before they see Jesus return. And His return will complete all that John prophesied about Him.
On the day Jesus returns, all the stocks of grain shall be laid on a threshing floor. All human beings will see Him coming in the sky and stand before Him, and before the harvesting angels who will come with Him. Then His Spirit will rebuke all the Jewish and Gentile elect spirits, all on the same day, causing the repentance all the unbelieving elect into the truth. The fleshy stocks and husks will be broken off of the grain kernels, off the spirits of His people. The useless chaff of those who made the elect pursue worldly ambitions, beliefs and practices, all that still clings to the good kernels, will be beaten off by Jesus. But, before Jesus sets his feet on the Mount of Olives, the good grain will still be buried in all the chaff and straw that was broken off, and still sitting on the threshing floor of the earth. So all the wheat will need to be winnowed. Winnowing is the very procedure before gathering the wheat into the barn or granary of the land Owner. As the winds of truth blow over the land, the Winnower will toss the grain and chaff into that wind above the threshing floor. Then all the straw and chaff will be carried away by those winds, and drift into piles. But Jesus will not use that chaff and straw ever again. So he will call His angels to gather it for destruction, for burning. But the good grain that falls back on the threshing floor will be gathered into His barn, into His earthly kingdom.
After Jesus physically returns, He will grant every surviving elect soul duties and responsibilities, a fulfilling life of engaging in all that each was destined to do. And many will be called to serve Him as His priests, as His assistants who represent Him before His people and represent His people before Him. Some of the older men will be His assistant teachers and judges. Other priests will do a host of other tasks, such as policemen who serve and protect His people from various natural and man-made dangers. Other priests will help and instruct His people in Jesus’ name, regarding all the other tasks—in construction, agriculture, transportation, the equitable distribution of goods and services, food preparation and storage, education, health-care, art, music and so on. Yet, while the people and these priests work at these tasks, they will find their previous perceived need for status, power and money was all an utter delusion. All they once thought was so important will be cast aside and forgotten, thoroughly burned in their love for their people and in the joy of their fulfilling works, as each provides an essential part of the whole. Their most coveted reward will be an abundant life of spontaneously loving and spontaneously being loved, with an unquenchable zeal for God and His just, loving ways, all effortlessly arising in their hearts like works of a wife for her beloved Husband.
John’s figurative prophecy, recorded in Matthew 3:12, may have many other interpretations. But, in the light of Malachi 3:1-3, the meaning is definitely the interpretation above. For, when we look at Malachi’s prophecy, it clearly refers to a time occurring after the Messiah is seated on His throne:
“‘Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the Messenger of the [New] Covenant, Page 146
whom you desire, behold, He comes!’ says Yahweh of Armies. ‘But who can endure the day of His coming? And who will stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderer’s soap; and He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi [i.e., this includes both the Aaronic priests and all the other priests], and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to Yahweh offerings in righteousness” (Mal. 3:1-3, WEB).
This refers to two messengers: (1) a messenger who “will prepare the way” for the coming Yahweh God Himself, and (2) another Messenger, who is the Lord or Messiah whom Israel seeks, coming to
“His temple,” which is Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem. So this text does not distinguish between the coming Messiah and Yahweh. Both are the one whom the Levitical priesthood “desire.” Of course, a
“messenger” is a dispatched agent representing an authority, that is, an agent of God in this case. So the first messenger mentioned in the quote above seems to be John the baptizer, who spent his entire life preparing the way for the Messiah and His New Covenant, by teaching God’s Word to Israel.
Then the Lord, whom the people seek, is also a Messenger sent by God, yet also identified as the coming Yahweh (God), who “will suddenly come to His temple.” However, from the finality of all this Messiah does to purify His priesthood, we can see that all this will occur in the end times. Thus, the first messenger, the human man God sends to prepare the people, could either come: (1) once, at the first advent of the Messiah, (2) once at His second advent, or (3) just before both of His advents.
Now, since this Lord/Messiah and Yahweh clearly seem to be one and the same Person, one Man will “come,” a Man who is human in the flesh, as the Messiah, but is God in His Spirit, because God is a Spirit. For the temple is Yahweh’s temple, yet it is called a temple belonging to this “Lord,” who is the Messiah, with a human body of flesh descended from a human man named David. And this Lord, the Messiah who is Yahweh, is also called “the Messenger of the covenant.” This is a covenant of God with Israel, but it must be a new one, a covenant that God obviously made long after the Old Covenant. After all, Malachi declared it to be a covenant that Israel desired but had not yet received (although God made His Old Covenant with Israel almost a thousand years before Malachi gave this prophecy in about the 5th century BC). And Malachi was prophesying about the covenant coming in the future, coming with the future Lord/Messiah/Yahweh. Since that Messenger and His covenant had not yet come, Malachi was clearly referring to the Messiah coming with God’s New Covenant.
Malachi’s Messianic prophecy is telling us about the works of this Messenger, who is Yahweh, the Creator God. This Messenger will come to “His temple” in the end times. This is a prophecy about the second advent of the Messiah Jesus. And, through other prophecies of Scripture, we know that the Messiah will not come to “His temple” in the end times until He has already destroyed Satan’s kingdom on earth, and slaughtered all the wicked on the earth. Since the Messiah will not come to
“His temple” until the non-elect are taken from the earth, until only the remnant of His elect remain on earth, we know two things: (1) the purpose of His “refiner’s fire” will not be to harm or kill the remnant of elect on the earth, and (2) a new “third” Jewish temple will be built in Jerusalem before Jesus returns. Now our first and foremost focus turns toward the “refiner’s fire” of the Messiah at His second advent. This fire has only one purpose, to purify the elect remaining alive at that time.
Although a “refiner’s fire” sounds painful, since it melts this “gold and silver” ore to separate the precious metal from the slag, it does not harm those metals. It only purifies it. It makes the living remnant more loving, alive and faithful, while removing all loveless, dead and unfaithful elements from their souls. This compares nicely with John’s symbolism, in his prophecy about the winnowing of the wheat. Both refining metals and winnowing wheat do basically the same thing. Thus, both prophecies are different allegories referring to the same works that the Messiah will do after His Page 147
return to the earth. Both are about the works of Jesus after He comes the second time, and after He is seated on His throne in the Jerusalem temple, during His thousand-year rule of the elect on the earth.
John, as an Aaronic priest, primarily concerned himself with teaching God’s Word to the people, so they could live purer, more godly, more just and more abundant lives for God. Consequently, his main focus eventually turned toward the same priestly works to be done by the coming Messiah, the kinds of works God commanded every high priest to perform. Since Jesus was to be the new, eternal High Priest of Israel, and the reality symbolized by all Old Covenant high priests, this devout, honest and faithful Levitical priest, John, strongly desired that Messiah’s coming and learned much from God about the Messiah’s works. John also realized this Messiah would be a King too, ruling over all the secular affairs of Israel and the world. But John’s prophecy, and his main focus, rested upon the internal works of God, upon the Messiah’s role as a Prophet and High Priest, who would proclaim truths to His people, to turn His elect children away from errors and sins, to purify their lives, so they could more fully partake in their Father’s good and just works, through loving joy from their spirits.
Other Teachings of John
As an Aaronic priest, John faithfully taught God’s Word to the people. And, since the attributes of God have never changed, and never will change, we can conclude that all John’s teachings recorded in the Gospel of Luke, remain just as true today. Also, since Jesus is the immutable God, John’s right teachings were the same as the teachings of Jesus, which shall remain true and authoritative for all eternity, even in heaven after the earth ends. The only difference between the teachings of John and Jesus would be the fact that the New Covenant teachings of Jesus can practise and fulfill God’s Law in a spontaneously better way, through the stronger power of His Holy Spirit. For His Spirit directly teaches, trains and counsels our spirits within our hearts. So, before we look at the baptism of Jesus, as the New Covenant High Priest, we may want to look at some of the general teachings from John.
John turned away many church people, many upstanding Pharisees, who were much like today’s Evangelicals, and many Sadducees, who were like members of our mainline churches. At the same time, John welcomed huge crowds of very common souls with a low standing in the churches, even the hated and corrupt tax collectors and the despised “soldiers” who helped those tax collectors extort money from the people. So why would a deeply faithful priest and prophet of God do such a thing? Well, it was because the most obvious sinners knew they were truly awful sinners, and came to John with an honest estimation of themselves, when they came to repent, immerse in water, and rise into a new life. However, the “good” church people never thought of themselves as truly evil, and could not honestly repent, because they had been deluded into thinking their sins were not sins.
Yet their sins were actually much more evil than those of liars, thieves, the sexually immoral and even the violent murderers. For these church people committed fist, second and third order sins, the worst of sins, and were the worst of sinners. But most of the sinners received merely committed the lesser of the last five orders, “natural” sins committed by souls ruled by minds of flesh. And, since these lesser sinners were the elect, their spirits fully realized that they sinned, and truly repented into the truth. The common and lowly souls knew, without a doubt in their hearts, that John was perfectly right, that they did indeed need to repent into God’s life and ways. These did not delude themselves into thinking that the victims of their sins deserved what they got. Instead, these humble sinners rightly admitted that they deserved God’s wrath, since they had harmed innocent lives through sin.
These lowly ones, who were hated and dehumanized by the lies of the fake churches, were strongly desiring a new and more loving life, where they could become a genuine blessing to their loved ones and to God’s entire earth. So they came to John, to repent into the truth, to die to their old lives and Page 148
rise into new lives, in the way John’s beautiful baptism of repentance symbolized. Thus, these candid sinners asked John: “What then must we do?” So John, who knew God’s own intended meaning of the Scriptures, gave them an answer that was exactly what the Old Covenant Law, Jesus and all the true apostles taught. So all true Christians should pay attention those words. And the first teaching of John, recorded by Luke, was a first principle all God’s elect should learn: “He who has two coats, let him give to him who has none. He who has food, let him do likewise” (Luke 3:10-11, WEB).
John was a true Aaronic priest, even God’s chosen high priest in the Old Covenant relationship that Israel had with God. So he began with the simplest, easiest step toward a loving, just, holy life. We start by living modestly, taking only what we and our immediate family truly needs, then sharing all our excess to meet the needs of others. For even all living things in God’s creation do just this. But a selfishly ambitious life of accumulating vain possessions for oneself, as arrogant status symbols and for self-indulgence, is one of the chief delusions of Satan in his world order. Thus, the prophet John rebuked the folly of deluded minds of flesh, all its selfish ambition and greed, all its desire for status and wealth, all that resulted in an accumulation of vain and worthless bobbles, all for self-indulgent pleasures which empty spirits and souls of all genuine substance and truth. He rebuked materialism.
Most false religions of the world, but especially the Satanic religion of humanism, teach a perceived
“ownership” of land and valuables. But the obvious reality persists throughout nature, the fact that no one can actually own anything material, not even one’s own body of flesh. And death comes to prove that fact to all. None but the Creator of all can own all. Then all living creatures, including all human beings, are merely stewards of God’s property. So John was telling us to do exactly what God’s Law tells us to do in many ways, in all His economic laws of equity to prevent poverty among His people, and other laws. John was exhorting us to practise a faithful stewardship of God’s own property for God’s purposes. The beginning of a loving service to God is the serving of mankind and the rest of His creations. John was actually saying, if you begin to love God, you will begin to love His people, and this begins by learning to stop coveting. God’s economic laws can be summed up by the last of the Ten Commandments, by the tenth order prohibitions against covetousness. Although these are least prioritized of all God’s laws, they are also the first step towards learning how to love our siblings in the family of mankind and all living creatures on earth. We learn to love by starting with the last of the Ten Commandments and work our way up, until we get to the first four of the ten, which pertain to the love of God. John and all faithful priests knew this. So this is what he taught.
So, as we work our way up the ten orders of sin, the next step is to stop doing what the ninth of the Ten Commandments prohibits. We must stop lying to ourselves and to others. Then we learn the positive aspect of these ninth order laws, the logical contraposition of God’s prohibition. That is, we not only learn to not lie about anything, but also learn to inwardly receive the genuine truth about everything. By learning to stop ruthlessly causing distrust among the people, as well as to honestly evaluate oneself and all God’s created realities, without any covetousness, we also learn to fulfill the eighth order laws of God. That is, we stop stealing. We stop stealing from God’s plants, animals and people. Ultimately, we stop stealing from God Himself. And, if we stop stealing, we begin to trust and love one another more. So we communicate more honestly, and do not selfishly keep truths to ourselves, since we no longer covet the power of knowing what others do not. And, by sharing the truth, we all learn more truth, which we accept because we have learned to fulfill the ninth order laws. So, collectively, as a community, we stop robbing the inner life from ourselves and others through exploitative sexual immorality too. And, if we stop sexual immorality, and only provide what is harmless and lawful for our lusts, we can then stop the dehumanization of others, which is Page 149
the essence of murder. If we can wash away the essence of murder from our hearts, we can start to bring a godly honour to our parents. And it is then that we honour the heavenly Father of our spirits.
So we work our way up from learning to fulfill the tenth order laws until we begin to fulfill the fifth order laws. Then, we can begin to honour and love our heavenly Father, our spirits begin to see Him and enter His eternal, blessed Sabbath rest. Our motivation in life is no longer selfish ambition, and we cease from labouring for ourselves, in the same way God Himself forever stopped creating new things for Himself after the sixth day, then forever began to serve His creations through His love for them. God never actually rested on the very first seventh day. For God’s power holds all together and He could not rest even for a single nanosecond, or all creation would cease to exist. However, on that first seventh day, and ever since then, God has rested from labouring for Himself. And God wants us to enter His Sabbath rest, to cease serving only ourselves, then begin to serve all else through love.
Fulfilling the fourth order Sabbath laws, in the way Jesus came to fulfill all God’s Laws in us and through us by His New Covenant relationship with us, is about entering God’s eternal rest. It never was and never will be about man-made rules for a Saturday or Sunday, nor any other day of the week. Then think about what happens to a soul who can finally enter that eternal rest; after learning to no longer covet, to receive truth, to stop stealing, to stop sexually exploiting, to stop violence and to even honour the heavenly Father of our spirits. After all this, we commune with God and our spirits begin to hear the voice of His Spirit. God pours whole concepts into the minds of our spirits as we sit with Him in His eternal rest. And, after receiving these often painful, burning truths inside, we also stop believing all the false teachings and false prophecies that so many wanna-be human gods try to ram down our throats. We see those delusions and lies for the darkness that they are, since the real God is continuously pouring light into the minds of our spirits. So, by the gifts of these truths from God, granted by His grace alone, we begin to truly fulfill the third order laws of our God.
Once we start rejecting those false teachings and false prophecies, God’s good name stops being slandered by those lies. His name is no longer used by us in vain, like false churches use His name.
We stop following and repeating false teachings and false prophecies created by self-serving souls through their selfish imaginations. Instead, we begin to walk in the light of truth. We say and do that which is pleasing to God, legitimately in God’s name, by His will, commands and authority. So God Himself makes our words and works effective. Once we do this, we truly esteem and serve our God, in our spirits and in truth. We live by His truth, by God’s own intended meanings of His own words.
We no longer make fake gods of ourselves, nor bow down and worship fake gods created by the idolatrous minds of other deluded souls. So we fulfill the second order laws of God. And, if we do this, we begin to base all the important decisions of life on God’s words and will. We no longer have any other god before the real Creator God, not ourselves nor any other god, not money nor any other idol. And this fulfills the first order laws of God. So all begins with the tenth order laws of God, as we stop coveting what Satan’s world order, and especially his religion of humanism, commands us to covet. It begins by learning to live modestly, taking only what we and our families need to sustain a godly life for our bodies, allowing each family member to fulfill one’s own calling and works in a simple, loving fellowship, celebrating God, love and life. John’s answer here is a beginning of much.
The Aaronic priest, John, knew God’s Law very well. He knew that all 613 laws of the Old Covenant were summarized and prioritized in a rational order through the Ten Commandments, although John would have called them the Ten Authoritative Words of Yahweh. And he also knew that all God’s laws were spiritual, that is, all His laws required the spirit of a person to fulfill and practise those laws through love, in exactly the same way that God Himself always fulfills and practises His own laws. And God always balances His intent for one law with His intended equity and just love worked Page 150
through all His other laws. For God’s ultimate goal in all His laws was to build an effective, loving justice on earth for all His people and all His other creations. God desires the restoration of souls into His truth, not the destruction of sinners. In God’s Law, punishment was only met out to those whose hearts refused to repent into His forgiveness and atonement. But, for every kind of sin that one could and would repent from, into the truth, God provided both forgiveness and the atonement required to restore one’s relationship with Him, as He carefully symbolized by the rituals in the fourth chapter of Leviticus. God even provided a special day in each year for us to remember this repentance, with its forgiveness and atonement, which we call the Day of Atonement. However, God and His Law wanted this kind of repentance to occur daily, even every hour of life, as His Spirit made our spirits aware of our sins. Therefore, John offered this kind of repentance every day, to all who came to him. He taught and counselled each repentant soul into the whole truth, for his baptism.
John, and many other Jewish biblical scholars at that time, knew how God had categorized and prioritized His Old Covenant laws in the Ten Commandments. His most important laws were those summarized by His first archetypal commandment, where God exhorted us to have no other gods before Him. This meant that we must turn our hearts and minds toward Yahweh God whenever we made any critical decisions in life, to seek His counsel and strive to please Him rather than any other deified and served person or thing. Our only Head Teacher and Judge was to be God Himself. We were to have no other lord except God Himself. And many of the 613 ceremonial and moral laws of the Old Covenant fell under this category of first-order laws. Then our next priority was to fulfill the second-order laws, and our next to fulfill the third-order laws, and so on. All of the wisest Jewish elders, all the best teachers and judges of the people, knew this. Yet, while teaching their children and proselytes to fulfill God’s laws, they also knew it was impossible for those infantile spirits to clearly hear God’s voice before their spirits had been somewhat awakened, before their spirits had been educated and had matured to some extent. Therefore, these wiser Jewish children of God taught novices the highest priority ways of God last. Instead, they began by teaching them the tenth-order laws, then moved on to the ninth-order laws, gradually working their way up to the first-order laws.
This is what we saw John doing here, when he began by teaching his people to stop coveting, when he taught the contraposition the tenth-order laws of God, that is, when he told them how God wanted them to fulfill those tenth-order laws: “He who has two coats, let him give to him who has none. He who has food, let him do likewise.” Many commentaries miss this important observation, because they do not seem to understand God’s Law as the wisest Jewish priests and elders did before pagan humanism corrupted the church of Israel. For it is difficult to see how purely theistic Jews had once viewed God’s Law in these ways in the writings of Pharisees and Orthodox Jews. Yet we definitely see this perspective of God’s Law in the Scriptures. The Old Covenant prophets of God obviously exegeted God’s Law in this way, including John, as well as the apostles and our God Jesus Himself.
Jesus and the apostles always taught that the first four orders of God’s laws were most critical and most beneficial for a spirit’s true worship of God. But true worship must be done in truth. Thus, one must learn to walk in all God’s ways before one can find a place of uncorrupted worship in one’s own heart. Before a human spirit could have no other gods besides the real Creator God, before one could arrive at a place where God became the one and only Head Teacher and Lord of one’s life, one had to forsake all the delusions and lies of fake religion, and learn the truth of even the least of all God’s laws. If one loved and trusted God more than anyone or anything else, if one’s spirit, soul and flesh sought no counsel besides that which God whispered to one’s spirit in one’s heart, if one was to no longer place any faith in oneself, nor any other being, more than one placed faith in God Himself, then one could begin to fulfill literally all God’s other laws throughout life. But, before a spirit could Page 151
do all this, one had to first cast away covetousness, so ones spirit could learn the joy of loving others in the most basic of ways, without any criminal negligence causing the suffering and deaths of one’s siblings in the family of mankind, nor any losses to any of God’s other creations. Once a spirit knew this truth of God, one could find the benefits upholding truths which burned away unjust, destructive lies. Then one could build up God’s kingdom on earth, instead of steal from it and weaken it through all the distrust one caused among His people. In time, one could join with a trusted companion, to produce more than two individuals could ever do separately, and stop exploiting others for the mere gratification of the body’s natural sexual desires. Then one could enable growth in peace, instead of tear down countless lives through murder and war. Soon one would begin to live the kind of life that would honour even the Parent of one’s spirit, the heavenly Father. Then one could enter the eternal kind of rest for one’s spirit, walk in God’s name without taking that name in vain and slandering it.
After all this, one would no longer respect the false claims of men and demons, would no longer hear their vain counsel, would completely cease from esteeming and worshipping them as idols. This is when one’s spirit could begin to hear that voice of God pouring whole concepts of truth and wisdom into one’s heart and soul. This is when one can have no other god but God, and heed none but Him.
When the people asked John what they must do to repent into the truth, he very wisely told them to begin their new lives in God by fulfilling the tenth order laws of God, by living modest lives and giving all their excess to the needs of others. They began by fulfilling God’s laws against coveting and against theft, especially theft from God. This teaching of John also fulfills God’s economic laws commanding tithes and the lending all one’s excess to the needy (without interest, without asking for collateral security, and without a fixed repayment schedule, and totally forgiving that debt on the seventh year, so the borrower could be forever free of it). All God’s priesthood of Israel even had to give God a tithe of their people (i.e., the tribe of the Levites, dedicated to serving God alone), a tithe of land (i.e., the common lands for the Levites and the poor) as well as a tithe of all they acquired through their labours. These tithes had to be distributed equitably to the needy by the Levites. And God forbade these Levites to ever own any kind of personal inheritance, since God Himself was to be their only inheritance. In other words, this inner priesthood of the wider priesthood of Israel, the Levites, were not allowed to covet anything, but were to dedicate their entire lives to serving God, by serving Israel and the rest of God’s creation. All Levites were to live modestly and share all they produced on God’s common lands, as well as all they received in tithes and by other means, with strangers (immigrants), widows (all the women bereft of husbands, including all abandoned and divorced women), orphans (including adult homeless people) and everyone else who was in need.
Yet these tithing laws were not the only that they categorized within the tenth-order and eighth-order laws. Many more of God’s 613 Old Covenant laws fell into the categories of the tenth-order and the eighth order laws. For God forbade that anyone should be allowed to become poor and destitute in the lands of His priesthood of Israel. And Jesus came to fulfill literally all these laws, in a far deeper and richer way, by all whom He would gather into His true church of the New Covenant. For His true disciples were to be the “royal priesthood” of God. So now I ask, how do churches fulfill God’s commandment for anyone who has the means to lend goods, services or money to anyone in real need. In God’s Law, literally anyone could ask those with excess to grant them a loan for something necessary, and those with excess had to give that one the loan. If any lacked water, food, clothing, shelter, tools for one’s work, seeds for sowing, oxen for plowing, items for God’s commanded feasts, bread to provide hospitality for guests, or anything else, that needy one could go to anyone in the land who had excess and borrow it, or borrow the money to buy it. Then the person with excess had to lend it, without charging interest or any other kinds of charges, and without demanding any kind Page 152
of security for the loan. Then, if the borrower could not repay the loan by the time the Sabbath year began, even if that Sabbath year began the very next month, that loan had to be completely forgiven.
Do we see any church fulfill this law? Do any who claim to be Christians, and thus the true disciples of Jesus, do all this and more? Do any even attempt to preserve this truth of God? For, if any man with excess refused to obey this law of God, the elders and Levites would come to judge that selfish rich man. The priests could command the rich man give that loan and, if he refused, the judges could cast him out of the church of Israel altogether, so he would shunned until he fully repented with the appropriate fruits of repentance, fruits such giving a gift to God, one of greater value than the amount he refused to lend. And, since the police were Levites, who could own nothing, those police could not be easily bribed or corrupted by the rich. In these ways, God sought to ensure justice and equity among all. For literally everything a rich person might hold in stewardship for God had to come through the labours and cooperation of all the other people in his land. So how could any rich man claim any more for himself than anyone else? All God’s owned people on God’s owned land were to labour for the common good of all, and ultimately for the kingdom of God. All the workers a rich man hired were born, taught and trained by God and His servants. All the public roads and lands he walked on, all the shops he purchased from, were built and maintained by the others. The whole spiritual, emotional and physical community which he relied upon for his life and welfare was built and maintained by all. So all must be shared. No one must suffer while an elite few lived in luxury.
In other words, God’s Law demanded that “he who has two coats, let him give to him who has none.
He who has food, let him do likewise.” The Aaronic priest, John, knew this and taught this. Then the Messiah came to cause all the elect children of God to fulfill and practise all God’s laws, including all the tenth-order laws. Thus, Jesus also taught: “Therefore, all things, as much as all of you might want something that the people might do for all of you, all of you must be doing this also for them.
For this is the Law and the Prophets” (Mat. 7:12, ALT). Likewise, the apostles, sent out by Jesus, also taught: “For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have. For this is not that others may be eased and you distressed, but for equality.
Your abundance at this present time supplies their lack, that their abundance also may become a supply for your lack; that there may be equality” (II Cor. 8:12-14, WEB). The Old Covenant laws and the New Covenant’s counsel and power of Christ’s Holy Spirit to fulfill all those Old Covenant laws, all teach and train our spirits to begin a new life in God by living modestly, to lovingly and wisely give all excess to serve the physical and spiritual needs of others, since all are equal to us.
We are all made equally needy in sin and weaknesses. And it is one thing to know these ways of God taught through His own intended meaning of His laws; but it is completely another thing to develop the spiritual maturity which enables us to fulfill them wisely and spontaneously, straight from the minds of our spirits, as each one’s spirit is counselled and educated by Jesus’ Holy Spirit. So we all equally need our God, His truths and one another. Not one of us is unto oneself alone. Not one can exist independently, apart from God, without the critical need for God’s wisdom and intervention, without relying on everyone else and upon God’s good creations. So we all need to let our spirits learn from Jesus’ Spirit, so we might cherish, love and heed the words of our God. And we all need to lovingly and wisely care for one another, through the just, wise love that God teaches and trains our spirits to fulfill. Then we will be able to serve the rest of His creation as well, since all of the natural world provides everything we need, and God has commanded us to “name” all the living creations on earth, which means that we must take responsibility for all of them. Anyone who intentionally and deliberately ignores or teaches against these doctrines of God will be judged by the new High Priest, and cast out of His priesthood of Israel, out of the one true church that God made.
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The second teaching that Luke recorded from John were the words he taught to the hated tax collectors, when they too wanted to begin a new life in God. John told them: “Collect no more than that which is appointed to you” (Luke 3:13, WEB). So Jewish tax collectors—priestly members of God’s church of Israel who worked for the pagan Roman invaders—were to keep their jobs and collect the taxes that this pagan secular government demanded. The only thing that John said they needed to do, in order to fulfill God’s Law with regards to their job, was to collect only the exact amount required by those pagan rulers, nothing more or less. John said this because tax collectors often collected more than the required amount from the middle and poorer classes, through extortion.
For tax collectors held authority, and had Roman soldiers who enforced that authority. So they could threaten the people to lay false charges against them, which would lead to confiscation, prison or brutal punishments, if they did not give them a bribe. Then they would sometimes assess less tax for the rich who bribed them. So they were much like our politicians today, who take money from lobby groups as bribes, to make laws favourable for their obscene profits, while they legislated an extortion of money from the common people. But God’s solution to all this was not to violently rebel against those pagan rulers, and murder them. Nor was His solution to stop working for them, and force them to hire even more ruthless and corrupt employees. Rather, God’s solution was for the true members of His church to continue to work for Rome, but in an honest, equitable way with integrity, so they might be a good and godly influence among the governing officials who provided essential public services in their land, with the taxes fairly paid by all, so both the Jews and Gentiles would benefit.
If tax collectors were honest, the secular government would collect more from the rich and almost nothing from the poorest in their land, yet provide more capital for essential services than the ever could through their corrupt methods. Of course, this would mean those tax collectors would not be able to become rich themselves. Yet it would indeed benefit their whole land and calm the rage that was fomenting among the people through the inequity, suffering and deaths that unfair taxes caused.
Fair taxes would increase peace and contentment in the land, since the common people would have far more left over for their physical, social, educational and other corporeal needs. It would alleviate much of the violence and murder in their land and finance badly needed infrastructure. If each tax collector was satisfied with his wages and never abused his authority, if each refused to take any more nor any less than what each income earner owed, if they were not lying and covetous thieves, then each would eliminate much evil, suffering and death in their land, and enable so much healing and building up in their land. And others would see this good, then demand more honesty and true fairness from the rest of the tax collectors. This might cause the greedy and psychopathic tax collectors to hate, threaten, slander and persecute the honest ones for a time, since their jobs and illicit income would be threatened by the honest ones. However, if those honest ones stood firm and continued their good works, their fragmented, competing, back-stabbing opponents would soon be driven out and replaced with brothers in the Lord, like them. Then all the land would improve for all.
Since John did not tell these repentant Jews and Gentile proselytes to stop collecting taxes for the pagan Roman government, it also meant that God and His Law required the separation of church and state. For John clearly agreed with the teachings of our God Jesus, that God’s priestly servants must
“give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mat.
22:21, WEB). Since the land of Israel always had pagan Gentile communities within it, the secular governing officials, whether they were Jewish or Gentile, had to do the secular works for the good of both Jews and pagan Gentiles, for their safety, physical well-being and freedom from tyranny. Thus, God’s Law commanded secular rulers and government to be His ministers, which required them to collect taxes to fund the services they provided in their service to God and His land. But God also Page 154
commanded that all these secular rulers must not serve themselves, only the people of the land. So none of the taxes could be used for selfish and self-indulgent purposes. Rather, all secular rulers had to be more like God’s dedicated Levitical priests who provided for the religious needs of the people, as well as for their physical needs. For the services provided by both secular and religious authorities established by God overlapped. Thus, so did God’s requirements and qualifications for both kinds.
In God’s Law, the secular “kings,” which actually included all secular authorities of all kinds, could collect the funds they needed to provide for all the physical and secular needs of the people. They could obtain all they needed to do all that related to an appropriately limited subset of God’s natural laws. But they could not enforce all God’s laws on all the people. God limited the authority of all secular rulers to that which could be applicable even to the Gentiles living on God’s land, beside the members of His church of Israel. If a secular authority overstepped this boundary set by God, and unjustly caused any trouble for peaceful Gentiles in the land, then God would demand that those rulers must be handed over to those Gentiles, so those Gentiles could punish them, even with a death penalty. This is exactly what happened with seven sons of king Saul. God demanded that seven of Saul’s sons, all who had partaken in Saul’s sins of religious persecution against the peaceful Gentile Gibeonites, had to be handed over to those Gentiles to be punished for their crimes (e.g., see II Sam.
21:6-9), to be hanged for the murder of those Gentiles. Yet those pagan Gibeonites were nothing like the Jews. They worshipped countless different idols. Some also practised extreme sexual immorality, in orgies where a few even sacrificed their own babies to their demonic gods. Homosexuality and abortions were acceptable to all these Gentiles, and not one observed the precious Jewish Sabbath laws. Yet the secular rulers were to tolerate them in their land, and not raise their hands against any of those Gentiles. Only if those Gentiles committed crimes against God’s “natural” laws, and only in a way that was not through ignorance of their spirits—such as intentional lies to pervert the course of justice, overt theft, ruthless rape or deliberate and premeditated murder—could God’s appointed secular authority punish any of those Gentiles, and only through a just trial, where the maximum penalty was the kind equitable punishment God prescribed in His Law, but also where there was no minimum penalty for those who committed a crime without full intent or without malicious motive.
So God’s Law made a clear distinction between His appointed religious authorities and His appointed secular authorities. His religious authorities were the church elders (teaching judges) and Levites, ruling over His priesthood of Israel. Then His secular authorities were the “kings” or
“rulers,” various kinds of administrators making decisions about infrastructure, economic activities, security and so on, for both the Gentiles and Jews in the land of Israel. So only the priesthood of Israel, who worshipped Yahweh God, were to be judged by their brothers in that priesthood. But the Gentiles were to judge among themselves according to their own standards. Then all the people of the land were to choose their secular leaders from the men God chose, that is, from the men whom God had chosen to make honest, just and loving in their land. We see this when we compare Deut.
17:8-13 to Deut. 17:14-20, then look at the laws cited in Rom. 13:1-10. In the laws that the Jewish Pharisee and apostle of Jesus cited in chapter thirteen of Romans, we see how God merely required the Gentiles to obey a subset the “natural” laws, only the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th orders of God’s laws, and only a subset of these, only the laws pertaining to “love your neighbour.” And even these Gentile sinners had to be judged in a biblical way—through a just trial that sentenced according to intent and motive, and which would never require any more than the maximum penalty set in God’s Law, but always gave mercy to the repentant and to those who committed sins and crimes through ignorance, coercion or some other factor that decreased their level of intent and malicious motives of the heart.
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For those who think their churches have a right to create a theocracy which ruthlessly forces all who live in their land to obey the elite, self-serving, arrogant human gods in their churches, we need to remember that nothing in God’s Law, nor anything Jesus every said in His New Covenant teachings which fulfill God’s Law, could ever allow for anything like that. Nor can any secular ruler, who is not someone whom God has chosen—that is, who is not someone clearly manifesting God’s kind of love, justice and truth in one’s life—legitimately force one’s own personal preferences upon other humans or living creatures upon God’s property of the earth. If we want to know basically what God and His laws command for our nations, we can use semi-good governments endorsed by God, such as the rule of David and other kings of Israel. And all these kings only ever administered natural laws upon those outside of the church of Israel, and only in a way that was applicable to both Jews and Gentiles alike. Then they stood up for the rights of the sexually immoral, unbelieving, idolatrous Gentiles, since God ordained that secular rulers must provide only the services required by all the people, only good works, such as providing for the needy, basic justice to protect the people from the wicked among them, as well as soldiers to protect them from plunderers who came from other lands.
The third teaching of John, recorded by Luke, was his exhortation to the soldiers. Likely both the Levitical “policemen” and the Gentile Roman soldiers who came to him seeking a new life in God.
Yes, we can be sure this would include some Gentile Roman soldiers. Some did convert to Judaism in those days. Some Roman soldiers went to Jesus as well, likely due to John’s preaching. Even an occasional Roman officer believed (e.g., Mat. 8:5-13). To all soldiers, John said: “Extort from no one by violence, neither accuse anyone wrongfully. Be content with your wages” (Luke 3:14, WEB).
Now, in those days, a soldier’s life was brutal. Many endured the death penalty for insubordination or for other kinds of failures, severe punishments for minor infractions, extremely long days of hard physical labour, and many years in foreign lands far from home, all for very low pay. For it was a pagan custom to dehumanize soldiers through practices like this, and by entirely cutting them off from civilian life, to detach their minds from reality, so they could violently bully and kill with less compassion or empathy for their victims, and blindly obey the whims of superiors. Likewise, pagans only esteemed the most ruthless soldiers, because they were most feared. And the elite’s only real purpose for soldiers was to cause great fear, or to kill all who did not submit in fear. The pagan elite only wanted soldiers who would be blindly obedient killing machines, to terrorize their subjects into compliance and murder all others. Then this pagan way was also adopted by Jewish authorities for their soldiers, for the Levites who patrolled the temple grounds and performed other guard duties.
But God commanded very different laws and ways for His armies and His policemen. They were to be trained, strong, helpful, protecting brothers serving the rest of the people in God’s name, keeping them free to practise God’s just, merciful love, guarded from all artificial constraints and corruption, and serve for the benefit of all. Then the communities provided for them and their works, equitably, just as they did for all other kinds of workers and servants of God in the land. And the police, who daily guarded freedom in the land, came from the inner priesthood of Israel, from the Levites. Also, all soldiers and police were males, over twenty years of age, fit for the necessary tasks they had to do, whether it was administrative, diplomatic, peace-keeping or battle. These men also had to take a year off after marriage, or after building a home or farm (so they might learn to cherish their wives, homes and civilian occupations). Thus, all had a civilian life too, which they would return to daily, or as often as possible. And God’s Law did not allow a compulsory draft, but desired only willing and committed soldiers or policemen to do His works, so they would do all in His just ways through His counsel, wisdom and power, as we see in the story of Gideon (Judges 7:4-7). For “Yahweh is a man of war” (Ex. 15:3), and knows exactly how to defeat His enemies, whenever He sees the need. But, Page 156
before soldiers went to war, they had to know that God willed them to go (e.g., Deut. 1:42). And God’s Law required them to first sue for peace, with reasonable demands for tribute, and not to attack without just cause (Deut. 20:10-12). The only times God’s army were not required to engage in peace negotiations with an enemy was if that enemy was so inherently evil and murderous that God had already declared His judgment against them and dedicated them to destruction (e.g., see Deut. 20). Although Israel often misinterpreted these laws of God, and incurred the wrath of God for doing so, God’s intended meaning indicated that God did not want His soldiers or policemen to kill anyone, if possible, but had to strive to keep them alive, then let God teach them His ways of peace.
God taught His own right interpretation of His Law primarily through the examples He set, and by His approval of certain actions done by His most faithful servants on specific occasions, even as God rebuked those same servants at other times, when they sinned. Thus, if we focus on God’s actions and the human deeds He endorsed, we begin to view His Law from His perspective, which may be entirely different from that which is taught in most churches and synagogues. But we must all learn to do this, because being wrong about God’s Law—which Jesus came to fulfill in us and through us for our salvation—definitely hinders and severely sabotages all Jesus’ works for our salvation. And, without a right, true and wise application of God’s Law, nothing but loss and destruction, with unjust suffering and death, will result from our labours. If we act upon the Satanic principles of greed and the lusts of our flesh, we will end up destroying both ourselves and everyone around us. For God created the earth and the entire universe to most effectively function according to His own created physical and spiritual laws and principles. So any deviation from these always produces bad effects.
Only God, who sees the future (and also lives within the future’s real time), is able to rightly judge whether anyone should die or not. And, whenever God looked into the hearts of an enemy, and found enough elect who were willing and able to repent, He would spare them (e.g., Gen. 18:23-32). For instance, God once struck an enemy army blind, so Israel could capture them, feed them, then return them to their homeland (II Kings 6:15-24). This was presumably because there were many elect among them, whose spirits were now willing to respect the Creator God, after one of their respected leaders, Naaman, had been healed of leprosy (II Kings 5). But, since no one is able to rightly judge anyone instantly, without exhaustive evidence and testimony, soldiers (including policemen) were to take enemies captive whenever possible, causing as little harm as possible, then provide for all the bodily needs of those captives, until they could provide for themselves. By default, if at all possible, according to God’s Law and the examples God Himself set as His interpretations of His own Law, soldiers must strive to capture rather than kill. But, at times, harming or even killing is necessary.
Then even some innocents may be harmed or killed at times. In fact, God Himself will sometimes kill the innocent, if He knows they will otherwise be corrupted in the future, should they be allowed to live. For instance, God killed the son of a wicked king “because in [that child] there is found some good thing toward Yahweh, the God of Israel” (I Kings 14:12-13). God killed that good child so he could be buried with the innocent, since his wicked family were going to be killed and not buried.
And God also killed that good child because, if that child did survive, God knew the people in his life would soon corrupt him. God sometimes takes His children home to heaven for their good, knowing that none of their spirits can possibly die. For God does not see physical death in the same way we do. To God, the death of the flesh is only the beginning of eternity in a new spiritual body.
Furthermore, a soldier, or anyone else who even touched any dead person, whether in battle or not, was considered to be “unclean” and had to remain outside and apart from the “camp” of Israel for seven days (Num. 19:11-14). This law clearly indicates that God abhors the death of any of His own living creations, because He is the God of life, not the God of death. And this also infers that God Page 157
did not want anyone to esteem soldiers who killed their enemies. For they are not heroes. Rather, they are merely men who had to do sad and terrible deeds, because it was necessary, because their victims committed wilful and unrepented sins, usually due to coercion or because deceivers had deluded those victims enough to commit those crimes. And there is absolutely nothing noble about killing anyone or anything. It is just a dirty deed of necessity. So God wanted us to treat a soldier who had killed other human beings in a battle as one who experienced a tragedy, as someone who was subjected to a bad, traumatic event. And such a soldier needed to be ceremonially cleansed, in order to restore a right perspective in his relationship with God, with a timely healing of His soul.
When God’s soldiers were not at war, they served God and His people like everyone else did. They produced what was needed for life, fellowshipped, kept peace, worked justice and lived by God’s wisdom. And, when the land was threatened, none but God how to defend it, and God had them train and prepare their defences from the beginning. God alone also had the right to tell them who to attack and in what way they should attack. For, if they went to battle against God’s will, God might choose to hand them over to defeat. And, at times, when Israel did not heed God’s counsel, when they rejected His words spoken through the prophets, God did let their enemies conquer them, even capture their entire land. Therefore, acknowledging God as the high King and the only authoritative Commander is one of the most important duties that every soldier in God’s army had to perform.
So God’s soldiers were nothing like pagan soldiers. Rather, God’s soldiers were to be His citizens serving one another in His land as equals, where each one served God first, then the others, and mostly by civilian duties worked for the good of all. God’s soldiers were only to go to war against the enemies of God Himself, against those whom God deemed to be stubbornly unrepentant in their evil, against those who had thoroughly hardened their hearts against justice, peace and truth. Then God’s soldiers went to battle according to God’s plans, God’s commands, and in the power of God alone. In addition to all this, only God had the right to choose who would do the actual killing in the war, while all the rest had to stay behind to care for civilian duties. And there was to be no glory for soldiers, since every victory belongs to God alone. No soldier was to be exalted for killing people.
Of course, Israel seldom understood these truths. So it was only through many very costly failures and hardships that they learned how God alone was their King, the only Captain of their defending armies. Nevertheless, God repeatedly taught these doctrines to His people, about soldiering and warfare, through Moses, Joshua, His other prophets, His priests and His subject kings of Israel. And, in a way, this meant that literally all His people were His soldiers, though He allowed very few to actually fight on a battlefield. Besides, in any war, the vast majority of soldiers in an army are needed for logistics, to produce and supply food, water, clothing, shelter and equipment needed by both those going to the battlefield and by all the other soldiers. Thus, all the people in Israel, all who had provided for the needs of the men who went to battle, were in God’s army. But only the wiser men, whom God created with a tolerance of fear and risk, as well as a strong sense of justice, with a wariness against evil and a deep compassion for the victims of evil, could actually serve well on the battlefield. And even this kind of man was better suited for civilian tasks, such a policing, fighting fires, disaster services and rescue operations. Naturally, a few men would be needed to train the soldiers and administer all that kept the army ready for battle, and these would need to serve full time, being paid all they required for life, from tithes and taxes. But the young men whom they trained had to remain among the rest of the citizens, never separated as a distinct class of soldiers.
The Aaronic priest, John, knew all this. He knew that godly soldiers must go to war “in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel,” and must believe “that Yahweh doesn’t save with sword and spear: for the battle is Yahweh’s, and He will give [the enemy of God] into our hand”
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(I Sam. 17:45,47, WEB). David, a king and mighty warrior, once confessed to God: “For You have armed me with strength to the battle. You have subdued under me those who rose up against me. You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, that I might cut off those who hate me” (Psalm 18:39-40, WEB). When David wrote this, he spoke as a prophet and anointed king who served Israel in God’s name, as a representative of God. And, in this instance, his enemies were not mere enemies of him as a man, but were indeed enemies of God Himself, those who warred against the will of God. For the enemy he spoke of was Saul and Saul’s army. Saul was an unrepentant king whom God had rejected. Then, due to Saul’s final act of rejection, God anointed David as the new king of Israel, to replace Saul. But Saul violently opposed God’s will and sent his soldiers to kill David. Yet David did not rely on his sword, nor on the ability of his own soldiers to do battle with Saul’s armies. In fact, David had several opportunities to kill Saul, but his spirit, in obedience to God, prevented him from doing so. Since David did not want to start a civil war that would tear Israel apart and destroy many innocent lives, David heeded God’s words spoken to his spirit, and let God win the battle for him. David did not surrender to Saul’s selfish, wicked attacks. Yet he was not willing to sin either.
A soldier is just a civilian servant of God who utterly relies on God to grant him strength and victory, as well as to tell him when to fight, when to hold back, who to battle against, who to kill in battle, who to spare in battle, and why he must fight. And a soldier’s only reason for bearing the sword is to answer injustice and lies, not to get revenge nor to gratify a blood lust, and never to steal plunder or for personal gain. A soldier of God only goes to war as a labour of justice and peace, so his fellow civilians can live well beside him. Every war is a civilian matter, affecting civilian life and to ensure a free, equitable, just civilian life for all, where love can grow on a foundation of truth. So every war must be conducted according to the will of God, and the civilians who faithfully serve God, either in governing roles or as other kinds of labourers in the family of mankind. And no wars should ever be for the ambitions of the elite and their professional pagan soldiers. No land should ever go to war for ungodly and unjust purposes that exploit other lands, since all lands are owned by the same God.
Because a land should only engage in a war according God’s will and through His power, we must conclude that everything a soldier does in battle must also be done by God approval. Since God represents all that is wise, just and loving, since all good comes solely from Him and His attributes, we must do all in His name, according to His just and loving will. And, if we do all according to His will, we shall then achieve a true and just victory through His power, all for the glory His attributes such as love, never our own glory. God told Gideon: “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the [ruthless plunderers of Israel] into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying,
‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead’” (Judges 7:2-3, WEB). First, this proves we must not glorify soldiers who experience battle, since nothing about war is glorious. And, since it is ultimately and only God who actually can and does save us from all evil, we must never esteem our own intelligence, strength and ability in a way that denies and opposes God’s grace. Second, God clearly did not make all men suitable for the works of warfare, only a few.
In the end, God chose only those of Gideon’s volunteer army who cared enough about their brothers to remain watchful, to keep their heads up and their eyes open, by drinking from the stream with cupped hands lifted up to their mouths. God chose only these as His soldiers, merely 300 men out of about 32,000. These 300 would fight against tens of thousands of marauding, battle-hardened Midianites. Yet God put an irrational and intense fear of these 300 men into the minds of the enemy soldiers. And it was this fear which caused them to flee from the 300 soldiers of God. So it was God who actually defeated that enemy, who caused the deluded, wicked enemy soldiers to become weak Page 159
and irrational through their terrorizing dreams and mind-consuming anxieties, totally unable to logically plan and execute a strategy against Israel. Thus, the 300 faithful soldiers, by heeding God’s will and by following God’s plan, were able to slaughter almost all of those psychopathic enemies.
Now, when John told the Jewish and Gentile Roman soldiers, “you should not intimidate even one person through violence, nor extort [even one] through any false accusations” (μηδένα διασείσητε
μηδὲ συκοφαντήσητε), this sentence would have been accompanied by many other teachings from John, by many other teachings on this subject from God’s Word. Luke would have only recorded this brief summary of a large body of teachings that John gave to these soldiers. Throughout history, one clause, phrase or word was commonly used by the Jews, and later by Christians, to indicate many of a rabbi’s or church’s teachings about one particular topic. These ecclesiastical terms or phrases are all dense with meaning and point to many Scriptures at once. So this clause spoken to these soldiers definitely would not be an exception. And we can assume that John spent hours or even days with many soldiers, teaching them all that God expected from them. This teachings above, and likely many more, all true and faithfully interpreted from God’s Word by John, would have been carefully and diligently explained to these soldiers, telling them all that they must become as God’s soldiers.
And even from this summary of John’s teachings to soldiers, we know that he expected all these Jewish and Gentile soldiers to serve as God’s army, to serve God as their highest God, as their King of kings, and as their chief Commander, from whom each would receive final orders. So, although they also needed to obey lesser human officers, their first duty was to God. Each had to obey God rather than any human officer, even the Roman Emperor, whenever a command of a human officer conflicted with a command of God. And this freedom of a spirit’s conscience must be allowed in all armies today. Back then, disobeying a human officer to obey God made many of their just, beneficial works more difficult and dangerous, since their human officers could brutally torture and murder them for this. But, at the same time, if wicked human authorities commanded them to do evil, and they disobeyed in order to obey God instead, those wicked authorities who did not tolerate this would endanger themselves and their own people by opposing God and His will. A soldier’s disobedience, in those days, could result in the confiscation of their property, painful punishments, execution and even the deaths of their families. Thus, through John, God was asking a these soldiers to lay down everything in their lives for Him. And God, through His word, offered only one solution to this problem faced by these godly soldiers. God demanded that all officers and authorities ruling over those soldiers must also acknowledge His authority over them, so they would never put these soldiers in a situation where they had to choose between obeying God or sinning, by obeying them.
Since the 13th century, many have attempted to institute these biblical teachings among their soldiers and policemen. Then, after 16th century Reformation in Europe, and especially after a more biblical revival in 18th century England and America, Protestants have been pushing for reforms against the Roman laws which plagued their lands. These faithful ones fought and died to fulfill the laws of God, including His laws governing army and police services in their lands. Since the Old Covenant prophets, including John, taught these principles, and because Jesus came to fulfill these laws in and through His faithful priests of the New Covenant “royal priesthood” (i.e., His church), those who truly knew God’s Law have demanded that soldiers and policemen in their lands must refrain from intimidation through violence and never practise extortion through false accusations and unjust threats. This also means that none of the enemies or criminals they oppose should ever be treated harshly. Certainly none must ever be tortured. Instead, soldiers and policemen must strive to simply capture, if possible, the enemies and criminals who oppose God’s will for freedom and true justice.
Then unjust enemies and criminals had to be judged in a fair trial by elders (teaching judges) who Page 160
rightly handled God’s Law, who freed the innocent and granted full mercy to the repentant, so only the wilfully unrepentant suffered a lawful penalty of the same weight as their crime. Then, while enemies and criminals remained in captivity, all must be treated well, given all they need. God’s people must provide them with all the food, clothing, shelter, exercise, fellowship, teachings, emotional support, spiritual counselling and other things required for life and for repentance into the truth, without unjust suffering, all in the hope that some of them might someday live a loving life.
Now I know that false churches today oppose the will of Jesus, their God who came to fulfill all His laws in and through His people. Instead, they prefer the unjust Roman laws of blind vengeance, which coerce the people to obey an elite few through acts of terrorism. So their armies and police forces routinely practice intimidation through violence, as well as extortion through unjust principles which benefit only their elite minority, only those whom they consider to be the real “citizens” of their unjust, biased nations. Just like the Romans, they believe that the elite can only rule and keep order by causing everyone to fear their unjust and psychopathic wrath. For Rome had ruled in the same way that the worst criminal gangs of our day keep order in their ranks. And these fake churches want to keep order in that way too. Then, just as the worst gangster bosses keep the greatest share of stolen loot for themselves, and for their most loyal sycophants, so did Rome. Thus, so do these churches also want this kind of inequity to be practised among them. But we must not be like them.
Let us remember that God, throughout history, has been causing those kinds of gangsters to destroy themselves, and other gangsters like themselves. Rome was always plagued by the injustices of the elite imprisoning and destroying themselves, by civil wars weakening and devastating their lands, and by the wars or rebellions their exploitative actions caused in foreign lands. Likewise, members of all criminal gangs have a very short life span due to infighting, battles with rival gangs and their conflicts with the just souls living all around them. And all Romanized, humanistic, criminal, so-called “Christian” gangs, like the followers of Hitler and Trump in our day, are also feeling the wrath God, destroying themselves with internal strife worked by the greedy little psychopathic human gods they worship. Meanwhile, those whose elect spirits awaken and begin to place their trust in Jesus and His real truths, are coerced into fleeing from all those criminal Romans, gangs and fake Christians.
Throughout history, but especially in our day, God has been working a process of dichotomization in this world, separating the elect from the non-elect. And this process of dividing the true from the false and just from the unjust is growing stronger each day. God is separating those who inwardly desire His just and loving ways from those who want to be their own gods, no matter how unjust and ruthless they must be. So the non-elect, in both the secular and religious institutions, will soon find and serve Satan’s messiah, the man Daniel and the apostle John called “the beast.” And all these will destroy themselves, will perish at the moment Jesus’ feet touch the Mount of Olives. But these last days will also see almost all God’s elect children awakened, brought into His real church. Most of these will remain alive or will be restored to life on earth during the first resurrection, on the day Jesus returns to Jerusalem. So all the revived elect will see Jesus seated on the throne of David, restoring and ruling the entire earth in a just and loving way, after He destroys all the enemy armies.
The time to choose between the biblical Christ and the Roman Antichrist is near. And this is not just a matter of labelling oneself with the name of Jesus, while esteeming and serving the Antichrist. For the false churches are prophesied to ride on that Roman beast’s back until the very end of the last days, until Satan’s beast burns and kills all in the false church. In reality, if Jesus joins an elect soul to His genuine church, it will only be because that one’s spirit actually trusts His words of truth. For, if a spirit has no confidence in His words, if one’s heart does not believe that God’s teachings are wise and true, then one has no saving faith at all. But, when a human spirit acknowledges the truth of Page 161
God’s words, when a heart confesses that His ways are the wisest and most beneficial for all, then that one has real saving faith in the Spirit of our God Jesus, even if one has not heard or known the biblical name of “Jesus.” For their belief in His truths is a true faith in the Holy Spirit of the One who teaches their elect spirits to place confidence in these truths. Even if the bodies belonging to those elect spirits have never heard the name of “Jesus” with their ears of flesh, they will be saved.
John, the last of the God-ordained Old Covenant Aaronic high priests, came to prepare elect Jews and Gentiles for the first advent of Jesus, their Messiah. John made elect Jews and Gentiles ready to enter the New Covenant church and kingdom of God on earth, which would begin as soon as its first and only eternal King, Prophet and High Priest ratified that covenant with His blood and resurrection onto His everlasting throne. To do this, John taught God’s Law and ways to the people, so they could repent from the delusions and lies of Satan’s kingdom, into the truth of God. Then John baptized them, sent them to the water so they could symbolically die to their old lives and rise into their new lives, within the Messiah’s truth, so they could recognize the works this Messiah would do in their lives. When they saw this Messiah send His Holy Spirit of God into their souls, to dwell beside their human spirits in their hearts, then experienced His power to teach and train them in God’s ways of just love, so they began to live abundantly fruitful lives, they would know that all John taught and prophesied about this Messiah and His New Covenant kingdom on earth was surely real and true.
Of course, the “official” high priests of that day were ordained by men, and their spirits did not trust the words of God at all. So they were not the real high priests. For only God chose the descendant of Aaron who would be Israel’s true high priest. And God obviously chose John the baptizer, a “son” of Aaron whom God created with a faithful elect spirit. Likewise, the kings of that day sought only wealth and power for themselves, not to serve the one, true, loving God strictly for the good of His people. And God often allowed such men to rule, since the people were the same, and deserved that kind of king. Nevertheless, through His grace alone, God sent John, a genuine Aaronic high priest, to His people. And John came to announce the genuine new High Priest of the New Covenant kingdom of God, the Messiah, who would also be Israel’s real King, even the King of all the earth, as well as the Great Prophet Moses spoke about, the voice of God among them. Now all we must do is allow our spirits to trust this Messiah, Jesus, as His Spirit speaks in our hearts. All we must do is let His Spirit teach and train our spirits, so our spirits may no longer be taken captive by our minds of flesh.
Who will do this? The dichotomization of the world is occurring at a faster rate and with a stronger force than it ever has since Christ’s first advent. Soon God will shake the world and bring the awake elect into His true church during a world-wide revival. Not long after this, the greatest troubles the world has ever seen will commence, killing most on earth. So let us pay attention to the teachings of men like John, who prepare our elect spirits to accept and heed our Lord Jesus. We can no longer afford to trust the lying words and delusions of human preachers from false churches, but must now rebuke those fake religious Pharisees and Sadducees, then chase them away from us, as John did.
For the time is growing short. It is likely now less than a few generations until Christ’s return, until His wrath destroys the wicked and all hypocrites on earth. And, even if we do not live to see His return, we will all face His judgment on that final day. So I beg all elect souls to take the words of men like John to heart, to silence objections from irrational minds of flesh, and seek Jesus instead.
The Mikveh of Thee High Priest
John was continuously watching for Jesus as he baptized the people for repentance. For John was not only God’s chosen Old Covenant high priest, but also a prophet, one whose spirit heard concepts directly from God, then declared them in the language of his flesh, to whomever God commanded Page 162
him to inform. And God had clearly revealed to John, even before he left the womb of his mother, that His promised Messiah had come to Israel with His New Covenant salvation, and was walking among His people now. So John prophesied about Him, to all who would hear. Yet, as this Messiah came to John, He asked John to baptize Him! Yet John only provided a baptism of repentance to all.
Of course, John had no confusion about what the Old Testament prophecies had declared about this Messiah. John knew, with absolute certainty, the Messiah was the only one whom the prophets ever called by the name of Yahweh, by the full name of God (Jer. 23:6). John realized the Messiah was Immanuel (Is. 7:14), that is, God incarnate, God’s Spirit dwelling in a body of flesh, the uniquely begotten “Son of God.” The Scriptures had been prophesying the deity of the Messiah for a thousand years. So the prophet John was certain that the Messiah’s body would have God’s Spirit in it, instead of merely an infantile created human spirit. So it was impossible for the Messiah God to sin with evil intent and malicious motives of His spirit. For God could never fail to always fulfill literally all His own laws through His own flesh. God could never choose to sin since His laws revealed all His core attributes, all the ways of His Spirit. Therefore, if God dwelt in flesh, and sinned, by intentionally disobeying His own laws, He would be opposing His own inner and immutable nature. And, if the omnipotent God did that, He would destroy Himself, along with all His creations, because all His past, present and future creations are maintained by His power all at once, in the “real time” that resides only in His own thoughts. Consequently, since it was utterly impossible for God to oppose Himself, to sin against even the least of His just, loving laws, why would He ask for John’s baptism of repentance away from sin and into the truth? Jesus’ request made absolutely no sense to John.
It puzzled John, as a created human sinner like every other person who ever lived, that the Messiah asked him to preside over His baptism. John’s baptism of repentance led the people out of deluded and sinful lives, into loving lives within their holy God. And, from all that God’s Holy Spirit had taught John about the Messiah from Scriptures, it simply was not possible for the Messiah to sin in any way. And how could John possibly counsel the God Messiah out of error and sin into a life led by God’s Spirit? Therefore, the Messiah would never ask for a baptism of repentance. So John looked at the Messiah with incredulity, as sinner with his jaw dropping to his chest, then boldly proclaimed: “Surely I have a need to be baptized under [counsel from] You, and You are coming to me!” (Mat. 3:14, Ἐγὼ χρείαν ἔχω ὑπὸ σοῦ βαπτισθῆναι, καὶ σὺ ἔρχῃ πρός με). Clearly, John needed to be counselled for baptism by Jesus, and he could never baptize Jesus, his God. But, at that time, John was not thinking that Jesus might actually want a different kind of baptism commanded in God’s Law. Jesus did not want the mikveh of repentance, but the mikveh of the high priest, before he began to teach Israel and work their atonement with God, through His sinless sacrifice for their sins.
In those days, small mikveh tanks (mika’ot) were carved into stone foundations outside the priests’
private entrances to the temple. And, before the high priest, and all the other priests, would enter the temple grounds, they went to the mikveh to ceremonially “bathe,” just as God commanded through Moses. All would dip their bodies under the water in a baptism before they ministered to God, before they taught the people and performed the sacrifices. Of course, the vast majority of the priests and common people of that time obeyed rituals like the mikveh without any cognizance of the symbolic meaning, just to blindly keep the “rules” of their religion. However, there was indeed a much deeper and spiritual significance to those rituals commanded by God. None of God’s rituals were “magic,”
none claimed to work some kind of benefit through the power of a spirit. Rather, literally all of God’s rituals were teaching tools, solely for the purpose of reminding His people about truths He had taught in His Word. And some truly devout elect Jews knew the meanings of these rituals, because their spirits sought God and asked Him to teach the meanings to their spirits. Therefore, some knew Page 163
how the mikveh of the priests was done to remind them that they must leave behind their lives in the flesh and rise from the water into a spiritual life, to perform spiritual works of God for His people.
Then the court of the priests at the temple also had a basin where the high priest’s hands and feet were ceremonially dipped under water in another kind of mikveh. A metal basin was set between the alter and the porch standing before the door to the Holy of Holies (i.e., this Holy of Holies replaced the more ancient “Tent of Meeting,” where the high priest met with God). Before the high priest put on God’s symbolic garments of just, equitable, loving righteousness, to teach the people and pray for the forgiveness of their sins, as well as offer a sacrifice for their sins, he had to wash His body so he would remember to walk only according to the mind of his spirit, as God was directing His spirit to say and do the works of God. Then the high priest had to wash his hands and feet, to remember that they should only be used by his spirit to do God’s works, and not by his flesh. And a human high priest also needed to be anointed, because he symbolized the Messiah or Christ. God, in His Law, commanded all this for every high priest who served His priesthood (e.g., Ex. 30:18-21; 40:12-15).
But there was no a baptism of repentance for the high priest’s own sins, only two kinds of mikvehs, the baptism of the whole body and the baptism of his hands and feet. And these mikvehs were done
“to fulfill all righteousness.” That is, two kinds of mikvehs symbolized the high priest’s preparations to do the spiritual works for God, through a humbled and willing spirit that heeded all God’s Spirit asked of him. Nor did the high priest ever go the mikvehs alone. Always, other priests attended to the High Priest’s mikveh, to put on the ritual garments of righteousness after he went to the mikveh.
So high priests were like John, whom Jesus asked to attend His mikveh. Looking at the first baptism of the first high priest, to see how the ancients perceived the symbolism of the elements of that ritual, we find that a high priest’s baptism was actually about him dying to, or setting aside, his common duties of life, abandoning all that is of the flesh, even works for the welfare of his people, so he can then rise into a higher and more spiritual ministry of teaching and symbolically removing sin. Thus, he temporarily represented God, that is, the Messiah. God, speaking through Moses, commanded the mikvehs of Aaron, the first high priest of Israel’s Old Covenant relationship with God, in this way:
“He shall put on the holy linen coat. He shall have the linen breeches on his body, and shall put on the linen sash, and he shall be clothed with the linen turban. They are the holy garments. He shall bathe his body in water, and put them on.... Aaron shall come into the Tent of Meeting, and shall take off the linen garments, which he put on when he went into the Holy Place, and shall leave them there. Then he shall bathe himself in water in a holy place, and put on his garments, and come out and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people, and m
ake atonement for himself a
nd for the people ” (Lev. 16:4,23-24, WEB).
“You shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and shall wash them with water. You shall take the garments, and put on Aaron the coat, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, and the breastplate, and clothe him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod; and you shall set the turban on his head, and put the holy crown on the turban. Then you shall take the anointing oil, and pour it on his head, and anoint him” (Ex. 29:4, WEB).
Before a high priest could begin to teach God’s people and make the symbolic sacrifices to restore their relationship to God through atonement, he had to go to the mikveh, to the ritual bath in a holy place, where he dipped his entire body under the “living water” (i.e., water directly from God, rain water naturally flowing into the mikveh tank from the sky or heaven, not water handled and made unclean by hands of men). And the high priest would only go to this ceremonial bath after he had taken a normal bath, after he washed the sweat and dirt off of his body. For this ceremonial dipping Page 164
under water was solely for symbolic spiritual purposes. Then, before he went into the presence of God, who promised that His presence would forever remain in the Holy of Holies (i.e., the Tent of Meeting), a high priest also had to ceremonially dip his hands and his feet in water. Only with the first mikveh of his entire body, then the second mikveh of his hands and feet, could a high priest wear the symbolic robes, which he only wore as he was coming into the presence of God. Then the high priest had to be anointed as well, with a fragrant oil signifying that God’s power to bless rested on his head, enabling him to minister to God’s people. So a high priest was an anointed one. But the Messiah was thee Anointed One. The Hebrew word “Messiah” and the Greek word Χριστός (Christ) both mean “Anointed One.” And also notice how the high priest had to wear a head covering with a
“crown.” Now, in those days, before Israel’s captivity in Babylon, only the women wore any kind of head covering when they came before God, such as when they entered the temple or prayed. For a woman lived in the family, social, moral and spiritual structures created by the men, and had to put on a head covering to signify that she was innocent of any sins resulting from what the men built for her to live within, that she was not culpable for the effects of the world views men created for her. So a high priest, representing the coming Messiah God, was the only male who ever entered the temple or prayed with a head covering. But a high priest’s head covering signified that he surrendered his own spirit to the Headship of God, and his “holy crown” signified that he symbolically represented the future Messiah who would teach and save Israel. Then, in the temple, after returning from God’s presence in the Holy of Holies, the high priest other priests would teach the people about their God.
Now look at these garments. God, through Moses, commanded: “They shall be on Aaron, and on his sons, when they go in to the Tent of Meeting, or when they come near to the altar to minister in the holy place; that they don’t bear iniquity, and die” (Ex. 28:43, WEB). But Aaron and all his sons, all the future high priests, were sinners. And God’s Word clearly declared them all to be sinners. For literally all human beings, through their infantile created spirits, which must contend with unruly flesh in life on earth, actually sin every day, and always through a lack of love, which makes their sins profoundly faithless and evil. So, if these garments were worn in order “that they don’t bear iniquity, and die,” then each high priest entering into the presence of God and standing within Holy of Holies, could not enter there as himself, not as one who clearly bore iniquity. For, if any priest did come as himself, in his own name, God promised here that he would die. Consequently, each high priest had to come before the face of God and enter His holy place as a figurative representation of an utterly sinless one, by wearing symbolic clothes to figuratively represent that sinless one. So the only possible and rational explanation of this demand from our God, who always commands rational and consistent principles, who is the source of all reason and logic, is that each sinful high priest wore those symbolic robes to represent the real Messiah, the sinless God in a body of human flesh.
Now, in the days of Moses, there were already prophecies about the coming Messiah. And Moses himself had prophesied about the coming Messiah, calling Him a great Prophet. For God told Moses to declare: “Yahweh your God will raise up to you a Prophet from your midst, of your brothers, like Me. You shall listen to Him.” (Deut. 18:15). So, at the very least, this future Prophet was to be like the prophet Moses, because Moses stated that this Prophet was to be “like me.” But, if Moses was speaking in God’s name, through prophecy, as he often did, then these were the words of God here.
And this would mean that God was saying that this great Prophet would be like Him. Either way, this Prophet would utter words commanded by God and demonstrate God’s power among God’s people, just as Moses spoke words commanded by God and allowed his body to be used as a vessel by God, so that God’s power could work against Egypt and for the benefit of His people. Then God called Moses alone to ordain the first high priest, Aaron, in His name, that is, as a prophet acting through Page 165
Yahweh’s authority and commands. Therefore, if this Great Prophet, the Messiah, was to be like Moses, then He would surely be a greater representative of God than the high priest, since Moses clearly served God in a greater capacity than the high priest, whom God instructed him to ordain. If God gave Moses His authority to ordain the first high priest, thus all his descendants who would be high priests after him, but God did not directly call and ordain Aaron in the same way He called and ordained Moses, then God surely saw Moses as a more useful servant than Aaron, and greater than any high priests who came through Aaron. So, no matter how Moses’ prophecy is interpreted, it does indicate that the Messianic “Prophet” was to have a body of human flesh among all the elect brothers in Israel, among God’s priesthood called to serve the entire world in His name, but this Messiah and Prophet would be greater than any high priest of Israel. But other prophecies about this Messiah also tell us that the Creator’s Spirit will be the life-giving Spirit of this Messiah, not a created human spirit. So this Messiah is actually God Himself in a body of flesh, and far greater than even Moses.
Then look at the reasons God gave for sending this Prophet to Israel. Moses prophesied: “This is according to all that you [i.e., the people of Israel] desired of Yahweh your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I not die.’ Yahweh said to me, ‘They have well said that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brothers, like you. I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I shall command Him’” (Deut. 18:16-18, WEB). So this Messiah, the Great Prophet in a Jewish man’s body of flesh, was to say all that Yahweh God wanted to teach Israel at Horeb, from Mount Sinai. Back then, thee Spirit, who is God, spoke loudly from that mountain, in lightning, thunder and from dark obscuring clouds. But His voice and the way in which He delivered His words terrified His people (see Ex. 20:18-21). So now God would send this Great Prophet to teach His people about His laws and ways, in a less intimidating way, that is, through the voice of a human body, through a Jewish man like Moses, so His people would not be afraid of Him and would not tremble at His words. Yahweh, the Creator God, would put His words in that man’s mouth of flesh, so his human body would speak all that Yahweh commanded Him to say. And God’s ultimate purpose for doing all this was so His people could fulfill all righteousness.
For God had just finished commanding them, “You shall be perfect with Yahweh your God” (Deut.
18:13, WEB). But, ultimately, this Great Prophet, the Messiah, would speak to His people in a way that was even less intimidating than a Prophet, High Priest and King in a body of human flesh. For, after atonement was made, God’s Spirit would enter His people and speak directly to their spirits.
Next, consider how the Creator’s Spirit, who is God, could possibly speak like this through a body of Jewish human flesh. For this prophesied Prophet and Messiah was coming to accomplish far more than Moses ever said or did while dwelling in a human body. This Prophet was coming to prophecy to all the elect in the world, to gather them all into God’s kingdom on earth, and to call many more of the Gentiles into His priesthood of Israel, far more Gentiles than Moses welcomed into the church of Israel. Furthermore, this coming Prophet was coming to make His priests of Israel “perfect with Yahweh.” So, instead of placing an infantile human spirit in a human body, as God did with Moses, this Prophet would surely need the Spirit of God Himself in Him, as His body’s life-giving Spirit.
Moses, arguably the greatest of God’s human prophets, did not make the people “perfect with Yahweh.” Moses clearly failed to do this, though he taught perfectly in God’s name. Moses failed so badly that even he himself was not allowed to symbolically enter God’s promised land. Then literally every other human prophet sent by the Creator Spirit also failed to teach and train this priesthood of Israel in the same way Moses failed. None of the prophets who came in God’s name, both in the Old and New Covenant times, lacked the wisdom, knowledge and power to make God’s people perfect.
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Therefore, the only way this Great Prophet and Messiah could truly accomplish the task of making God’s priests of Israel “perfect with Yahweh” is if this Prophet and Messiah, in His body of human flesh, actually possessed the full authority and power of Yahweh Himself within Him. This Prophet had to personally bear infinitely more authority, power, knowledge and wisdom than any of the other prophets who ever came in the past, or ever would come in all time. In fact, this Prophet had to have the authority to speak God’s words and do God’s works in His own name. That is, this Prophet had to be God Himself. This Prophet’s name had to be God’s name. His wisdom, knowledge, authority and power had to be God’s. This promised Prophet, this Messiah, had to be God Himself. Then the other prophecies about the Messiah said that He was to sacrifice Himself for the iniquities of His people. But a sinner cannot do this. Only a sinless man can offer himself as an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of others. So this Messiah had to be a sinless Man, whose Spirit was knowing, wise and strong enough to keep Him from sin from the moment of conception. Thus, this Messiah could not possibly be born with an infantile human spirit, but had to be born with the uncreated Spirit of God.
We can also use this background information, and the beliefs of that time, to interpret the symbols of high priest’s clothing, then apply all these interpretations to understand why the high priest, through baptism, had to abandon all his common and earthly thoughts in life, to rise into purely spiritual life of serving God, before he could represent God in a body of flesh, who makes His people “perfect.”
These symbols are complex, and spirits sleeping in a worldly life care nothing about their meaning, and are sometimes incapable of directly asking God about their meanings. But the meanings of these garments seem to point to the coming Messiah, as does the “pattern” used for the temple itself. So God, through Moses, was prophesying about the Messiah through His laws regarding the specific requirements for the clothing worn by a high priest, and by laws about how to construct the temple.
For instance, the inner garment was linen, a simple white garment. For the inner life of the Messiah would be pure. Then an outer garment traditionally revealed a person’s character and occupation. So the high priest’s ephod (a long outer garment made of heavier material) was to be beautiful, as the Messiah’s works and daily walk in life would be wondrous and satisfy our very spirits. This ephod had a stone fitted on each shoulder, each with the names of half of the twelve tribes of Israel written on it. Presumably, since Israel was God’s church or His priesthood to serve the world, the six tribes on the right shoulder symbolized something like those who would serve as a blessing to the world, by working righteousness. Then the six on the left shoulder may have symbolized the tribes sent by God to bring judgment and a curse against injustice and sin. For God’s works for His kingdom on earth not only involve doing good, but also nullifying evil. On top of the ephod, the high priest was to put on a breastplate, like the armour of a soldier, covering his heart, attached to the chain of the ephod. This breastplate had twelve more stones, each unique and each representing one of the twelve tribes in His priesthood of Israel. So all His priests were next to the Messiah’s heart, joined to the works and life of the Messiah, all going with Him into battle against Satan’s kingdom of the world order. And all were to work the desires of His heart, each one differently, each in a unique way. Also, bells adorned the bottom of the ephod so that, as the high priest entered the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, he would do so boldly, willing to be heard by God, and willing to hear what God had to say to him. A high priest was not to silently sneak into the inner sanctuary, afraid to disturb God while performing his required duties, and go unnoticed, then quickly exit without a word being exchanged between God and himself. As a chief servant, as the symbol of the Messiah, his every step was to be known to his Lord, by the heavenly Father, as he walked upright before His face.
After all these garments were placed on the high priest, they put a turban on his head. Now the head was seen as the part of the body which ruled one’s entire life, as well as the part which received and Page 167
held all the information from the eyes, ears and other senses. Thus, most of the teaching, judging and governing men were called the heads of their people. However, back in the days of Moses, none of the other male Jews covered their heads while praying to Yahweh, since an uncovered head signified that each man’s life was personally seen, known and directly governed or structured by Yahweh. So the high priest’s head covering was unique. Yet a high priest was the only one who entered the place where God promised to always grant His very presence. And this particular head covering, a turban, had a golden crown with the words, “Holy to Yahweh,” written on it. So the turban, a sash wrapped around his head, guarded the head of the high priest, the head which governed all thoughts of his mind of flesh. Thus, God would control all the high priest’s thoughts in his mind of flesh, as well as all the thoughts in the mind of his spirit, making them all “Holy to Yahweh,” that is, separated and sanctified entirely for Yahweh’s purposes, just as all the Messiah’s thoughts of His flesh would be guarded by the Spirit of God inside Him, making them all holy and useful for the purposes of God.
But this was not all that turban represented. For giving all one’s thoughts over to Yahweh God also involved this purpose of God: “It shall be on Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron shall bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall make holy in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always on his forehead, that they may be accepted before Yahweh” (Ex. 28:38, WEB). Many branches reach out from the trunk of a tree, some in light and some in shadows. The same is true regarding the people bearing fruit for God. Some of Israel brought their gifts to the temple, to God and to the inner priesthood of Levites, through right motives, with a joy in the spirit, thanking God for the opportunity to share in His works. But others brought their gifts grudgingly, through a forced sense of duty or in a carnal fear of being judged by God’s people, or even by God Himself. So there was much iniquity in these gifts made holy by the children of Israel, that is, in these gifts separated and sanctified for God’s purposes, for God’s works which were to be accomplished in Israel and in the world by His church of Israel, by His priesthood assigned to serve the world in His name. Some were like the outer branches of a tree, fully exposed to sunlight, while others were like the inner branches. Yet all the branches served the roots of the tree as much as they were able. Of course, whether or not one’s gifts came through grudging iniquity or in joy, all those gifts still belonged to God, as did all who gave those gifts. Thus, whether this fruit came from branches in the light or the branches in the shadow, all remained holy. However, the high priest, as a figure of the Messiah, was to bear all of the iniquity of all the people, as well as his own sins in the thoughts of his mind of flesh and in the thoughts of his spirit, for he was human. And so would Messiah bear all the sins of both the people and the human high priest, but as a sinless one wearing the crown without a turban. The Messiah had to see, hear, smell, taste and feel all those iniquities, as their Head, then drive all wicked thoughts from the souls in God’s church, so their gifts to God would become acceptable before Him.
The temple itself was also a symbol of the Messiah God. For the apostle John, looking into eternal Jerusalem in heaven, proclaimed: “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple” (Rev. 21:22, WEB). Therefore, since Jerusalem on earth was a symbol of Jerusalem in heaven, the physical temple in it must be a symbol of God in the flesh, that is, of the Messiah. Then we must also remember that the heavenly city of Jerusalem descended from the gates of heaven, after the final judgment day. But only God’s elect children will descend from there. Thus, the descending city of Jerusalem was these people. A city is its people, not its buildings and streets.
The heavenly Jerusalem will consist of all the completed and perfected elect souls whom Jesus will bring into His eternal church of Israel, as His personal property, as a people who are one with His own Being. Of course, the heavenly city of Jerusalem will also have buildings, streets, walls, gates and other features of a city, although all made of the eternal, imperishable substances God created Page 168
for His spiritual realm. Yet all these parts of the city will be aspects and parts of God’s steadfast, strong, immutably holy people too, not mere static, immobile, inanimate, material things made of God’s unrelenting and unforgiving power on earth. Everything in the heavenly Jerusalem is alive, since everything made of a spiritual substance is alive, and functions through the wills of spirits. So, in Christ, all the elect, dwelling in new spiritual bodies, also will be “temples” and parts of the heavenly Jerusalem too. And, even while our elect spirits dwell in these temporary bodies of flesh, we are all symbolic temples, representing what we shall be in heaven when we receive new bodies made of a spiritual substance. Still, our bodies will only be “temples” because our God Jesus dwells in them. “Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (I Cor. 6:19-20, WEB). Just as the physical temple of the Jerusalem on earth held the presence of God, the Messiah will cause each of us to also carry His presence, the very Spirit of the Creator God, in the chambers of our hearts, to govern our souls.
So the Jerusalem temple on earth, and everything the high priest did in that temple, related to the Messiah. And all was done symbolically “to fulfill all righteousness,” since the real Messiah would truly “fulfill all righteousness,” so all would become acceptable to God and “perfect with Yahweh.”
All was done for a symbolic atonement of the people, to restore their right relationship with God, so all in His priesthood of Israel could walk “perfectly” with their God, according to His will, so the same kind of just and holy love that is in God would also be in them, and rightly expressed through the works of their daily lives. But the human high priest had to make a sacrifice for his own sins and, with his symbolic garments, he merely represented God in the flesh. That human high priest was just a figurative and symbolic Messiah. And only the promised Messiah, the one true High Priest of God’s eternal church, which He initiated on earth through Abraham, which He predestined to be the heavenly Jerusalem, could truly accomplish this atonement and the fulfilling of all righteousness in His chosen people. Only the Messiah could “write” all the ways and laws of God upon the hearts and minds of the heavenly Father’s elect children, by teaching and training their spirits to experientially and fully know their Creator’s Spirit, their God. In those days, all this, and much more, was known by many devout Jews who had prayed about and meditated upon God’s Word all their lives, and certainly by the prophet and God’s own chosen high priest of the Old Covenant, that is, by John.
Therefore, when Jesus came to be baptized by John, this prophet and high priest, whom God had sent to prepare the way for Him, understood what Jesus required from him when Jesus said: “Lay aside [the baptism of repentance] now. For it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness in this way”
(Ἄφες ἄρτι, οὕτως γὰρ πρέπον ἐστὶν ἡμῖν πληρῶσαι πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην, Mat. 3:15, SBLGNT). Of course, when Jesus told John to “lay aside” the baptism of repentance at that time, so He could be baptized in a way where the two of them could truly “fulfill all righteousness,” John instantly knew that, of all the different kinds of ritual baths or immersions commanded by God through Moses, only one kind could possibly do this. Only one kind of mikveh or baptism was related to the Messiah’s work of “fulfilling all righteousness,” that is, related to all of God’s people in Israel and the world living just and loving lives, speaking and acting in ways that are pleasing to God, with all their iniquities forgiven, so their spirits, and even their flesh, could serve all the loving purposes of God.
As soon as Jesus spoke, John knew the only kind of mikveh that could “fulfill all righteousness” was the mikveh of the symbolic high priest, who represented the Messiah. Before a figurative Messiah, a human high priest, entered the Holy of Holies in the symbolic physical temple, which occurred before he taught the people and symbolically bore away their iniquities, that high priest had to go to the mikveh. Now the real Messiah had come. This day the real and long-promised Messiah would Page 169
leave behind his common works of daily life and begin His ministry on earth as the true, eternal High Priest of Israel, as well as become the true, eternal temple of God. Now the genuine High Priest would judge the people with His right teachings, in pure wisdom and love, even with His works to forever wash away all their iniquities, all their errant thoughts and ways. Now the Messiah would go to the high priest’s baptism and dedicate his whole being to God’s ministry for His church of Israel.
In other words, now was the time that the Messiah would begin His promised salvation of His elect.
Even common devout Jews would have known that there was only one kind of mikveh that could possibly be associated with fulfilling or practising all justice and righteousness. They all knew that the only kind of mikveh associated with this impossible task was the mikveh of the high priest, his ritual immersion before he served the people as a symbolic Messiah. Thus, it must have made their hearts skip a beat when Jesus said that He wanted a baptism for this purpose. For no human being could possibly “fulfill all righteousness.” Only God could do that. Thus, Jesus was claiming to be God when He said this. That is, Jesus was claiming to be the the genuine Messiah, Immanuel, God dwelling in a body of human flesh, the only One even remotely capable of accomplishing that kind of task. This request from Jesus was not an insignificant thing. When Jesus wanted this kind of baptism, He was claiming to be the prophesied Saviour of all, God among us, who would serve as our true and eternal High Priest in God’s eternal church of Israel. This was no small matter. And this is why even the heavenly Father’s voice from above confirmed this ordination of Jesus as the High Priest on that day, as Jesus rose out of the water. Now God brought His New Covenant to the earth.
So Jesus wanted John, as the Old Covenant’s high priest, to attend Him for the final and truest baptism of a high priest that had ever occurred in all history. Then Jesus walked into the Jordan river, knelt and silently prayed. After communing with the heavenly Father, He bowed His entire body under the water. And, as soon as He raised His body out of the water, “behold, the heavens were opened to Him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on Him. Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Mat. 3:16-17, WEB). Therefore, God sent two witnesses to confirm that Jesus was the promised Messiah, because His Law demanded that every judgment must be confirmed by at least two reliable witnesses. God’s Holy Spirit testified, by descending from heaven and resting on the body of Jesus, just like a witness would go and put a hand on the shoulder of the one being judged, to identify him before the eyes of all the people. After this identification, the heavenly Father’s voice spoke about Him, calling Jesus His “Son.” And, since the Spirit called God does not bear physical children, God calling Jesus His
“Son” actually indicated to His people that Jesus was Him in the flesh. These testimonies were for God’s people, so they might make a right judgment about Jesus, and accept Jesus as their Messiah.
Also consider how Jesus was a third witness. For Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah by actually going to the mikveh of the high priest. Thus, all three Persons of God, through whom our one and only Creator God ministers and relates to His elect children, and to the rest of His creation, testified this, “Jesus is the Messiah.” Since there is no witness who can possibly be more objective, honest and reliable than God, this testimony from all three Persons of God is the greatest testimony that the earth has ever seen in all history. Yet God granted this greatest of all testimonies to mere sinners, to John and the other repentant Jews with him, to prove that they can trust Jesus as their true Messiah.
Jesus went to the baptism because He was about to begin His ministry as the new High Priest of the New Covenant church of Israel, which would never end, even in heaven. From now on, this new High Priest would begin to fulfill God’s promise granted to the everlasting priesthood that He built with an eternal covenant made with Abraham. As their King, He once assembled His priesthood under Mount Sinai and gave them a ten-point summary of all His 613 spiritual laws defining love for Page 170
God and for His creations. Then God called Moses, up to the mountain, and gave him a written copy of the archetypal Ten Commandments, of His prioritizing summary of His whole Law. God did this so that His priesthood would never forget those ten core principles behind all His laws, and the order or priority of those principles. And, in those days, only Kings did such things. Thus God declared Himself to be the High King of this priesthood of Israel. But human beings have infantile spirits and cannot rightly handle such great truths without help. So their High King also came to dwell among His people, to serve them as their High Priest, to teach and train them in His ways, to demonstrate His Laws in action, to show them how to apply the principles of all His laws at once, in each unique circumstance, so they might make right judgments, so they might bring loving justice to this world.
Mat. 4:1-11,
Temptations of Jesus
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was hungry afterward. The tempter came and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ But He answered, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”’
“Then the devil took Him into the holy city. He set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down, for it is written, “He will put His angels in charge of You” and “On their hands they will bear You up, so that You don’t dash Your foot against a stone.”’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again, it is written, “You shall not test the Lord, your God.”’
“Again, the devil took Him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. He said to Him, ‘I will give You all of these things, if You will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve Him only.”’ Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and served Him” (Mat. 4:1-11, WEB).
To understand anything in Gospels and in the rest of the Bible, it is important to first comprehend the fact that our God Jesus—as well as all the prophets, apostles and all biblical Jews—taught us about the methods used by the devil to lure souls into sin. For we surely need to know those ways in which demons cause us to sin, lest we fall into sin. So I want to write in depth about the temptations of Jesus, about why they occurred and why Jesus let them happen. For Jesus submitted to those three kinds of temptations, right at the beginning of His ministry, in order to teach us how to resist all the ways we can be tempted. And I will try to do this from the perspective of Jesus—not by attempting to artificially differentiate between Satan’s ways and exactly the same ways practised by us and our churches. Rather, we need to honestly acknowledge the devil’s devious methodologies and stop practising them ourselves, so we might effectively practise God’s ways in every aspect of our lives.
To begin, we need to understand what a temptation is, and how it differs from sin. And to understand this, we first need to know the real biblical anthropological doctrines, and reject those based on pagan teachings. That is, God’s Word consistently teaches that every human being has two minds, each with its own will. Every human being has a brain of flesh as well as a mind of the spirit. To even begin to see how the devil tempts us, we must comprehend this fact. For, if we believe any variation of pagan Platonic doctrines—the kinds which falsely teach that each human being has only one mind, but with two forces pulling its thoughts in two opposite directions—we will not be able to Page 171
even understand how Jesus could be God, yet tempted like we are tempted. For how could the devil even begin to lure the mind of God into sin? Christ’s temptation only makes sense if we first realize that Jesus had two minds, just as we all do. And it was not the mind of Jesus’ Spirit, who is God, that the devil tempted. Rather, Satan tempted Jesus’ mind of flesh. Furthermore, if we do realize that we all have two separate and distinct minds in all of us, we might also fall into the self-defeating error of believing it is a sin to even think a bad thought. But that is wrong. For all kinds of thoughts are triggered by external stimuli and just seem to pop into our minds of flesh, out of nowhere. And it is not a sin for a mind of flesh to have spontaneous carnal thoughts of greed, lust, revenge or even murder. For even Jesus’ own brain of flesh was subjected to such thoughts. For it was the ruler of world order, Satan, who put those thoughts into Jesus’ mind of flesh. A carnal thought of the flesh only becomes a sin through the wrong motives and intentions of a spirit, not by existing in the flesh.
It is inevitable that selfish, slanderous, thieving, exploitative and violent thoughts will enter the mind of flesh, even if one avoids all the kinds of things and situations which stimulate bad thoughts, even if one never deliberately and wilfully seeks to have one’s thoughts of flesh stimulated in any bad way. Yet one is never guilty of a sin, just because bad thoughts enter the brain of flesh, not if one’s spirit is not willing to even begin to take any action to try and fulfill, satisfy or gratify those bad thoughts. And the Holy Spirit of Jesus is always teaching all elect spirits about strategies they can use to drive those bad thoughts out of their minds of flesh, so their spirits can maintain control over their brains of flesh. Good human parents also teach the same kinds of strategies to their own children. So, in pure biblical Christianity, good parents do not hide their children in little artificially constructed monasteries to protect them from the outside world, lest some external stimuli might cause their minds of flesh to think some bad thoughts. Rather, biblical parents teach their children in the same way the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus and the heavenly Father, teaches His own children. That is, biblical parents teach strategies to drive out bad thoughts from the brain of flesh.
And these strategies that biblical parents teach their children are the same strategies Jesus used when the devil tempted His own starving flesh in the desert, when Satan saw the fleshy desires in that brain and exploited them to stimulate bad thoughts in His mind of flesh. But, as we examine those strategies used by Jesus, we find that they obviously require the education the spirit itself, in the genuine truths and wisdom of God. For no one has been able to drive out bad thoughts in ignorance, never through a mere avoidance of physical stimuli that might trigger bad thoughts. No parent can prevent bad thoughts in one’s child by imprisoning the child in a virtual desert within a home and church, in an environment void of all external stimuli that might cause a bad thought. For the devil can even put bad thoughts in brains of flesh while one is in any kind of virtual or actual desert. And the artificial deserts that fake religions create for their children may lack some sexual and painful externals, but are full of other externals, like the hypocritical interpretations of God’s Word, extreme self-indulgence, greed, criminal negligence toward siblings in the family of mankind, racism, pagan Roman misogyny, demonic hatred, slander and countless other lies and sins. So parents in false churches expose their children to all this in their artificial deserts created for their children, yet never actually teach their children effective, genuine strategies to deal with the bad thoughts Satan puts in their brains of flesh. But biblical parents are not so foolish as to attempt the removal of their children from the world they must live in. Yet they are wise enough to know that teaching their children is a long, slow, iterative process. So biblical parents protect their small children from some of the outside world, until they teach them foundational truths and wisdom needed to combat temptations. They discuss everything under the sun with their children, until the elect among their children are able to cope with any kind of bad thought the devil can possibly trigger in their minds of flesh at any time.
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Furthermore, it is impossible to protect children from the outside world. For Satan has a purpose and place in our lives on earth. Demonic spirits exist to make our spirits stronger, and we cannot stop our spirits from experiencing this work of God for His children on this earth. There will be hardships, traumatic events, lies and sins that the spirits of our elect children must learn to understand through their Creator’s truths and wisdom. And the spirits of fallen angels will try to exploit the events which damage and weaken their bodies and brains of flesh. Then all the human servants of the devils will do the same. In fact, even the deceived elect, all who have been taken captive by the devil, shall be employed to stimulate bad thoughts in our children, while the non-elect brood of Satan exploit those weaknesses, injuries and wounds even more, and more effectively. Our beloved children experience heartbreaks, extreme traumas, violence, deaths of loved ones, sexual violations and other severe attacks upon their souls, sometimes repeatedly or over an extended period of time. Many of their souls become so badly wounded and severely weakened that the spirits of the air can very easily overcome them, by dropping the most evil kinds of thoughts into their brains of flesh, based on their extreme fears and anxieties, both during their waking hours and while they dream in sleep. So every moment of some lives becomes an internal war between their elect spirits and their brains of flesh.
Therefore, our principal goal for our children, and for ourselves, is to increase the amount of light in the darkness, the kind of light that heals and disinfects wounds as it penetrates through the darkness, as it also exposes the distortions of realities that darkness likes to produce. We work to educate our beloved children in the truths an wisdom of God, so they can drive away the darkness of the lying and evil thoughts which the demonic spirits of the air shoot into our brains of flesh—so they can do exactly what Jesus did when the devil tempted His brain of flesh after it had been greatly weakened.
So a temptation is not a sin, simply a thought to do something unloving, exploitative or in opposition to God’s own interpretation of truth and wisdom in His Word. A temptation is a bad thought which enters the brain of flesh from an external source, from either a spirit, a human being or anything else that the senses of the flesh might respond to. And one of the first characteristics or traits of all these temptations is that they attempt to cause a mind of flesh to desire to do some kind of sin. But the flesh is actually incapable of committing any kind of sin. It is impossible for flesh to sin. For literally all sins are spiritual. Without a spirit’s input, nothing can be defined as a sin. Every real sin involves a spirit that knows the difference between good and evil, a spirit that is able to distinguish between at least some right and wrong words and deeds. Then, to sin, a mind of a spirit must will to do evil or wrong, must intend to do it through evil and wrong motives. Whether or not that spirit actually is able to speak or do those evil or wrong words or deeds is irrelevant. The physical is irrelevant. For a sin becomes a sin the minute the spirit’s intentions and motives become evil or wrong. But, if a spirit’s intentions and motives are not evil or wrong, whatever that one says or does cannot be called a sin. Even if one is coerced into saying or doing something which God’s Word clearly defines as a sin, or one says or does it through the pure ignorance of an almost unconscious spirit, God refuses to call it a sin. However, whatever one’s brain of flesh thinks will be brought into the chamber of the soul, where the mind of one’s spirit will also see it. Therefore, a temptation to truly sin often will begin by placing a bad thought into the brain of flesh, a thought which tries to lure the managing mind of one’s spirit into allowing one’s flesh to accept that bad thought, even to fulfill or gratify that bad thought in some way. If a spirit does that, with a full knowledge that the thought opposes God’s loving, just will, then that spirit has manifested bad intentions and motives, and commits a real sin.
Now, because all sins are spiritual, all temptations to sin come from spirits. Sometimes human spirits intentionally tempt other people to sin, but sometimes they do so unconsciously or in total ignorance of what they are doing. Sometimes people are coerced into tempting others through threats, or even Page 173
for survival. But all temptations to sin ultimately originate from the spirits of captive, bound fallen angels. And, whether or not one believes this to be true, those demonic spirits exist and are always inserting bad thoughts into all brains of flesh on earth, through various means, through the humans and things which God allows those evil spirits to manipulated in limited ways. However, God never allows our minds of flesh to receive any bad thoughts that can deceptively lure our elect spirits into willingly condoning them, with evil intent and malicious motives. At times, the wills of our minds and bodies of flesh may overcome the wills of our spirits, but our spirits eventually turn away from those sins in true repentance, and our spirits even learn more about truths and wisdom of God, even about God Himself, through the process of this repenting. So the fact remains that God has indeed bound and limited those powerful demonic spirits, so that “No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (I Cor.
10:13), and so that your spirit will also learn from it, so you will be better able to overcome those temptations and flee from them in the future—although this may be a long, slow, iterative process.
Satan is a spirit and the greater goal of the bad thoughts he shoots into minds of flesh, like fiery arrows, is to dull, confuse or confound the minds of elect spirits. However, God will usually only allow the devil to attack His elect children through their minds of flesh. God keeps elect spirits off limits to the powerful spirits of Satan and his demons, who could otherwise easily control the wills and thoughts of our weak, infantile spirits, not only through deceptions, but far more directly through their power. For God has ordained that all elect spirits must always have access to Him, to their heavenly Father. Therefore, God limits all demonic temptations in a way that can only work through an elect person’s mind of flesh alone, and only temp the spirit as much as that spirit knows about His truth and wisdom. But all temptations of the flesh are designed to cause the flesh to rebel against the spirit, to produce a conflict between an elect one’s mind of flesh and mind of the spirit. Satan knows that an elect one’s life must be managed by the mind of the spirit, since it is the only part of a human being that can hear God. So the only way any elect person can live a loving and just life, to build up and maintain God’s kingdom on earth, is if one’s elect spirit governs one’s flesh, after an education from the Holy Spirit of God, from the Spirit teaching the truths and wisdom of Jesus and our Father.
This is why Satan’s temptations usually try to cause the flesh to ignore then usurp the spirit’s role in one’s life, lures the flesh into taking captive and suppressing its ruling spirit, in order to weaken God’s kingdom. And, since the devil can only tempt through the flesh, he has only three archetypal kinds of temptations, only three categories which can be defined by the temptation of Eve and Adam.
Why Jesus Allowed Himself to be Tempted
So, after John baptized Jesus with the mikveh of the eternal High Pries, He was about to begin His ministry as the King, High Priest and Great Prophet of Israel. The Spirit which kept His flesh alive, the Spirit of God, compelled Him to go out into the desert so that his brain of flesh could be tempted.
And Jesus left the people of His kingdom, and went out alone, on the very day He was baptized, at the very moment He began to serve as the true High Priest of Israel, for the sake of the entire world.
Yes, the life-giving Spirit in Jesus, who was God Himself, could never be tempted. But the flesh of Jesus was exactly the same as our flesh. So His flesh rebelled against His Spirit whenever that flesh desired what its governing Spirit chose to withhold from it. And, as the desire of His flesh grew stronger, the more that flesh sought to overcome and silence His Spirit. Of course, that flesh of Jesus was not rebelling and contending against an infantile created spirit like our spirits. Rather, His flesh was rebelling against the almighty Spirit of God. So all efforts of His flesh against the omnipotent, Page 174
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omniscient and utterly holy Spirit of Jesus failed. His flesh could never take captive His Spirit, and all the efforts of His flesh to do so were in vain. The Spirit of Jesus always remained in control of His flesh, and would never allow Himself to sin. Nevertheless, Jesus did indeed feel the power of Satan’s continuous temptations of His flesh, just like we do (Heb. 4:15; conf. Heb. 2:18). But now Jesus allowed that devil to put evil thoughts into His body of flesh after He deliberately weakened His flesh to the point of almost dying, and allowed His flesh to be tempted in all three archetypal categories. For Jesus wanted to experience the strongest temptations His elect would experience.
We need to realize that Jesus went by Himself to these temptations. The only way we know about them is because He told His disciples about this event. Therefore, we know that these temptations were not a demonstration for us, not an example or illustration to show us how to act in the face of temptations, although Jesus certainly did use them to teach us about our temptations. Still, these three temptations were for Jesus Himself, something He did for Himself, so that He might serve us better as our High Priest, as a High Priest who could empathize with us in the worst of temptations.
Jesus went to these temptations so that He could be the kind of High Priest that our infantile and ignorant elect spirits truly needed. As the Jewish author of Hebrews declared: “Having then a great High Priest, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold tightly to our confession. For we don’t have a High Priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but O ne who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin . Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace for help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:14-16, WEB). The Spirit of Jesus drove Him into the wilderness, alone, so He could truly feel all that we feel, so He could be One fully “having sympathy with our weaknesses”
(δυνάμενον συμπαθῆσαι ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν). To do this, Jesus subjected Himself to all three kinds of temptations, and to the strongest possible forms of all those three kinds, as well as to the most powerful of all tempters, to Satan, to the worst of all the fallen angels (demons) cast down to earth.
By suffering a forty-day fast and the most powerful temptations possible for human flesh, our High Priest was building up a true experiential empathy for God’s elect children, who suffer from all kinds of temptations and sins. This is how the love in God’s Spirit develops and grows. Now a spirit does not grow through earthly time and increase its volume in space, like the flesh does. Rather, a spirit grows by instantaneous realizations of truths and concepts which build love, which increases it in a spiritual scope and strength. This is what God’s Spirit was doing in Jesus’ body of flesh, gaining a deeper knowledge of all that our spirits suffer in flesh, to build up His love for us. So, yes, even the Spirit of God can grow in love and empathy, although all His attributes remain immutable. Love grows by sharing experiences with loved ones, and grows more deeply by sharing in their bodily suffering than by sharing in the good times of the flesh. Labouring and striving to overcome our hardships and evil together, with one mind and one purpose, binds and builds up the elect spirits sharing that experience. All elect spirits born of God’s Spirit, created in His image, develop and grow love in this way. Suffering may be of the flesh, but the will to overcome, through their spirits’
love for one another, builds spiritual love. The more we overcome together, the more we love one another. For, when we face trials, we strive to know is inside each other, and learn it, so we get to know the very spirits of one another. And our true strength is spiritual, since God’s power is granted according to the desires of our spirits, never according to the desires of our flesh. And we learn to work in the spiritual strengths of all, while covering the weaknesses of some with the strengths of others. In this process, we learn about each other and learn to value one another. We learn to respect one another as equals born of one Father. God builds love for others from this knowledge of them.
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Paul said: “Well praised [is] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all kinds of counsel, the One counselling us upon all our tribulations, in order to enable us to counsel those in all tribulations through the counsel which we ourselves were counselled under God.
Because, just as the hardships of Christ overflow into us, even so our counsel also overflows through Christ. Now, if we are suffering tribulations, it is for the sake of your counsel and salvation. If we are counselled, it is for the sake of your counsel, producing [your] effective working in an endurance of the same tribulations which we ourselves suffer. And our hope is steadfast regarding you, resting on the knowledge that, as you are partakers of the tribulations, so too also [you are partakers] of the counsel” (II Cor. 1:3-7, ALT). So our tribulations, trials and suffering in the flesh builds up love in our spirits by also building up a knowledge of all kinds of truth and wisdom, even the very counsel of the Creator’s Spirit. As we turn to Christ’s Holy Spirit together, He counsels our spirits, often by teaching the opened elect spirits of our brothers and sisters, so they might counsel us, whenever our own spirits shut down and refuse to hear the much-needed truths and wisdom of our God. Then Jesus Himself can draw near to our spirits, to whisper His wise words of teaching, rebuke, forgiveness, comfort and encouragement. And it is usually when we face the worst trials that we seek Him most, as well as our elect sibling, whom He leads into our lives. Working together in Him, we love to offer whatever counsel He grants us to help one another. We work as one in Him. In this, we gain a deeper knowledge of Him, our God, as well as a more complete communion with His family of elect souls, and even a greater understanding of the true nature of our own spirits. And the truths about Him and one another is the foundation upon which He builds up our love for Him, and love for one another.
To suffer also helps our spirits learn to identify whatever does not conform to God’s truth, wisdom and ways, as we experience the bad effects and results of those things. We learn to discern between all that is not compatible with our Creator’s attributes and all that is compatible. And this is true wisdom, which helps our spirits more fully appreciate the beauty of God’s real attributes. As we learn all this, we become more like our God, and become one with our God, Jesus. It binds us ever more closely with Him. As we work and suffer together with Jesus, in nullifying the works of Satan and building up our heavenly Father’s kingdom, we become one with Jesus in mind and purpose.
And, as we all become one in Jesus, our love and compassion for one another grows too. A true knowledge of the weaknesses and strengths of other elect spirits will also increase, so our love and respect for those other elect spirits, founded on these realities and truths, will grow. Empathy, with those who suffer the same as we do, grows within mutual love too. And this prompts us to counsel one another, in right ways, providing a solid, substantial help. The more an elect spirit suffers, the more Jesus can teach that infantile human spirit about His real truths and genuine, honest, love, which rejects all that is not the whole truth. An elect spirit learns to seek only that which shines the full loving and just attributes of our heavenly Father. And only this kind of reality and wisdom can effectively counsel another suffering elect spirit. The more each spirit learns truth and love through suffering, and can discern between what builds up love and what does not, the more a spirit can truly love others in a way that pleases God. And the more one loves God and others, the more others can learn to love. In all of this, all who are learning together draw ever closer to God and more effective in their works for His kingdom. All become one with God and one with all the others in the one God.
This is why the wise Spirit of God in Jesus led Him into the wilderness, to have His body of flesh tempted in all the ways His elect brothers and sisters of Israel and the world are tempted. As our eternal High Priest, who must judge us by teaching our spirits until we repent into the truth, so we can receive the atonement which restores our spirits’ relationship with our heavenly Father, Jesus had to experience the strongest temptations of the flesh. Then He could address all our temptations, Page 176
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as they come through our flesh, if our spirits turn to Him in our struggles against them. If our elect spirits turn to Jesus and heed His words, He will empathize with us. He can truly help us overcome the demands of our flesh, in the same way His Spirit overcame His flesh during His temptations, that is, through a right understanding of the reasoning behind God’s loving ways and laws, through truth.
The Three Kinds of Temptations
Now we need to understand the three kinds of temptations, as they were defined in the beginning, which was also how John defined them. You might notice that Luke’s order of the three temptations was different from Matthew’ order. Yet they are both the same three temptations, and the same as those at the very first temptation. Satan approached Eve soon after he and his legion of fallen angels had been cast down to the earth from heaven. At that time, the devil created a body for himself, but it was the body of a serpent, in the days when serpents still had legs. Of course, nature’s serpents, those created by God, do not tempt and have no evil in them, since their spirits were created to simply do what God created them to do. However, some God-ordained attributes of a serpent’s flesh were also created to warn God’s elect children against evil, such as the way a serpent hunts by hiding from its prey until it strikes, the way it poisons its prey and the way it swallows its prey whole, even while its prey is still alive. But Satan was not warned. Rather, he did all this, which is why he took the body of a serpent. Satan his identity as an enemy of God and as an enemy of Eve, until he could strike her and Adam with his deception. Then he poisoned their minds and swallowed their whole lives, by making them sinners and, thus, his enslaved citizens of his kingdom on earth, of his world order.
At this time, Adam and Eve were living in a safe place, protected from all that could harm them in any way. This was called the Garden of Eden, a name referring to a garden on a plain, a level place where all their necessities grew. And God had commanded Adam and Eve tend this garden. Then God commanded them to “name” all the animals they saw, that is, to take responsibility for their welfare, to know and care for them. And, as the parents of all, these two commands of God were also meant for all future generations who would be born from them, in their image. But, in this garden, God had placed a certain tree bearing a fruit which God forbade Adam and Eve to eat. He told them:
“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day [i.e., the Hebrew word translated as “day” refers to a time period of indefinite length, in which certain related events transpire, not necessarily to a 24-hour day] that you eat of it, you will surely die”
(Gen. 2:16-17, WEB). Of course, when God created Satan and the fallen angels without the attribute of love, God predestined them to be cast down to the earth for a long season, and knew they would cause mankind to sin. God also created Adam and Eve with infantile spirits, lacking the knowledge of good and evil, lacking discernment between His ways and those which were not truly or fully His ways. So God did not fully manifest His loving attributes to them, and predestined them to be very vulnerable to temptations and resulting sins. God knew that Adam and Eve, while in bodies of flesh that were able to oppose their elect spirits, would actually sin as soon as the devil tempted them. So God actually predestined that Adam and Eve would sin against Him by eating that forbidden fruit.
As soon as the devil was cast down to the earth, and was forced to dwell in limiting chains on God’s temporary material creation until the judgment day, he found Adam and Eve, because that demonic spirit instantly saw that their spirits were created in God’s image. So the spirit called Satan instantly hated them, because those humans were obviously created to be heirs of God’s eternal home in heaven, the place where that devil was born but could never live within again. So, just as God had predestined, that malicious spirit set out to tempt them into sin. And Satan chose to begin his evil work upon Eve, since a woman’s mind of flesh was created to more easily compromise, whenever Page 177
necessary, for the sakes of her loved ones. Now that compromising was a gift, a good and necessary thing for the relationships she built. However, the devil knew he could turn any kind of good into an evil, and use any gift of God as a weapon against God. For he had turned himself, a good creation of God, into God’s enemy, so he could invent his own laws, do as he willed and pretend to be the god of his own destiny. And Satan was proud of his ability to transform himself, one of the brightest angels of heaven, into a weapon against God, although he knew that God surely had predestined it.
Eve, as a woman, did not structure her own behaviours and thoughts in the same way as a man did, but assumed the rightness of the structures given to her by the man God gave her, and would build her life within those structures without even attempting to refine them or build new ones. She would also do the same regarding those created by her sons. She was flexible, and saw no need to question what was built by the men she most respected and heeded in her life. Yet this also made her mind of flesh more susceptible to Satan’s manipulation and temptation. For she was more readily willing to compromise than Adam was, more willing to accept a way of life or structure of spiritual and moral behaviours presented to her from anyone appearing to be more powerful and authoritative than her.
Consequently, the devil focused upon Eve, drew her attention and asked her, “Has God really said,
‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1, WEB). So the first step in this Satanic deception and temptation was basically the same as it has always been throughout history. This enemy of God did the exact opposite of what God always does when God lead us into His kind of just and pure love. Instead of clarifying a more complete understanding of realities and truth, that devil obscured, muddied and confounded Eve’s perception of realities, by confusing her thoughts about God’s words and will. Satan made her think God’s words did not really mean what they actually meant. Satan, his legion of demons, and his non-elect children have practised this trick from the beginning, not only in his fake churches, but in the halls and courts of every kind kingdom on earth. Whenever the Bible or God’s creations reveal any truths to our elect spirits, the devil tries to confuse our minds of flesh, make us doubt those truths, and ignore all that our spirits and flesh see and hear, so the thoughts of our souls fall into confusion and heed his lies, or the lies of his minions.
After sowing confusion, doubt and irrationality in Eve’s mind of flesh, the devil then proclaimed the lie he wanted Eve to believe, flavoured with a bit of truth to make it more palatable. And he uttered this lie with a great confidence, like a trusted, knowledgeable authority on all matters pertaining to God’s will and truth. And as that demon pretended to be a messenger of light, even God himself, he made himself actually believe he was God, so he could act the role more convincingly. Likewise, that devil, together with all the other fallen angels and his preferred human children, have acted in the roles of pretend gods with fake authority throughout history. And all these loveless non-elect have done so for the same reason too, so they could transform every concept of truth and reality into a self-serving lie. To this day, they all work ruthless evil for the benefit of Satan and his kingdom.
The devil often portrays truths as lies, and lies as truths, while acting as though he is teaching us as our father or benefactor, as one who is concerned about our welfare and happiness. All psychopathic citizens of Satan’s kingdom attempt to convince us that God’s truth will surely enslave and destroy us, while their lies will “free” and enrich us. Yet they keep telling us exactly the same kinds of lies, which invariably end in painful captivity, unbearable suffering and death. Always, history proves those lies to be not only ineffective, but horrifyingly evil and destructive. At the same time, all real evidence in history always and invariably proves the truths written in the Bible and in God’s creation to be effective, in keeping us free and preserving every good aspect of our lives. Still, as long as humans remain in bodies of amoral flesh, they will tend to believe those enslaving and destructive lies. Then only about half of the living will even be able to repent from those lies, after receiving the Page 178