January 30, 2012 ©Homer Kizer
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Typology —
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For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. … We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor 10:1–6, 9–12)
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The Argument: The Bible, Old and New Testaments, forms the shadow and copy—the left hand enantiomer—of the heavenly Book of Life in which the lives of disciples are epistles. Typological exegesis goes beyond Old Testament events being types of New Testament events, the usual but carnal application of typology; for the visible, physical things of this world reveal and precede the invisible, heavenly things of God, with human maturation forming the spiritually lifeless shadow and copy of the maturation of human sons of God as younger siblings of Christ Jesus with this spiritual maturation being invisible to human eyes.
1.
Reformed Christendom has traditionally taken meaning from Scripture via grammatico-historical exegesis, with exegesis being a loan word from Greek that pertains to how one exits, and usually to how one exists a text or takes meaning from a text that is often theological. Sabbatarian churches of God have, for the past three quarters of a century, practiced precept-upon-precept exegesis, using a line from here and a line from there to construct meaning, with these constructions often being borrowed meanings from not-credited Seventh Day Adventist sources. But Scripture itself says that those things Israel did in the wilderness were examples for Christians that they should not desire evil; that those things Israel and the children of Israel did were written down for the instruction of Christians. And the nation of Israel numbered in the census of the second year, a nation 603, 550 men strong (Num 1:46), was replaced by itself, the grown children of Israel, a nation 601, 730 men strong (Num 26:51) in the wilderness, with the men of Israel that left Egypt forming the shadow and copy of the men of the children of Israel that would enter into the Promised Land of God’s rest.
If a human son of God is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither free nor slave, then a Christian as a human son of God is not and cannot be the fleshly body of a human person, but must be the inner self that has been raised from death by God the Father through receipt of a second breath of life. The fleshly body [Fä:"] that is the temporary dwelling place of the initially dead inner self—metonymically represented by the Greek signifier, RLP¬—is either Jew or Greek, male or female. But this fleshly body will not and cannot enter the timeless kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50) because the fleshly body possesses mass.
While the fleshly body of a human person still lives, it is only the non-physical inner self that is raised from death (Rom 6:2–11) through receipt of the breath of God [B<,Ø:" 1,@Ø] in the breath of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø], with this second breath of life represented metonymically by the Greek signifier B<,Ø:". It is this inner non-physical self that is able to enter heaven, the supra-dimension on the other side of a sudden creation of all things physical. It is the living inner selves [JH RLPH] of early disciples that sleep under the heavenly altar until the number of their fellow bondservants and brothers to be killed as they were is complete.
Visualize if you can the inner self—RLP¬, usually translated into English as soul—dwelling in the fleshly body of a human person as the spiritually lifeless shadow and type of the breath/spirit of God [B<,Ø:" 1,@Ø] dwelling in the breath/spirit of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø]. Now take this visualization one step farther: imagine the breath/spirit [B<,Ø:"] of Christ dwelling in the inner self [RLP¬] of a human person as the bridge between God and man. This indwelling of Christ Jesus in the inner self of a human person gives life to the previously dead inner self, dead because this inner self was consigned to disobedience as its bondservant. Resurrection from death of the inner self comes through the indwelling of the breath/spirit of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø] is usually metonymically described as being born of spirit [B<,Ø:"], and it is this second birth that Nicodemus couldn’t comprehend.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. … I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:1, 3). And perhaps these two simple sentences have been the most misunderstand declarations Paul made; for if Christ dwells within the inner self of an outward Christian, then this Christian will desire to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). If this outward Christian does not desire to imitate Paul as he imitated Jesus (i.e., walked as Jesus walked), then this outward Christian has not been born of God but remains a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), consigned to disobedience (again, Rom 11:32) as the slave of the Adversary, with the outward Christian’s willing transgression of even the least of the commandments being prima facie evidence that this outward Christian has not been born of spirit.
The head of the inward Christian is Christ Jesus, with this inward Christian being a twice-born son of God. But the inward Christian cannot be seen with human eyes for this inward Christian possesses no mass and is not physical. This inward Christian is not the tent of flesh in which this Christian dwells, but all that can be seen of this inward Christian is the fleshly body in which the now-living inner self dwells; so how does this fleshly body signify to the world that its inner self has been born of spirit? And Paul gives the means: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ Jesus, who lived in this world as an observant Jew. To this end, a Christian man will have short hair as an outward sign that he has been circumcised of heart [inwardly made naked], and a Christian woman will have long hair as a visually discerned sign that her inner self has been resurrected from death. But Paul adds one more thing: for the Christian wife to show that although she is un subjection to Christ, she is also in subjection to her husband, she will cover her long hair with a fabric covering, a humanly made covering … the outward Christian wife who does not cover her hair with a fabric covering either has not yet been born of spirit or is too young spiritually to dress herself.
Thus, the head of a human son of God is Christ Jesus who through a human person’s receipt of His breath dwells in the inner self of a human person as the person’s inner self [RLP¬] dwells in the person’s fleshly body, with this dwelling one in another being physically seen through the circumcised head of a man dwelling in his wife during human procreation.
But the shadow of a thing is not the thing: human procreation, like human maturation, is merely the shadow and type of godly procreation that comes through being born of spirit [B<,Ø:"]. Therefore, the significance of physical circumcision—making naked the head of a man—ends when the circumcision that matters is of the heart via receipt of the spirit of God in the spirit of Christ.
The euphemistic expression, the heart of a man, is a metonymical encapsulation of the inner self of a human person: circumcision-of-the heart represents circumcising [making naked] the inner self through the indwelling of Christ Jesus in the form of His breath, thereby placing the human person’s inner self into a relationship analogous to Eve’s relationship with Adam. It is the inner self of a person born of God that is garmented by the righteousness of Christ Jesus, known theologically as grace, when this inner self is made naked [disrobed] through its natural covering of disobedience being stripped away.
Adam was covered or clothed by his belief of the Lord when he was initially placed in the Garden of Eden: his belief of the Lord produced obedience as cotton fibers spun into thread and woven into fabric are used to produce shirt and jeans. But the non-physical inner self of a human person is clothed by a tent of flesh, not a tent of fabric—and it is this inner self, once born of spirit, that needs to be further clothed by the inner self’s belief of God, with this belief also described by the English signifier, faith.
Outward human attire serves as the shadow and copy of inner godly attire: faith, belief, obedience that leads to righteousness. Hence, a Christian’s outward modest attire signifies to humans and angels significant knowledge of how the inner self is clothed under the mantle of Christ Jesus’ righteousness. And a human infant’s inability to dress him or herself for the first few years of life forms the shadow and type of a human son of God not being able to dress himself in righteousness until reaching in maturation equivalency to a human child of about four years of age.
Simple receipt of a second breath of life, again the breath of God in the breath of Christ, causes the human person’s inner self to take the helpmate position to the indwelling breath of Christ as the Woman was the appropriate Helpmate to Adam. But it is the Woman that shall be saved through childbirth: it is the inner self of a human person that shall be saved through being born of spirit, with this new living inner self even being present in the dead [from being consigned to disobedience — Rom 11:32] inner self. That is correct: the new, living inner self, even before this inner self is raised from death through receipt of a second breath of life, exists as a potential son of God as voltage is a measure of the electrical potential of a charged circuit.
Traditional Christendom has used a differing set of linguistic signifiers to sort-of convey the same concept. Unfortunately, traditional Christendom borrowed too much from Greek paganism; for human persons are not humanly born with immortal souls, but with inner selves consigned to disobedience and thus, dead (i.e., spiritually lifeless). However, every inner self that has come into existence through human birth holds the potential of becoming a son of God through receiving a second breath of life. Therefore, within the inner self of every person is the seed of promise that requires liberation from a theological seed bank through receipt of the breath/spirit of Christ [again, B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø]. But as with physical seeds stored indifferently, not every seed of promise will sprout and grow into a son of God. Not every ovum in the womb of a woman will develop into a child although every ovum has that potential.
The children of Israel, born or unborn [that is, to be born in the future], were among the people of Israel when the men of Israel refused to hear the words of the Lord in Egypt (Ezek 20:8) and when the people of Israel complained that Moses had brought them out into the wilderness so that they would die of hunger (Ex chap 16) and when the people of Israel rebelled against the Lord at Mount Sinai (Ex chap 32). And in each case, the men of Israel that left Egypt following the Passover liberation of this slave people ended up forming the shadow and copy of the children of Israel that also would not cease worshiping the idols of Egypt, the idols that their fathers worshiped (see Ezek chap 20).
The outwardly circumcised children of Israel that were of less than twenty years of age at the beginning of Israel’s second year in the wilderness entered into the Promised Land as older adults: these children were born in Egypt where they were circumcised on the eighth day. But within the loins of the adult Israelites numbered in the census of the second year were unborn children that would not be circumcised in the wilderness and would enter into the Promised Land as uncircumcised adults or as uncircumcised children. Hence, as Isaac, a son of promise, was in the loins of Abraham when the Lord told Abraham that his own seed would be his heir (Gen 15:4–5), the uncircumcised children of Israel born in the wilderness were in the loins of the nation of Israel when Israel still dwelt in Egypt. So too are the children of Zion (see Isa 66:7–8) in the loins of the last Eve, even though the dead inner selves of these human persons have not yet been born of God … Eve bore no son to Adam when in the Garden of God, but born him three symbolic sons after they were expelled from the Garden.
If what happened to Israel in the wilderness was an example for Christians and was written down for Christian instruction, then the first thing Christians should understand is that the outwardly circumcised nation of Israel was replaced virtually man for man by the mixed circumcised and uncircumcised nation of Israel that is identified by Moses as the children of Israel … figuratively backing up a step so that the significance of Israel being replaced by Israel can be comprehended, a Christian must realize that his or her fleshly body will not enter into the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50), that it is the Christian’s inner self that is analogous to Israel and to the children of Israel that will enter into God’s rest. Thus, the men of Israel, with the children of Israel either being born to them in Egypt or in the wilderness, serve as the shadow and type of a Christian’s inner self, with the children of Israel, born or unborn, serving as the shadow and type of the Christian’s inner self when born of God as a son through the Christian receiving a second breath of life, again, the breath of God [B<,Ø:" 1,@Ø] in the breath of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø].
The men of Israel, in Egypt, that would not listen to the Lord were visible, physical men: they were real people. The already born children of Israel could be seen and were real [in the sense that they physically existed], but the unborn children of Israel could not then be seen, nor did these unborn children seem to exist; they were not real. And so it is with Christians who either are now born of God, with their inner selves made alive through receipt of a second breath of life, or who are not yet born of God through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God.
Christians today—i.e., the inner selves of those who outwardly identify themselves as Christians—are as the men of Israel were in Egypt: they either have an infant son of God already dwelling in their house of flesh, or they have a potential son of God dwelling within themselves. These sons of God will either be like Moses, or will follow Moses. If they are figuratively like Moses, they will flee as fugitives from spiritual Babylon and dwell without honor in the wilderness. If they figuratively follow Moses, they will leave spiritual Babylon at the Second Passover liberation of Israel, with Moses and Aaron forming the spiritually lifeless shadow and type of the two witnesses in the Affliction.
The Affliction, the last 1260 days of the spiritual king of Babylon’s reign over the kingdom of this earth, forms the spiritually lifeless shadow and type of the Endurance, the first 1260 days of the Son of Man’s rule over living creatures, with the spirit of God then being poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) even though Christ Jesus doesn’t return until these 2520 days are completed and all who are to be killed because of the word of God and their testimony have been slain. The man of perdition, a human man possessed by Satan, in the bloody Affliction forms the shadow and copy of Satan the devil being cast to earth and given the mind of a man during the Endurance, when Christ will do most of the killing. Sabbath observance in the Affliction forms the identifying sign of those who are of God; whereas the mark of the beast [P>lr — the tattoo <lr> of Christ’s cross <P>>] forms the identifying sign of those who are of the Antichrist in the Endurance. For what is not common to the period must be marked, and keeping the commands of God will not be common in the Affliction whereas it will be the norm in the Endurance … the saints or holy ones are those human persons who keep the commandments and their faith in Jesus (Rev 14:12).
A sign or signifier takes meaning from its context. While the cross is not a signifier used today by the Sabbatarian Churches of God, the cross is not today the mark of the beast. Only when the Adversary is cast from heaven and comes to earth claiming to be the returned Messiah will the cross be used as a sign/mark of his authority … in the physical example Jesus used of a red sky (Matt 16:2–3), the meaning of the sign is determined by the context [dusk or dawn] in which the sign appears, and so it is with the cross, and with outward circumcision. For when there was only a physical sanctuary, only outward circumcision is necessary. When there is only a spiritual sanctuary, only circumcision of the heart is necessary. But in the Millennium when there is the union of secular and divine, for an Israelite to enter the sanctuary of God the Israelite must be circumcised of heart and circumcised in the flesh (Ezek 44:7, 9) —
Circumcision of the flesh is a shadow and type of circumcision of the heart. And together, circumcision of the flesh and of the heart forms the shadow and copy of what it means to be a glorified human son of God in the heavenly realm.
2.
Because the example of Israel being replaced by Israel (i.e., the children of Israel) was written for the instruction of endtime Christians, no Christian should practice here-a-little-there-a-little exegesis or grammatical exegesis, stated emphatically and without qualification or exception. Every Christian should take meaning from Moses and all of Scripture via typology and typological exegesis, with the visible, physical things of this world forming the shadow and type of the invisible, spiritual things of God.
The Apostle Paul wrote,
I [Paul] am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom 1:14–2o emphasis added)
The outwardly circumcised Jew is the firstborn natural son of the Lord (Ex 4:22); whereas the circumcised-of-heart convert that is either Jew or Greek, male or female, free or bond is the spiritual firstborn son of God, with Christ Jesus being the First of these firstborn sons. The circumcised-of-heart convert is to outwardly circumcised Israel as day is to night, with night preceding day, the hot or light portion of a twenty-four hour period.
Elsewhere Paul wrote,
There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:40–49 emphasis added)
The physical precedes and DOES NOT follow the spiritual things of God—spiritually, night precedes and does not follow day. And because this is so, biblical prophecies about the lands within antediluvian Eden [that is the lands from a little west of the mouth of the Nile to the drainages of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers] reveals what happens to mental landscapes that lead to sin, death, or life … is the preceding too great of a mental step for Christians or non-Christians to make?
Shadows are always in one less dimension than what casts the shadow; hence a spiritually living entity will cast as its shadow a spiritually lifeless entity—
Armies of the physical king of Babylon surrounding, taking captive, and razing earthly Jerusalem forms the dark. lifeless shadow and copy of the spiritual king of Babylon (see Isa 14:4), Satan the devil, taking captive and razing heavenly Jerusalem, the future Bride of Christ. The earthly body of Christ Jesus forms the shadow and copy of the heavenly Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), the born-of-God Christian Church. The earthly temple of God forms the shadow and type of the heavenly temple of God that consists of Christians, individually and collectively (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16).
But in the 1st-Century when Paul wrote, that old serpent Satan the devil, the present prince of this world, hadn’t yet deceived the last Eve, the Christian Church: Christendom was still one Body of one spirit. But this cannot be said of Christendom today: Arian Christians are not one with Trinitarian Christians, and neither Arian nor Trinitarian Christendom are one with the Sabbatarian Church of God. And if Christians were to be judged by their fruit, Arian sects and denominations have far better fruit than does Trinitarian Christendom, and even better fruit than Sabbatarians, which is to the shame of Trinitarians and Sabbatarians.
Ancient Israel dwelling in houses in Egypt prior to their Passover liberation forms the spiritually lifeless shadow and copy of Christians today, prior to the Second Passover liberation of circumcised-of-heart Israel from indwelling sin and death, with the Israelites equating to the inner selves of Christians and with the houses in which they dwelt equating to the fleshly bodies of Christians, and with the blood of bleating Passover lambs smeared on doorposts and lintels equating to the Christian eating the blessed bread and wine that on one night a year [the dark portion of the 14th of Aviv] represents the body and blood of Christ Jesus.
Christians need to understand two other Greek loan words: chirality and enantiomorphs. For Scripture is double-voice discourse, in that Scripture presents a story within a story, with the man Jesus speaking the words of the Father, and with His disciples as types of Moses And Aaron inscribing [writing down] His words as Moses wrote down the words of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the living (Matt 22:32). But the story within a story is twice told, with the second telling being to the first telling as the right hand is to the left hand … the image of the right hand cannot be superimposed on the left hand, but must be revered as in the classic image of man, made in the image of God, looking up to God as God looks down at man. The left hand [man] is the chiral image of the right hand [God], and together, the left and right hands are enantiomorphs, with either the left hand or the right hand being an enantiomer of the other.
An example of chirality is John the Baptist’s hair coat, which was like the hair coat of Elijah, with hair coats being the symbol or identifying marker of a prophet, and indeed, John was to be a prophet like Elijah (Luke 1:12–17). But John’s hair coat was different from Elijah’s: camels are unclean or common animals that Israel was not to touch without washing afterwards. And this difference made all the difference; for John did no miracles yet his camel hair coat disclosed that even after repentance and baptism, the Israelite was still unclean/common, that washing with water did not remove the taint of sin. Thus, John’s baptism conveyed a symbolic message that was not understood by Jesus’ disciples, but was understood by John and Jesus and was the reason why John did not want to baptize Jesus, who actually took on the sins of Israel when He was baptized by John, with His formal acceptance of these sins coming when He entered Jerusalem as the chosen Lamb of God on the weekly Sabbath on the 10th day of the first month in the year He was crucified.
John the Baptist was the non-symmetrical image of the Elijah who was to come according to the prophet Malachi (Mal 4:6) — non-symmetrical in that the Elijah-to-come could not be laid directly over John the Baptist even though one was a type of the other: the unclean source of John’s hair coat prevented John from being the reality of Elijah. Only Christ Jesus who was caught up to heaven in a different manner from how Elijah was caught up to heaven could be the reality of the Elijah-to-come. Yet Jesus wore no hair coat, but had to symbolically borrow from His cousin the symbol of being a prophet, with this form of borrowing being analogous to the definite article for a Greek definite noun being used as a pronoun for the noun as well as being shared by nouns that represent the same entity.
Comprehending the difference between John the Baptist and Elijah, with Jesus connecting these two prophets, is to comprehend the subtleties of double-voice discourse, the most era-appropriate rendering of the figurative signifier <:VP"4D"< *\FJ@:@<> (from Heb 4:12), and a more appropriate conceptualization of Scripture than is a two-lipped sword. For in double-voice discourse, the outside narrator can use the inside narrator to divide physical life [Gentiles] from physical life [Israel], with physical life being metonymically represented by the Greek icon <RLPH> … the preceding thought will cause some to stumble: the inner self [RLP¬] that has not been born of spirit [B<,Ø:"] remains consigned to disobedience and is, therefore, dead, regardless of whether this inner self resides in a tent of flesh that is or isn’t outwardly circumcised. But through the giving of the Law, sin was made alive so that it could be seen and could be revealed as sinful and could be defeated by obedience to God. Until sin is alive and known, sin cannot slay what is already consigned to disobedience and hence clothed in death: a man cannot slay a stone. A man slays a beast or another man. And so it is with sin that cannot slay the dead that bury the dead of themselves (see Matt 8:22). Only when a man is raised from death and given life can this man be slain by sin.
Israel in Egypt was a living nation, but an enslaved nation, with physical enslavement of a physically living person equating to the enslavement [consignment to disobedience] of the inner self of a human person. Thus, Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt forms the shadow and copy of the inner self’s liberation from being consigned to sin and death; for the inner self born of spirit in this present era (that equates to Egypt) is equivalent to the circumcised children of Israel not numbered in the census of the second year. If the person who has been born of spirit is to spiritually live, this person must escape from enslavement to sin and death before this inner self begins to serve sin as its willing slave—and escape from sin and death comes through keeping the commandments, which will inevitably cause the person to dwell in the wilderness outside of spiritual Babylon as Moses dwelt in the land of Midian, herding the sheep of his father-in-law.
In double-voice discourse, the story of dwelling in the wilderness can be told by Moses about himself or about Israel, but in the same telling can be told about the inner selves [souls] of Christians separating themselves from spiritual Babylon and the kingdom of this world. The people of Israel are thus living parables, as are the first disciples who were born of spirit but whose fleshly bodies remained consigned to sin and death … the fleshly bodies of Christians will remain consigned to sin and death, what Paul didn’t understand (see Rom 7:7–25), until the Second Passover liberation of Israel.
What Nicodemus couldn’t imagine—and for what Jesus chided Nicodemus—was the concept of double-voice discourse in which the inside narrator [the man Jesus] can divide physical life from spiritual life, represented by the icon <B<,b:"J@H>. This inside narrator also divides thoughts from intentions of the heart in a manner analogous to how a butcher divides joints and extracts marrow; for the red blood cells that carry oxygen, and by extension life to every cell in the human blood forms in the marrow.
Scripture doesn’t have just one inside narrator: Moses is an inside narrator, as is Joshua and are the prophets. Paul, James, Peter, John and Jude are inside narrators, each writing in first person. The Great Council that began with Ezra as well as Matthew, Mark, and Luke are inside narrators, each more concealed than is, say, Paul, who writes in his own name.
The Bible cannot be anything but double-voice discourse; for linguistic icons/signifiers that are used to name the things of this world cannot directly name the things of heaven, things that are not physical, things that lack mass. The words of this world can only metaphorically represent the things of heaven as the sky overhead that is called heaven can only serve as a metaphor for the third heaven, where stars are angels and light comes from the Most High God. And in double-voiced discourse, attention must be paid to what is present and what is not present that could have been present; for what has been excluded reveals almost as much knowledge as what has been presented. And with virtually no exceptions, Sabbatarian Christians have read Scripture literally even though Jesus told His disciples,
I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. (John 16:25–28)
It wasn’t possible for Jesus’ disciples—prior to when the spirit was given—to understand the figures of speech in which Jesus spoke [understand the metaphors Jesus used], with Jesus functioning as a secondary narrator, with God the Father forming the narrator relating what was written in the heavenly Book of Life, the book in which the lives of disciples form epistles (see 2 Cor 3:3).
Moses wrote, You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you (Deut 4:2), and, Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it (Deut 12:32). But many words have been added to Scripture since Moses wrote; however, Christendom has traditionally considered the Bible a closed text in a manner similar to how rabbinical Judaism considered Scripture a closed text by the end of the 2nd-Century CE, not when Moses wrote that Israel should not add to his words.
To add to the words of the prophecy of Revelation, God will add to the person the plagues described in this book [Revelation] (Rev 22:18). To take away from Revelation will cause God to take away the person’s share in the tree of life (v. 19). But—a huge caveat—if the Book of Joshua is not a deuterocanonical text but a protocanonical text, then not to add to Moses’ words doesn’t mean not to incorporate addition text into Scripture, but means that these additional texts are not to add words that will require Israel to do more than Moses commanded, nor add words that subtract from what Moses commanded. Protocanonical texts will reinforce the words of Moses … if not adding to Moses’ words means the same thing as not adding to John’s words in Revelation, then Scripture is an open canon—and this creates an easily abused situation, for the first Adam did add to what the Lord said, thereby setting both Eve and himself up to fail when the serpent heard Eve say, God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Gen 3:3). The serpent immediately responded, You will not surely die (v. 4), which was true but not the truth in a manner similar to Abram telling Pharaoh that Sarai was his sister. Eve could touch and handle the mingled fruit of the Tree of Knowledge to her heart’s content; she could even eat it for she was covered by her husband’s obedience to the Lord—it was her husband who was told not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Can the fleshly body of a Christian eat pork and not be defiled? Remember the Christian’s fleshly body equates to Eve when the Christian’s inner self equates to Adam, both of whom were driven from the Garden of Eden; i.e., from God’s presence. If the fleshly body ingests pork or lobster, the Christian is not defiled. But if the inner self lusts for pork or lobster or for anything that defiles, regardless of whether this thing is physical as a brother’s spouse is physical or intangible as are spoken words that reveal what is in the heart are not physical, the inner self is defiled and by extension, the outer self is defiled—and the inner and outer selves, analogous to Adam and Eve, are driven from God’s presence and condemned to death.
Therefore, let it here be declared: if a Christian accidently eats what is common or unclean, or eats so as not to offend a person who does not identify what he or she serves the Christian, the inner self that is the Christian does not lust for what defiles and the inner self is not defiled. This is as Jesus declared and as Paul taught; for the outer self remains consigned to sin and death and will perish, returning to the dust of this earth. It is the inner self that is the Christian and that can be defiled by what comes from the heart of man, including lust for pork or lobster or for the neighbor’s spouse.
Apparently Adam didn’t trust Eve to handle the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge but not eat that fruit so additional words were uttered, words intended to keep Eve away from the tree. Adam added to the Lord’s instruction to him, then ceased to believe the Lord when he saw Eve eat and not die. Hence, Christians, and especially Sabbatarian Christians who already believe they possess all truth, must take care how they hear the words of Jesus; for they do not today hear as they ought to hear. Almost without exception, they lack the indwelling of Christ Jesus, a fact in evidence because they can fall away from whatever amount of truth that they find, thus revealing that they were never truly born of God.
The serpent, more subtle than others, understood what Adam feared: if Eve handled the mingled fruit, she would eat the fruit. And she did eat. However, she didn’t die, which was what the serpent told Eve. But, again, seeing Eve eat forbidden fruit and not die apparently caused Adam to question what the Lord had told him, with Adam representing the inner self of a human person … the woman was deceived: she ate because she believed the serpent rather than her husband.
Adam didn’t understand that Eve, as his wife, was “covered” by his obedience as the Christian Church is covered by grace; i.e., by the obedience [righteousness] of the last Adam, Christ Jesus. Thus, when Adam saw Eve eat and not die, he ate—and immediately their covering of obedience was gone. Both knew they were naked: they were naked before, but their covering of obedience functioned as a garment …
The temptation account is considered myth by most Christian scholars, but it functions as a metaphor for the Christian Church which has mingled the sacred [God] and the profane [Greek paganism] to produce another Jesus, one that exemplifies unbelief, one that never existed even though widely worshiped.
Adding-to and subtracting from the words of Moses have caused both Israel, the Woman of Revelation chapter 12, and the offspring of the Woman [the Christian Church] to die spiritually: the temple of God has been spiritually defiled for so long that it cannot remember when it stood before the Lord as a virgin. But as the gates of Hades could not prevail over the earthly body of Christ Jesus even though this earthly body lay dead in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, the gates of Hades will not prevail over the spiritual Body of Christ [the Christian Church — from 1 Cor 12:27].
It is this Second Passover liberation of Israel that was not revealed to 1st-Century disciples, and thus could not have been addressed in their writings just as the nearly two millennia between Calvary and the present era could not have been addressed. The first disciples simply didn’t know what endtime Sabbatarian Christians can know today—and know without adding-to or subtracting from the words of Moses or to the words of John’s vision.
Adam and the last Adam, Christ Jesus (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:45), are enantiomorphs, but as the difference between the left hand and the right hand forms of a chiral molecule can only be seen in polarized light, the reality of Scripture as double-voiced discourse can only be seen by the light of God.
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The Lord tired of the continued violence that sons of Adam employed in attempting to prevail over one another, and He was willing to end humankind’s existence. But the man Noah was a righteous man (Gen 6:9; Ezek 14:14): he was not worthy of death and apparently he was the only one in his generation. So the Lord did not erase humankind from the face of the earth, but saved Noah and the seven with him as a shadow and type of the Lord not wiping out Israel in Egypt or in the wilderness (Ezek 20:1–26).
Noah’s sons would have been sons of righteousness regardless of whether they were themselves righteous men. Thus, the deluge of Noah’s day erased all of humankind from the earth except for the righteous and the sons of righteousness. And because of the dramatic reduction of the world’s human population from many to eight individuals, the people of the world spoke the same language and had the same meaning for words. About this period, the ancients recorded:
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. (Gen 11:1–9)
The bricks that were being made were named by one word only before the Lord confused the languages … the bricks as linguistic objects for the linguistic icon [signifier] used to name them did not change. The bricks were the same bricks before the language was confused as they were after the language was confused. What occurred is that the social link between the word used to name the bricks and the bricks was broken so that many utterances now named the bricks, with the families of the people separating themselves from one another by the words/utterance used to name the bricks.
Ever since the Tower of Babel incident, there has been no agreed upon meaning for the words of a living language, and only scholarly agreement for meaning of words of a dead language such as Latin … Koine [Common] Greek is not a dead-enough language for there to be scholarly agreement as to what its words mean. Although Greek is not a commonly spoken language in German-speaking or English-speaking nations so the cultural drift that affects all languages is small enough the Koine Greek can be treated as a stable language, according to the Apostle Paul, the visible things of this world reveal and precede the invisible things of God, thereby permitting the eye to see and the hand to measure what cannot be seen nor measured by mortal human beings. But what Paul’s words mean varies from Christian to Christian, depending upon whether the Christian has truly been born of spirit as well as how old the infant son of God is spiritually.
Through close reading of Holy Writ the linguistic icons forming the Word of God can be ascertained, and if a person is so inclined, memorized. But the divine assignment of meaning to these icons cannot be known by anyone until the person is raised from death through receipt of a second breath [B<,Ø:"] of life, and the living inner self of this person receives the parakletos, the spirit of truth that reveals to the son of God what has been concealed by the separation of linguistic objects from linguistic icons.
It is even easier to conceal knowledge by using many words than it is to reveal knowledge by these same words; for all assignments of meaning except for one is not of God but is of the Adversary, who functions for the Father as King Nebuchadnezzar functioned for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Father uses the Adversary as a carpenter uses a hammer: the Adversary as the spiritual King of Babylon is simply a living tool that the Father employs to bring His firstfruits into a fullness of belief that is beyond angelic sons of God.
Readers of all texts group themselves into reading communities based upon what meanings [linguistic objects or signifieds] are assigned to words [linguistic icons or signifiers] … words do not have their meanings welded to them. There is no hard link between a word and what the word means within differing reading communities. Code words are no different from any other words if the code is unknown. So Holy Writ is at best half of the Word of God, with the other half or two thirds being supplied by the reader and by the historical community in which the reader resides.
Jesus’ first disciples, in seeing what they saw and in hearing what they heard, believed that the kingdom would come in their lifetimes. Even Paul wrote, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are left alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep … the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess 4:15–17). To them, the evidence—the works that Jesus did—seemed overwhelming. Jesus was the one for whom Israel had long waited. But Jesus didn’t return while Paul lived, or while any of the first disciples lived. The end of the age hadn’t come by the end of the 1st-Century, or by the end of the 20th-Century. The age continues without a readily apparent end although there is now a Zeitgeist evident beyond greater Christendom that reveals the end of the age is near.
The words of human languages name and describe the things of this world and can only metaphorically name and describe the things of God: an angel is a son of God for the angel has but one parent, its Creator, God. A human being raised from death through receipt of a second breath of life, the breath or spirit of God [B<,Ø:" 1,@Ø] in the breath or spirit of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø] is also a son of God, which now introduces a situational problem: if the physical precedes and reveals the spiritual, and if human sons of God that began as physical human beings are to precede angelic sons of God, these human sons of God must be the firstborn sons of God and must have received indwelling heavenly life prior to when angelic sons of God received life, a reality that runs contrary to how Scripture is usually read. But in the preceding is a revelation not available to Christians practicing line-upon-line or grammatical exegesis … Christians receive heavenly life through the indwelling of the breath of Christ, who received indwelling heavenly life directly from God the Father, who was [that is, had indwelling life] before any angel was created.
Every physical man or woman has in the person the breath of life that the first Adam received when Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into this man of mud’s nostrils (Gen 2:7). Likewise, every Christian has within the Christian the heavenly breath of life that the last Adam, Jesus the Nazarene, received when the breath of God descended as a dove on Jesus … the direct translation of the Greek icon <B<,Ø:"> into Latin is <spīritus>, the root of the English word <spirit>, with the Latin icon being usually assigned the meaning of “breath” or “breath of a god.” Thus, the most appropriate English translation of B<,Ø:" would be breath, but translation is an art, not a linguistic science; so seldom can exact translations occur. Usually an icon in one language must shed most of its linguistic objects before it can translated into another language; so a translation is at best a pared-down text.
Heaven is a timeless realm; for time and its passage can be written as mathematical functions of gravity, and by extension, mass. So a heavenly moment functions as a geographical location. And in an unchanging heavenly moment, the presence of life and the absence of life cannot coexist; therefore, to bring an angelic son of God into existence who did not previously have life, a second heavenly moment must be created … the angelic sons of God can never enter the moment [location] when these sons of God didn’t have life; thus, the Adversary as a created anointed guardian cherub can never enter the moment before he was created. He can never ascended the mountain of God, which is analogous to Mount Sinai that Israel could not ascend, that only Moses and Aaron scaled before the Law was given, and that Moses alone scaled afterwards (Joshua only went halfway up).
But because human sons of God have heavenly life in them that comes from the Father through the Son, human sons of God have life in the moment that existed before angelic sons of God were created. Thus, human sons of God precede in birth order angelic sons of God even through they were humanly born long after angelic sons of God were created: they precede angelic sons of god in birth order because the heavenly life that they receive comes directly from the Father through the Son who had the glory/life he had before returned to Him.
Before Satan was, firstborn human sons of God were through having indwelling heavenly life that comes from the moment preceding the moment when angelic sons of God were created. And this is enough for one commentary.
© Homer Kizer
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."