January 31, 2010

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End Notes

“The Synagogue of Satan”

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I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. (Rev 2:9)

Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. (Rev 3:9)

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1.

Paul said that “no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit” (Rom 2:28–29). In his epistle to the saints at Colossae, Paul wrote, “In him [Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh” (2:11). So by Paul’s criteria, Jews are those who are circumcised of heart as promised through Moses to the children of Israel: “‘Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn’” (Deut 10:16), and if by faith you return to the Lord, “‘[t]he Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul [mind], that you may live’” (Deut 30:6).

Circumcision of the heart requires that these hearts be cleansed by faith (Acts 15:9). No distinction pertaining to the flesh is made; for the inner new self is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, free nor bond (Gal 3:28), but is a son of God (Gal 4:6–7). But this inner new self must make a journey of faith equivalent in mental length to Abraham’s physical journey from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan before hearts can be circumcised … the inner new self is, when circumcised of heart, equivalent in spiritual growth to a human infant’s physical growth on the human infant’s eighth day of life. And Abraham physically entering into Canaan is spiritually equivalent to a son of God dwelling in uncircumcised flesh beginning to keep the Sabbath, or equivalent to a son of God dwelling in an outwardly circumcised descendant of the patriarchs professing that Jesus is Lord (cf. Heb 3:16–4:11; Ps 95:10–11; Num chap 14; & Rom 10:6–13).

Again, when the heart is circumcised and the person is no longer stubborn, the inner new self that is a son of God is equivalent in spiritual development to a Hebrew male’s physical development when eight days old … the rabbinical Jew or the Christian scholar whose heart has not yet been circumcised is spiritually far too young to teach anyone about the mysteries of God—either would be as a human infant of less than eight days of age if either has been born of God. Most likely, neither has been born of God, but remains numbered among the dead of this world (see Matt 8:22), with the physically-living dead being as ovum in the womb of the Helpmate.

Therefore, before God Jews are not all of the descendants of Israel or all of the descendants of the tribe of Judah, but are only those human beings who by faith have cleansed their hearts (Acts 15:9) so that they can be circumcised by Christ. And pushing past Paul, those who say that are Jews and are not lie about being circumcised of heart.

2.

If a natural descendant of the tribe of Judah claims to be a Jew [[@L*"Ã@H], this person is not “a Jew” by Paul’s definition unless this person also keeps the commandments and by faith believes that Jesus is Lord. Only by keeping the commandments and professing that Jesus is Lord with the person’s mouth does the natural descendant becomes “a Jew.” Hence, since a person of the nations who by faith believes that Jesus is Lord and by faith keeps the commandments is, according to Paul, “a Jew,” faith of approximately an equal degree is required to be “a Jew”; for it is just as difficult for a Gentile to begin keeping the commandments and living as a Judean as it is for a natural descendant of Israel to believe that Jesus is the Lord. Thus, the uncircumcised person who by faith accepts that Jesus is the Lord and begins to keep the commandments stands on the same theological ground as the natural descendent of the patriarchs who keeps the commandments and professes that Jesus is Lord. Both will be inwardly circumcised Jews although outwardly they will be as the mixed children of Israel were in the plains of Moab: the older children that were then 40–60 years old were circumcised (because they were born in Egypt) whereas the younger children (those less than 40 years old) were uncircumcised because they were born in the wilderness.

No child born in the wilderness was outwardly circumcised until the children of Israel, following Joshua [in Greek, [0F@Ø—Jesus], crossed the Jordan (Josh 5:2–7).

Between the 10^th day of the first month when paschal lambs were selected and penned, the day when the children of Israel followed Joshua across the Jordan (Josh 4:19), and the 14^th day of the first month, Israel was outwardly circumcised as the natural, infant son of the Lord. Israel was circumcised so the nation could eat the Passover on the plains of Jericho as Jesus, the reality of Abraham, ate the Passover (Matt 26:18) before He was sacrificed as the selected Lamb of God … Abraham and his descendants were circumcised, with this circumcision continuing down through the generations to Moses and to all of the men of war who had died in the wilderness. Except for Joshua and Caleb, all of Israel numbered in the census of the second year perished in the wilderness because of unbelief. Even though as a spy Caleb represented the tribe of Judah, Caleb was not a natural Jew but was of Esau. He had by faith attached himself to Israel, suffering in Egypt those things that Israel suffered before the Exodus. Thus in the personages of Joshua and Caleb, the two sons of promise [Esau and Jacob] born to Isaac were represented Israel.

In Paul’s allegorical representation of the covenants, one from Mount Sinai and manifested in present day Jerusalem, and one from the Jerusalem above, Paul identified 1^st-Century disciples as Isaac (Gal 4:21–31), an identification that has Jesus being the reality of Abraham (Gal 3:29). But Isaac is not Jacob/Israel. In his allegory, another generation of sons of promise remained to be born.

What Paul didn’t know by his own admission was why sin continued to dwell in his fleshly members (Rom 7:15); he knew that sin continued to reside in his body even though his mind had been set free from bondage to disobedience. He realized that a war was being fought within him between the law of God in his mind and the law of sin and death that continued in his flesh (vv. 21–25). He understood that when the law came, sin was made alive (vv. 8–9). But he did not know that there would be a second Passover liberation of Israel.

In his first epistle [letter] to the Thessalonians, Paul writes,

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And 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, and so we will always be with the Lord. (4:14–17 emphasis added)

Paul did not realize that he would die long before Jesus would return. Even in visiting the timeless third heaven, Paul failed to grasp that both he and the Body of Christ would die before Jesus would return to resurrect both, the Body first then those saints who remained spiritually alive. So what Paul writes is correct, only he writes without understanding, without realizing that the physically dead saints he references form the shadow and type of the spiritually dead endtime Body of Christ, and that he, as one who remains alive, forms the shadow and type of the few endtime disciples who today possess indwelling life.

It wasn’t Isaac that went down into Egypt, but Jacob; and it wasn’t a spiritual Isaac that returned to sin in the 1^st-Century CE, but a spiritual Jacob. So it will not be a spiritual Isaac that leaves spiritual Babylon when the Body of Christ is restored to life [because the gates of Hades cannot prevail over the assembly of the Lord], nor will it be a spiritual Jacob. It will be the spiritual children of Jacob. It will be those who are Jews and those who say they are Jews but are not. It will not be twelve physical tribes, but seven churches, each the reality of a 1^st-Century shadow on the Roman mail route through Asia Minor. And as seven pairs of clean animals and a single pair of every unclean species entered the ark with the Eight to cross from one world into the next, the seven endtime churches (represented in the personage of Joshua) and one assembly of every other denomination and sect (represented in the personage of Caleb), along with the glorified Christ Jesus and the angels to the seven churches, will cross from this present world into the world-to-come.

The Second Passover will see the Body of Christ restored to life.

3.

Although most Christian scholars contend that what Jesus meant when He said the gates of Hades would not prevail against the Church was that the Church would never die, comprehending what Jesus meant first requires comprehending the construction of the Church:

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed. (Matt 16:1–4)

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. (vv. 13–20)

Translation into English conceals much: Peter is not the son of Jonah [#"D4T<�], but the son of John [LÊÎH [TV<<@L — from John 1:42] or Simon of John [E\:T< [TV<<@L — from John 21:15–17]. In the name Jonah [[T<�], aspiration or “breath” comes after the nasal consonant “n,” written in Greek as the icon “<”; whereas in the name John [[TV<], aspiration or breath comes before the nasal consonant. Linguistically, an “h” or “ah” represents aspiration. Thus, Jesus will build His church on the movement of breath from in front of, or through the nose to behind the nose, as seen in His declaration, You are Peter [AXJD@H—Petros], and on this rock [BXJD‘—petra] I will build my church. To utter AXJD@H the lips are puckered and breath is exhaled whereas to utter BXJD‘ the mouth is opened and breath is exhaled.

The literal meaning assigned to the name Jonah is “dove,” with this meaning incorporated in the breath of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] descending upon the man Jesus as a dove (Matt 3:16) … the usual assignment of meaning to the Greek word B<,Ø:"—pneuma pertains to moving air as in deep breath or wind, with the Greek icon B<,Ø:" forming the root of pneumatic tools and pneumonia. The direct translation of B<,Ø:" into Latin is spīritus, with the usual assignment of meaning being “breath” or “breath of a god.” Thus, the breath of the Father being represented as a dove—as Jonah—compounds the importance of Jesus calling Peter E\:T< #"D4T<�—Simon Bar-Jonah; for Peter had become (or would be), via the Father revealing to Peter knowledge that could not be otherwise known (Matt 16:17), a son of the Father through receipt of His divine breath.

The great fish of the Book of Jonah was, if literal, most likely a whale, which doesn’t breathe through the front of its face but through a blowhole at the back of its head (again, the movement of breath from the nose to inside the head). The man Jonah, returned to life after being in “‘the belly of Sheol” (Jonah 2:2), can be likened to the inner new self trapped in or dwelling in a tent of flesh: the giving of life to Jonah while he was in the belly of the great fish would have human life dwelling inside animal life as a shadow and type of spiritual life [a son of God] dwelling inside human life, with the life-giving oxygen needed for human life coming from the blowhole of the whale as the life-giving breath of God coming to the inner new self from where the dove lit on the man Jesus’ head or shoulders.

But according to tradition, the prophet Jonah was the lad that the prophet Elijah raised to life; Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath … the glorified Jesus of Nazareth is the last Elijah. Thus, as the first Elijah lay over the dead lad three times before the boy breathed on his own, the last Elijah will lay over the Church built on “Jonah,” the breath of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø], three times before this spiritual corpse will again breathe on its own, with the third time concluding in the Second Passover liberation of Israel.

In giving the sign of a red sky as a sign that was understood by Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus introduced that concept that the same sign in two differing setting (evening versus morning) had diametrically opposed meanings assigned to the sign … meaning is assigned to all signs by the auditor, the one reading or hearing the sign. Words are signs, and as such auditors must assign meanings to words. Ever since the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel, signs [words] and the objects represented by these signs have been separated—the bricks being used to construct the tower did not change when the Lord confused the languages so each family could not understand the speech of another family. What changed was what each family called these same bricks. Thus, utterance and the meaning for the utterance were separated. This separation was not of humankind, but was given to humankind by the Lord in anticipation of only those human beings hearing the voice of the Lord being able to attach His meanings to the common words of Scripture.

About not being able to assign meaning to Jesus’ words, Matthew records,

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

“You will indeed hear but never understand,

and you will indeed see but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown dull,

and with their ears they can barely hear,

and their eyes they have closed,

lest they should see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their heart

and turn, and I would heal them.”

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. (13:10–17)

The ancient nation of Israel could not understand Scripture because this nation could not assign the Lord’s meanings to the words received from Moses and the prophets. The nation did not hear the voice of the Lord; it was not time for Israel to hear. For to hear the words of the Lord requires that the person believe the writings of Moses and hear the voice of Jesus (John 5:46–47) … a person who does not believe the writings of Moses cannot hear the voice of Jesus, and no person can believe God who does not hear the words of Jesus (v. 24). Thus, the person who rejects either Moses or Jesus does not have indwelling eternal life, but has come under judgment, with an hour coming when the dead will hear the Son of Man’s voice and those who have done good will be resurrected to life while those who have done evil will be resurrected to condemnation (vv. 28–29).

The sign of Jonah is like the red sky in that it is context-specific. And the Church Jesus built is based upon the movement of breath from physical breath that enters through the nose to spiritual breath that enters the heart and mind as if the inner new self “breathed” the breath of God through an invisible blowhole.

4.

To the saints at Corinth, Paul wrote, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor 12:27) … crucifixion kills by suffocation; by preventing the person from breathing. The earthly body of Jesus of Nazareth died on the stake from shock and suffocation, with the wound in His side affirming His death. And the Church that Jesus built (i.e., the Body of Christ); the Assembly of God built on the movement of breath from outside [the nose] to inside also died from loss of its living-giving breath, the breath of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø].

Paul wrote,

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. (Rom 1:18–20 emphasis added)

And,

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. (1 Cor 15:44–48 emphasis added)

The physical body of the man Jesus came from the first Adam and reveals through its visibility what can be known about the invisible Christ, both Head and Body. And as the physical body died at Calvary from suffocation through crucifixion, the spiritual Body died from loss of the Holy Spirit [B<,Ø:" ž(4@<] with the death of the Apostle John (ca 100–102 CE, exact date not known).

But as the gates of Hades did not prevail against the physical body of Jesus, the gates of Hades will not prevail against the spiritual Body of Christ: the sign of Jonah includes as its physical type the resurrection of the earthly body of Jesus after three earthly days and three earthly nights, but as the context for the red sky changes from dusk to dawn, changing the meaning of the sign from fair weather to threatening weather, the sign of Jonah as it pertains to the spiritual Body of Christ also changes from the quiet times since Calvary (times that haven’t been all that quiet and peaceful) to being the harbinger for the last seven years of tribulation once the Body of Christ breathes on its own following the Second Passover restoration of the Church.

5.

The person who is not a natural descendant of the patriarchs and who does not keep the commandments will not claim to be “a Jew,” even if this person professes to be a Christian. This person will mentally separate Jews from Christians as if separating goats from sheep, and will mentally identify him or herself as a Christian and with Christians who live as Gentiles, not as Judeans.

However, if a Jew is not a biological descendant of the patriarch Abraham but an offspring according to promise (Gal 3:29), then a Christian is a Jew or Judean [[@L*"Ã@H]. And the son of God who will not claim to be a Judean and will not live as a Judean denies Christ Jesus and will be denied by Christ Jesus before the Father, who in turn will cut away the person (John 15:2). And it is through 1^st-Century disciples being cut away that the Body of Christ died from loss of spiritual breath.

A Christian who claims to be an offspring of Abraham according to promise, regardless of whether actually born of God or only posing in this world as a son of God, consciously or unconsciously claims to be a Jew even when the Christian rejects the thought of being a Judean, rejecting those things that would cause the Christian to be identified as a Judean. Therefore, of all Christians only Sabbatarians reject neither Christ Jesus as rabbinical Judaism rejects Christ, nor reject those things that outwardly identify Judeans such as keeping the commandments, especially observing the weekly and annual Sabbaths of God, and eating clean meats. Of all peoples, only Sabbatarians Christians born of God, with hearts cleansed by faith and circumcised by spirit, are Jews, according to Paul.

The natural descendants of the patriarchs are not “naturally” born of God; thus, when they claim to be Jews they tell the truth only in this world. Because they have no living inner self, their hearts cannot be circumcised. They are stubborn and self-willed because they know no other way. Therefore, if a person were to stop here and say that the synagogue of Satan is the synagogues of this world, the person would tell the truth but would not hear Jesus’ voice; for Christ will not make the natural descendants come and bow before Philadelphia. The theological distance between rabbinical Judaism and Philadelphia today is too great from Judaism to even know that Philadelphia exists. And after the Second Passover, rabbinical Judaism will not identify the sudden death of firstborns as the sixth Trumpet Plague as Christian false prophets will. Rabbinical Judaism will not immediately know what has happened, and when the reality sets in, most of rabbinical Judaism will have perished in another Holocaust.

When the Lord sent Israel into captivity, delivering the northern tribes [the house of Israel] into the hand of the Assyrians and the southern tribes [the house of Judah] into the hand of the Chaldeans, Israel as a whole did not return to the Lord by faith and was not returned to Judea by the Lord even though a remnant did return to Jerusalem by decree of Cyrus, the Persian king of Babylon [see Ezra 5:13 for Cyrus being king of Babylon]; this remnant did not return from Babylon because, when in a far land, they had returned to the Lord their God with heart and mind (Deut 30:1–2). Rather, this remnant returned as serfs to build for Cyrus a house for God. This remnant was not a free people, and the temple the remnant built was never completed even though it was dedicated in 516 BCE and needed to be restored in the days of Herod; for the temple the remnant built lacked having the Ark of the Covenant in its Holy of holies. The glory of the Lord did not return; so the high priest could never make an atonement for the people but could only deceive the people … Antiochus Epiphanes IV did not remove the Ark of the Covenant from the Holy of holies so that a statue of Zeus could be installed, but ordered that Zeus be placed in an empty chamber.

From the perspective of the Father and Son, the natural descendants of the patriarchs are not Jews; so these natural descendants satisfy passages about those who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie (Rev 3:9). But these natural descendants merely form the visible shadow and copy of a spiritual reality: it is Sabbatarian Christians not circumcised of heart that form the reality of what the Lamb tells the angels of Smyrna and Philadelphia about the synagogue of Satan.

If a person numbered among the nations—a Gentile—accepts Christ Jesus as the person’s Savior, and turns to the Lord, loving the Lord with heart and mind, and begins to obey the Lord in all that He commanded Moses on the plains of Moab, the person makes a mental journey of faith from this world [Babylon], from sin [Egypt], to the plains of Moab where the person must choose life or death by either following Jesus [in Greek, [0F@Ø — written the same in Greek as Joshua is written] into God’s rest or remaining where the person stands in figurative Moab, and no Moabite shall enter the kingdom. Most of visible Christendom (all Christians who observe Sunday as the Sabbath) do not cross into God’s rest, represented by Sabbath observance; most Christians remain behind in Moab, which is the significance of the two and a half tribes of Israel that settled on the east side of the Jordan. From every sect and denomination of Sunday Christendom will come a single fellowship into fellowship with the Lord as a single pair of every unclean species of animals entered the Ark in Noah’s day.

The one truly visible sect of Sabbatarian Christians is the Seventh Day Adventists, a sect that does not take the Passover sacraments nor keeps the high Sabbaths of God. Therefore, in the analogy of ancient Israel visibly representing Christians’ invisible journey of faith, Adventists would be as children of Israel who crossed the Jordan, but who did not eat the first Passover in Canaan because they were not circumcised; they would be as children of Israel who balked at cutting away foreskins with flint knives. And because most Adventists today have grown to maturity in Adventist households, adult Adventists with very few exceptions have made no journey of faith; they have not cleansed their hearts by faith so that they can be circumcised; they are not circumcised of heart. And if they claim to be Jews when their hearts have not been circumcised, they would lie and would form a synagogue of Satan.

But because Adventists do not take the Passover sacraments on the dark portion of the 14^th of Abib, their firstborns will perish when the death angel passes over the land at the midnight hour of the long spiritual night that began at Calvary—the midnight hour comes when humankind can get no farther from God, and that hour is at hand. The death of their firstborns will convince many that they should reject the errant prophetic teachings of Ellen G. White, a Jezebel. The younger generations of the sect will be teachable and will form one of the seven endtime churches named in John’s vision. Thus, the Adventists do not constitute the reality for which rabbinical Judaism serves as the shadow and type [the left hand enantiomer].

Based upon what Paul writes about circumcision of the heart and about what Jeremiah records about the Lord punishing those who are not circumcised of heart (Jer 9:25–26), the natural descendants of the patriarchs who claim to be Jews but are not (because they do not have circumcised hearts) as well as Sabbatarian Christians who claim to be Jews but are not (also because they do not have circumcised hearts) form merely the shadow and type for what John records in his vision. Thus, the invisible reality of the synagogue of Satan is seen in type by the natural Jews and by second generation (or later) Sabbatarian Christians. The reality consists of Sabbatarian Christians who have made a journey of faith and have received circumcised hearts and who were Jews, according to Paul definition, but who have for some reason denied Christ and are no longer Jews but servants of the Adversary.

Only under exceptional circumstances can a person “convert” twice: the human mind is apparently hardwired to convert only once from the ideology the person held as true when maturing. If a person grew up as a Roman Catholic, the person can be persuaded that the Pope is not God’s representative here on earth and that the early Church did not have the authority to change the Sabbath from the 7^th day of the week to the 1^st-day. But once this person becomes fully convinced that he or she ought to be a Sabbatarian, the person will not be easily convinced to give up the Sabbath. It is really only the double-minded person, unstable in all his or her ways, who will return to Sunday observance. However, the person who grew up in a Sabbatarian household can be relatively easily convinced to cease observing the Sabbath and begin to worship on another day, the reason why Sabbatarian fellowships have difficulty retaining the second or third generations of their youth.

The Muslim who converts to Sunday Christianity will not be easily convinced to return to Islam or to convert to Sabbatarian Christendom. And to be a Sunday Christian is to be as far from God as a pious Muslim is. Hence, very few conversions from Islam to Christianity are seen today. These conversion have been reserved by the Father and Son for the seven endtime years of tribulation—and they will occur in wholesale quantities; in such numbers that a third of humanity will become the firstfruits of God after the Christian Church rebels against God on day 220 of the Tribulation.

The synagogue of Satan in the Tribulation will not consist of those Christians who today have not been born of God, but of those who have been. This synagogue will consist of those Sabbatarians who “converted” from the ideology of their youth to Sabbath observance; for it is only the Sabbatarian churches of God that are today Jews and that will claim that they are Jews even after rejecting Christ.

6.

The seventy weeks prophecy that Daniel received (Dan 9:24–27) has been “studied” to death: it has been given several problematic physical applications, with at least five differing starting dates. But when the person understands that “Christ,” Head and Body, forms the reality of the temple of God, then the prophecy becomes about the three times the last Elijah lays over the dead Body of Christ to restore life to this corpse. The seventieth week concludes with Christ Jesus’ return, and if the popular day-for-a-year schema is used, the prophecy begins 490 years before the Second Advent.

The principle problem disciples have had in understanding the prophecy is the prevailing Christian dogma that the Church Jesus built would not die as Jesus’ body on the cross died, that what happened to His earthly body would not happen to His spiritual Body. This dogma comes from not understanding that the visible things of this world (of which Jesus’ earthly body was one such thing) really do reveal the invisible things of God. Therefore, when blindfolds are removed so that disciples can walk in light as sons of God, disciples understand that the seventy weeks prophecy begins when Christ initiated the restoration of life to the Church and will end when the Son gives life to whom He will by causing the perishable flesh of disciples to put on immortality.

Because endtime disciples have the perspective of history, these disciples can assign meaning to the Protestant Reformation and the Radical Reformers and the Sabbatarian Anabaptist Andreas Fischer, but in any assignment of meaning, no exact date for the beginning of the 490 years is self-evident. Therefore, picking a year as an example year accurate to within a few years, if the conversion of Fischer to Sabbath observance came when the last Elijah initially breathed life back into the corpse of “Jonah,” then 490 years later would come in the spring of 2018, and the seven endtime years of tribulation would begin with the second Passover in 2011. Satan would be cast from heaven on Halloween 2014.

If the Second Passover were to occur in, say, 2011, then the great falling away of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 would come on or about Christmas day; this would be the opening of the fifth seal. And the wrath of the Lamb (i.e., the sixth seal) would begin on or about the December solstice in 2012. This wrath comes because of how many genuine disciples have been killed by, mainly, their brothers, fellow Christians who are as Cain was.

Christians, however, will contend that “‘concerning that day and hour [of the Second Advent] no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man’” (Matt 24:36–37) … and Noah entered the Ark on the 10^th day of the second month, the day on which the paschal lamb for the second Passover would be penned. The Flood came on the 17^th day of the second month.

Returning to the citation of Matthew chapter 16 in the third section of this paper, Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, because, according to Jesus, the Father had revealed that knowledge to Peter.

The date and hour of Christ Jesus’ return is known by the Father and can be revealed to whomever the Father decides should have or needs to have the knowledge.

When Noah was nearing completion of the Ark, Noah knew that the day and hour of the Flood was at hand. When animals began arriving, Noah could better pinpoint when the Flood would begin. And so it is with endtime disciples: when the visions of Daniel were unsealed, beginning in 2002 (exactly 40 years to the day and hour from when revelation was rejected by the then most visible sect of the Sabbatarian churches of God), endtime disciples knew that the time of the end was truly at hand—

But the unsealing of Daniel’s visions was rejected by those Sabbatarian Christians who held to the prophetic teachings of Ellen G. White or Herbert W. Armstrong. And in the case of Armstrong’s disciples, considerable slander has rattled through the Sabbatarian community, with the rattling sounding more like the buzzing of a beaten serpent than the tinkling of a baby rattle.

7.

With few exceptions Armstrong’s disciples deny that they have been born of spirit, or born again, or born anew, or born from above—but they wrongly claim that they have not been born of God. Again with few exceptions, Armstrong’s disciples “converted” to their present beliefs, and in the process of converting, they mentally journeyed from Babylon to Judea, then on to Jerusalem, where they turned their backs to God and began to idolize a man, God’s essential endtime man as they call Armstrong.

Whereas visible Christians claim to be born of spirit and often claim to be filled with spirit when they have not been so born, disciples in the Sabbatarian churches of God do not claim to be born of spirit because they cannot pass the pin test. They do not understand spiritual birth; Herbert Armstrong never understood spiritual birth. And in their idolatry of the man, they separate themselves from the Father and the Son as if they were ancient Israelites standing with their backs to the temple, worshiping the rising sun (Ezek 8:16).

Even though Armstrong’s disciples are more honest with Scripture than are Evangelical Christians, they are equally blind spiritually. They are without understanding, and they seem to take pride in ignorance. They profess to be rich spiritually when in reality they are poor, wretched bastards, claiming to be Jews while denying that they are presently the living sons of God; claiming to be descendants of Abraham when they are not natural descendants (although some claim an unprovable ancestry). Their many fellowships derive from a common ideology and are coalescing back into a gelatinous mass that resembles molded Jello into which a can of fruit cocktail has been stirred, with the grapes being sects such as the United Church of God or the Living Church of God or the Restored Church of God or Church of God, an International Community, with the mushy lumps of peaches being unnamed Sacred Names sects, and with the bright cherry being the Church of God, Seventh Day.

Perhaps Armstrong was the most influential Sabbatarian teacher of the 20^th-Century CE, but he held that as long as a person was flesh and blood, the person was not born of spirit; the person was merely begotten of God. But begotten embryos or fetuses are not fed milk, let alone solid food. Paul records, “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it” (1 Cor 3:1–2). The writer of Hebrews says, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (5:12–14).

Again, Armstrong did not understand spiritual birth, or the plan of God. Thus, Armstrong and his disciples’ denial of their own spiritual birth constituted blasphemy against the spirit [B<,Ø:"] that gave to each eternal life in Christ Jesus. Even though they were raised from the dead by the Father and given a second breath of life, they denied their birth and this denial comes after hearts were circumcised after being cleansed by faith. And it is from these Sabbatarian disciples and their theological descendants—each denying that they are today sons of God, but each claiming to be a spiritual Jew—that those who will bow before Philadelphia come during the Tribulation.

The Philadelphia Church is a Sabbatarian sect, but if the synagogue of Satan is to bow to Philadelphia then Philadelphia is not part of the synagogue of Satan … Philadelphians differs from other Sabbatarian Christians in that they keep the word [JÎ< 8`(@<—the logos] of the endurance [JH ßB@:@<H] of Christ [:@L—of me] (Rev 3:10). But to kept this word or message of the Endurance requires that Philadelphians have the spirit of prophecy which is the testimony of Christ (cf. Rev 12:17; 19:10), a euphemistic expression for understanding prophecy. And it is Philadelphians’ understanding of prophecy that separates this Sabbatarian sect from all other such sects.

John says that he is the brother and partner of Christ’s bondservants in the affliction and kingdom and endurance [ßB@:@<±]. It is this Endurance that has been ignored by Sabbatarians teachers (or unknown to these teachers) who acknowledge only a 1260 day period of tribulation.

The synagogue of Satan slanders or blasphemies the Church in Smyrna, the church without works; thus, by extension the Church in Smyrna is not a part of those who say they are Jews but are not. Neither Philadelphia nor Smyrna has theologically descended from the Sabbatarian Churches of God most familiar to other Sabbath-keepers. Nor does Thyatira descend from the Church of God, Seventh Day.

The theological ancestry of Philadelphia is known; the work that Philadelphia does is also known. And the identity of those who constitute the synagogue of Satan is known: every Sabbatarian Christian who denies his or her own spiritual birth will, unfortunately, see the death of the inner son of God at or before the Second Passover when spiritually lifeless Christians are born filled with spirit. And because of the death of these inner firstborn sons of God, these disciples will have no choice but to serve Satan during the Tribulation.

If Sabbatarian Christians would cover the inner firstborn son of God by taking the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed; if Sabbatarian disciples would not deny Christ by denying that the Logos who entered His creation as His only Son, the man Jesus, was the creator of all that has been made; if these Sabbatarians would not deny their own spiritual birth, then perhaps they would not deliver themselves to the Adversary as his angry servants during the Tribulation, for those who say they are Jews but lie do not come willingly to Philadelphia but are made to come and bow by God as their last acts before being cast into the lake of fire.

The relationship between either Philadelphia or Smyrna and those Sabbatarian Christians that mock Christ by denying they are born of God must necessarily disintegrate into these Sabbatarians slandering genuine disciples. They will not be taught by anyone. As a result, they become the enemies of Christ: they sincerely believe they alone possess the truth as delivered by whom they have labeled as God’s essential endtime man, but they understand little when they should be pillars. Hence, in their jealousy they will present considerable danger to both Philadelphia and Smyrna throughout the Tribulation, but they will not be around when the Endurance begins.

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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."

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