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August 16, 2008 Printable/viewable PDF
format for browsers that do not support Greek or Hebrew characters End Notes Thoughts about Lamentations Its authorship unknown though usually attributed to the prophet
Jeremiah, “Lamentations” is composed of five separate poems, the
first four of which are easily recognized as acrostic; i.e., the first verse
begins with aleph, the second with beth, and so on
through the Hebrew 22-letter alphabet, a structure that when united with
Hebraic dark to light, physical to spiritual movement within thought couplets
demands a highly disciplined used of language, what Israel was not then in the
habit of practicing. God is worshiped in language that becomes behavior:
conscious thoughts are in a human “language,” usually the first
language learned. Conscious thoughts are unknowable apart from these thoughts being
expressed in language; they do not produce “meaning” apart from
being inwardly uttered. For communication from the subconscious to the
conscious mind to occur, those things about which the subconscious has
awareness (e.g., danger, or the near presence of prey) must be expressed in
thoughts that are in a language—it is rare for the subconscious mind to
effect bodily actions without communication occurring in a human language
between the subconscious and conscious mind. The question of
whether thought exists apart from being expressed in a human language is
answerable by whether a linguistic object exists apart from the object meaning
“named” by a linguistic icon [a word either uttered or inscribed]
… the icon is not the linguistic object. The two, icon and object, are
wedded together by the element of thirdness, or by a historic trace in that the uttered sound historically has represented the
particular object. Now flipping speech over, the mirror image of speech is that
thoughts are like linguistic objects. They are named or expressed in language;
i.e., in linguistic icons. The incidences where the subconscious mind—thoughts
not expressed or expressible in language—directly effect bodily movement
usually occur in life-threatening situations where the body makes a sudden
movement such as ducking without linguistically expressed thought preceding
that movement. Whether thought expressed in a human language actually occurred
at hyperspeed before the movement was made becomes
debatable for the movement cannot be replicated upon demand. Regardless, conscious
thoughts are in human languages, and language use organizes conscious thoughts;
so the highly structured and restrictive use of language necessary to write
acrostic poetry calls for the conscious mind to discipline itself and to
“pull” an appropriate word forth upon demand, with the mind
forsaking all other words. Lamentations is
now, by its structure, a protest against the manner in which Equally sloppy
worship of the Father and the Son as that of ancient Jesus told the
Samarian woman, “‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when
neither on this mountain nor in God is spirit [B<,Ø:"] (John 4:24), and the new creature born of spirit
[B<,b:"J@H] is spirit [B<,Ø:"] and is like the wind [B<,Ø:"] (John 3:5–8) or like deep breath [B<,Ø:"] … the Greek word (linguistic icon) for
moving air as in wind or deep breath is /B<,Ø:"—pneuma/,
which forms the root of English words like pneumatic
and pneumonia. But God isn’t
the wind, or so much hot air. The Greek icon /B<,Ø:"/ seeks to name what can be felt as a
“real” force but a force not seen in this world. It doesn’t
seek to name an emotion or a feeling and certainly not a person, but a
“real” invisible force that can move ships and tear down buildings
and carry the clouds where they go. Therefore, no other Greek word or
linguistic icon better describes the “invisibleness” of the Father,
who was not like the gods [2,@4] of the Greek pantheon in that they would appear
as mortal men or women, shapeshift, disappear
suddenly, and generally behave as juvenile delinquents. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is offered immortality as a god and the
companionship of the beautiful nymph Calypso, but even after visiting the land
of the dead and seeing their utter helplessness, he rejects immortality in favor
of returning home to his wife. Thus, the real force and power of wind stood in
direct opposition to the utter helplessness of the deflated shades that
Odysseus met in his journey into the underworld. Even following later
[Plato’s era] Greek improvements in their understanding of the afterlife,
Greeks believed the immortal souls of men were helpless to resist their fate. To
Greeks, death left men alive but powerless to effect changes to their fate. So
no better Greek word or icon existed to convey the real force and unlimited
power of the Father or of those who are disciples than the Greek icon used for
“wind.” Hence, disciples of Christ Jesus who have been born again
or a born a second time are born of “B<,Ø:",” receiving the earnest [as in “earnest
money”] of this force and power within the “tent of flesh”
that will put on immortality (or perish) when judgments are revealed upon
Christ’s return. To worship the
Father in spirit [B<,b:"J4], now, isn’t to worship Him with one’s
breath, for this could be done on any mountain or in any city; rather, what
cannot be done on any mountain or in any city, including earthly Jerusalem, is
to walk as He would walk, a walk that requires the person to be like the
Father, with Jesus revealing the Father to His disciples (John 14:9–10).
A person must be of the same composition (i.e., of the same substance) as the
Father before the person can walk as the Father walks: the new creature born of
the Father’s “breath” in a manner foreshadowed by Elohim breathing life into the man of
mud (Gen 2:7) and foreshadowed by the Holy Spirit [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] descending as a dove to light on the man Jesus,
is of the same composition as the Father and the Son. This new creature is not
the tent of flesh in which it dwells, and this is where most Christians go
wrong. The new creature is as Jonah was when he was in the whale, or as a
physically circumcised Israelite was in a house in The delusion the
Lord sent over the Church so that it could not have life causes the Church to
label as heresy the teaching that disciples are literal sons of God, younger
siblings to Christ Jesus, such is the completeness of their delusion. Within
Sabbatarian Christendom, using a straight pin the Church pricks the finger of a
“disciple”—the finger bleeds, and the Church then argues that
since flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, the disciple has
not yet been born of spirit but is only begotten … fetuses don’t
drink milk, and Paul fed the saints at Corinth milk (1 Cor
3:2 — cf. 1 Cor
3:1–3; Heb 5:11–14). Besides, Paul writes that “in Christ
Jesus you [Galatians] are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as
were baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for
you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26–28). The tent of flesh
that will not enter heaven is male or female. The new creature is not, but is a
son of God. Hence, this new creature is not the tent of flesh, which
didn’t die at baptism. It was the old self, the old nature within the
tent of flesh that was crucified with Christ and died in a watery grave—as
the prophet Jonah died (Jon 2:5–6)—at baptism. The body [Fä:"] merely got wet. But being of the
same substance as the Father and the Son is not enough. A cat or a chimpanzee
is composed of flesh that is like the flesh [Fä:"] of a human being, but neither walks as a person
walks, so it isn’t enough to be merely born of “spirit—B<,Ø:".” The person who will walk like the Father
walks, imitating the Father as a son imitates a human father, will walk as
Jesus walked (1 John 2:3–6) or as Paul instructed the saints at Corinth,
“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor
11:1). This imitation of the Father is “worship” of the Father, and
will cause the born anew disciple to “worship” the Father in
spirit, leaving the disciple to still worship the Father in
“truth.” Jesus told His
disciples that He had only spoken to them in figurative language (John 16:25):
the seemingly invisibility and limitless power of wind occurs only in the lower
atmosphere of the earth. The Father is not of this world, or of the four
unfurled dimensions. So the icon /B<,Ø:"/can only metaphorically describe the Father.
Likewise, the icon /B<,Ø:"/can only metaphorically describe the new creature
that dwells within the tent of flesh of the old self or old man, but in
metaphorically describing both God and the new creature the Greek icon /B<,Ø:"/ conveys what “spirit” does not in
English, and that is the range of power from the delicateness of rising air
seen in heat shimmer to the force of a tornado uprooting trees and ripping
apart buildings. Most disciples do not think in terms of having unlimited power
when born of “spirit” … the direct translation of pneuma from Greek into Latin is spīritus
(both usually meaning “breath”), which becomes in English “spirit,”
which doesn’t mean breath. The evidence of
Christian life is that disciples have very limited power in this world, but
Jesus said that if faith were quantified and if a disciple had the amount of a
mustard seed (which is no significant amount) then the disciple could say
“‘to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it
will move, and nothing will be impossible for [the disciple]’”
(Matt 17:20) … the “mountain” being referenced was not a
rocky ridge, but a demon that Jesus’ disciples could not cast out. The
context for having the faith of a mustard seed was the casting out of a demon,
just as the context for Jesus saying when His disciples showed Him the temple, “‘Truly,
I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not
be thrown down’” (Matt 24:2), was the casting down of the Levitical
priesthood. The temple mount
Herod built was apparently square and not dimensions that exist today of the
archeological remains of the temple mount; thus, the Wailing Wall is probably
not the remains of the second temple, but the remains of the temple Simon Bar Kokhba started but
was unable to finish. Therefore, the literal stones of Herod’s temple might
have been all cast down, but it wasn’t a physical temple that Jesus built
in three days (John 2:19–22). Rather, it was a changed priesthood, with
disciples as part of the firstborn son of God forming this temple (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16).
The firstborn sons of the Father are living stones (1 Pet 2:4–5) that
have replaced the earthly temple inside of which the Levitical priesthood
served. Therefore, within Jesus’ metaphorical use of language, living
entities in the heavenly realm are stones and mountains—and disciples can
move “stones” and “mountains” when these stones & mountains are other
disciples [i.e., lawless disciples] and demons. Disciples with the faith of a
mustard seed can forgive or withhold forgiveness of sins (John 20:23), thereby
sending a stone or a mountain into the lake of fire with
denied forgiveness uttered by the disciple. Since the new
creature is of heaven those things that pertain to the new creature are also of
heaven. This includes stones and mountains, with disciples themselves being
living stones and Christ Jesus being both the cornerstone (Isa 28:16) and
capstone of the house of God. And if Jesus is the stone the builders rejected
(1 Pet 2:7; Ps 118:22), a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense (Rom 9:33;
Isa 8:14), with this stone having been sculpted off site so that no striking of
an iron tool could be heard on the temple mount, then this use of metaphorical
language would permit an unshaped stone mountain to be a principle demon cast
from heaven. Moses calls Yah a Rock: For I will proclaim the name of the Lord [YHWH]; ascribe
greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, for
all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity (Deut
32:3–4) But Jeshurun grew fat,
and kicked; you
grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and
scoffed at the Rock of his salvation. (v.
15) You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and
you forgot the God who gave you birth. (v.
18) When the prophet
Ezekiel prophesies against mountains, he is not prophesying merely against
geographical lands, but against peoples possessing a particular mindset, with
Mount Seir, for example (Ezek 35:3), representing the dual referents of the
geographical land and philosophical Esau, the hated son of promise (Rom
9:10–13), born of spirit, but not valuing his birthright of salvation,
thus returning to lawlessness when hunger overtakes him, thereby becoming
central to the great falling away (2 Thess 2:3). Likewise, the “mountains
of Israel” (Ezek chap 36) to whom the Lord [YHWH] spoke, saying, “‘O mountains of Israel, hear the
word of the Lord God [Adoni YHWH]:
Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and the hills, the ravines and the
valleys, the desolate wastes and the deserted cities’” (36:4), are not
restricted to being the ancient tribes of Israel or even the geographical lands
of Judea but the peoples that, though born of spirit as sons of God, have
forsaken God and have pursued lawlessness in the names of lands [Greek, Russian,
Serbian Orthodox], in the names of cities [Roman Catholic], in the names of men
[Lutherans, Mennonites, Hutterites], in the names of
practices [Baptists, Methodists], and in the names of beliefs [Seventh Day
Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses]. The mountains
of Christendom today
is not careful to walk in God’s statutes or obey His rules, but takes
pride in transgressing His commandments, takes pride in practicing the beliefs
given it so that it could not have life, takes pride in practicing sin. Christendom
flirts with the kings of this earth, offering its favors to whichever candidate
embraces its family-centered values, as individual Christians seek to fulfill purpose-driven lives as if by their
earthly works they can add height to the mountain that is the Adversary, the
king of Babylon, to whom all of humankind was given when consigned to
disobedience (Rom 11:32). It is this prince of the power of the air that
hinders Christians from now seeing themselves in the mirror of the royal law.
This prince sends forth his spirit or breath that settles over the earth as
dead air, the calm before a storm, the calm that causes Christians to focus on
the things of this world rather than the things of God. The spirit that causes
Christians to be alarmed by wars and rumors of war, earthquakes, famines, and
pestilence is of the Adversary. The spirit that is at work in the many false
prophets, false teachers, false apostles, each a faithful servant of Satan
himself, is the same spirit that has caused some to believe the ministry of the
two witnesses are already begun. Christendom has
been devastated by the delusion the Lord sent over it long ago. Feeling the
love—good vibrations—has overwhelmed structured thought in a world
that has fallen through the looking glass, leaving only a few individuals to
stand alone, wondering if they truly heard the voice of Jesus, knowing they
did, but wondering why no one else seems to be hearing the same voice. The two
witnesses will be garbed in mourning dress for a reason, for after the Church
is liberated from indwelling sin and death at the second Passover, most of it
will return to its traditional practices of lawlessness when no covering for
sin remains. The “great falling away” (2 Thess 2:3) will be covered
by neither grace nor obedience and will have condemned itself to the lake of
fire; yet most of the saints who are a part of this “great falling
away” will continue to live physically and will, in the name of Christ,
martyr genuine disciples in now unimaginable numbers. If living entities
in the heavenly realm are metaphorically represented by the icons of human
speech used for stones and mountains, protrusions that rise above the flat
plane of “thought” expressed in language, then
“thought”—that which animates a living entity, whether a cat
or a chimp or a child—becomes analogous to the living entity. Without
thought, the entity has no life before God. Thus, the entity is identified by
its thoughts, with these thoughts wandering as beggars, blown about by every
wind of doctrine, or firmly grafted unto the root of righteousness, or shackled
to the appetites of the flesh as are the thoughts of beasts … the
thoughts of beasts are not expressed in human languages; so again, invisible
thoughts are analogous to visible linguistic objects in this world. A
“brick” is not the word, but a rectangular compaction of clay,
dried, then usually fired in a kiln, with these linguistic icons used to
describe a brick producing in the mind of the reader a stereotypical
“brick” that is physically real but mentally only a thought, with
what is physically real consisting of charged points of potential [electrons,
quarks, gluons], all with zero radius, their apparent solidity coming from
their “spinning.” Ultimately, the real world is no more real than
is “thought.” When King
Nebuchadnezzar, in vision, sees and hears a watcher, a holy one, come down from
heaven, he has no spiritual life in the heavenly realm. He has no permanence,
no solidity, no immortal soul, and no birth from above. Thus, the watcher does not
describe him as a stone, but as a tree, a living entity without conscious
thought that grows from stone dust: Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip
off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the
birds from its branches. But leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound
with a band of iron and bronze, amid the tender grass of the field. Let him be
wet with the dew of heaven. Let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of
the earth. Let his mind be changed from a man’s, and let a beast’s
mind be given to him. The sentence is by decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones,
to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men
and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men. (Dan
4:14–17 emphasis added) God, who rules the
kingdom of men, gives this kingdom to the basest of men, each a servant of the
Adversary, now the lowliest of all living entities in the heavenly realm, with Nebuchadnezzar
as king of Babylon forming the type and shadow of Satan, king of spiritual
Babylon (Isa 14:4). Those men with whom Christendom today flirts while trying
to secure the best deal it can for its favors might well have honor in this
world, but they have neither honor nor life before God. Jesus said that of men
born of women, no one was greater than John the Baptist (Matt 11:11), with his
“greatest” not coming from ruling nations or performing miracles
but from preparing the way to the Lord by preaching repentance. Greatness comes
by serving, but this “serving” is not at tables or as legislators
in this world but as teachers of “truth,” as ones who turn the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just. That which makes a
man a man or an ox an ox is not the shape of the body, but the mind or nature
that God has placed within the body. That which makes one Christian a
descendant of Esau and another the descendant of Israel is also the mind that
God has placed within the body, “in order that God’s purpose of
election might continue, not because of works but because of his call”
(Rom 9:11). But in His call, the one to whom He will give the mind of Esau
chose death when this one had both life and death placed before the newly born
son of God—and because this one chose death by not making a journey of
faith that would have cleansed the heart, a journey that would have this one
keeping the commandments by faith so that the heart could be circumcised (Rom
2:26–29; Deut 30:1–2, 6, 15–20), this one was made into a
vessel of wrath prepared for destruction endured with much patience for a
season (Rom 9:22–23). God establishes the choice of life or death made by
each son born of spirit by giving to the person the mind of Esau or the mind of
The person who
lives a purpose-driven life and is
driven by any purpose other than to walk as Christ walked is of the Adversary,
hated as Esau was hated even before he was born … to walk as Christ
walked, to bear witness to the truth,
requires that the mind delight in the law of God (Rom 7:22). The thoughts of
the person, whether uttered aloud or voiced silently, will be on the things of
God. The Apostle Paul
writes, “For though we walk according to the flesh, we are not waging war
according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but
have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty
opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to
obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is
complete” (2 Cor 10:3–6) … strongholds are strong arguments and
opinions raised against the knowledge of God, with this knowledge of God
requiring disciples to take every thought captive to obey Christ—this is
obedience to Christ, obedience to the commandments, obedience to every word
that has proceeded from the mouth of God. This will have the disciple laying
hold of thoughts that wander from the truth of God and wrestling these thoughts
back into submission to the law. This is not daydreaming, allowing the mind to
wander as a waif through the alleys of skid row, idly lingering on waterfront
wharfs where totes of creativity await processing as if these thoughts were
gutted salmon, ice melting, gulls circling overhead, forklifts hurrying in and
out of noisy warehouses, each a phantom dissolving into a waterless shimmer on
the horizon of time when lifted for closer inspection. Thoughts taken
captive are expressed in language just as are those thoughts that have been
left to wander, abandoned, orphans that know neither the Father nor the Son.
The purpose-driven life gathers
orphaned thoughts and sends them off into the world to represent
“good” in a battle against “evil,” with both good and evil hanging as fruit on same tree; whereas thoughts taken captive,
expressed in structured, restricted patterns in this world, represent life, the fruit of the other tree
growing in the garden of God … good
doesn’t equate to life when this good
grows in the hanging gardens of Babylon. The thoughts of the person must first
leave It isn’t an
endtime physical nation of Without language,
these thoughts would not be identifiable: thoughts are ephemeral, having far
less substance than the wind, but they are “real” when they occur.
They are and are not of this earthly realm for they can be graphed electrically.
They are here for a moment, remembered or not remembered, before passing on as
if they were clouds in a sky. And the question again arises, would thoughts
exist apart from having a language in which to express the thought? Is it
language itself that gives thoughts shape and definition? Here is where
understanding being born of spirit takes a person, for when thoughts are
understood to be comparable to physically circumcised Israelites in physical
bondage to a human king in Egypt, then liberation of thoughts from sin and
death at a second Passover means that no longer will the liberated person think
thoughts that would cause the person to break the laws of God. Anger that can
be likened to murder will not be a thought of the person’s mind; same for
lust that can be likened to adultery. The nature of the person will have
changed in a way that is not today believable. Presently, even the most patient
person can eventually be provoked to anger and can hold that anger for long
periods. This will not be the case for the person who will, when liberated from
indwelling sin and death, enter the kingdom of heaven. It will, however, be the
case for the person who is of Esau or of Cain. If thoughts
themselves can be likened to physically circumcised Israelites in What would it mean
to truly not be able to provoke a person to anger? What would the world be like
if no one attempted to deceive another, or lusted after the possessions of
another, or transgressed the Sabbath? What would the world be like if every
person obeyed the law of God as the thoughts of a disciple, taken captive by
obedience, obeys the Lord? This is what the Millennium reign of Christ is
about. The flesh and
blood body of a person will not enter the kingdom of heaven: every belief
paradigm that focuses on the flesh is not of God. Jesus said, “‘Now
you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you
are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside
make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and
behold, everything is clean for you’” (Luke 11:39–40). The
outside of the cup is the works of the flesh, which include those good deeds
done to help widows and orphans. The outside of the cup is what the hands and
the body do, whether giving to the poor or protesting the evils of this world.
But the thoughts of the mind are inside the cup, and to give as alms those things that are within is to give thoughts as
alms, with these thoughts given when they are restricted to being about the
things of God. When Pilate asked
Jesus if He was a king, Jesus answered, “‘You say that I am a king.
For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the
world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens
to my voice’” (John 18:37) … Jesus entered this world not as
the Messiah, but to bear witness to, or to testify about the
“truth,” a linguistic expression that represents what is
“real” in a world that is passing away. The truth is diametrically opposed to a lie, but is also diametrically
opposed to a partial truth regardless of whether the partial truth is 10% true or
90% true. Any deviation from the truth is a lie. And those who are of the truth hear Jesus’ voice,
meaning by implication that there is an assembly of those who are of the truth. This assembly will have shared
thoughts, and will take meaning from Scripture in the same way. This assembly
is the one true Church, and it isn’t a denomination readily recognizable
in this world, for as long as sin and death continue to dwell in the members of
disciples (Rom 7:21–25) resurrection of this assembly remains a future
event. The use and misuse
of language is an underdeveloped avenue of biblical study: God divided the
great-grandsons of Noah at the Thoughts expressed
in a human language share the same similarity between thought and expression as
linguistic objects share with the linguistic icons used to identify the objects.
Thoughts are objects that require linguistic icons before they are identifiable. Jesus said, Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is
nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things
that come out of a person are what defile him. … Do you not see that
whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not
his heart but his stomach, and is expelled? … What comes out of a person
is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil
thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness,
deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things
come from within, and they defile a person. (Mark 7:14–15, 18–23) Evil thoughts are
consciously expressed in language, not in vague feelings or emotions. Murder
comes from within the person as anger (Matt 5:21–22), comes from an
emotion expressed within the person in language. Coveting is expressed within
the person in language, as is adultery, envy, slander, pride, and all forms of
deceit … deceit requires forethought which can only be expressed in
language. A person might inadvertently harm another in a business transaction,
but no deceit has occurred even though harm has occurred. But when a person sets
out to take advantage of another in a business transaction, the setting out to take advantage can only
be expressed in inner language. So thoughts expressed in language within the
mind cause a division to occur between disciples, separating the righteous from
the evildoer. The Every person was
born consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32). All have come short of the glory of
God. There is none righteous (Rom 3:10). All have sinned (1 John 1:8). So
humankind is not divided by sin, or lack of sin, but about what it thinks about
sin, with these thoughts expressed in language. Because disciples
have not taken every thought captive to obedience, the need for the
schoolmaster has returned; hence, grace will be stripped from the Church when
the Son of Man is disrobed or revealed (Luke 17:30), for the Church is the Body
of Christ, the Body of the Son of Man. Disciples will be liberated from
indwelling sin and death—their thoughts will no longer be on those things
that transgress the laws of God—but this liberation will place disciples
under the expectation of obedience to the law of God, with keeping the
commandments being paramount. If a disciple does
not today practice taking thoughts captive as the poet who wrote Lamentations
took words captive, the disciple will rebel against God when liberated from sin
and death. The disciple will be part of the great falling away when the lawless
one is revealed. * * * "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." * * * * * [ Archived
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