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June 29, 2008 ©Homer
Kizer Commentary —
From the Margins
Replacement Theology—Part
Two _______________ 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. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and
that Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God [2,`H] 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. … 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 everyone who
thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you
that is not common to man. (1 Cor 10:1-6, 11-12) _______________ 3. Did Do Christians desire to practice evil when they,
because of unbelief, refuse to enter into God’s presence when the promise
of entering stands as ancient Israel refused to enter into God’s rest (Ps
95:10-11) when the twelve spies returned? Or are Christians even aware of their
rebellion against God? And whether Christians desire or do not desire to
practice evil, does not Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness of Paran
(Num chap 14) form the model or type of the Church’s rebellion against
God, a rebellion of unbelief that becomes disobedience (Heb 3:19; 4:6) through
spurning the Sabbath commandment? After God had pronounced a death sentence on For ancient As entering into the presence of a human king comes
by permission, the right of access into God’s house and His courts was
extended to the high priest Joshua, high priest under Zerubbabel and a type of
one who serves under Christ[1],
on the condition that Joshua “‘walk in [the Lord of hosts’]
ways and keep [His] charge’” (Zech 3:7). This conditional right of
access was given by permission and was only extended to Joshua and his friends.
The writer of Hebrews says, “For if Joshua [the servant of Moses] had
given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then,
there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whosoever has entered
God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his”
(4:8-10) on the seventh day (v. 4). In the wilderness of Paran, repentance did Why would God do that? Why would He give The answer most likely received to the question of why
would God give Israel statutes by which the nation could not live yet not give
to equally lawless Christendom similar statutes is that it’s a matter of Election; for Paul writes, “And not
only so, but also Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather
Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or
bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not
because of works but because of his call—she was told, ‘The older
will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau
I hated’” (Rom 9:10-13). If Jacob is loved, then would not Jacob as But there is a difficulty for Paul identifies
disciples as Isaac (Gal 4:21-31), and compares natural ·
The Elect are,
therefore, a subset of Christendom; they are that portion loved by God, the
portion that represents Jacob. ·
Isaac does not
replace Ishmael as the natural son of Abraham, but rather, from Isaac comes two
sons of promise (Gen 25:21), one hated, one loved, whereas from Ishmael would
come a great nation of twelve princes (Gen 17:20). ·
The covenant
God made with Abraham was “established” through Isaac, not Ishmael,
with God naming Isaac a year before his birth (Gen 17:21). ·
Because Isaac
does not replace Ishmael as the natural son of Abraham, the Christian Church
cannot replace natural Israel as the natural firstborn son of the Theos of Abraham, the Theos of Isaac, and the Theos of Jacob (Matt 22:32). ·
Jacob is not
renamed Israel until after he leaves the Promised Land and journeys into the
land that will be later named Assyria, a land that typological represents
“death” as Egypt represents “sin,” and returns to
wrestle with God and “prevails” by living to tell of having
wrestled with God. The difference between Esau and Jacob isn’t a
matter of righteousness, but a matter of valuing the blessings of the covenant
enough to strive to obtain these blessings. Initially Jacob strives deceitfully
so he has to wrestle with God, be maimed, but he hung on until he legitimately
receives the blessing as one who has striven with God and with men and has
prevailed (Gen 32:28). Esau was clothed with his own hair covering so even
through he wore clothing he was naturally clothed as a beast is. Jacob had no
covering but that which he put on daily as disciples put on the garment of
Christ’s righteousness daily. Although both a spiritual Esau and a
spiritual Jacob are now clothed in grace, when this mantle of Christ’s
righteousness is removed—removed when the Son of Man is revealed (Luke
17:30)—Esau will not value his birthright enough to further clothe
himself in obedience to God, but will, instead, rely upon his natural hair coat
to conceal his nakedness. And he will be as a beast [i.e., as spiritual
livestock] to God, who molds from the same lump of clay vessels for honorable
use and vessels for dishonorable usage, with these latter vessels being vessels
of wrath prepared for destruction, endured for a season with much patience (Rom
9:21-23). They are to be broken when the temple of God is dedicated upon
Christ’s return; they are as the 22,000 bulls and 120,000 sheep
sacrificed were when Solomon dedicated the first temple, the earthly temple
that formed the shadow of the heavenly temple of God. * If
God, to cause Israel to return to Him, gave Israel statutes and rules that
would cause then to burn their firstborns—a practice Israel
“borrowed” from their Canaanite neighbors and a practice against
which Moses warned (Deut 18:10) but apparently a practice which God commanded
them to continue once they engaged in the practice—then this God who is
the same today as He was yesterday will also give spiritually circumcised
Israel rules that come from the nation’s traditional transgressions of the
law so that this latter Israel cannot have life, but will see its firstborns
perish in fire. John writes, Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also
practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. … No one who abides in
[Christ] keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen [Christ]
or known [Christ]. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices
righteousness is righteous, as [Christ] is righteous. Whoever makes a practice
of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The reason the Son of Man appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No
one born of God makes a practice of sinning for God’s seed abides in him,
and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is
evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil:
whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does
not love his brother. (1 John 3:4, 6-10) The Christian
who practices sinning is no longer of Christ but of the devil, with sinning
being the means by which it becomes apparent for all to see who are the sons of
God and who are the sons of the devil, as Pharisees were sons of the devil (John
8:44), which doesn’t mean that Satan physically sired them but that their
mindsets come from the Adversary. So, yes, Christians who practice sinning are
as the Jews were who sought Jesus’ life: there is no truth in these
Christians because there is no truth in their father, the devil. Therefore, as
God gave to the children of Israel that rejected His statutes and profaned His
Sabbaths (Ezek 20:24) statutes and rules by which this Israel could not have
life but statutes that caused Israel to celebrate the fiery deaths of their
firstborns, God gave to Christians that rejected His statutes and profaned His
Sabbaths traditions by which these sons of God could not have life, traditions
that caused early Christians to celebrate their liberty from the Judaizers [[@L*"Ä.,4< or [@L*"Ä.T — Gal 2:14, and in the Septuagint, Ester
8:17], so-called heretics that would have disciples walk as Jesus walked (1
John 2:6). Understand, the Circumcision Faction was included among those whom
lawless disciples identified as Judaizers, but this is akin to Osama bin Laden
identifying all Americans as infidels thereby making no distinction between
Roman Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses, Southern Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists,
and the Sabbatarian Churches of God. Certainly the faith of Justin Martyr was
as far from the faith of the Apostle John as Roman Catholic dogma is from what
I write, but to one outside of Christianity such as bin Laden, the distinctions
are minor and of no consequence. Likewise, to lawless Christians, the
distinction between those who taught disciples to live by the precepts of the Law
by faith were minor; and as is usually the case, the worse traits or teachings
of a few were ascribed to all “Judaizers.” The Apostle Peter was a Judaizer, for he taught
Gentile converts to live as Jews (again, Gal 2:14). So did John, and so did
Paul—but what hasn’t been understood is that the one who is to live
as a Jew is the inner new creature, circumcised of heart by spirit, and this
inner new creature is to bring the tent of flesh in which this son of God lives
into subjection to the law of God that is now in the mind and heart of the
disciple. When this inner new creature successfully brings the tent of flesh in
which this son of God dwells into subjection to the laws of God, the tent of
flesh will live as an observant Jew, will live as Jesus lived, but will or will
not be outwardly circumcised, which is of the tent of flesh and not of the new
creature. Outward circumcision can be likened to modifying the house in which a
person lives: the modification doesn’t affect the righteousness of the resident
of the house. God will deliver Christians who practice sinning
and who do not love their brother to their spiritual father for the destruction
of their flesh as Paul commanded the saints at Corinth to deliver the one who
was with his father’s wife to Satan (1 Cor 5:5). And He did deliver the
Christian Church into the hand of Satan through those traditions that prevent
Christians from having life, with the foremost tradition being the day of the
week on which these lawless Christians attempt to enter into God’s
presence. He also physically delivered the Church to the prince of this world
as He delivered the southern ·
As God
liberated Israel, His firstborn son (Ex 4:22), from physical bondage to a human king at
the first Passover, God will liberate Israel, still His firstborn son but now a
nation circumcised of heart, from bondage to sin and death at the second
Passover, with this paschal Lamb sacrificed at Calvary. ·
Since Calvary,
Israel entered one long spiritual night with its midnight hour still not upon
the holy nation of God (1 Pet 2:9); for as the lives of Egyptians were given as
ransom for Israel in the time of Moses (Isa 43:3), the lives of men will again
be given for the ransom of Israel (v.
4) when death angels pass over the land, slaying all firstborns not covered by
the blood of the Lamb of God. ·
But once
liberated from bondage to indwelling sin and death through being filled with
the Holy Spirit or empowered by the Holy Spirit and thus clothed with power
from on high (Luke 24:49), Christians will return to sin as Satan’s
willing servants. ·
The first 1260
days of the seven endtime years of tribulation are about the liberation of
Israel, the rebellion of Israel, and the delivery by God of the Christian
Church to Satan for the destruction of the flesh as Christ, the Shepherd, was
struck (Zech 13:7; Matt 26:31). ·
The Christian
who “‘finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for
[Christ’s] sake will find it’” (Matt 10:39) when the Lord of
hosts delivers saints into the hand of the man of perdition for the destruction
of the flesh so that the spirit might be saved when judgments are revealed (cf. Zech 13:8; 2 Thess 2:3-12). ·
Christians who
do not love the truth enough to physically die for it and thus be saved will
rebel against God to save their fleshly lives. The Christian Church as perceived by the world
doesn’t replace Israel as the holy nation of God, for those Judaizing
heretics that keep the commandments of God by faith and not outwardly as a
matter of circumcision are all of the Christian Church that is of God.
Nevertheless, God will liberate all of the Church from bondage to sin and death
so that the thoughts and desires of all who profess to be disciples of Christ
can be clearly seen through the acts of the flesh. But to those endtime Judaizing heretics who are of
faith, God will graft in the broken off natural branches of The writer of Hebrews says, “Therefore, while
the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us [those who teach] fear
lest any of you [the ones being taught] should seem to have failed to reach it
[His rest]. For good news came to us just as to them [those who taught ancient The “rest” which the nation that left
Egypt could not enter (Ps 95:10-11) was the Promised Land, Judea, the land upon
which the eyes of God were always set. Thus, except for Joshua and Caleb, the
nation that left Traditionally, the Sabbath has been the primary
shopping day of the week. When transportation was more difficult and more dear in
the early decades of the 20th-Century, families went to town to do
the majority of their shopping on the Sabbath—for many families in rural
America, the weekly shopping trip was the focal point of farm existence,
especially for the younger generation that fled farms as soon as they could.
But in the post WWII boom, transportation became cheap and reliable. Stores
obliged by staying open later in the evenings, then opening on Sunday. The
convenience store 7-Eleven was an
innovator, staying open seven days a week until 11:00 pm. However, within a
decade or so, major chain stores were open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Shopping occurred at the convenience of the customer, but as Christ cleansed the temple at the beginning of His
ministry and at the end of His earthly ministry. He will cleanse the temple at
the beginning of His endtime ministry, then again three years later when the
lives of men are twice given as first ransom for Israel as lives of Egyptians
were given for the ransom of His firstborn natural son and then as ransom for
the third part of humankind (Zech 13:9) that will be born of spirit when the
Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28). And from what does He
cleanse the temple? From buying and selling in the presence of God; from making
the Sabbath the busy shopping day of the week; from making Christmas the
greatest shopping season of the year. When the twelve spies returned from the Promised
Land, But the law was not yet given. How can The endtime Christian Church has not yet been
liberated from indwelling sin and death and thus clothed with power from on
high, the spiritual equivalent to the passing of the death angel over Egypt
through the giving of the law, yet it is being today tested by whether it will
enter into God’s presence on the seventh day, the Sabbath. And what is
seen is the wholesale failing of this test. The Christian Church, to be endtime
* When
some of 1.
Stoning was
the prescribed penalty for breaking the commandments written on two tablets of
stone: the broken tablets figuratively and literally killed the person breaking
the commandments. 2.
The law had
not yet been given either orally or on two tablets of stone when those found
gathering were rebuked by God. Yet
after the Law was given, the man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath was
stoned on apparently the same day as when he was put into custody (Num
15:32-36). Today, in the last of this pre-liberation era (in
the last little while before death angels will again pass over all the land),
disciples are not condemned to immediate death for breaking the Sabbath even
though they have failed the test placed before them, failed because of
unbelief. They are as the Israelites were who went out to gather manna on the
seventh day—they do their heavy shopping on the seventh day—and God
said of those ancient Israelites who gathered on the seventh day,
“‘How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?
See! The Lord [YHWH] has given you
the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain
each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh
day’” (Ex 16:28-29). The man Jesus of Nazareth said He was the true
bread that has come down from heaven (John 6:35, 41, 47-51) … in the
natural world, birth pains precede the birth of a child, but for Zion, the
woman representing Israel, birth pains will follow not precede giving birth to
a nation in a day (Isa 66:7-8). Translating the above into the Sabbath being a test
of Israel through the giving of manna on six days of the week as a physical
type of Christ coming as the true bread of life that has come down from heaven,
the Sabbath remains the test, but it is on the Sabbath that a double portion of
“bread” is given to disciples rather than on the sixth day.
Therefore, the Christian who does not enter into God’s presence on the
Sabbath is as the natural Israelite who did not gather twice as much manna on
the sixth day and thus went hungry on the Sabbath—the Christian who does
not appear before God on the Sabbath to “eat” of Christ [this is
not advocating taking the Passover sacraments of bread and wine weekly] by
feeding on His words will go hungry during the week and will slowly starve if
this son of God doesn’t sell his birthright
to salvation to the Adversary for a bowl of pottage as Esau sold his. The logic for genuine born of spirit disciples
being identified as Esau through their refusal to enter into God’s rest
on the seventh day is encapsulated in what Jesus said about being the bread of
life. Thus, while these disciples are still in the womb of grace, they are
hated because they are willing to sell their birthright to the Adversary for
bread that will not satisfy, bread that comes from this world, “the
desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possession”
(1 John 2:16), all things that will pass away along with this world that is
passing away (v. 17). The rest that Christians are to enter is outwardly
manifest in Sabbath observance, the visible showing of an Israelite entering
into God’s presence. And the juxtaposition of Israel being the nation
that left Egypt, carried by the Lord “‘as a man carries his
son’” (Deut 1:31), not believing the Lord but rebelling against Him
so that this Israel could not enter into His rest with the Christian Church not
believing the Lord but rebelling against Him—the Church being the nation
that left sin, carried by the Lord as children of God, but rebelling against
Christ through rejecting His “Jewish” commandments and profaning
His “Jewish” Sabbaths and thereby returning to sin—will see
this latter Israel burning its firstborns in the lake of fire, the second death,
as it, too, cannot enter into God’s presence. In what would seem to be an oxymoron, the Christian
Church is not Israel even through it includes all of endtime Israel; for the
Church has become an instrument of the devil through its voluntary
disobedience, manifest through the day on which it attempts to enter into
God’s presence. Yes, this is true: with very few exceptions, the
Christian Church is today of Satan, whose ministers appear as servants of
righteousness (2 Cor 11:14-15) but inwardly are liars and ravenous wolves
intent upon devouring the flocks of God, beginning with the flocks’ wallets. Today, two schisms divide the sons of God from the
sons of the devil. The first and great schism is the practice of sinning, of
transgressing the commandments of God; for to break one commandment is to break
the commandments (Jas 2:10) thus weekly breaking the Sabbath commandment causes
Christians to visibly practice sinning. But there is a second schism that is like the
first: not having love for one’s brother—and Sabbatarian disciples
divided themselves by this schism into those who are of God and those who are
of the devil; for no flock within greater Christendom has less love for their
brothers than do Sabbatarian disciples who believe they possess all of the
“truth.” The Christian Church has profaned God’s
Sabbaths in a manner spiritually equivalent to how the children of Israel in
Judea profaned God’s Sabbaths—when the Christian Church attempts or
has attempted to enter into God’s presence, it has not first cleansed
itself by removing from itself evil, disobedience, rebellion against God,
oppression of the poor and of the weak. Instead, it makes many prayers and
sings many hymns and in weak homilies, it professes love for Christ. In candlelight
vigils it protests the evils of this world, but then it takes political favors
and bribes from the prince of this world, charges usury to the poor, warehouses
widows and widowers in nursing homes where they are left to die alone, and
auctions off its vote in democratic elections to “the lowliest [basest]
of men” (Dan 4:17). It looks like the world, acts like the world, but
insists that it is not of this world but of heaven. God said to Jerusalem at the time of its Babylonian
captivity that Samaria was its older sister and Sodom was its younger sister
(Ezek 16:46) even though Samaria had gone into captivity more than a century
earlier and Sodom had been destroyed by fire in the days of Abraham. What is
seen is that as there shall be an endtime holy city of Hear the word of the Lord, you
rulers of Give ear to the teaching of our God you
people of “What to me is the multitude of your
sacrifices? says
the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and
the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or
of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who
has required of you this
trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense
is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbaths and the calling of
convocations— I
cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly: Your new moons and your appointed feasts my
soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I
am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I
will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I
will not listen; your
hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove
the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn
to do good; seek justice, correct
oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead
the widow’s cause. (Isa 1:10-17) God cannot abide iniquity or lawlessness coupled to
solemn assemblies dedicated to Him. God cannot abide rebellion against Him when
This “ Following the transgressions of Solomon, king of The polis of Sodom in which Lot lived serves, for
the prophet Isaiah, as a shadow and type of a latter Sodom that will be the
younger sister of Jerusalem … the sins of Jerusalem’s sister Sodom
and her daughters were pride, excess of food and prosperous ease but not aiding
the poor and needy, being haughty and doing an abomination before God (Ezek
16:49-50), so God removed them when He saw the abomination—and the
mingling of past and future when God “‘will restore their fortunes,
both the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and
her daughters’” (v. 53)
has Sodom not being the city in which Lot lived but rather the Christian Church
as the younger sister of Jerusalem. When the Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, condemns
All of this reduces down to as not all who
naturally descended from Taking all of this a step farther, what the Lord
delivered to the prophet Ezekiel about restoring the fortunes of Jerusalem,
Samaria, and Sodom has both Samaria and Sodom being daughters of Jerusalem in
the future as opposed to sisters: For
thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have
despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant
with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting
covenant. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your
sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I will give them to you as
daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you. I will establish my
covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember
and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when
I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God. (Ezek
16:59-63) The concept of the Christian Church being the
offspring of And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman
clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony
of giving birth. … She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all
the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his
throne …. And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the
earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the
woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the
serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a
time, times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his
mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to
the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river
that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with
the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who
keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Rev 12:1-2,
5, 13-17) The woman is a sign in heaven, not here on earth,
but it was The “rest of the woman’s
offspring” are the oil and the wine, the processed fruits of the Promised
Land, that sin cannot harm (Rev 6:6). The portion of endtime Israel that constitutes the
144,000 virgins (Rev 14:1-5) is separate from “the rest of her
offspring” (Rev 12:17) … together, of today’s Israel, natural
and spiritual, a remnant of the woman’s offspring [Christ Jesus is the
offspring, the male child caught up to heaven] and the 144,000 cross
from the first half of the seven endtime years of tribulation into the last
1260 days. And though Sabbatarian disciples today and in the future will
identify themselves as the entirety of the true Christian Church, As for the visible Christian Church: its father is
the Adversary, and even after a third of humankind is slain for a second time,
the remainder of humankind will “not repent of the works of their hands
nor give up worshiping demons and idols” (Rev 9:20). They are evildoers,
the spiritually filthy of this world—and this is not how they perceive
themselves so much work must be done to get these “Christians” to
walk as Jesus walked. * * * "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." * * * * * [ Current Commentary ] [ Archived Commentaries ] [ Home ] [1] Today Christ Jesus is Israel’s high priest, but after the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17:30), Christ will no longer bear the sins of Israel, a nation then liberated from bondage to sin and death—and a nation then delivered into the hand of the man of perdition for the destruction of the flesh. And another will serve as high priest as Christ becomes the reality of Zerubbabel, whose hand will finish the construction of the heavenly temple. The one who will serve as high priest has filthy garments, a statement that does not pertain to Christ Jesus. |