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Commentary — From the Margins
The Glory of an
Allegory
Part Four
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Now even the first covenant had
regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was
prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the
bread of the Presence. It is called the
____________
7.
A
disciple’s fleshly body will not enter heaven, but will perish here on earth as
the earthly temple with its Holy Place and Most Holy Place perished when the
earthly temple was razed by Nebuchadnezzar, and later, when Herod’s temple was
razed by Caesar … the Apostle Paul wrote,
What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of
wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to
each kind of seed its own body. For not
all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals,
another for birds, and another for fish. There
are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one
kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the
sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star
differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is
sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it
is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a
natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there
is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:36–44 emphasis added)
The moon reflects the light of the sun and has no
light, no life of its own; so first,
Paul doesn’t write a scientific treatise here but uses the visible light
apparently given off by heavenly bodies to make the point that there is as much
difference between mud and the sun as there is between human life in an earthly
body and heavenly life in a body like that of Christ Jesus’. There is one glory
for the fleshly body of a person, and a greater glory for the imperishable body
that is raised in eternal life when judgments are revealed. The first cannot be
likened to the latter; yet without the first there would be no latter—
There was one glory for the mountain upon which
Samaria worshiped God, and another glory, a more excellent glory, for the
temple in Jerusalem—and an even more-excellent glory yet for the ministry of
spirit that produced the temple of God for which Paul laid the foundation (1
Cor 3:10); i.e., the Body of Christ.
The prophet Ezekiel saw in vision the glory of God:
And above the expanse over their heads there was
the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human
appearance. And upward from what had
the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around.
And downward from what had the appearance
of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was
brightness around him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on
the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of
the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard
the voice of one speaking. (Ezek 1:26–28 emphasis and double emphasis added)
The glory of a human person comes from the dark fire of cellular oxidation that
sustains life in the flesh, with the linguistic icon <glory> representing
<life>. But the glory of God is the bright
fire that causes His body to appear as gleaming/glowing metal encasing fire
… the dark fire of cellular oxidation
lacks the appearance of fire even though the oxidation of simple carbohydrates
at the cellular level produces heat energy that fuels human activity; whereas
the bright fire that represents life
outside of the creation appeared to the prophet as fire.
Fire in this world is sustained through oxidation,
the combustion of carbon or another element in an atmosphere of oxygen
[chlorine is the only other gas that will support oxidation under certain conditions], with this form of fire being
extinguishable through the removal of the oxygen supply … within the creation, fire forms a shadow and type of
life-sustaining energy force represented by the Greek icons, B<,Ø:" ž(4@<, that are usually translated into English as “Holy
Spirit” or breath holy. The heavenly
fire encased by the body of the living being that had the appearance of a man
that the prophet Ezekiel saw in vision is Holy Spirit, not a personage but the
sustaining life within the divine person. And this bright fire (as opposed to the dark
fire of cellular oxidation) gave to the divine being a glory that fractured
the light spectrum as prisms do; a glory that produced light and that separated this light
into its individual wave-lengths to appear as a dazzling array of brightness
and color.
Neither the
The dead inner self of a merely humanly born person
[the person’s RLP¬<] is outwardly seen by the acts and deeds of the
flesh [the person’s Fä:"]. Likewise the indwelling of Christ Jesus in a
person who has been born of God [in the person who is B<,Ø:", RLP¬, and Fä:"] is seen through the acts and deeds of the
now-living inner self being manifested in the flesh when the Christian is under
a severe trial, not when all is going well with the person. And every truly
born of God Christian will experience severe trials, and will come to the point
where the Christian wonders if everything the Christian believes is true, if
the Christian hasn’t wasted his or her life, if God even exists. And
intellectually knowing beforehand that the purpose of the trial is to test the
Christian’s faith, the person’s belief, will arm the Christian so that he or
she will not fail the test. For when things seem as if they can get no darker,
no worse, the most that can befall the Christian is loss of physical life,
which must occur for flesh and blood cannot inherit the
Again, the flesh with its life can be likened to
the woman of
But even when given a covenant (a law) that would
lead to righteousness—the eternal Moab covenant—Israel was unable to implement
this covenant because of the Most Holy Place being in the temple … in a classic
case of perverse logic, since the Most Holy Place reflecting entering God’s
presence lay within the temple, Israel believed that by more diligently making
sacrifices with their hands, that by more perfectly making sacrifices of calves
and goats, sheep and doves, the nation could enter into God’s presence when all
along the nation knew that only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies,
and that the high priest could only enter on one day a year, Yom Kipporim, the day in the fall that
represented the entirety of the spring holy days: Israel afflicts its soul [the
fleshly bodies and breaths of the people] by fasting on Yom Kipporim as a sign and type of Israel eating the bread of
affliction [unleavened bread or bread baked without leavening/yeast, with yeast
representing sin] in the spring of the year on the First Unleavened (the 14th
day of Aviv) and during the Feast of
Unleavened Bread (the 15th through 22nd day of Aviv).
Apparently, it never dawned on Israel that because
of the temple with its Holy Place and Most Holy Place, the way for the nation
into the presence of God was barred by the Most Holy Place being in the temple
… it was easier for the people of Samaria to enter into God’s presence through
accepting Jesus as the Christ than it was for Israel to enter into the presence
of God—the existence of the Most Holy Place and the practice of the high priest
of entering into this Holy of Holies once a year prevented Israel from widely
accepting Jesus as the Christ; for the leaders of Israel thought they knew the
way into God’s presence. After all, they had the temple and they understood
that the
From Sinai on, it was the Lord’s intention to make
from Moses a great nation (Ex 32:10 et al),
a nation that would enter into His presence, and the Lord set about doing this
every thing by giving to Israel statutes and rules by which the nation could
not have life, the first of which was the prohibition against kindling a fire
on the Sabbath. Moses had already entered into the Lord’s presence when he came
down from Sinai with the second Sinai covenant, a covenant ratified by the
glory that shone from Moses’ face from Moses having entered into God’s presence
and a covenant not ratified by the shedding of blood.
The author of Hebrews wrote,
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a
heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our
confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was
faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory
than Moses--as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than
the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all
things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to
testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over
God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our
confidence and our boasting in our hope. (Heb 3:1–6)
Moses had a certain glory from having entered into
the presence of the Lord, a glory that caused the skin of his face to shine (Ex
34:29) to the extent that henceforth he covered his face with a veil except
when he spoke with the Lord and spoke the Lord’s words to the people of Israel.
This veil, Paul claimed, kept
The glory of Moses compared to the glory of Christ
is likened to the glory of a house to the glory of its builder … a house has no
indwelling life, but houses the life
that enters it and remains in it to dwell there; whereas the builder of the
house not only has life but is able to construct shelters that house others.
And this is an appropriate comparison between the human person that consists of
Fä:" and RLP¬< — no indwelling eternal, or heavenly life — and
the glorified Christ Jesus who is a life-giving spirit (1 Cor
Therefore, the relationship between the human
person that consists of Fä:" and RLP¬< and the glorified Christ can be likened to a
marriage … Paul said that “the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife
is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3); thus there is one
glory for a wife, and a greater glory for her head, her husband, and a still
greater glory for the Head of the husband, Christ Jesus, and a greater still
glory for the Head of Christ, God the Father.
The fleshly body of the human person [his or her Fä:" & RLP¬] is comparable to the woman before or after she
marries: if she never marries, she remains as the human person composed of Fä:" and RLP¬, but if she marries, she acquires a head, her
husband, that can to likened to the indwelling spirit of God [B<,Ø:" 1,@Ø] in the spirit of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø] that is shorted to one word, B<,Ø:" [pneuma].
Thus, the woman has a glory that is again comparable to the mountain of Samaria
and to the Holy Place of the temple in Jerusalem, but the married woman has a
glory that is comparable to the temple in Jerusalem [the Holy Place plus the
Most Holy Place], with her husband representing her head as the Most Holy Place
represented the way into the presence of God. If her husband is also born of
God, he has a Head, the glorified Christ Jesus, the true High Priest of Israel
who enters into the
One head
is all that’s needed for a marriage to occur … the woman, because of her
physiology, has no head that can be
circumcised until she marries. Then her husband, because he can be circumcised,
is her head. Or if she is born of God
as a son of God, Christ Jesus becomes her Head
for her heart can now be circumcised since inwardly, she is a son of God even
though her physiology remains unchanged.
Paul wrote,
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under
a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are
all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into
Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor free, there is no male and
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then
you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal
3:25–29 emphasis added)
The allegory that John records in the fourth
chapter of his gospel is not outwardly identified as an allegory as Paul
identifies his tour-de-force allegory in Galatians chapter four, in which Paul
identifies the natural descendants of the patriarchs and earthly Jerusalem with
Hagar, the slave woman (see Gal 4:21–31). … Paul does in his allegory of the
slave woman what Jesus did using the mountain upon which
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the
test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He [Jesus]
said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" And he answered, "You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And He
said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will
live." But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who
is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from
The Samaritan who had love for someone whom he
didn’t know responded as a Christian with the indwelling of Christ would
respond in a similar situation … there didn’t used to be a need to distinguish
between Christians born of God and Christians who have not yet been born of
God, but so many people not called by the Father have stormed the kingdom of
the heavens, attempting to take by force what is only available through
entrance into the Holy of Holies, that self-identification as a Christian has no bearing on whether the
person has truly been born of God. All that self-identification as a Christian
does is make the person responsible before God to live as a righteous Judean
without the person coming under grace, the garment of Christ or of Christ
Jesus’ righteousness.
To have eternal life—for which the lawyer asked—is
to love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself, with the lawyer quoting from Deuteronomy:
See, I have set before you today life and good,
death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I
command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by
keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live
and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are
entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will
not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to
you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land
that you are going over the
And,
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God
require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love
him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and
to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you
today for your good? Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven
of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in
love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all
peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart,
and be no longer stubborn. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of
lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes
no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the
sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you
were sojourners in the
And,
Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the
rules that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in
the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD
your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and
his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your
days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it
may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God
of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear,
O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today
shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and
shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way,
and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deut 6:1–7)
And,
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but
you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own
people, but you shall love your neighbor
as yourself: I am the LORD. (Lev
The lawyer knew what to do to inherit eternal life:
Scripture is plain, easily read, not difficult to comprehend, and a person
doesn’t need to be born of spirit [thereby already having the indwelling of
heavenly life] to do what is necessary to inherit eternal life. The person needs
to simply be a doer of the law, what Paul said: “For all who have sinned
without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under
the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are
righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom
8.
Unlike
Herod’s temple, the mountain upon which
Now Moses and the elders of
In the analogy John introduces when presenting
Jesus’ exchange with the woman of Samaria, the mountain in Samaria bore to the
temple in Jerusalem a relation represented by the flesh [Fä:"] to the soul [RLP¬], with the writing of the Law on the hearts and
minds of disciples under the New Covenant analogous to the writing of the Law
on the uncut stones of Mount Ebal and to the writing of the Law on the
tablets of stone Moses placed in the Ark of the Covenant, with Mount Ebal now
forming a type of the mountain in Samaria and with Herod’s temple forming a
type of the tent [tabernacle] in the wilderness … the finger of the Lord wrote
the Law on the tablets of stone placed in the Ark whereas the elders of Israel
wrote the Law on the stones of Mount Ebal in the Promised Land.
Again, the writing of the Law on stone tablets
before Israel enters the Promised Land is symbolic of the Law being written on
hearts and minds before Israel is glorified as the firstfruits of the
Most High God; whereas the writing of the Law on the uncut stones of Mount Ebal
in the Promised Land (i.e., after Israel enters into the Promised Land) by the
fingers of the men of Israel is symbolic of the Law being written on the hearts
of all humankind in the Millennium, when Israel
is glorified as the firstfruits of God. Hence, the sin that presently dwells in
the fleshly members of all human persons will cease to exist when these persons
are baptized in spirit and thereby liberated from indwelling sin and death—and
glorified Israel as the firstfruits
of God will be to human Israel in the Millennium as Yah was to Moses when He, Yah,
wrote the Law on two tablets of cut and dressed stone.
Being on the mountain—atop Mount Sinai—separated
Moses from Israel as the stage separates Solomon, his beloved, and the
daughters of Jerusalem from the audience in Canticles … for Moses to climb the
mountain and be with the Lord symbolically represented Moses entering into the
presence of God in heaven.
Once again, the mountain upon which
On the mountain in Samaria, there was no equivalent
to the Most Holy Place; but in the temple was the Holy Place that was
equivalent to the mountain in Samaria and there was also the Most Holy Place in
a relationship analogous to Yah [YH] and YHWH … I have previously deconstructed the Tetragrammaton YHWH and would here refer the reader to
one of those times, with Section 2 of Chapter Two of A Philadelphia Apologetic —
2011 being a reasonable place to look for this deconstruction.
The ministry
of death could not enter into God’s presence even though His presence in
the temple was represented by the Most Holy Place … the woman of Samaria—the
people of Samaria—had no opportunity to enter into God’s presence because the
mountain upon which they worshiped God had no Most Holy Place; yet their worship
of God was just as acceptable as was the worship of Israel in Jerusalem, and
perhaps was more acceptable. For sin at Mount Sinai in the gold calf incident
prevented Israel from entering into God’s presence from that time forth so the
Most Holy Place and its inaccessibility in the temple continually reminded
Israel of the same thing that not being able to kindle a fire on the Sabbath
reminded Israel: the way into the presence of God had been opened to Israel but
was closed to the nation because of its sin, thereby making Israel like Eve,
like Adam, with these two being analogous to flesh and blood (with life in the blood) that cannot inherit
heaven.
The mountain upon which
Christians have not understood why Jesus spoke to
the woman of
The preceding sections are enough for one
Commentary; so here I will close even though there is more to be said about young
King Josiah ordering a clean-up and repair of the temple:
In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king
sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, the secretary, to the house
of the LORD, saying, “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the
money that has been brought into the house of the LORD, which the keepers of
the threshold have collected from the people. And let it be given into the hand
of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the LORD, and let them
give it to the workmen who are at the house of the LORD, repairing the house
(that is, to the carpenters, and to the builders, and to the masons), and let
them use it for buying timber and quarried stone to repair the house.” (2 King
22:3–6)
And because the
And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the
secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the
LORD." And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan
the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, "Your servants
have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it
into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the LORD."
Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me
a book." And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the
words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. (2 Kings 22:8–11)
For a final time, the High Place in the Temple—again,
this High Place serving as a metaphor for the fleshly bodies of Christians—had
been neglected, and the Book of the Law had been lost in the rubbish that had
collected … the fleshly bodies of Christians have committed fornication with
each other, with sticks and glass dildos, with demons and with unrighteousness,
their fornications forming the reality that casts as its shadow the idolatry of
ancient Israel prior to the destruction of Solomon’s temple. The fornications
of Christians have been an offensive stench before the Lord, who brought the
earthly king of
As Solomon’s temple was razed by the earthly king
of
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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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